Deals and Lawyers (2025)

Book Review from the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth. By Tom Burgis. William Collins £10.99.

In December 2022 we reviewed Burgis’ Kleptopia, which examined the machinations of the super-rich to acquire and hide their wealth, with special attention to Kazakhstan. Here he looks at similar activities in a variety of countries. The idea behind the title is that a cuckoo has to get another bird to think that the cuckoo’s egg is its own, thus relying on an illusion, similar to the way in which some people present two versions of themselves.

Others are mentioned, but the focus is on Mohamed Amersi, who is a ‘dealmaker’ in the telecommunications industry. In an emerging market (which Burgis defines as a country where lots of poor people live) there are plenty of opportunities for selling mobile phones for the first time. In former USSR provinces, such as Uzbekistan, telecom licences can be obtained through contacts of various kinds, and Amersi charges a Swedish corporation a ‘success fee’ of half a million dollars. Never mind that the company later paid a massive fine because its partner in Uzbekistan was in fact the daughter of the country’s dictator (all hidden in a shell company in Gibraltar). Amersi did very well out of all this, as the company paid him $63m dollars over six years. As Burgis says, recessions do not happen to the rich.

The second part of the book deals with how the wealthy make and maintain links with politicians and other powerful people (‘access capitalism’). For instance, the Conservatives’ Leaders Group provides monthly lunches with ministers for a mere £50,000 a year. Or you could pay to attend a cheese-tasting session with Liz Truss (no longer available, perhaps). A company called Quintessentially satisfies the whims of the global elite, such as a football signed by Lionel Messi. But things do not always work out as planned. Amersi became involved in a dispute with Charlotte Leslie, a former Tory MP, over which organisation should be in charge of Conservative relations with the Middle East. He sued her for ‘disseminating false and misleading information’, but his suit was dismissed, the judge saying that his actions ‘give real cause for concern’.

This is an example of what is sometimes called ‘lawfare’: the rich and powerful intimidate those who write about them by means of lawsuits which may involve incredibly high legal fees. Even if the lawsuit fails, those who have been subject to it will have undergone a period of anxiety and stress, fearful of being bankrupted, and so may in future decide it is easier not to ruffle the feathers of the elite. Newspaper editors may prefer that their journalists not get involved in such cases. The term used is SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). So, as in the book’s subtitle, the truth is a matter of legal and financial power rather than actual facts on the ground. (Another example would be Trump’s recent attempt to sue US newspapers for billions of dollars.)

A well-argued insight into some of the ways in which some rich people acquire and protect their wealth.

Paul Bennett

Sting in the Tail: Plain speaking (1993)

The Sting in the Tail column from the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Plain speaking

There has been an outbreak of plain speaking from politicians recently. That nice Mr Major has been calling some of his Cabinet colleagues "bastards". Now Mr Thorbjoern Bernsten has called Britain’s Environment Minister Mr John Gummer "a shitbag".

All this foul language is nothing however compared to Mr Gummer’s plain speaking in reply to Mr Bernsten:

"I don't think the comments of people in an election campaign . . . are worth making much about" The Herald (18 August).

Now that is plain speaking. Mr Gummer reckons you shouldn’t pay much attention to what politicians say at election campaigns. Well done, Honest John!

We certainly don’t put much store by what the professional liars say at election times; either in Norway, Britain or anywhere else for that matter.

Ghost riders

A plague of ’ghost riders’ has been fleecing public transport companies in America. There are people who climb onto buses which have been involved in accidents in order to claim compensation for non-existent injuries.

To counter this, some bus companies have staged fake accidents which they filmed. In one case:

"Video cameras inside the bus and outside filmed 17 people scrambling on to the bus before the police arrived. All later claimed to be injured in the accident". (Guardian, 19 August).

Doctors and lawyers also get in on the act by having "runners" who arrive quickly on the scene to hand out leaflets with phone numbers and and advice to passengers to claim for neck and back injuries which are hard to disprove.

All of this "enterprise" doesn’t meet with the approval of the bus companies and their insurers, but it shows that America is still "the land of opportunity"!

UN corruption

Allegations that United Nations soldiers in Sarajevo are involved in widespread corruption have provided the press with plenty of "shock-horror" headlines.

The idea that anyone connected with the UN should be above such things is ludicrous when it is seen to be comprised of nations all of which are part of the world-system called capitalism. For all of these soldiers to be unaffected by the corruption which is part of capitalism’s culture is impossible.

This episode also produced an illuminating example of the morality of capitalism. Sylvana Foa, the UN spokeswoman, commented:

"I don t think anybody should be too surprised that out of 14,000 pimply 18-year olds a bunch of them should get up to naughty tricks. It happens in every war — it's just sad they were wearing blue berets" (Guardian, 27 August).

Apparently it didn’t strike her as sad that "pimply 18-year olds" should be part of killing-machines called armies.

Sink or swim

The battle to dominate the package-holiday market is hotting up once more. The cutthroat pricing of recent years caused by falling bookings was replaced last year by a truce during which operators rebuilt profit margins by increasing prices.

At last the market is growing again: Thomson, Britain’s biggest operator, estimates that bookings are up 14 percent on last year and the industry expects 1994 to be even better.

Now the industry’s heavyweights have announced price-cuts for 1994 and Patricia Yates, editor of Holiday Which explains why. They are:

"clearly looking for a killer blow which will knock out some of their smaller competitors, at the same time carving out a bigger market share among major competitors" (Guardian, 17 August).

Is this sort of predatory behaviour simply down to greed? It is what every company in capitalism must do, if it is able, to ensure that the day doesn’t come when it will be swallowed up or forced out of business.

Satisfaction

What gives people most satisfaction in life? Supporters of the market economy say it is more and more money because it buys the goodies and the leisure which compensate for the pain of having to work.

Along comes Professor Lane of Yale University to challenge this view. He cites recent studies in America which show that what gives people most satisfaction are good human relationships, job satisfaction, and (something despised by marketeers) security.

This is what socialists have been saying all along, but we don't think these things can be universally available within the market economy. Prof Lane does and argues that "governments must intervene’ with policies that will ’convert markets to that purpose’.

The Prof is yet another one of those who criticise some aspect or other of capitalism but would never dream of getting rid of it.

Negative thinking

Why do people continue to place their trust in politicians when it’s obvious they’ve no answer to world problems?

Who really believes that crime, pollution, unemployment, the health service etc, would be worse if politicians weren’t in charge?

Most people know that politicians are “economical with the truth", and that many are careerists — yet continue to vote for one party against another on the basis that they are the ‘lesser evil". No wonder society is in such a state with this negative thinking!

The problem has now become so entrenched that anyone who challenges this apathetic status quo is immediately branded a crank. With this last thought in mind, therefore, the Socialist Party asks you not to believe a word we say! Rather we would ask you to consider what we say, and then make up you own mind. Fair enough?

USSR — Land of Privilege (1976)

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the ever-increasing participation of the Soviet Union in western trade, more information about the way the Russians live is coming to hand. We suspect that much of the information was always available but for their own purposes the western capitalist press suppressed the information which would have destroyed the myth they wished to keep alive, namely that Socialism was established there. They back it both ways. Friendship with the Soviet Union will produce pro-Russian propaganda, and will gloss over the numerous shortcomings in the Soviet system. At other times when there are differences of policy with the western powers, anti-Russian propaganda will expose and exaggerate these shortcomings. Eventually truth, like Hamlet’s ghost, will out, and now that the Russian workers have been indoctrinated in the cause of capitalism, the Soviet authorities will relax their censorship up to a point, because they cannot keep the lid on the kettle. Censorship makes an expensive form of administration.

The SPGB have always maintained that there is no essential difference in the class system in the Soviet Union from that elsewhere. The ruling class enjoy the same privileged existence, and use the same means to stay on top. The common features of western capitalism, exploitation of wage labour and production for profit, are present — with the resulting social inequality. All the propaganda by friend and foe alike cannot contradict or obscure this real situation.

One of the most obvious signs of social inequality is the wage differentials between the higher and the lower paid workers. The Daily Telegraph (2nd June 1976) on the occasion of the visit of the Soviet missile destroyer Obraztsovy drew attention to the enormous discrepancy in pay between officers and ratings. A Russian naval rating is paid £4.70 a month, and a full captain’s pay is £202.00 a month, more than 40 times greater than that of the ratings. This differential is quite considerable when it is taken into account that the Russians have over 8 million men in the armed forces. The British equivalent is that a captain receives approximately 8 times that of a rating.

Graft & Corruption

The city column of the Sunday Telegraph (18th April 1976), gave numerous examples of the corruption practised by high-ranking government officers, top scientists and members of the Soviet Politburo. Otari Lazfishiyili, the head of the government synthetics laboratory, was renowned for throwing lavish parties costing thousands of roubles. He enjoyed the luxury of a mansion, and had two country homes with swimming pools. Apparently he was running a black-market nylon business on the side, with over 100 accomplices. He made a million pounds before they caught him.

Another government official, the chief of the agricultural equipment purchase department in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Trade, Uri Sosnovsky, planned to take a cut of a 30-million rouble contract with a Swiss firm — he was hanged. The then Minister of Culture, Yekaterina Furtseva, was alleged to have spent about £60,000 in having an exclusive country dacha built for her daughter; this was in addition to the two owned by the Minister herself. The scandal lost her her seat on the Supreme Soviet in 1974. In the same article, a reference was made to petty corruption. Izvestia, the State newspaper, last year published figures to the effect that one-third of the relatively small number of private motorists in the USSR drove their cars on petrol paid for by the State. About 150 million gallons were estimated to be stolen or siphoned off from State vehicles.

There are as many instances of graft and corruption in the USSR as there are elsewhere. There is also a colossal black market. The fact that the penalties are high only underlines the extent of the problem. If the name of the game is capitalism, then the aim of the game is privilege. Those nearest the till are in a better position to get their hand in it, as are high Communist Party officials, government officials, and other socially privileged groups. The difference with the black marketeer, the corrupt official, and the stealer of state property, is that they do it through the back door. But many more obtain their privileges through the front door.

In a capitalist society people will always behave in a capitalist way, and Russia is no exception. Chief among those who receive and confer privileges through the front door are the Communist Party hierarchy. According to a book recently published, The Russians by Hedrick Smith, for three years Moscow correspondent of the New York Times, life at the top in Moscow is based on privilege (Sunday Times 16th May 1976). The most conspicuous symbols are the numerous grey-curtained chauffeur-driven cars containing VIPS doing their shopping and ignoring all traffic laws. There are special shops which sell Russian delicacies like caviar, smoked salmon, and the best canned sturgeon, vintage wines, and other luxuries well beyond the reach of the average Russian worker, and only accessible by special pass to the politically anointed. Perquisites are handed out according to rank; top leaders get home delivery, or use stores right inside the Kremlin, and the Supreme Soviet executive group have their special shop in the government buildings, Versenevsky Embankment Road. Soviet marshals, admirals, top scientists, senior editors of Pravda and Izvestia and other important publications, Lenin prize winners, actors, writers, dancers, economic managers — all have their special shops where cut-rate food is available, and these shops are debarred to the general Russian public.

Diplomats, trusted journalists, poets and the like, who have worked abroad, are issued with certificate roubles, a special currency, and can buy imported goods at bargain prices at the hard-currency Beryozka shops in Moscow. Many Moscow people are infuriated at the existence of these special stores because they don’t even accept Soviet currency. One white-collar worker fumed that it was a “violation of socialist principles”.

The cream of the élite, Politburo members and National secretaries, use black Zil saloon cars, hand-tooled and worth £40,000 apiece. In addition to car and shopping privileges, the Kremlin leaders enjoy special travel facilities, including a special airport Vmukoy 11. They also have exclusive health clinics, clubs, and even certain universities are regarded as the province of the government, for the offspring of the military and diplomatic élite. Many of the Party leaders have large guest houses. Brezhnev takes his guests boar-hunting. Many have mansions with exclusive grounds, private beaches, and recreational areas provided by the state, and their privacy ensured by state guards.

Top Dogs

Hedrick Smith tells a funny story about Brezhnev who was showing his mother round his various possessions and trying to impress her. Apparently this is a Muscovite joke. “He invited her up to see his town apartment. She looked nonplussed, so they sped off in his Zil to his dacha near Usovo, one previously used by Stalin and Khruschev, but still she said nothing. So he called for his personal helicopter and flew her straight to his hunting lodge at Zavidovo. There he escorted her to the banquet room, grandly displaying the big fireplace, his guns, and unable to restrain himself any longer asked: ‘Tell me Mama, what do you think?’. ‘Well’, she hesitated. ‘It’s good, Leonid. But what if the Reds come back?’ ”

The Soviet élite do not advertise their privileges, but the workers in Russia are left in no doubt that there is a special class of person upon whom everybody else dances attendance. All railroad trains, Aeroflot airlines, theatres and hotels, always reserve accommodation or seats in the event that these “important” people may drop in. Even state officials are given priority in any allocation of tickets at sports fixtures. Apparently at the 1972 hockey inter national competition between Canada and Russia, a Canadian diplomat was waiting to obtain his allocation of tickets when a young man walked in, went to the head of the queue, and identified himself as a member of the Central Committee. He asked for, and received, 3,000 tickets per game, a quarter of all the available seats. The diplomat commented that by the time other influential people got their cut, there was nothing left for the genuine hockey fan except perhaps a few dozen tickets forming a token box office. This, according to Smith, happens every time a big foreign sports team or cultural show visits Moscow. (Sunday Times 16th May 1976).

Nobody who really understands the nature of class society will be surprised at the way it operates in Russia. What is the point of a society based on the exploitation of workers for the purpose of private gain, unless the exploiter reaps the benefit? To say that no capitalist class exists in Russia is playing with words. The system is riddled with inequality from top to bottom, apart from the corruption and graft which are inseparable from government by dictatorship where officials wield immense power.

To describe the system as Socialist, or anything remotely connected with Socialism is a deliberate and, as we have seen, a calculated distortion of words and meaning. We can well understand the intense hostility from Russian diplomats and politicians against those who criticise the Soviet Union. It certainly is a good system for them. We cannot understand the almost pathetic adulation from the underprivileged propertyless dupes of the Left in this country who look to the USSR as the “socialist oasis” in a capitalist paradise. This confuses the issue of Socialism, and to that extent holds back the genuine revolutionary movement.

Jim D'Arcy

The Capitalists’ “Directive Ability”. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some Lessons from recent happenings.

The Need for the Parasite.

One of the stock arguments of the anti-Socialist is that the worker will be unable to control industry under Socialism, as, in order to enable affairs to run smoothly, men are required with some weird, mysterious and miracle-working power called “directive ability.” The “anties” contend that we could not get along without these powerful individuals, and that (grande finale) these men are the ones who to-day possess wealth and position, i.e., the Rockefellers, Liptons, Devonports, and so on.

Let us just test this contention with a few facts and see how the miracle-workers run this system.

During the last few months a case has been attracting much attention in the courts. In this case certain civilians (past or present employees of Liptons, Ltd.) and some Army officers have been accused under the Bribery and Corruption Acts. In the evidence it transpired that Liptons have been in the habit of giving inducements to Army officers to secure Army canteen contracts. One of the defendants, Col. Whitaker, had received £540 from a firm of brewers, who supplied the beer to Col. Whitaker’s regiment at Malta. The Colonel said that he received the greater part of the money for using his influence to secure a contract from a colonel of a regiment at Crete. It also turned in the evidence that a member of the Government, Lord Saye and Sele, had written advising Col. Whitaker to take a holiday and go to Crete to “smooth a ruffled bird” (Col. Bird) for a consideration !

In summing up the case the judge said : “I am bound to say that the evidence before the Court satisfies me that these defendants, employed by Lipton’s, in so far as they made payments for the bribery of persons capable of influencing contracts in favour of Lipton’s, were acting on a system which was known to the directorate, encouraged by the directorate, and persisted in by the directorate, after there had been consideration given as to whether to stop that system or not.” (“Times,” 28.5.14.)

Now is this the way the capitalists run the show ? Is this the way they pile up their fortunes ? Is this the line “Directive Ability” takes ? When the capitalists themselves are faced with these facts and called to account, what do they answer ? Just what Lipton would have answered : “We do not know anything about it ; we did not attend to the business. You must blame our managers.'”

Tarred with the Same Brush.

Those who have memories a little longer than the usual working-class memory will recollect that when the directors of the company con­cerned in the Putumayo rubber atrocities were brought before the commission, four of them admitted that they did not even know the lan­guage in which the business at board meetings was conducted !

Let us now turn to another recent instance of “Directive Ability.”

The coalfields of Colorado have lately been drenched with the blood of miners who struck against the conditions obtaining in the mines of the Trinidad Coal and Iron Co. A condition of affairs was in operation out there similar to what existed in England before the factory legislation began. The miners were compelled to trade at the company’s store, paying 25 to 50 per cent. more than outside prices, to buy coal off the company, pay the company’s doctor, and live in the company’s shacks.

When the miners struck on September 3rd last wholesale evictions followed, and men, women, and children were turned into the streets with their few belongings, to go where they could in the rain and snow that kept falling through the next two days.

A Heroic (Rocke)feller.

During the strike the mine-owners, following their usual custom, imported as mine guards riff-raff of every description—armed thugs who could be depended upon to commit without hesitation the most cold-blooded of murders. “No authentic account,” says the “New York World” in a candid moment, “of anything that has happened in Mexico compares in cold-blooded brutality with what took place at Ludlow, Colorado. Dr. A. S. Harvey, a physician who testified at the inquest, said that while the “women and children lay in the safety pits which had been dug under the tents, the militiamen applied torches to the canvas and burned the structure over the heads of the terrified refugees. He declared that one ranch-house, in which dozens of women and children had taken refuge, was under fire from the militiamen the whole day.” The militia mounted machine guns and swept the strikers’ quarters with bullets. Over 200 lives were lost in this mine war.

We now come to the “directive ability” side of the matter. As a result of the allegation that the rioting was caused by agents provocateur, and that the troops acted with great brutality in charging and shooting down men, women, and children indiscriminately, a Congressional inquiry into the matter was ordered. When John D. Rockefeller, Jun., who is a director of the Trinidad Coal and Iron Co., was questioned he “blandly professed entire ignorance as to the details of the rioting and causes of the strike. He admitted that his father owned 40 per cent. of the company’s stock, but declared that neither of them interfered with the management of affairs, and they knew very little about the matter. ‘We have so many interests that it is impossible for us to supervise personally everything.'”— (“Leader,” 7.4.14.)

An Obliging Conscience.

How they get out of it when anything is brought up against them ! Capitalists, say our opponents, supervise industry, therefore deserve their profits. Charge Rockefeller with the murder of the Colorado miners, however, and he immediately begins to squirm, and says he knows nothing about the matter. He does not “supervise personally” when the butcheries have to be accounted for, but only when the “swag” is divided.

When one of the committee very pertinently pointed out that Rockefeller found plenty of time for “social uplift” work and vice investigation, and asked him why he did not investigate the conditions in his own business, the canting, hypocritical scoundrel at once replied : “My conscience acquits me of any responsibility in the matter.”—(“Leader,” 7.4.14.)

The Rockefellers, by the way, seem to be rather accomplished hypocrites, and, incidentally, men after God’s own heart. The father of the aforementioned unctuous humbug, John D. Rockefeller, Sen., was referred to last June by Mr. Bustard, the pastor of the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church, Cleveland (of the congregation of which Rockefeller is one of the oldest members) as “one of the rose bushes in God’s garden.” The same reverend soft-soap and chloroform dispenser also paid a tribute to those faithful followers in the church who, like Mr. Rockefeller, “have for years lead religious lives and been steadfast in the Lord’s work.” Comment on this is needless.

Before leaving for his father’s Pocantico Hills Estate young Rockefeller “issued a statement, in which he admitted that his investigations into the riots had disclosed conditions more terrible than have yet occurred in that or any other State.”—(“Reynolds’s,” 3.5.14.) In his concluding statement before the commission, however, he disclosed his true capitalistic soul, and showed himself as the advocate of free and unfettered sweating. “He got rather angry when it was pointed out that the newspapers had given plenty of details as to the working conditions in Trinidad, and that a word from his father would have stopped the bloodshed and ended the strike. He declined to agree to submit to arbitration, and declared that the company would rather sacrifice the whole of its property in Colorado than recognize the miners’ union if it hampered the company’s freedom.”— (“Leader,” 7.4.14.)

The Company’s Freedom.

Well, what about “directive ability” now ? As a matter of fact, about the only directive ability the masters ever exercise is in employing managers, foremen, etc. to run their concerns for them while they are enjoying themselves, and if it large enough dividend is not regularly forthcoming they want to know the reason why ; if a sufficient reason is not given the official gets the sack. Owing to the contradictory nature of present society the workers are compelled to fight each other for jobs. The overlooker and manager are working men like the rest of us, dependent on their jobs for their livelihood and just as likely to get the sack at any moment. Their particular job consists in using every method they can to get the greatest possible amount of work out of their fellow-workers. Thus on the industrial field workers find themselves compelled to fight, not only their masters, but also each other in order to get a living. When the workers take over production then the “directive ability” of our fellow-workers (the absent bond-holding capitalist does no work in production at all), will be employed for the common good instead of, as to-day, for the misery of their fellows.

G. McClatchie

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The richest 1% of Norwegians held 22% of net wealth in 2022, according to Statistics Norway. That compares with 34% in the US, 30% in Germany and 21% in the UK. 

(MSN)

Senior Chinese leaders… are engaged in corruption and hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth by using relatives to disguise their activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. By 2012, Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth. 

(The Washington Times)

Among the 2,300 sewer cleaners under the employment of the KWSC, to do manual scavenging to unclog the drains, he claims to have taught Adil the dos and don’ts of diving into the slush. ‘You have to be smart to outdo death, which is our companion as we go down,’ he says. It is not the army of cockroaches and the stink that greets you when you open the manhole lid to get in, or the rats swimming in filthy water, but the blades and used syringes floating that are a cause for concern for many as they go down to bring up the rocks and the buckets of filthy silt.

(Inter Press Service)

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to ‘end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza’. ‘What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?’ she asked. ‘Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?’. 

(France24)

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen. ‘We have the Israelis right where we want them,’ Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages… In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as ‘necessary sacrifices’ while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria. 

(CNN)

Graham stressed that helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia could also have strategic economic benefits for the U.S. and Western countries. ‘They’re sitting on $10-12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. We don’t want to give that money and assets to Putin to share with China,’ he told Brennan on Sunday. ‘If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. They’re sitting on a goal mine. To give Putin $10-12 trillion that he will share with China is ridiculous’. 

(MSN)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Greasy Pole: Something in common (1996)

The Greasy Pole column from the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Here is a question. Can anyone think of anything in common between Asil Nadir and about half the voting population of Britain? For those of you who have forgotten. Nadir— a particularly apposite name considering what happened to him—was once a man who convinced a lot of people that capitalism does not have to work in the way in which it naturally, inexorably does work. He was what is known as a tycoon, who devoted a lot of this time to developing a business conglomerate called Polly Peck. This was such a profitable company that it was often mentioned as evidence that there is really no need for the economic cycle of boom and slump. There is no need for any business ever to be anything but profitable, no need for it ever to make a loss or go out of existence. All that is necessary to have at the head someone like Asil Nadir, who will ensure that the enterprise will be endlessly profitable. The City loved it. They loved Asil Nadir. They rushed to invest in his business empire.

For his part Asil Nadir loved the City and he must have pleased many of his admirers there, when he gave £400,000 to the Conservative Party, presumably in the hope that the money would help the Tories to foster this mutually attractive and remunerative relationship. However this cosy set-up began to look less comfortable when Asil Nadir’s methods came under the detailed scrutiny of the Serious Fraud Office. Not to put too fine a point on it, the glamorous tycoon was suspected of running a highly unstable operation, which was not improved by his alleged tendency to help himself from the till. The investors in Polly Peck were rudely awakened from their dream of an eternally prosperous capitalism by the reality of losing hundreds of millions of pounds in the company’s collapse.

Jumping bail

Facing trial on 13 charges of fraud and false accounting, Asil Nadir decided that he could no longer rely on a little help from his friends, whether in the City or the Tory Party. Discretion, he decided, was the better part of valour and he jumped bail, fleeing to Northern Cyprus to make sympathetic noises at the news that his former aide in Polly Peck, Elizabeth Forsyth, had collected a five-year prison sentence for helping to launder some of the money Nadir was said to have stolen.

Let us leave, for the moment, the disgraced and hunted tycoon in his Mediterranean hideaway and consider the other part of our question—the half of the voting population in Britain. We refer to the millions of people who support the Labour Party whose vote at elections, give or take a bit, usually amounts to about half of those cast. Now these people are not business tycoons, they are not popular in the City and they don't have readily available hideaways in the sun. If they appear in court it is not for helping themselves to large sums of somebody else's money but normally for shoplifting or burglary or stealing a mobile phone from a parked car.

These people can’t give hundreds of thousands of pounds away because after they’ve paid the rent or the mortgage and the cost of gas and water and electricity and they've bought some clothes and food there is very little left. They pass their lives in poverty, on the knife-edge of destitution so that if something disastrous happens, like losing their job or getting chronically sick, they slip down into a kind of sub-existence where malnutrition and fear are such everyday features of their lives that they become almost inured to them.

Coping with poverty

But this is achieved at considerable cost. The Observer, in a recent article about food and poverty, quoted parents who are struggling to survive, and to protect their children, on Income Support: ”. . . I don’t eat . . . I've walked about with holes in my shoes, no winter coat and haven’t eaten for three days to look after them . . . I won’t let my kids go without." A recent government survey found that among the unemployed 20 percent of men and 38 percent of women had suffered a neurotic disorder. And for those who are in work stress is still a potent factor, not least because of their fear of losing their job.

So let us return, now that we know who we’re talking about, to our original question about what is common to Asil Nadir and the Labour voters of Britain. Well Nadir has recently informed the world that while he does not regret giving all that money to the Tories ("I never regret anything that I have done in my life") he is no longer among their supporters. "No government is in power for ever," he says. "Thank God there is a certain amount of democratic election and we know the elections are approaching. I hope the British public will give their view of what they think of the British Government.” In fact, if the Labour Party win the next election. Nadir says, he will return to Britain (although it is not clear whether this is intended to attract support for Labour or drive it away).

The point about this is that both Asil Nadir the opulent wheeler-and-dealer and the stressed and exploited Labour voters are agreed that a different government here will bring some significant changes to capitalism in Britain.

Labour wheezes

Now this is very unkind to Tony Blair and all his spin doctors and hangers-on who are labouring night and day to convince us that a Labour government will be so similar to the Conservatives that we may hardly notice there has been an election. Gordon Brown will sit in the Treasury searching for new ways to disappoint his supporter's expectations by slashing government spending. His latest wheeze—to abolish Child Benefit for those aged between 16 and 19—has provoked even Peter Lilley to a kind of protest, describing Brown’s proposal as “. . . deeply unpopular in the country . . . a pernicious tax on learning". Jack Straw will occupy the Home Office and try to outdo Michael Howard’s reputation for bashing criminals, perhaps creating a new offence of washing someone's windscreen at traffic lights when they haven’t asked you to. Tony Blair will be in Number Ten thinking up new phrases like stakeholding society to convince us that it isn’t happening and if we are sure that it is then it’s not what we think it is.

So that’s what they have in common— misconceptions about what Labour will rule capitalism means. Of course there are differences between Asil Nadir and Labour voters. He has reason to think he may benefit from a Labour government. They may also think like that but have no reason to.

Ivan

TV Review: What’s in a Load of Rubbish? (2001)

Benjamin "the Binman" Pell

TV Review from the February 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s in a Load of Rubbish?

Last month Channel Four screened a documentary called Scandal in the Bins that was the remarkable story of a remarkable man—Benjamin Pell. Until recently very few people had heard of Pell and today, the majority still haven’t. But Pell has been popping up in the pages of Private Eye for quite some time and has recently had some exposure in the national press. Many who have heard of him know him by one of his other names—”Benji the Binman”.

“Benji the Binman” is what some might call “a great British eccentric”. Others might call him a simple thief. But essentially he is a collector. A collector of rubbish—indeed, a freelance collector of rubbish. For the last few years Pell has earned a living of sorts through scrabbling round amongst the refuse of the rich and famous, their agents and solicitors. A staunch Zionist, he began by raiding the bins of pro-Palestinian organisations in London and then moved on from there. The story which really made him—and which turned him into a household name among Fleet Street editors if nobody else—concerned Elton John’s financial difficulties and how they had been brought about through his mammoth and conspicuous consumption.

From that time on Benji has hardly looked back. He claimed in the programme that he is so obsessed with newspapers he used go down to Euston station every Sunday and collect them off the trains but in the last couple of years he has become a key contact for editors and newsroom managers and has had stories that he has ultimately been responsible for printed in almost every national newspaper in Britain. A man with an “anti-establishment” air about him, it is alleged that he has been heavily involved in everything from the Fayed/Hamilton case to the recent leaking of the Philip Gould memos about Blair.

Although his recent successes are reputed to have netted him £100,000 in the last year or so he lives a frugal life at his parents’ modest north London semi, spending a fair proportion of his time in the garden shed where he stores his dozens and dozens of bin bags. Frail and unkempt, his immediate ambition in life is to get a second shed.

Pell’s doctor describes him as an obsessive compulsive and this evidence was used in his favour during some of his many court appearances (whether as a witness, like in the Elton John case, or as a defendant). His interviews for this programme showed that he is certainly eccentric and probably what social workers, years ago, would have called “maladjusted” too. But what the programme also showed— and was at pains to point out—is that whatever he is, he is clearly not mad.

Aware of his eccentricity, Pell will accentuate his unusual behaviour even further to achieve a desired end (such as if and when he gets arrested). In the Elton John case he appeared in court dressed from head to toe in bizarre Elton John memorabilia and took little time convincing the court that he was a harmless nutter who was incapable of being part of any conspiracy of any description. On his late night scavenging forays he will make sure he smells as badly as possible lest he get arrested, as was demonstrated when one of the programme’s hidden cameras showed him being stopped by a police officer who, after a few seconds of questioning, started to search Pell and then hesitated, pulled a face, stopped and then left him to fester in peace.

Rat trap

Scandal in the Bins did a good job showing the human side of Pell—his eccentricity, his very real fear of going to prison and his sheer craftiness. Although Neil and Christine Hamilton were featured saying that Pell had been one of the people who had helped to ruin their lives (as if they hadn’t had a hand in it themselves) Pell showed himself to be at least as hostile to the press as they now find themselves to be. Rightly or wrongly, he sees himself as someone getting as much out of the press as he can by putting his compulsive disorder to use making a living. In the process he causes trouble to the powerful and—more often than not—as a lonely one-man band is the victim of the news corporations’ manipulations, not their primary cause.

Pell claimed that British newspapers are just as corrupt as the people they are allegedly exposing and, naturally enough, he has a ready audience for that view as few outside the British media would disagree with it. Scandal in the Bins had plenty of evidence for it as well. In the most revealing section of the programme two of the most powerful men in the British media—PR guru Max Clifford and Sun political editor Trevor Kavanagh were shown up, with help from Pell, for being the hypocrites they really are.

Clifford’s own PR façade slipped when he walked out of an interview with the programme’s makers shouting and screaming at the film crew for asking him questions about his business methods (even though he didn’t bat an eyelid at their seemingly irrefutable evidence that he had perjured himself in a court case) while Trevor Kavanagh was heard telling an interviewer that the Sun had never paid Pell for a story or for any of his illegal activities. As the tape played, the screen showed copies of News International’s invoices regarding payments to Pell for services rendered. Brilliant television, achieving what few—if any—have previously managed to do.

This is not to give the impression that Pell is an entirely blameless character either—he certainly isn’t. He has done his fair share to upset the lives of those he had otherwise no reason interfering with and has readily accepted payment for doing so. The point is that despite his own clear shortcomings his (partial) co-operation with this documentary did as much to expose the systematic hypocrisy and double-dealing of the British press as anything yet shown. If Channel Four repeat it soon (and no doubt they will) try and catch it if you didn’t see it first time around.

In the meantime, it is worth asking yourself when you next see an eye-catching article in the press—whether it be a “serious” investigation by Insight in the Sunday Times or an expose of some pop star’s business dealings in the tabloids—about where the information for the piece came from and of the unbridled skulduggery that took place to get it into print so more newspapers could be sold and more advertising attracted. And when you’re doing that remember to spare a small thought, at least, for a poor Jewish boy from north London with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a shed full of bin bags.

Dave Perrin

Masters of War (2010)

From the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You can fool all of the people some of the time … and some of the people all of the time … but …

The US occupation forces in Afghanistan have learned a particular lesson from the disaster that is Iraq, and they have learned it big time. In the first, largely contracted out war in history, US and other foreign civilians were brought in to carry out just about every task, from the mundane to those viewed as ‘front-line’. A direct consequence of this strategy was millions of unemployed and very disgruntled Iraqis, a large percentage of whom became active or passive supporters of the forces of insurgency/resistance against the perceived injustices of the occupation. In the corporate boardrooms of US War Machine Inc. the alarm bells were ringing; costs (dead bodies and bodies with bits missing) were eating into public opinion and support for the corporations’ products (perpetual war and war materials/services) was declining and, potentially, could severely impact their bottom lines. A slight shift in strategy was called for.

Afghanistan, in recent times, has never really been a nation state; it is an area of the world that is a patch-work of tribal fiefdoms that shift in and out of local alliances at the whim of chieftains or as balances of power dictate. In order for US and NATO forces to function, in what they like to call the ‘Battlespace’, they have to factor these tribal leaders and their shifting alliances into their planning. The logistics for any invader/occupier of this land are daunting in the extreme. It is a wild, unforgiving place peopled by proud, largely unconquered tribes with very long memories who do not take kindly to uninvited foreigners trying to lord it over them. Ameliorating some of that hostility would enable more focus on the ‘flagged-up’ enemy, al-Qa’ida and their Taliban associates.

As the conflict dragged on and soon to be president of US War Machine Inc. Senator Obama announced that, in his opinion, it was a ‘war of necessity’, the strategic planners came up with an ingenious ploy that would give gainful employment to Afghans, put money into their pockets and just might persuade them to view the occupiers of their lands in a sufficiently different light that they would stop shooting at or blowing up corporate assets and personnel. The name of this new strategy – ‘Host Nation Trucking’, and it works something like this . .

Take a gaggle of well connected, powerful and non-too-scrupulous ‘business men’ and award them six trucking contracts currently worth $2.2 billion. People like the Popal brothers, owners of the huge Watan Group, both convicted whilst in the US of dealing in heroin and cousins of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Or Hamed Wardek, owner of NCL Holdings and son of current Afghan defence minister, General Abdul Wardek. NCL includes such luminaries as ‘legendary former CIA case officer and clear-headed thinker and writer’ (says Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 2009) Milton Beardon on its advisory board. Or Asia Security Group, owned by Hashmat Karzai, another relative of the president. (Aram Roston, ‘How the US Funds the Taliban’, The Nation, 30 November) These companies already have a well oiled model for doing business along the ancient trading routes and in the minefield that is present day Afghanistan – each has an armed ‘private security division’ and field agents who buy-off attacks by fractious warlords along any route. In this way US and NATO troops should get everything from ammunition to toilet paper supplied to even the their furthest-flung outposts with fewer inconvenient disruptions.

That was the theory behind the plan and in reality it mostly works pretty well. The US Defense Dept. throws huge quantities of dollars to the contractors, who in turn buy off the warlords who control those routes that pass through their territories. Many of these warlords are associated with the Taliban or are the local Taliban commanders, so extensive funding finds its way into Taliban coffers. Even the Taliban, who are the supreme warlords in control of the south of the country, are not immune from getting in on the action directly. Pay the premiums for their ‘insurance’ and it is sufficient for just two of their escorting ‘technicals’ to ensure the safe passage of any convoy through any stretch of hostile territory, which in reality is everywhere. Fail to pay up and the consequences are guaranteed to be devastating and deadly. Drivers can be picked off by snipers and rocket propelled grenades will blow the vehicles to pieces. One US owned firm, Four Horsemen International, has so far refused to pay and has tried to take on the Taliban with its own security teams; their convoys are attacked on almost every mission and the price in lives has been high. At some stage, no doubt, they will have to follow other security firms and do what they must in order to survive. An indication of premium rates can be gleaned from the following: per truck, per section of territory under a particular warlord = approx. $800, although it depends on what is being carried. Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar is about 300 kms, the local warlord, Commander Ruhullah, levies around $1,500 per truck and for military supplies this is the only route to the south, to Helmand and the Taliban heartland. The NCL company alone is billed $500,000 per month for ‘services’ rendered en-route through Ruhullah’s turf, an indication of the scale of business.

Throwing money at a problem to make it go away has been elevated to the level of a doctrine within the US military, which goes under the title of ‘Money as a Weapons System’. To give some perspective, the $2.2 billion, two-year effort to hire Afghani trucks and truckers represents around 10 percent of that country’s GDP and although firm figures are hard to come by it is estimated that between 10-20 percent is finding its way to the Taliban. The regime in Kabul has recently increased the wages of its police and army by $45 to around $125 per month, far less than the Taliban pays its fighters, so why work for that lot when the ‘firm’ down the road is offering a better deal? No surprise then that the effective strength of these two organisations is around half of the claimed 90,000 for the police and 95,000 for the army, or that the power and influence of the Taliban continues to grow. They have their very own milch cow with a seeming never-ending stream of greenbacks. US spin would have us believe that it is drugs money that funds the Taliban in direct opposition to their actions when in power. Under Taliban rule poppy/opium production was almost eliminated; by contrast, since the US invasion and the re-establishment of the warlords, production is at an historic high. None the less, this is the lie fed to the US public rather than revealing the truth which could well swing public opinion so strongly as to imperil the very profitable merry-go-round that is the conflict in Afghanistan. Better to keep the mushrooms in the dark than let them see the light of truth!

Step back for a moment and look at it this way; the US military, possibly the world’s ultimate ‘service provider’, is a gigantic consumer of goods and services. Its top people are highly paid executives who are guaranteed lucrative positions in supplying corporations when the time comes to move on. Working with their associates in government they benefit from continuing conflicts/wars that use up existing stockpiles/services which then need re-stocking from their appreciative suppliers. Prolonging the production run of any particular product or model is a well-proven policy for squeezing the last drop of profit from any venture. So it follows that in the context of modern, contracted-out warfare any strategy that strings out a conflict will mean more profits in the pockets of those corporations, organisations and their stock-holders who agree to play it by the rules of the capitalist system, and that includes Messrs. Taliban Associates Inc. In this lethal capitalist game, it is mostly the workers, the cannon-fodder on each side of any conflict who pay the supreme price; the elite, whether they wear the pin-stripped suits of corporate boardrooms or the black turbans of a Taliban leader, largely escape the extreme consequences of these policies.

The average US citizen thinks that it is ‘their’ money that’s paying for ‘their’ military to fight a war in Afghanistan that will protect ‘their’ homeland from another 9/11 or some crazed mullah with a suicide atomic bomb under his jacket. Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. The media has convinced them that it is a price worth paying, and anyway, aren’t there tens of thousands of good US households that, directly or indirectly, depend on defence company salaries to pay the mortgage? If they ever wake up to the fact that it is also ‘their’ money that is paying for the munitions that kill their sons and daughters and is providing the Taliban with much of what it needs to carry on its campaign indefinitely, to the benefit and enrichment of all the stakeholders in the business of war and conflict, might they not get very angry? Might they not rise up against the Masters of War and their corrupt system? Don’t hold your breath!

‘You can fool some of the people . . .’ Was this saying concocted by some US president or other to convince his people that they are really too smart to have the wool pulled over their eyes by a system devised to enrich the few whilst keeping the majority in bondage? How else to explain the predatory economic ways of the world and the widespread apathy towards them in the so-called ‘world’s only superpower’ and its war-mongering allies?

'… you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’

Oh, yeah!

Alan Fenn

Material Interests (2022)

Book Review from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World. By Tom Burgis. William Collins £9.99.

Tom Burgis is an investigative journalist at the Financial Times. Here he provides a detailed account, backed up by meticulous referencing (often via interviews), of how some extremely rich and powerful people obtain their wealth and then move it around to ensure secrecy and keep it away from the prying eyes of tax collectors and supposed regulatory agencies.

Much of the action is connected to Kazakhstan, a former republic of the USSR, which became a base of private capitalism, run by oligarchs. Until recently, the president was the authoritarian Nursultan Nazarbayev, formerly boss of the ‘Communist’ Party. The country has lots of natural resources (oil, uranium, copper, chromium, etc), and much of this is owned by just three capitalists, referred to here as ‘the Trio’. They set up the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), with a listing on the London Stock Exchange and an office in London, though that was later transferred to Luxembourg when regulators started to take too close a look. ENRC is officially a public company, but in practice is controlled by the Trio, who use it to move to the West the profit they make from exploiting Kazakh workers.

Their interests extend to Africa too. In Zimbabwe the resources are platinum, gold and diamonds, while Congo has vast reserves of copper. In 2009, ENRC bought a Zimbabwean mining company for nearly $1bn. Africa is attractive to investors in mining and raw materials: in other parts of the world, ownership of land and its resources are pretty much tied up, but in Africa they are often available to anyone with the right contacts and appropriate amounts of money. Even Robert Mugabe’s departure from power in 2017 had little impact on the tycoons.

Burgis also goes into detail about the armies of lawyers, private detectives and PR people who defend the ultra-rich and their reputations. He himself received a letter from a law firm accusing him of corruption and asking him to hand over details of the ‘third parties’ who had allegedly paid him to make his accusations. Various other people get a mention too: Tony Blair was a consultant to Nazarbayev for a while, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law bought a mansion from Prince Andrew, Donald Trump’s property empire was a convenient way of recycling money. More generally, real estate is an effective way of laundering wealth because of the secrecy involved.

Burgis has no illusions about what is going on: ‘Around the world, corruption has become the primary mechanism by which power functions’ and the kleptocrats aim ‘to seize power through fear and the force of money, and then to privatise that power.’ Maybe this kind of thing has become, as the book says at its close, ‘normal business’, but capitalism of all forms is based on power and the influence of wealth.

Paul Bennett

Corporate takeover (2001)

Book Review from the September 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Captive State. The Corporate Takeover of Britain. By George Monbiot, Macmillan.

The British state was traditionally seen by liberal commentators as one of the most “well-established” parliamentary democracies, relatively free of corruption. But this perception is changing, with much talk of a “disconnection” between the interests of the people and the activities of government. George Monbiot’s book is an important contribution towards this shift of opinion.

The reluctance of many a Labour voter at the recent election can quickly turn into outright regret, after a few minutes of picking up this book. Monbiot takes the reader beyond the run-of-the-mill media illusion of politicians’ and their supposedly all-important press conferences and five-point plans. This is about the incorporation of corporate interests into the machinery of government.

Monbiot shows many cases where the business agenda determines the ground rules to which government is expected to adhere. Large retail firms and construction companies, for example, are shown to have acquired a strong grip over planning and development policy. Nick Raynsford’s 1998 withdrawal of Labour’s pledged right of appeal against town planning decisions is one of numerous examples of broken promises and contradictions in Labour policy exposed by Monbiot.

This reviewer had a recent, first-hand experience of the absence of democracy in local government – at a council planning meeting to consider a proposed “development” behind the garden where I live (actually the removal of some old woodland to make way for a car park). All Labour party councillors voted in favour without any of them even bothering to speak in defence. Local residents had found out about the meeting in spite of it having not been officially publicised and scheduled during a holiday period. They expressed the many arguments against the plan: pollution, noise, environmental quality etc but the shameful-looking Labour councillors did not reply, knowing that they had a majority over the Conservative Party minority who opposed the plan. “And this is supposed to be a democracy,” said one resident afterwards. “It was all a stitch-up – planned weeks ago,” said another.

Monbiot shows that commercial interests are paramount at all levels of state decision-making. He shows how they influence government regulatory bodies and the research agendas of British universities (everything from the Environment Agency to the Biotechnology and Biology Research Council). The “Fat Cats Directory” lists many business people who have served industries such as biotechnology and petroleum, whilst also having a role in the government-run institutions that supposedly regulate these industries.

Socialists have consistently said that the State never did exist to represent the interests of the majority of us (even if a majority of voters did elect the governing party that resides within it). The picture from Monbiot of corporation-dominated government is really the logical outcome of a class-divided society where the state must serve the owning minority. So what do we do about it? Monbiot calls for

“the peaceful mobilization of millions of people in nations all over the world. Globalization, in other words must be matched with internationalism: campaigning, worldwide, for better means of government” (p.357).

“Better” government, for Monbiot, means government that is held “accountable” and actively regulates corporations. Monbiot envisages this democratisation of government as occuring on an international scale through multilateral agreements. This book still points to the willingness of transnational corporations to relocate to more favourable climates for profit-making, as well as their capacity to change government policies to suit their interests. Yet Monbiot does not reach the conclusion of socialists that the profit motive will undermine reformist attempts to restrain it.

Monbiot’s vision of a political culture of “permanent agitation” is, at least, an implicit recognition of this built-in tension within capitalism. It is outlined in the final chapter entitled “A Troublemaker’s Charter”. The international campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment is offered as an example of a successful international campaign. (This was a World Trade Organisation proposal for reducing the scope for national regulation of investment decisions; it was eventually withdrawn.) Yet, just a few pages on, the more recent Transatlantic Economic Partnership (involving the US and the EU) is introduced; a more gradualist move towards the same kind of goal, says Monbiot. So, the trouble-making should not ease up. More of it is needed as the problems of capitalism continually spill forth.

Monbiot does not consider the possibility that, when peacefully mobilised, the people of this world might seek to permanently end the cause of the social divisions he describes.

Dan Greenwood

Quote . . . Unquote (1972)

From issue number 2 (1972) of The Western Socialist

We couldn't have said it better 

"Look at it this way. America is run largely by and for about 5.000 people who are actively supported by 50,000 beavers eager to take their places. I arrive at the round figure this way: maybe 2.500 megacorporation executives, 500 politicians, lobbyists and Congressional committee chairmen. 500 investment bankers, 500 commercial bankers, 500 partners in major accounting firms, 500 labor brokers. If you don't like my figures, make up your own. We won’t be far apart in the context of a country with 210-million people. The 5.000 appoint their own successors, are responsible to nobody. They treat this nation as an exclusive whorehouse especially designed for their comfort and kicks. The President of these United States, in their private view, is head towel boy. They prefer clever flunkies who. like most of the present White House gang, are so slippery they can enter a telephone booth and leave by the side door.

For most of us, the 210-million, the result is a tearing frustration. Frustration with unemployment, inequity, taxes and prices, to be sure, but under it all a rage at the giant, impregnable, impenetrable, anonymous, unaccountable. irresponsible,  immoveable bastions of power. And now, through the Naderites, through the blizzard of shredded documents at I.T.T., we get our noses rubbed in the whole sick operation of decadent power blocks.

The time has come to have dreams, hopes as tangible as an A.P. dateline and not far off." 

Robert Townsend in New York Times Book Review Section, April 30. 1972

Voice From The Back: Pay up or die (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pay up or die

“The National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which authorises drugs for prescription in England and Wales, is set to reject Glivec, which was developed to combat chronic myeloid leukaemia. Data presented to the American Society for Clinical Oncology show that it is three times more effective than existing therapies . . . The drug is expensive costing between £19,000 and £28,500 per patient per year, depending on dose. But the results on first chronic myeloid leukaemia and now gastro-intestinal stromal tumours suggest it is a life-saver” Times (28 May). A life-saver perhaps, but only if you have the cash.

Marx and the Observer

In an article entitled “Life’s good. Why do we feel bad?” in the Observer (19 May) by Richard Reeves we find a rare reference to Marx. The article is the usual bleat about how despite rising living standards everybody seems to be less happy, but it has the merit of quoting Marx on the subject. “Karl Marx, who for all his faults knew a bit about capitalism, captured the keeping-up-with-the-Jones dynamic of market economics perfectly: ‘A house may be large or small; as long as the neighbouring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all the social requirements of a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace and the little house shrinks to a hut.’ With mass media, the palace doesn’t need to be next door – it can be beamed into our living rooms. And the competition doesn’t stop with the three-bed semi; it applies to our car, our children’s clothes, even our bodies.”

The height of nonsense

An obvious example of how capitalism is totally anti-human is how it makes you feel bad about having a small wage, a small car, or a small house but now, even just being small. In the New York Times (5 May) it is reported that some members of the working class in Japan in order to get a job or a spouse are subjecting themselves to a painful operation where their shinbones are cut in two, a brace is applied and they are taught to turn a screw so that metal pins can pull their bones apart a millimetre a day. As Ms Zhang of Beijing said from her hospital bed, “ I’ll have a better job, a better boyfriend and eventually a better husband. It’s a long term investment.”

Industrial scrapheap

The Channel 4 programme Old (23 May) gave some horrendous statistics about the elderly poor in Britain today. “Almost 2.5 million old people in the UK live below the poverty line. More than 180,000 old people are physically abused in their homes every year. Every 24 seconds an old person falls victim to crime. The decomposing bodies of 1,000 old people are found in their homes every month. More than 21,000 old people are living in hotels for the homeless.” Capitalism is a harsh competitive system and reserves its most callous treatment for the impoverished elderly, an aspect of capitalism that young workers today would do well to consider when contemplating their futures.

Shady Deals Inc

When attending primary school young workers are indoctrinated with the ideas of hard work, thrift and honesty. But from some of the stories that we hear about “our betters” they must have skipped those lessons. In Chris Ayres’s Wall Street Diary in the Times (6 June) we read about some of the antics of the owning class. “The Vice-President of the United States is facing an investigation for dubious accounting practices at his former firm. One of America’s richest business leaders has been indicted for orchestrating an international art scam. Two top finance executives at two separate energy companies have died from self-inflicted bullet wounds – amid an industry-wide trading scandal. Then there is the investment research scandal being played out on Wall Street; the widespread fraud in the telecommunications industry; the shaming and ultimate destruction of the Andersen accounting firm; and, of course, the collapse of Enron, the energy company that triggered the whole sorry story.”

Shady Deals plc

“Fee-greedy investment bankers, duplicitous analysts, shifty accountants and fat-cat executives may have perpetrated a share-bubble conspiracy lapped up by gullible investors that has brought corporate America into disrepute. But as the British economy loses its sheen, the self-preservation society that is the Square Mile is itself becoming tainted by sleaze. From alleged spread-betting insider-dealing rings to false accounting scandals, corporate Britain has witnessed a string of dubious transactions and dodgy practices. Corporate investigators have told the Observer that scams which were under wraps during the good times are now coming to light. In recent months, there’s been a significant increase in the number of fraud cases they have been asked to investigate” Observer (9 June).

Thatcher and the left

Peter Mandelson, the Labour MP and close adviser to Tony Blair has written an article in the Times (10 June) where he tells us that the Labour Party is now Thatcherite. “No serious challenge on the Left exists to Third Way thinking anywhere in the world. This is hardly surprising as globalisation punishes hard any country that tries to run its economy by ignoring the realities of the market or prudent public finance. In this strictly narrow sense, and in the urgent need to remove rigidities and incorporate flexibility in capital, product and labour markets, we are all ‘Thatcherite’ now”. This is the Labour Party that the SWP, SA and various other leftists will urge workers to vote for at the next election!

Editorial: David Lloyd George and “dastardly” conduct. (1913)

Editorial from the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every age has its representative types, and the type of our time is that sinister figure in politics known as the Right Hon. David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

He perfectly reflects the cant and hypocrisy of the psalm singing sweaters who own and control the means of life in this auspicious and happy era.

He comes into the glare of present publicity by his dealings in “Marconis.” Part of the story has been told before the capitalist committee now sitting, but a short survey of the affair will be useful.

Sir Rufus Daniel Isaacs, K.C., the Attorney-General, has a brother, Godfrey Isaacs, who is Managing Director of the Marconi Company. Having made himself responsible for selling 100,000 shares in the company, Godfrey offered Rufus 10,000 shares at £2 each, which the latter bought. Thereby Godfrey Isaacs netted about £9,000 profit, but as Rufus had plenty of money he did not mind this.

Sir Rufus then approached Mr. David Lloyd George, telling him it was “a very good investment,” and that “these shares would undoubtedly rise in value.” The “poor but honest” Chancellor, of course, could not resist the bait of “ninepence for fourpence”—not the mythical ninepence he promised working men under the Insurance Act, but a real, live “ninepence.”

On April 17th, therefore, Mr. Lloyd George “bought” 1,000 shares at £2 each from Sir Rufus, although the issue of these shares was not authorised by the company until the 18th (Attorney General’s evidence, March 25th, 1913). He did not pay for the shares, but within two days he sold 357 of them, and by the third day 500 more, Therefore he sold all but 143 of them and in three days netted a profit of £743 !

Unearned increment ! How the words used to trip from the lips of the “Welsh tribune” at Limehouse and elsewhere in his campaigns up and down the country ! Listen to his denunciation of the wicked, idle landlord : —

“He doesn’t even take the trouble to receive his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks to receive it for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to spend it for him. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function is stately consumption of wealth produced by others.” (Limehouse, 30.7.09.)

What difference is there between the idler drawing a rent-roll from land he doesn’t make or till land Lloyd George ? The latter buys through a broker or a friend shares in a concern 3,000 miles away. He doesn’t operate the plant, in fact he hasn’t seen it. His chief point is that the company is in far-away America. “He is not concerned with the work or how it is done”—or paid for. His chief concern was expressed by him in his evidence before the Marconi Committee in the statement: “I wanted to know whether it was likely to turn out an investment that would give a fair dividend” (31.3.13). And again on March 23rd of the current year, when he confessed that “I thought it would be a thoroughly good investment.”

Men from East to West, from San Francisco to St. Louis, will toil, building stations, operating instruments, sending messages ; men will be sweated and risk their lives as operators in ocean liners, and all the time David Lloyd George will wait at Downing Street to see the “divi” come rolling in. He can’t always wait for “divi,” and so he gambles on “Change”—but please don’t call it gambling : it is simply investment !

On both grounds he is condemned as a canting hypocrite. He spends his time denouncing unearned increment when it takes the form of the plunder collared by the absentee landlord, but never a word against the swag filched by the absentee shareholder. While he is rousing the workers against the parasite landlord, the equally parasitic industrial capitalist is left in peace to continue his sweating system.

Lloyd George has, indeed, done good work—for the factory owners.

When he sat in “opposition” he bitterly denounced monopoly. The American ones came in for his special condemnation. Yet the wily Welshman readily invests his money in one of the latest American monopolist concerns, and one that has already started fighting its competitors in the courts and buying out the most dangerous, just as Pierpont Morgan fought Carnegie in the Steel Trust.

Lloyd George lives in a nice house in Downing Street, full of the comforts associated with a capitalist Minister’s lot. He has another house at Criccieth in Wales, and, still not satisfied, he looks around for further quarters, and negotiates for yet another house, at Walton Heath, in Surrey, where golf links and other luxuries of an expensive kind can be revelled in. But with tears in his voice he pleads before the Committee, “Cannot a man fifty years of age have one house to call his own ?”

A man of fifty ! Pity the working man who reaches that age ! What bitter disappointment awaits the toiler who looks forward to having a house to call his own worth £2,000 (like Lloyd George’s) when he reaches fifty !

What does Lloyd George care about the aged worker ? Should a toiler be so unfortunate as to reach fifty, then, under David’s Insurance swindle, he suffers to the extent of 3s. each week for his misfortune in living so long !

A little insight into George’s past will show how callous he is to the lot of the workers in the December of their days.

During the life of the last Tory Government a Commission was appointed to investigate the cost of Old Age Pensions. Lloyd George was chosen from the “Opposition” to sit upon it. What did he say ? Listen to his confession made at Newcastle, April 14th, 1903, and quoted in his own book, “Better Times” (p. 6).

“I sat as a member of an old age pensions Committee—appointed by a Unionist Government. … In the evidence we heard we found a greater difficulty than giving old age pensions. We found amongst the workmen, especially in the unskilled trades, that men rarely even approached the confines of old age. They are exhausted by the way, still in the prime of life. When we came to fix our pensions at sixty-five we found that large masses of the workmen would, never live to benefit by it.”

Seven years after that startling confession Lloyd George became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he brought in an Old Age Pensions Bill. No longer on the Opposition side, but occupying now a seat in the Government, he was faced with his own statement that it was no good giving pensions to men at sixty-five because most men are crushed out whilst still in the prime of life. So this oily-tongued time-server brought in a Bill fixing the age for pensions, not at sixty-five—that was too high—but at seventy, as there would be more dead by that time, and less money to pay out !

In spite of this fine example of the mean and contemptible actions of this lawyer advance agent of his party, workingmen still follow at his call.

The man who, at the desire of the exploiters, framed an Insurance Bill which, in his own words, “is framed in a way to completely protect them” (the employers); the man who, in in the interest of the wealthy ship-owners, raised the load-line for cargo and thereby sends seamen to their death ; the man who, for his actions during the “All Grades” railwaymen’s dispute earned the praise of the employers—this man is he who complains of “dastardly” conduct against him ! Who has really been guilty of “dastardly” conduct ? With the hollow and mocking results of nearly seven years power before them it should be no difficult task, in spite of Lloyd George’s oily tongue and Stock Exchange cunning, for the smitten and spat-upon working class to decide. Will they ? We shall see.

Katrina – not just an ill wind (2005)

From the October 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Driving along the freeways abutting on the Gulf of Mexico it comes as a shock to see so many signs announcing that you are travelling a designated evacuation route. For this is a part of America which is well accustomed to the extremes of stormy weather. But Hurricane Katrina was something utterly out of the ordinary. We are still digesting the accounts of the horrors endured by people who were caught in the path of the hurricane and of their suffering since then. What lives they had have been wrecked; what possessions they relied on have disappeared into the floods with the corpses, the rubbish and the sewage; what they saw as their future has been literally blown away. So far there has been no reliable estimate of the loss of life: does it run into hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands? For those who worry themselves about such issues there has been no informed guess of how much the disaster will cost the insurance companies; Merrill Lynch, who know a thing or two about pushing money around, have come up with the figure of $22 billion. And George Bush, who could once luxuriate behind apparently unassailable ramparts of support, has had to contemplate the erosion of his popularity.

In its destructive power and the misery it unleashed against the people of the Gulf States, Katrina was extraordinary. But in some important respects it was completely normal and predictable. To begin with there was the stampede of politicians – in particular George Bush – to avoid any responsibility for the catastrophe and for the official failure to rush help to the victims. Apart from the damage to roads, buildings and the like, the hurricane’s breach of the levees protecting New Orleans was crucial. Bush told a TV reporter that “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees” but that was simply untrue. Business Week newspaper, for example, thought differently: “Engineers have known for years that New Orleans’s levees couldn’t withstand anything above a category 3 hurricane” (Katrina was category 5). In fact as recently as 1998 the category 2 hurricane George forced the water levels up to a foot below the top of the levees. In 2002 a local New Orleans newspaper concluded from its investigation that a major hurricane would devastate the region.

Money

Anticipation of the breach should have led to the levees being heightened and strengthened, saving a lot of lives and preventing untold misery for the people. But before Katrina arrived on the scene the funding which could have improved the levees was cut by $71 million; a previous Secretary of Environmental Quality in Louisiana was angry enough about this to forecast that “a disastrous flood was inevitable”. One local emergency management chief thought that the cuts were imposed because “It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq and I suppose that’s the price we pay”. He might have put it differently – for capitalism killing people is more affordable than protecting them from harm.

So what of the people who lived in the path of the storm, of the wind and the flood and whose lives were to be so dramatically affected by decisions on where money was to be spent? In the vast majority they were black and in the lower reaches of poverty. In New Orleans two thirds of the population was African/American, with a quarter of them officially graded as living in poverty. In the Lower Ninth Ward of that city, which suffered particularly badly in the flood, 90 percent were African/American with almost a third of them classified as living in poverty. In a flash of candour which must have caused acute anguish to her minders Barbara Bush, the mother of George Bush and the wife of the former president, shared her thoughts about this: “So many of the people in the area here, you know, were underprivileged anyway. So this [fleeing from the hurricane, from the floods, the fear, the death, then living in the squalor of emergency accommodation] is working well for them”

Poverty

Typically, the people living at or below the poverty line endure bad housing without proper plumbing, hot and cold water, a shower or a bath. It also means that, crucially in America , they could not afford a car or any other ready means of carrying out the official advice to evacuate the area before Katrina arrived – and that if they did manage to flee they would have no access to ready places of refuge. It seems obvious that such people should help themselves from damaged shops and stores, putting survival before capitalism’s property laws. They would not have been deterred to be told that this was looting, a very serious crime; nor would they have been impressed by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s apparent condoning of the same type of activity, when it suited him, in the case of Iraq: “Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things”. Perhaps Katrina had informed the looters that to be poor can be to suffer a desperately inadequate life style with miserable prospects and that the poorer you are the worse this is.

Katrina was a disaster of epic scale for the poor of the Gulf States, fleeing the winds and the waters, or cowering in some noxious shelter. There was some bad news also for the other side of the class divide. The firm Deloitte, who are called “consultants” (which does not mean they are readily available to give advice to anyone trying to get by on Social Security of any kind) calculated that the hurricane could have damaged parts of the American economy on a scale comparable to the events of 9/11. One of the firm’s spokespersons warned about the effect on the insurance industry, on tourism, leisure, hospitality and the stock market. In fact the stock markets in London and America hardly fluttered. In any case any tremors were overridden by the good news for the kind of people who may consult Deloitte. Arguing that the damage to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico would cause a shortage, the oil firms were quick to raise their prices. On the assumption that because almost a third of America’s coffee crop would have been stored in New Orleans the price of coffee on the market soared by 11 percent.

Profits

The construction industry – notably part of the Haliburton Group, which was once bossed by Vice President Dick Cheney and which prospers so well out of repairing the damage the American forces have done in Iraq – was eagerly preparing bids to reconstruct the damaged cities of the Gulf. Shares in Haliburton did not fall but went up by two percent. In England shares in Aggrreko, who supply portable power generators, soared by 7.5 percent and shares in Wolesley, which supplies plumbing and heating, were up by three percent. One financial adviser, after the obligatory acknowledgement that a lot of people had suffered terribly in the hurricane, had something of a song in his heart :

“The impact of events such as Katrina, while devastating for the

people involved, tend to be quite short-term and you should

be investing in America, or any other region for that matter, for the

long-term – at least five years and probably 10 or more. Over that

period, can you afford to be out of the world’s largest economy

and stock market, which has some of the best companies in the World?”

And how is the reconstruction likely to turn out? If the experience of the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami is any guide, the face of places like New Orleans will be changed for ever as luxury tourism is foisted on the place, leaving one or two small areas where a kind of sanitised memory is allowed to survive. The chairman of the New Orleans Business Council ominously spoke of how “to use this catastrophe as a once-in-an-eon opportunity to change the dynamic” of the city. Well, the people of New Orleans and of the rest of the world have been warned.

Socialism

Katrina was a disaster of epic proportions which no style of human organisation, even one based on communal ownership and control of the means of life, could have averted or controlled. But such a society would have prevented a calamity on the scale of New Orleans. A classless society, organised on the basis of human interests, would not have misjudged the power of Katrina, nor compromised the safety of its people in its path by undermining the strength of defences because it was financially advisable to do so. It would not have bungled any necessary rescue and support services. And as an open and democratic society it would not have been plagued by politicians disguising their true failures and impotence behind a screen of lies.

R. C.