Chapter Five: Reforms At Election Time (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, The Futility of Reformism

About 2½ weeks prior to the Mid-term General Election, during a televised speech on October 14, 1982 President Reagan, our leader at the helm, in a supposed non-partisan report on the economy, urged:

“We can do it, my fellow Americans, by staying the course.”

Meanwhile, below decks, the working class were at the oars and 11.6 million unemployed American workers were overboard in the high seas attempting to survive.

The candidates were all united on one basic issue—capitalism was unquestionably acceptable, but adjustments were needed and proper leadership was necessary. The reformist programs verified that the system was in no jeopardy whatsoever. The “leaders,” all apparently endowed with superior talents at problem-solving, masqueraded as opponents representing different ideologies that professed disagreements but maintained an unspoken alliance on fundamentals. The political stage-setting was customary; all items were concerned with the running of capitalism, while none stood for the interests of the working class.

Both the Republican and Democratic Parties echoed the same refrain of cutting down the federal deficits, keeping a hold on taxes and limiting governmental powers. A third candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Arizona came from the Libertarian Party. He sported an unconventional beard and ponytail, but appearances are no indication of revolutionary thinking. The Libertarian Party’s main thrust is to reform capitalism by attempting to curtail government interference until it eventually declines and is no longer needed. However, as they are not suggesting a replacement with socialism this notion becomes outlandish wishful thinking.

There were a total of 237 statewide ballot measures in 42 states with the Nuclear Freeze as the most common issue, followed by the Environment with four Western states seemingly concerned that the landscapes should not be sullied with discarded cans and bottles. Crime was also a prominent topic, and there were 27 ballot items dealing with taxes.

The State of Arizona had various measures on the General Election Ballot, submitted for voter approval or rejection. They ranged from establishing deposits and refunds for certain beverage containers, to a “nuclear freeze” proposal allied to a declaration of a “Peace Sunday.” The nine propositions were all described in a Publicity Pamphlet issued by the State of Arizona, typical of political trivia that was presented country-wide. The nuclear freeze issue was subsequently approved in 8 out of 9 states, with Arizona being the sole dissenter. Other specific issues included the regulation of ambulances and ambulance services; prohibiting bail for persons charged with or convicted of a felony who pose a danger to society; an amendment relating to the compensation of state elective and judicial officers; tax exemption for certain property in slum or blighted areas; the composition of the State Board of Education; establishing a system of permitting registration of voters at the time and place where they apply for a drivers license; and a recommendation by the Commission on Salaries for Elected State Officers to increase the salaries of Legislators.

All these propositions, were they to be approved or disapproved, bear no relevance to any of the real problems that beset propertyless workers, beleaguered with unemployment, insecurity, poverty and war. They constitute an enticement to the unwary to become involved in piddling non-issues.

The text of Proposition 201, dealing with the Nuclear Freeze issue, reads as follows:

“Be it enacted by the people of the State of Arizona:

Section I:Text of Transmittal. The governor shall prepare and transmit on or before December 1, 1982 the following communication to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and all members of the United States Congress:

  ‘The People of the State of Arizona recognizing that the safety and security of the United States must be paramount in the concerns of the American people, and further recognizing that our national security is reduced, not increased, by the growing danger of a nuclear holocaust between the United States and the Soviet Union which would result in millions of deaths of people in Arizona and throughout the nation; do hereby urge that the Government of the United States propose to the Government of the Soviet Union that both countries agree to immediately halt the testing, production and further deployment of all nuclear weapons, missiles and delivery systems in a way that can be checked and verified by both sides.’

Section 2: Peace Sunday — The Governor of the State of Arizona shall declare the last Sunday in May of each year to be Peace Sunday for the purpose of remembering those who died in combat, and to encourage the people of the State of Arizona to work for peace.”

Proposition 201 was accompanied by various arguments “for” and one “against.” The pro-argument given by the Phoenix Chapter of Business Alert to Nuclear War was unbelievably insensitive and tasteless with its heading in bold print: “Nuclear War And The Arms Race Is Bad For Business.” Immediately following this absurdity the first sentence reads as follows:

“The most profound result of accelerating our nuclear arms race is the eventual destruction of our people and our society, along with our business-economic system.”

Granted that the sequence in the sentence places “people” before the “business-economic system,” but to even mention the destruction of the system, and to apparently mourn its passing, in the same context of a catastrophe that could eliminate humanity, gives an insight into the warped approach that some supporters of capitalism possess. To discover such sentiments within a government publication would pre-suppose a sympathetic reaction from the powers-that-be. Of one thing you can be sure—socialist attitudes were not aired. Many religious groups were in evidence along with various bodies and individuals all clamoring for peace; arguing that with the present build-up of nuclear weapons “enough is enough,” and “the freeze is the first step.”

The argument against a Nuclear Freeze has been the assertion from President Reagan and his supporters that the U.S.S.R. is ahead of the U.S.A. in its nuclear power, and they want a verifiable reduction in arms to equal levels, prior to a freeze; coupled with the problem of appropriately being able to monitor Russian weapon development.

The whole question is insoluble, impractical and a complete waste of time. First, the colossal build-up of nuclear armaments has already been accomplished, it is a fait accompli. A so-called freeze will do absolutely nothing to diminish the potential for destruction that already exists. Second, the cause of war is inherent within capitalism—this is a chronic condition that is both irremovable and incurable as long as the system survives. Given a society organized as a gigantic market place, wars will continue to be fought over private property and related issues when diplomacy and negotiations fail. The big question is: will the “small” wars continue on a daily basis, as they have for decades, or will they be interrupted by a worldwide nuclear disaster? At the present time the U.S.A and the U.S.S.R. have the capability of destroying life on earth many times over. We are therefore being asked to sanctify the existing nightmare by calling a halt to further advancement of the madness, but at the same time doing nothing to eradicate the cause of the problem. If it were possible to introduce a so-called nuclear freeze tomorrow the conditions that could activate World War III would still remain—in fact, they always will until the system is removed. Incidentally, it was estimated in 1976 by the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute that within nine years about 35 countries will be able to manufacture atomic weapons. China joined the nuclear “club” in 1968; Britain, France and India are “members,” and many other nations may already have the weapons in their possession. The situation, therefore, becomes a global one, not limited exclusively to the two major powers, or for that matter within their control.

A “freeze” on nuclear armament production would be “bad business” for certain arms manufacturers; good business for the capitalist class as a whole who would be saved substantial tax sums. It would not change the status of the working class one iota. The possibility of both classes being wiped out by a nuclear war would remain undiminished, freeze or no freeze.

Crying out for peace, joining in peace marches, creating peace movements, deploring the nuclear build-up and writing pleading letters to heads of governments, are all activities that are useless from a practical standpoint because they ignore the cause of war. They are always fully manned by the reformists and supporters of capitalism—the culprit that is never properly identified or condemned, except by the socialist. Ironically, many of the “peace proponents” in the past have broken ranks when wars occur, willing to justify their change of policy under the banners of newly discovered ideals and revitalized nationalism.

The reformists, disregarding the causes of war and the true nature of capitalism, have permitted an unprecedented arsenal of the most horrendous weapons to be created. Then, after the stock-piles acquired a grotesque over-kill capacity, they once again ply their trade with fresh reforms that will preserve the creation but hopefully would prevent its further growth. Should the so-called freeze ever take place the world would still be left as a sitting target because the nuclear weapons would not have been deactivated but would still be ever-ready to fulfill their original function should the buttons be pressed. Capitalism has so far not been able to satisfactorily solve the disposal problem of ordinary nuclear waste, let alone the elimination of nuclear armaments which are firmly established as a supposed deterrent, akin to mutual terror, ora first-strike possibility.

It can be assumed that a nuclear war, should it erupt, will not be started as a result of democratic procedures, but will occur either through a surprise first strike initiative or through some kind of miscalculation or technical error—unlikely, but still a possibility, “Peace Sundays” and “Nuclear Freezes” notwithstanding. Further, according to the 1982-83 edition of Jane’s Weapons Systems, a London-based military survey, war in space is now feasible and aircraft-launched anti-satellite systems are the latest developments in the U.S. and Soviet arsenals, likely to destabilize the balance of power. Add to all the foregoing the existing “conventional,” germ and chemical warfare weaponry and the very contemplation of reformism as a practical solution becomes illogical and pathetically incomprehensible.

 II

Candidates for political office nation-wide discussed other issues that included unemployment, social security, crime and violence, a balanced budget, the environment, military affairs, abortion, prayer in the schools, water needs and education. Most of these questions ultimately involve decisions related to, directly or otherwise, the allocation of funds, the determination of priorities, together with the collection of revenues to defray expenditures. They are business matters concerned with the running of capitalism. When workers become involved in such considerations they abrogate their own interests in favor of their masters’.

Unemployment, referred to elsewhere, defies the rhetoric of the politicians together with the ingenuity of the professional economists. In times of world recession it assumes an international character that affects the majority of the countries, especially those that find themselves dependent upon each other for trade. The malady does not limit itself to national borders and therefore solutions are not discovered fortuitously by the candidates at election time. Capitalism always runs its course, controlling the performance of the administrators more than they would care to confess.

“Social security” is a misnomer for the reorganization of the misery and poverty of the elderly. Most receive meagre allowances at the age of 65 and, on average, survive for only a few years afterwards. The fund has reached a financial crisis with an expected need for new revenues of between $150 billion to $200 billion through the next decade, as reported by the Social Security Review Commission in November, 1982. Assuming that the system is kept afloat, it guarantees the recipients a sub-standard poverty level for their few remaining years.

When one considers the legal theft that occurs when workers produce surplus values for which no payment is given, and the legal violence unleashed by the state machine when wars are prosecuted, the illegal acts of individuals, deplorable as they might be, are put into proper focus. To discuss the pros and cons of handgun control, for example, and at the same time condone a society that can produce a nuclear war, which could destroy untold millions, is nothing short of political madness displaying topsy-turvy priorities. The imposition of stiffer penalties for crimes, the expansion of jail facilities, the attempts to control drug smuggling, are all doomed for failure. They deal only with the effects of a system that spawns anti-social behavior patterns caused primarily by antagonisms, conflicts and situations related to insecurity, poverty and private property. A study conducted by the Center for Applied Social Research at Northeastern University in Boston was published in an issue of the journal Crime & Delinquency in 1981. The study of capital punishment in New York from 1907 to 1963 indicated that the number of homicides increased slightly in the month after an execution was carried out. The researchers called the implication of their findings “ominous.” Of course, the evidence has always confirmed that punishment has never been an adequate deterrent to acts of personal violence and crime. Socialism cannot be expected to immediately eradicate 100 per cent of all forms of violence. There would certainly be no comparison, however, between the violence produced by capitalism as compared to the anti-social acts of a small minority, in socialism, who might well be genuine cases requiring medical attention, possibly hangovers from the previous era.

The Reagan administration has conceded that deficits in the Budget could crest between $150 billion to $200 billion for fiscal 1984. The politicians clamor for a balanced budget but the problem remains. This is not a working class issue—workers are challenged enough attempting to balance their own budgets, let alone those of the ruling class. It’s their system—let them figure it out, while we introduce a replacement!

Years ago the military sahibs of the British Empire, ensconced in their comfortable clubs, would delight in theoretical discussions of military maneuvers relating to past and present wars, sometimes using cruets and silverware to simulate the movements of armies. The technology of destruction has now escalated to the nuclear age. Their modern-day counterparts in the U.S. are now engrossed in the analysis of theB-1 bomber program, the contemplated MX missile horror, together with a host of other major weapons systems. Working class participation in such matters is tantamount to becoming involved in grandiose schemes for their own possible future demise. Alongside of these deadly considerations, incongruous concern is shown for “the environment” with the proper monitoring of air standards and the extension of cleanup deadlines. The reformists are intent on both a “strong America” and “a clean one.” We can only hope that the first aspiration does not, at some time, negate the second.

Abortion is a non-political issue as far as the socialist is concerned—a personal matter between the individuals, their medical advisors, and their conscience. It is presently being used by the politicians to suit their own purposes of demagoguery and hypocrisy. When politicians and priests evoke a supreme reverence for life by opposing abortion, they contradict their professed compassion and become charlatans with their support of wars and their acceptance of the conditions that give rise to them.

The educational system is under continual surveillance because it has the responsibility to produce potential workers equipped with the ability to function properly in a highly complex and technological society motivated by the profit incentive. In addition, pupils receive a nationalistic indoctrination that proves beneficial for military recruitment purposes and the prosecution of war. Currently, a minor furor has developed amongst candidates as to whether organized prayer should be allowed in schools. The socialist opposes all the supernatural, man-made fantasies of religion wherever they may occur, either inside or outside the schools. To the extent that the working class become socialist, religion will be rejected; socialist parents can then be relied upon to rebut any religious nonsense that the schools might offer.

The Los Angeles Times reported October 24, 1982 that 50 school officials recently met secretly with Attorney General George Deukmejian, the Republican candidate for Governor in California, who subsequently was returned to office. One might be deservedly skeptical of such anti-democratic procedures. However, Deukmajian did spell out to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that:

“Teacher strikes are illegal, and I will work to keep them so.”

Quite obviously the good governor is not a strong union man; neither apparently does he favor open public meetings, irrespective of the issues under discussion.

For the fourth time George Wallace was re-elected Governor of Alabama. It is interesting to recall that this apparently “reformed” segregationist and racist emerged on the national scene in 1963 when he personally blocked the school house door in an attempt to prevent federal officials from enrolling a black student in the previously segregated University of Alabama. A majority of black voters must have forgiven him, because without their support he would not have won as easily as he did, 60 per cent to 40 per cent. Apparently, in this instance, one past generation must surely have learned a lesson about bigotry which, sad to relate, was soon forgotten by another.

The final outcome of the election from the 66 million voters on November 2, 1982 was that the Democratic Party picked up 26 House seats and 7 governorships, with no gains in the Senate. One oilman, seeking re-election, spent $14 million, and lost; another shopping center tycoon $7 million, and lost; and other candidates also spent massive sums of their own money to no avail. Money is therefore not the automatic key to political victory. As is usual a large bloc of voters abstained from voting, and one wonders why. Were they apathetic, apolitical, disillusioned, or perhaps in need of a new, revolutionary presentation? We can but hope so. One thing is certain. The only clear message that the American working class who voted gave, was: carry on with capitalism. However, nothing is static, the future lies ahead, and the working class have a mission yet to be accomplished.

The 1984 U.S. General Election found eight Democratic Party presidential candidates competing with each other. One would reasonably assume that as they all belong to the same Party, they would more or less be in agreement with each other on basic reformist proposals. Superficially, at any rate, such is not the case. Once again, the ambitious leaders must convey the impression that they as individuals possess the talent, knowledge and charisma to solve problems that have defied their predecessors for well over two centuries.

In a three-hour, nationally televised marathon debate on January 15, 1984 at Dartmouth College, they peddled and argued the same old, time-worn hackeneyed issues. Proposals for reducing budget deficits were aired—but these were vague in content, without specific price tags. Cuts were favored for the military and agricultural programs, as well as holding down health care costs; a raise in taxes was suggested and additions for selected social programs. “Defense,” or rather armament strategies, were debated; a consensus agreed that a woman should receive strong consideration asa running mate. Apparently there was more agreement than controversy on the nuclear weapons freeze issue. The candidates criticized the U.S. military position in Lebanon, but no one volunteered exactly how to get out.

Walter Mondale, the front runner and former vice president, said that he would have a strong and effective policy to deal justly with all workers, businesses and farmers (my emphasis). Does such puerile, evasive nonsense deserve comment? At one point in the debate Mondale was challenged by one of his Party opponents who said, “You cannot lead this country if you have promised everybody everything.” Mondale denied he had done any such thing. Then he added, I think most pointedly, “America is nothing if it isn’t promises. That is what America is about.”

With some modifications, that is what reformism is all about— unfulfilled promises, wasted energy, and prolonged futility.

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

We may be much more entertained by charity now. But on account of the Band Aid format, we are now arguably less knowledgeable about why some people suffer terribly around the world – and in no better a position to put an end to it. 

(The Conversation)

Today, political scientists and pollsters use ‘the working class’ to describe members of the work force who do not have a college degree. By that definition, the number of working-class Americans has been declining as the country has grown wealthier and more educated. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 38 percent of Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2022, up from just 17 percent in 1980. There’s a major exception to that common definition, however. Marxist scholars use “working class” quite differently—typically encompassing anyone who depends on wages to survive, regardless of their educational experience. 

(Reason)

In fact, the Democratic Party, the party of the slavocracy, of Jim Crow and of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Vietnam War, has never been a party of the working class. It has, and will always be, a capitalist party. Sanders’ political role…is to use his nominally ‘independent’ designation to provide the Democratic Party with a veneer of credibility in order to contain opposition to the whole capitalist system. 

(WSWS)

What happened during the pandemic especially, was a good tutorial about how to do things. First of all, what pandemic showed us was the Hollywood utopian, you know, imagination of the future of humanity is absolutely bullshit, because when crises happen, people tend to help each other and be in solidarity, and they become even more, even loving, you know, towards each other. So we have to imagine politics as a, you know, natural disaster or like a disaster, like a pandemic, and we have to act like that.

(New Internationalist)

Bregman believes we should be more positive about human potential. ‘We’re at a point in our history where we have such amazing opportunities to make the world a wildly better place’, he says. ‘Our best days are in the future’. 

(Prospect)

A ‘very rare’ 77-year-old slice of the cake served at Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip’s wedding sold for £2,200 ($2,800) this week, according to auction house Reeman Dansie. The cake, which no longer looks edible, survived for almost eight decades since the wedding day on November 20, 1947.

(CNN)

Yunus’ claims to be overseeing a transition to ‘true democracy’, aimed at realising ‘social justice’ after the increasingly authoritarian rule of Hasina, are belied by the brutal attacks on garment workers

(WSWS)

‘The Turkish police catch 100 to 150 migrants every night. They have no mercy on them. They break their arms and legs. 

(BBC)

I’m all for supporting a new and viable political group but let’s look at what we already have before trying to reinvent the wheel.

(Guardian)

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

US elections: capitalism or capitalism? (2020)

From the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

America is at the cusp of deciding the nature of its future, or at least it thinks it is. It has two scarcely distinguishable options, Democrat Joe Biden and incumbent Donald Trump. The Trump presidency has already had an effect on America that will long outlast his second term, should he get one. The wildfires sweeping the West Coast have had fuel thrown upon them by the rapid destruction of what little environmental regulation there was before Trump. Nominal wages have gone up steadily over the last four years, but cost of living has been growing faster, far outstripping the growth in wages. This is to make no mention of the coronavirus crisis – the United States has seen an exceptionally high death rate – almost 200,000 cases as of writing. Liberals often wax lyrical about the death of ‘American culture’. While Trump’s campaign has undoubtedly had a palpable effect on the way political issues are discussed, how it is a death of American culture is unclear. Indeed, the liberals’ biggest failure was to miss the fact that the seeds for the Trump victory were sown by the Democrat presidencies. And this is the mistake they are repeating in 2020.

Popular populist

The shock from liberal commentators four years ago has still not worn off. The first term of Donald Trump’s presidency is coming to an end – and liberals are still in such disbelief that he might get a second. There is no attempt to empathise with the many working class Americans who voted for Trump – an immense irony, given editorials in the liberal press such as ‘When A Heart Is Empty’ (New York Times, 10 September). In it, David Brooks, a noted moderate conservative, writes, ‘[Trump’s] is not an intellectual stupidity. I imagine Trump’s I.Q. is fine. It is a moral and emotional stupidity. He blunders so often and so badly because he has a narcissist’s inability to get inside the hearts and minds of other people. It’s a stupidity that in almost pure clinical form, flows out of his inability to feel, a stupidity of the heart.’ How do we square this with the fact that Donald Trump won in 2016? Liberal commentators will struggle to.

The truth, contrary to Brooks’ charge of ‘emotional stupidity’ is that Trump has managed to win the hearts and minds of a huge amount of the American working class. How? By going against the establishment. Trump has criticised Hillary Clinton for being a Wall Street shill and a criminal, the Democrats for throwing America into war after war, and the mainstream media for consistently marginalising swathes of views – particularly those favoured by workers. The thing about these claims is that they are all correct. His Twitter, laughable as it may be, is so obviously not ghostwritten. It is unprofessional, direct, unpretentious – one might even say it is, in a rather odd way, down to earth. Trump has not taken himself to be entitled to votes. On the other hand, Joe Biden said to a black voter who was on the fence that, ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.’ Odd, coming from someone who thought desegregation would lead to his children growing up ‘in a racial jungle’, and that ‘poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids’. If these comments had come from Trump, they would be plastered on every headline. In this case, the liberal media tries to pass it all off as a joke (Washington Post, 22 May). It is precisely this difference between the Democrats and Trump that has led to the polarisation seen in American politics – the working class has realised that the Democrats have done nothing for them. The elitism and political careerism of the mainstream Democratic party has become an unmissable stain on their campaign.

Liberal elite

Of course, Trump’s greatest success is that he has managed to convince working class Americans that he represents them. Sure, he has pointed out some of their issues, but the policies he has put in place have done nothing to resolve them. Perhaps this just goes to show how out of touch the Democrats are: even lip-service to the American working class is more than they have done. This might be the backbone of the Trump strategy – if you convince enough working people, but also evangelicals, racists, and so on, you can garner enough of the vote to go back to serving your real constituency: the capitalist class. Trump’s policies have been mostly typical rightwing corporate welfare, combined with a sort of protectionism that hasn’t been seen in a while. Trump may be marking the end of the neoliberal world order, replacing it with something that could even more straightforwardly be described as American hegemony.

This is actually not entirely accurate: Trump has been forming close alliances with some of the world’s most ruthless dictators, notably the Brazilian Jair Bolsanaro, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in Trump’s cabinet, has become somewhat of a left-wing bogeyman, uniting nationalist and right-wing leaders worldwide, including Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage in the UK. Something bigger is at work, and it is keen to captivate ‘the masses’. Populism has become a political slur thrown around by liberals that describes this phenomenon. Socialists understand that there is a political and economic elite, whose interests are opposed to those of the workers. It’s clear why liberals, the elite in question, want to deny that this is the case. The rightwing has managed to capture the same sentiment but their claims about who the elite is differ from ours immensely.

The Democrats had a left-wing populist candidate – indeed, one who was popular with some Trump supporters: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders was the most radical mainstream American politician by far, drawing on a tradition that has been left mostly untouched since Eugene V. Debs, one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World. American social democracy could have tried to win the election by tapping into the anti-establishment sentiment that has taken hold of the workers. Of course, the mainstream Democratic Party, as a representative of capital (no different to the Republican Party) would rather have Trump than Sanders. Shenanigans in the election process were conducted accordingly. Even Trump pointed out that the alternative left-wing candidate, Elizabeth Warren, was only in the running to split the Sanders vote.

There is clear discontent within the American workers: particularly the youth. The majority of millennial Americans are not afraid of the word ‘socialism’; in fact they prefer it to ‘capitalism’. Liberals are keen to point out that they never lived through the Cold War, and that this might explain their lack of hostility to socialism. Or, it might be that thirty-year olds have lived through four recessions. For a great liberal hero, liberals seem remarkably unkeen to listen to Adam Smith: ’No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable’. Yet, the Democrats, based on nonsensical concerns of ‘electability’ keep advancing centrist candidates, who are just grist to Trump’s mill. The Democrats ran the electability experiment with Clinton. It failed. Yet they are trying it again with Biden. The workers feeling so disenfranchised that ‘did not vote’ makes a significantly higher category than either Trump or Clinton votes in 2016. Perhaps if ‘did not vote’ amounted to a vote for no president at all, the country would be better off.

At any rate, the election draws near. If Trump manages to secure another victory, the consequences for the environment will be disastrous. One would hope that working class Americans will have seen through the ruse, but as long as the mainstream opinions are strictly limited to Democrat and Republican, there is going to be little progress. A socialist might reasonably worry that the age-old choice between socialism and barbarism is being made, and that the people are choosing barbarism.

MP Shah

The Road to Nowhere (1996)

TV Review from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you are unlucky enough to be reading this in the middle of the British party conference season, spare a thought for those who stayed up into the middle of the night a few weeks back to watch the Republican and Democrat conventions in the US choose their Presidential candidates. Ignoring wiser counsels, this reviewer stayed up till four in the morning in an attempt to understand the alleged significance of it all, but to little avail.

In one sense it was an education — it certainly taught me a lesson. But in virtually every other sense it was at best a badly acted pantomime. The purpose of the BBC’s Road To The White House coverage (BBC1, 1 a.m., various nights) appeared to be to convince British viewers that mainstream politics over here does really have a purpose and is really about issues, in obvious distinction to its American counterpart. If so, it almost succeeded — but not quite, for the obvious similarities between the two served to override any superficial differences. Most notably there was an unashamed party of the Right opposed by a party heading at a rate of knots to meet it from the other direction. taking all the liberals and reformists with it. Then there was the glitz, choreography, leader-adulation and even much of the phraseology that was used which could so easily have graced Blackpool or Brighton just as it graced San Diego and Chicago. And to the extent that any issues were addressed— however fleetingly—they were the same too: jobs, mortgages, crime, education, health care, war and the other problems that flourish under the market economy. The "solutions" offered were little different — tax-breaks and subsidies, the restoration of “family values", and economic growth as a panacea without the first idea where it was going to come from.

Deep doo-doo

This was all as bad as it was familiar. But there was worse—much worse — and it would be possible to fill a whole edition of this magazine with examples of it. For those of you who missed it, there are just three samples of the political excrement served up at the conventions, and which will no doubt be manifesting itself here in some form or other shortly as the General Election campaign gets underway.

1. The pathetic sight of former Superman Christopher Reeve, paralysed from the neck-down and barely able to speak, wheeled on stage at the Democratic convention during TV prime-time to boost Clinton’s re-election chances with a halting plea for more compassion for the poor and disabled. Though Reeve isn’t actually a member of the Democratic Party, his appearance was exploited to the hilt by the Democrats’ spin doctors and even made the headlines on British TV news bulletins. Hasn't anybody told him the Democrats— like the Republicans—aim to crack down on welfare expenditure not increase it? Or that Clinton has in this very policy field just signed one of the most anti-working class pieces of legislation to be passed through Congress in recent years?

2. Bob Dole during his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination declaring that anyone in his party with racist views "knows where to find the door marked Exit". This of a party supported and funded by people who think the United Nations is run by an international Jewish cabal, whose candidates for office have included former (and unrepentant) leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, and half of whose membership believes that anyone without faith in the Christian god will burn in hell for all eternity (quite literally). Oh, and Dole’s party supports tougher immigration controls against the Mexicans, courting the Southern Redneck vote with all the subtlety and aplomb of an old-fashioned lynch mob.

3. Vice-President Al Gore, bringing tears to the eyes of the would normally have been expected to be in a catatonic trance during one of his mind-bogglingly tedious speeches. The reason for this unexpected bout of audience participation? The Veep's stomach-churning display of ham acting over his sister’s death from lung cancer caused by smoking cigarettes. This was so wooden and contrived that it would have been sufficient grounds to have him removed form even the most mediocre of amateur rep companies. If you are tempted to think this assessment is just a touch harsh, remember that Gore's wealthy dynasty of a family made much of its fortune through its ownership of Tennessee tobacco farms . . .  a fact which he didn't mention once.

There was a lot else besides worthy of comment from Pat Buchanan’s sinister appearance on the Republican platform to the sickening parade of rat-bag Kennedy’s for the Democrats, each one feted like royalty. But BBC pundits Charles Wheeler and Gavin Esler summed it all up quite nicely in their comments that the conventions really are too long these days, with viewers turning off in their millions. The fifty percent-plus of American voters who refuse to go to the polls in November will be demonstrating a similar contempt for a political process which increasingly relies on ignorance, trickery and blind acquiescence to sustain it. One day—just one day—they might turn their passive resistance to this nonsense into something more energetic and vibrant, and leave the political tricksters to play with their placards and balloons to their heart’s content, just like a baby shakes its rattle while grinning inanely at passers-by. They and the rest of the world who have seen through these fakers can then get on with doing something really useful—shaping a world truly fit for intelligent human beings to live in.

Dave Perrin

Material World: USA: Supporting The “Lesser Evil” (2010)

The Material World Column from the October 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many “anti-capitalist” personalities urge people to support one of the two main capitalist parties, the Democrats, on the grounds that they are a “lesser evil” compared with the Republicans. One example is film maker Michael Moore (see March issue, p. 10). Another is Paul Street, who has written two useful exposés of Obama – Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (2009) and The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (2010) (both from Paradigm Publishers). Although Street calls himself a libertarian socialist, he campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.

What they say versus what they do

How much less evil, then, are the Democrats?

A mistake that voters often make, especially during election campaigns, is to compare what the Republicans say and do with what the Democrats say. The relevant comparison is with what the Democrats do. The trouble is that when the Democrats have been out of office for a few years most voters no longer remember what they do. But those familiar with the record of the Clinton administration in the 1990s, for instance, or with Obama’s record as a congressman, might have noticed that between what the Democrats say and what they do yawns a chasm wider than the Grand Canyon.

 

In stump speeches in the mid-West, candidate Obama thundered against regional companies such as Maytag and Exelon. And yet these same companies, justifiably confident that he would do nothing to harm their interests, made large financial contributions to his campaign. Speaking before audiences of workers, Obama would denounce Maytag’s decision in 2004 to close the refrigerator plant in Galesburg, Illinois, entailing the loss of 1,600 jobs to Mexico. But he never raised the issue with Maytag directors Henry and Lester Crown, even though he enjoyed a “special relationship” with them.

Differences that make no difference

Many of the “differences” between Bush and Obama (or between McCain and Obama) make no difference. Or very little.

Obama initially opposed Bush’s military intervention in Iraq – hastening to add that he was not against all wars, God forbid, but only against “dumb” ones. Before leaving office, Bush initiated a gradual and partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Obama is pursuing the same course, breaking an earlier promise of rapid and complete withdrawal.

Bush was heading toward war with Iran. Obama is not. Probably. Hopefully. True, he did back off from his promise to meet with Iranian leaders. Commentator Steve Clemons informs us that “while there are individuals in the Obama administration who are flirting with the possibility of military action against Iran, they are fewer in number than existed in the Bush administration” (The Huffington Post, July 23, 2010). How’s that for reassurance?

At least there seemed, before the election, to be a clear-cut difference on the issue of offshore oil. How many people must have voted for Obama in horrified response to the exultant cry of John McCain and Sarah Palin: “Drill, baby, drill!” But in March 2010 Obama broke his campaign pledge and gave the go-ahead to offshore operations. The next month an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Another rig caught fire in September.

Obama won trade union support by promising a new law to facilitate union organizing – the Employee Free Choice Act. He also said he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to include stronger labour and environmental protections. We have heard nothing more of these things. Obama, we are told, does not want to look “pro-labour.”

And so the sad litany continues.

A political cycle

I do not mean to deny that in some ways or in some situations it may be better to have a Democrat rather than a Republican in the White House. For instance, isn’t it worthwhile just to reduce, even if not eliminate, the probability of an attack on Iran?

For the sake of argument, let us suppose that the Democrats are a significantly lesser evil. In that case, helping them into office does ward off a greater evil. But only in the short term. For once in office, Democrats come under irresistible pressure from their capitalist masters to break their “populist” promises, to disappoint, disillusion and betray the working people who placed their trust and hope in them. Some sink back into apathy and despair, while others fall prey to a racist or fascist backlash. These reactions give the Republicans their chance to return.

 

This is a recognizable political cycle. We have been through it before. Over and over again. Not only in the United States but (with variations of detail) in many other countries. Those who support the lesser evil play an essential role in constantly reproducing the cycle. They share the responsibility for its persistence. Support for the lesser evil also entails support – indirect and delayed, but support nonetheless – for the greater evil.

The difference that matters

For us as earthlings, the difference that matters is that between socialism and capitalism. Will we continue on our present course to the irreversible destruction of our home world? Or will we make the fundamental change needed to give us a decent chance of survival?

From this perspective, the differences between “greater” and “lesser” evils do not matter. Some capitalist politicians are totally subservient to the oil, gas, and coal corporations and recklessly oblivious to the looming danger. In their hands we are doomed. Other capitalist politicians are a little less subservient, show a limited awareness of the situation, and try to do something to mitigate it. Something, but much less than is absolutely essential. In their hands we are still doomed.

 

Pass or fail. The “lesser evil” is simply not good enough.

Stefan

Finance and Industry: American Democrats & British Labour (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the September 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

American Democrats & British Labour

In their economic policy and ideas on the way to deal with threats of unemployment there are many resemblances between the American Democrats and the Labour Party, and both have been much influenced by Keynesian theories. The following summary of the Democrats’ policy in the Presidential election, written by a correspondent of the Economist (6/8/60) could almost all of it have been written about the Labour Party and their slight differences from the Conservatives:

The Democrats assert that the past eight years have consisted of “ two recessions . . . .  separated by the most severe peace-time inflation in history,” and they blame the Administration's tight money policy for the present slackness in business. They blame credit restraint also for adding to the cost of servicing the growing public debt. The Democrats offer to end the tight money-policy and to set the economy moving forward at the brisk rate of 5 per cent, each year “without inflation.” How inflation can be avoided is not revealed in detail, although "a variety of remedies” is said to be at hand; since "monetary and credit policies properly applied" are among these, it is not clear how the Democratic policy would differ from the Republican in practice. The Democrats are, however, more willing than are the Republicans to counteract recessionary trends by prompt spending on public works and by temporary tax cuts.

It will be seen thal the Democrats and the Labour Party both favour low interest rates and a policy of cncouraging a greater expansion of production; and both accuse their opponents of having been responsible for inflation and high prices—forgetting how inflation went on when they were in power, up to 1951 in Britain and 1953 in U.S.A. Both parties believe that it is now within the power of a government to rule out for all time the possibility of a severe depression, and if anything approaching a severe depression does occur under Republican or Tory government it will be blamed on their perversity or ineptness.

Of course, experience of Labour and Democrats in office before the last war did not support their confidence about their powers. The British Labour Party came in with a promise to reduce unemployment (then at about 1,100,000) and saw it leap to 2½ million. In U.S.A. Roosevelt was elected in 1933 and seven years later unemployment in U.S.A. was still 14.3 per cent. (16.9 per cent., according to the American trade unions).

Exports

Mr. Macmillan has been exhorting business men to increase their exports and to cultivate what he called “export joy,” but he made it clear that what is wanted is an aggressive selling policy in overseas markets. As all the newspapers backed him up, as also did some trade union spokesmen, we may assume that selling more goods in foreign countries is generally considered "a good thing.”

But, elementary as it may appear to be, there are numberless people who write about trade who have never yet grasped that one country's exports are another's imports. So we read in the Sunday Dispatch (17/7/60) that many of the 400 of Britain's trade chiefs who are being urged by Macmillan to join in the fun of selling more abroad, could see nothing at all funny in the Japs "selling more abroad" in Britain. On the contrary, they ‘‘were seething yesterday as they digested the Jap pact," which "will flood Britain with an extra £3.000,000 worth of cheap Japanese goods." The ground for their anger was said to be the cheapness of the Japanese goods, against which British manufacturers could not compete—but it is certain that every additional ton of British goods sold in a foreign market through the export drive will work up some local manufacturer into seething indignation, too.

One commentator on Macmillan's speech (Daily Herald, 18/7/60) recalled that “this is the biggest ‘export crisis' session since the days when Sir Stafford Cripps went round the country exhorting British industry to make its post-war export drive." He might equally and more usefully have recalled an earlier speech of Sir Stafford Cripps, made during the war, when he said that “If . . . . we were to start once again the vicious circle of international trade competition we should be lost, and in a few years would be confronting another war."

World Food

Early in August a Freedom From Hunger Conference was held at Oxford under the auspices of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Lord Boyd Orr, former Director-General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization spoke, as he often has before, about the almost boundless possibility of increasing world food production:

If the nations of the world will cooperate, we can wash out the hunger of the world in ten years, and provide enough food for the increasing world population for the next 100 years." (Daily Telegraph, 2/8/60.)

He attacked the profit motive and complained that only in war-time will governments set out to provide food according to human need—at which lime, though he did not say this, they will also organize for destruction of life and property utterly without regard to cost.

The Assistant Director-General of U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Veillet-Lavallee, said that “there is now less to eat in the Far East than there was before the war,” and “in some parts of Africa 80 per cent. of the children are underfed or badly fed." (News Chronicle, 1/8/60.) He also stated that North America’s surplus wheat now amounts to 1,382,000 bushels a year and that it costs £350,000 a day to preserve the surplus which they hold because they cannot sell it.

Boom in land

For weeks the newspapers and politicians have been discussing the rocketing prices of land as more and more keen buyers chase after the shrinking acres available for use as building sites. Nearly ninety years ago Frederick Engels wrote a series of articles on the Housing Question for the Leipzig Social-Democratic paper Volkstaat. In them he had this to say about the situation then:

The growth of the big modern cities gives the land in certain areas, particularly in those which are centrally situated, an artificial and often colossally increasing value; the buildings erected in these areas depress this value, instead of increasing it, because they no longer correspond to the changed circumstances. They are pulled down and replaced by others. This takes place above all with workers’ houses which are situated centrally and where rents, even with the greatest overcrowding, can never, or only very slowly, increase above a certain maximum. They are pulled down and in their stead, shops, warehouses and public buildings are erected. Through its Haussmann in Paris, Bonapartism exploited this tendency tremendously for swindling and private enrichment. But the spirit of Haussmann has also been abroad in London. Manchester and Liverpool, and seems to feel itself just as much at home in Berlin and Vienna. The result is that the workers are forced out of the centre of the towns towards the outskirts: that workers' dwellings, and small dwellings in general, become rare and expensive and often altogether unobtainable, for under those circumstances the building industry, which is offered a much better field for speculation by more expensive houses, builds workers’ dwellings only by way of exception.

But what goes up sometimes comes down equally fast and some land booms end in a crash. There are reports already that much of the recently built office accommodation is not meeting additional demand but squeezing out existing older buildings. The Star (19/7/60) had the following about a land crash in Venezuela:

Just when there is a great to-do about soaring land values in Britain here is some news about a land boom that has gone bust.

Out in Venezuela they have had one of the biggest slumps in land values since the famous Florida crash in the 20’s.

Office blocks, houses and property in Caracas have come tumbling down in price with the growing inability of Venezuela to sell her glut of oil in world markets.

In Caracas landlords, who three or four years ago could demand almost any price for accommodation, are now virtually bankrupt. For most of them have raised huge loans on inflated values, which have disappeared over night.

According to the Star some of the depressed property in Venezuela was backed by British and American insurance companies.

Edgar Hardcastle

New pamphlet (2023)

Pamphlet Review from the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revolution Not Reform. By Jordan Levi. World Socialist Party of the United States. 70 pages (with notes). ISBN 9781097623600.

This pamphlet, in booklet form, is a simple exposition of the case against capitalism and reformism and for socialism by a member of our companion party in the United States.

Two of the reformists discussed — it was written in 2019 — are Bernie Saunders (of whom the author was originally a supporter) and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Both claim to be socialists but their programme shows that they favour the wages system ‘but just want wages to be higher’; that they favour private ownership ‘but just want small and big business to have a level playing field’, that they still think housing, food, etc should be produced for sale ‘but just want them to be cheaper’. As the author comments, ‘sounds pretty capitalist to me’.

The idea that Russia, China, Cuba and Venezuela were or are socialist is debunked and they are shown as state capitalist to various degrees. Leninism is distinguished from the views of Marx and Engels as a distortion of them. The final chapters speculate on what the early days of socialism, as a classless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit, might be like.

Written in a chatty style it is easy to read, with the footnote references confined to the last 20 pages. It can be read in one go and so can be a useful short introduction to socialist ideas.

Copies can be obtained from our Head Office at 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN. Price £5 (postage included). Cheques payable to “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”. Paypal payments to spgb@worldsocialism.org

How they choose the U. S. President (1952)

From the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Republican and Democratic Parties of the U.S.A. held their conventions in Chicago in July. The main purpose of these conventions is to adopt a party platform and to nominate a candidate for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the. U.S.A. The conventions then dissolve to be born again four years later.

Time, the weekly news-magazine published a guide to the American conventions. The introduction to the booklet said it contained the history, highlights and highjinks of past conventions, and the customs, procedures and rules governing the current conventions and that what the America citizen would see and hear on radio and television would often be an extension of the backroom bickering and manoeuvring that would take place behind the scenes.

It was estimated that between 50 and 60 million viewers would be able to see the conventions on television.

The convention setting is described as a uniquely American scene. So let’s have a look at it through the courtesy of Time magazine

A party convention, the Paris newspaper Le Matin explained gravely to its readers in 1948, is “a manifestation typically American, where politics, patriotism and the music hall mingle to create an atmosphere which at the same time becomes a country fair, a religious meeting, and a public reunion.”

Its streets hung with bunting, the rugs and the best furniture carefully removed from hotel lobbies, gaudy welcome signs plastered across the honky-tonks on South State Street, Chicago will have readied itself for the avalanche of delegates, bands, elephants, donkeys, straw hats and rumpled seer-suckers. Convention planning committees will be besieged with impossible requests. One delegate in 1948 asked for 20 cases of whisky, another for a room out of range of alcohol fumes.

At Philadelphia, in 1948 (where the previous convention was held), practised scavengers could go from one suite to another, pick up combs, cigarette holders, furniture polish, coffee, doughnuts, beer, cheese, crackers, gum, candy, soft drinks, nail files, noise- makers, bottles of deodorant, tickets for door prizes and enough literature to start a wastepaper business. In relation to the above it should be explained that campaign managers for the candidates usually set up their headquarters in a hotel. Minor candidates might have a single hotel suite, but the bigger, more prosperous headquarters might occupy a rambling network of reception centres, press rooms and strategic hideaways, with corps of press agents, pretty secretaries, and prettier models.

Much of the circus and party-time atmosphere is created by people with nothing better to do. Regarding the delegates, a large number come to the convention pledged to vote for certain candidates, but the pledges are not always as meaningful or as weighty as they sound. Some are firmly committed to their candidate by state primary laws or by party understanding, and will stick to their commitments as long as their man has a chance for the nomination. Some are pledged through the first ballot only; many others have only the thin moral commitment of a "beauty contest” primary. Some state delegations will vote solidly behind their leaders, others have more renegades than regulars.

Supporters of each candidate go after these waverers like a party machine in miniature. They watch opposing candidates carefully, send out trial balloons to test the direction of the convention winds. They plant rumours, send them filtering down through the hotel lobbies and out to the convention hall. Heads of state delegations still in the doubtful columns are courted like queens at a high-school prom. Leading candidates try to give an impression of invincibility: get on the bandwagon before it’s too late. The dark horses play the opposite tune: it’s too early to tell; hold tight and wait for the break.

Timing of individual campaigns is worked out in meticulous detail. The Dewey manager in 1948, for instance, announced the support of a few new states each day to build up the impression of a swelling tide of support, were able to override all opposition on the thifd ballot. A planted gallery at the 1940 Republican Convention, setting up its "We want Wilkie" chant, gave a push to the Wilkie bandwagon.

When the convention opens, the bickering that has been going on in the hotel rooms and lobbies moves to the floor of the convention hall. But first come the time-honoured preliminaries. At the opening of each session, the National Anthem is sung and prayers are offered. With sweeping impartiality the conventions are prayed over by clergymen of every religion and denomination that can be squeezed into the programme. At the 1940 Republican Convention, prayers were led by a Rabbi, a Lutheran pastor, a Christian Scientist, a Roman Catholic cardinal, an African Methodist Episcopal bishop, a Presbyterian minister, the chancellor of a Roman Catholic archdiocese, a Baptist minister, a Protestant Episcopal bishop, a Methodist Episcopal minister, and the chaplain of the Connecticut state senate.

A potential bombshell at the convention is the report of the Platform Committee—the final, polished result of argument and compromise that have been going on since long before the convention opened.

Much of the lobbying at the convention is done at open hearings before this committee. The committee listens tolerantly to most proposals, but is predisposed to a middle-of-the-road position wherever possible.

The platform may actually be written by two or three men in a back room, while the rest of the committee listens patiently to the people grinding their axes. Tactics differ, but the platform is designed to win, not alienate votes.

The end of each nominating speech becomes a signal for a wild demonstration. A parade begins to snake around the convention floor, picking up new delegations as it winds round the aisles. The candidate's band plays his campaign song and the air is filled with whistling, singing, shouting. The demonstrators try to convince everyone that a bandwagon is on its way. Wiser political heads scan the hall carefully to see which delegations have not joined the parade.

In recent years the tendency has been more towards theatricals than pure noise. During the Stassen demonstration at the last Republican gathering, a bevy of strong, young men carried on their shoulders a rowboat occupied by a shapely blonde in a satin sailor suit. The local florists presented a liberty bell made of flowers to President Truman in 1948. Inside were 48 pigeons. Most of them fluttered out into the hall, rafter-bound, some perching on electric fans and sending down a shower of tail feathers.

Floor demonstrations run on until the wind leaves their sails, and succeeding parades are diplomatically permitted to go on as long as their predecessors did. But nominating speeches are limited to about twenty minutes, seconding speeches to five.

The last-minute business begins in earnest. State leaders haggle for favours—the Vice-Presidency, Cabinet offices, pledges of support in state election contests, key jobs in the party itself. The convention city is abuzz with rumours of significant deals and trades.

The emphasis shifts from the unwieldy convention to the more flexible caucuses where party leaders meet —sometimes in hotel rooms, away from the hubbub and ballyhoo of the main arena. It is in such small meetings that class and sectional interests can be brought to bear effectively.

Then the tired delegates want to finish up and go home. But if they leave the convention wearily, they know they have been through an experience that is the fibre of American politics. The national convention provides a setting where smart men can gamble and manoeuvre . . . Time magazine’s guide also tells us that each year the bleating and bawling International Live Stock Exposition—“ The Supreme Court of live stock shows" is held in the same hall as this year’s convention.

We have of course emphasised the circus-like aspect of the American political conventions and given an idea of the trickery and manoeuvring that takes place. But when Time magazine published the booklet and sent it free to anyone in this country who wrote up for it, they presumably meant it as a general guide to the U.S.A. party conventions.

One can enjoy a good laugh. But are the conferences of the British Labour Party or Tory Party all that different? There may be less ballyhoo, and the circus atmosphere may be considerably reduced. However, one has doubts whether there is less trickery and manoeuvring. It would be difficult to claim that the British worker is any more class conscious or has a greater understanding, of the political parties than his American counterpart.

D. W. Lock

He gave us Hell! (1973)

From the February 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the myth-shrouded images of capitalism’s politicians — the image of rich man, strong man, clever man and so on — there exists a place for common man, the one who climbs up from simple origins and thereby proves that buried somewhere beneath the privilege and suppression of capitalism there is a streak of essential hope.

Such a man was Harry Truman, who was President of the United States between 1945 and 1952 and who died in the last days of 1972. Truman, who came of an unpromising family background, was a failed mine prospector, oil man and haberdasher before he went, surrounded by cronies, into Kansas City politics in the Twenties. He was aided in this venture by the patronage of fearsome Boss Prendergast, who dominated the Democratic Party in Kansas City and Prendergast helped Truman to become first Judge and later Senator. Clearly, Truman was a fast learner and a slick worker; Prendergast however was not famous for a reverence for the legal niceties and his record of bribery and corruption was halted in 1939 by a 15-year prison sentence for tax evasion. Truman adroitly managed to avoid any of the Prendergast mud sticking to him.

In the Senate Truman soldiered on until in 1944 he emerged, as the saying goes, as a compromise between Henry Wallace and James Byrne as Vice-Presidential candidate to run with Roosevelt. By that time Roosevelt’s rule over the massive war machine of American capitalism was of great political importance. All over the world, workers who thought it their duty to fight and to die in the interests of their masters regarded Roosevelt as a great, comforting father figure. When he died, and Truman was thrust into the Presidency, a tremor of unease ran through the workers of the Allied countries. Who was this little man, known till then only for posing for a leggy picture with Lauren Bacall? Was he strong (in other words ruthless) enough to keep up the war? Would he be willing to kill enough workers on the other side? There was not long to wait for the answer.

Within months of taking over Truman had played his part as one of the victorious jackals of Potsdam, tearing up the carcass of Europe and the Far East and redrawing the frontiers to make the focal points of future conflicts. And he had ordered the use of the atomic bomb on the cities of Japan — upon live, warm, feeling human beings who turned into dust beneath the new horror weapon unleashed by the little man in the White House. Truman said later that he had cleared it all with Stalin. In this country the Attlee government set its course as the first majority Labour government in British history by also approving this act of cold-blooded mass murder.

Fortified, Truman gave the order for the manufacture of the American H-bomb — again approved, and copied by, the Labour government. He rushed America into the Korean war, and arranged afterwards for his side to be called the United Nations, which presumably was meant to make everyone feel better about it. It is said that he did not realise the possible consequences of these decisions — as if there is anything unusual about that. His sacking of the fabulously popular General McArthur was a calculated risk in which the calculations came off.

In 1948 the Republicans made the most of Truman’s difficulties in trying to control American capitalism, fighting the election on the slogan “Had Enough?” Truman, urged on with the battle cry “Give ’em hell, Harry”, fought a peppery campaign and secured his historical place as the little man made good when he upset all predictions by beating the smooth New York lawyer Dewey. In fact his was a shrewdly judged campaign. Truman gave up in 1952, just in time to avoid the Eisenhower landslides.

When he died Truman was widely described as a “great” American president. Presumably the word means that he was always ready to do whatever dirty work capitalism required of him. In the system’s long history of trickery, suppression and butchery no leader will deserve a more prominent place.

Ivan

Greasy Pole: The mass debaters (2008)

The Greasy Pole column from the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who will win the race? Which horse is your money on? Will we notice when they win?

The excitement is killing me. Who has seen whiter, glossier, teeth and lies whiter and glossier still than those that were bared on television during the recent debates between Democrats and Republicans? The race culminating in the presidential trophy in late 2008 is solidly on, with these wealthy members of the capitalist class vying for leadership of the world’s most prosperous land, brought to them by the generous contributions of our dear readers’ unpaid surplus value.

These sellers of capitalist reforms are so impeccably dressed and groomed, so charming and witty, so passionate in their determination to give a structurally exploitative society a new lease on ideological life, that it might well take an Odyssean resistance to temptation on your part to keep from falling for their well-oiled sell, written and rehearsed with a large team of marketing professionals from behind the curtains.

Obama

Senator Obama, for all his oozing liberal rhetoric and strong likeability factor, while an Illinois Democratic senator has always supported a free market system. Isn’t that the one in which most of us must work so hard to produce free surplus value for our employers that we don’t even have enough free time to ourselves? One of the most popular bills that he signed in 2007, the Shareholder Vote on Executive Compensation Act, also known as “Say On Pay,” allowed shareholders to limit the inflated salaries of corporate CEOs but while this was easily and incorrectly perceived as a Robin Hood move, the reality was that studies in the Wall Street Journal had previously demonstrated that poorer CEO performance was correlated with more inflated salaries, and also that in economically troubled companies, worker morale suffered the most when CEOs were receiving pay of exceptionally bloated dimensions. In short, fiscal policies and laws must attempt to look after the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, even at the minor expense of individual capitalists. Behind each liberal dream sits a wallet somewhere waiting to bulge.

Obama was further criticized and praised last year for spending $18 billion on promoting merit pay of the nation’s teachers by cutting costs from the NASA Constellation Program, delayed now by 5 years. On the surface, noble and caring, no? Well, in capitalism the only nobility are the ones who still own parts of the land, and even the most caring sentiment finds a way out of the heart and into the coffers of the rich. His plan to improve merit pay for teachers was harshly criticized by the National Education Association (the largest labour union in the U.S.), the Urban Institute and the Cato Institute, on the grounds that merit pay could actually end up favouring schools in better neighbourhoods whose track records were stronger as a result of the inflow of local resources, could lower the morale of teachers owing to the resulting competition between them, and could create a new expensive bureaucratic superstructure overseeing the programme itself. Isn’t it sickening that in capitalism resources cannot be directly accorded to those who deserve it the most, our children’s teachers, without producing such negative consequences upon the institutions and atmosphere in which our children are learning?

Obama is also on record for stating that he is not opposed “to all wars, only dumb wars” (famous Fall 2002 speech at the anti-war rally at Chicago’s Federal Plaza). While urging for a date by which de-escalation of the militarization of Iraq should begin, Obama has also consistently refused to actually cut funding for the Iraq War. Capitalism makes it hard for seemingly honest, intelligent and good-intentioned politicians such as Obama to take a solid stance against the murder of the innocent (who are always the ones in war to die in greater numbers than the intended targets), even for those politicians who would likely come across as largely anti-war in a private conversation (if they too openly challenge the status quo, they may be attacked for undermining the war on terrorism – and as a result of their careful public manoeuvring, their platform always seems unpredictable and inconsistent).

Clinton

Hillary Clinton lost the Iowa caucus but won the Democratic Party primary in New Hampshire. She is thus very much in the race to become her party’s presidential candidate at this time, with the biggest next date that may tip the scales in favour of Clinton or Obama what is dubbed by the press Big Tuesday on February 5th (something to get so excited about when we get home from work that day). Clinton is garnering a lot of support for her life-long struggle to medically insure all Americans, however she no longer advocates a single-payer insurance system as she once did and as all other capitalist nations around the world presently provide. Another example of the compromise she had to make to remain a viable leader of the Democratic Party, and a perfect example of how the needs of capitalism so taint the original ideals of those running for big offices that by the time they arrive there, they look, smell and sound like anyone else in the White Lie House. Indeed, the only Democratic Party candidate who does presently advocate a single-payer insurance plan is John Edwards, who is presently tailing significantly behind the other two in the race.

Hillary Clinton is assuredly not going to be making the world any safer from war, either. It is true that she has worked to improve the medical and psychiatric treatment benefits available to veterans, thus leading one to assume that she is more willing to improve in the patching up of those who fought abroad than in preventing their being massacred physically and emotionally there in the first place. However, as the potential leader of one of the world’s great powers, her job will be to make sure that she protects the economic interests of this country’s industries and their standing in the marketplace as a whole. Rather than attempting to make the world safer from war, her own website recites the same sort of patriotic dribble one finds frothing out of the mouths of every other leader running for president, in her case: “every member of our armed forces will receive a fair shot at the American dream when their service is over.” We all know, of course, how “fair” the American dream is, especially the millions of American presently failing to pay off their mortgages at a landslide rate, and the volunteers at the 51,000 food pantries across our “fair” land that are presently providing food assistance to the millions of extra customers turning up at food banks in recent years (according to America’s Second Harvest “2006 Hunger Study”).

Ron Paul

Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, actually came out in the recent debates the strongest opponent of the Iraq War. His opposition seemed partially fiscal in nature, as he deplored the $300 billion spent on it thus far. But it was also ideological, as he felt the arming of groups who later turn against the United States (e.g., the Kosovars who aided Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden) had acted to fuel increased national insecurity rather than security, and increased terrorism rather than less. And of course, Ron Paul is probably right on this score, surprisingly coming from a member of the Republican Party, the party that always advocates small government but seems in each office hell-bent on creating a bureaucratic gigantean proto-fascistic war economy state.

However, Ron Paul, like the rest of the Republicans or Democrats, feels that capitalism can somehow behave more rationally than it does – or at least they want us to believe that with our vote they can transform its foul waters to fine wine. The reality is quite the opposite, as history shows again and again. Tensions between nations are always present over shifts in political allegiances between countries that may benefit some better than others. Global politics is a macrocosm of the local economy, with each company vying to get as much of the business as it can, such as trade, material resources and opportunities for future economic growth. From the perspective of a capitalist enterprise or a nation, the planet is a great big hamburger to chow on, with the unneeded parts thrown away on the landfill – children, nature, women, the elderly, education, health, and common sense. It is, at the bottom-line, a violent and wasteful way for humans to treat both each other and their world. It benefits only those in control of the resources and keeps the rest of us in a state of emotional tension about the relative lack of security that exists around the planet, at any time potentially plunging us all into another world war or terrorist attack. It is a world gone mad.

Daniel Vogel,

WSPUS

Political Notebook: Boo, Hiss (1979)

The Political Notebook Column from the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Boo, Hiss.

In politics it is like panto time the whole year round, with all the capitalist parties having their demon king for the others to boo and hiss.

Tony Benn, for example, is guaranteed to cause nervous Tory ladies to have more nightmares than The Exorcist. Rhodes Boyson has the ability to reduce keen Labour supporters to a small cloud of indignant steam.

Each of these demons plays the part; Benn has a formidable stare, to convince all the spinsters of Bournemouth that he will have them raped under their beds. Boyson’s high dome and jungle of side- whiskers are straight out of Dotheboy’s Hall; quite clearly, he is plotting to starve all schoolchildren and to bring back hanging for theft of a hankerchief.

But the pantomime tradition has a habit of undermining itself, as the political bogey men become respectable — even loved — and sometimes in power, Churchill, for example, was once hated by many committed Tories. Aneurin Bevan, as he died, had almost cast off the diabolical image and seemed about to mellow into Gaitskell’s compliant right hand man. And Wilson, who was once thought to have ambitions to serve notice to quit on the fiddling business men of British capitalism, ended up by giving many of them honours, at the same time as he took one himself.

One of the uses of the demon kings is to draw the opposition’s fire and to become a personalisation of the popular misconceptions of their party’s policies. And if they are very clever, they can judge correctly when to stop being the demon king and start being the good fairy.

The danger in all this is that, like the panto, it is a diversion: it attracts attention away from the real political issues. Whatever the guise of the people who get into power over capitalism at any time, their basic function is the same—to try to run the system and survive politically. The workers who vote for or against them because they are entranced or frightened by the spectacle are living a fairy tale—and one with no happy ending.

Teddy Bares His Soul.

Edward Kennedy has everything—or almost everything. He is rich, famous, handsome, atheletic; and now, in a dramatic baring of his soul, he has revealed that he has the added quality of generosity.

For years he has been resisting the efforts of his friends who want him to take over running American capitalism. At one time Kennedy protested that, with a glut of fatherless nephews and nieces, his family commitments were too pressing. It was also hinted that, not surprisingly, he was reluctant to end up being assassinated like his two brothers.

But now the pressure has proved too strong; Kennedy has relented and will contest the Democratic nomination— and he is doing it all for the good of the American people. Having originally supported Carter for the presidency, Kennedy has suddenly found out that American capitalism is in an awful mess—and he has decided that Carter is to blame.

Even more, he is persuaded that only he can sort the mess out, although it is unusual, to say the least, for a sitting President to have to fight for re-nomination. At times, Kennedy’s enthusiasm seems to be getting the better of him; on a recent campaign tour in Carter country in the Deep South he was rash enough to promise that he would “roll back” rising prices (how many politicians have lived to regret that one?)

And, even more enthusiastic, Kennedy has persuaded his wife, who was driven to alcoholism by the stress of his life style, to totter to the platform to support his candidacy.

If such open cynicism succeeds, it will be because the Carter administration is so thoroughly discredited; even the media have stopped showing him to be a nimble, active man and have begun to put out pictures of him stumbling and falling to the ground, just like they used to with Gerry Ford.

None of this promises that it will be a dignified, analytical election campaign. Carter’s government has had no more success in doing the impossible—controlling capitalism so that it works in the interests of the American working class than has any other. The Kennedys are famous now as ruthless operators of a political ambitions machine—and Edward Kennedy is perhaps the most ruthless, ambitious and unsavoury of them all.

So it seems the campaign will be a savage, cynical affair. The best man may or may not win (if there is a best man) but in any case it will not matter—the victor will carry on trying to do the impossible and capitalism will come out on top.

Stormy Front.

Like some malignant tumour, the National Front took root and flourished through a sort of cellular subdivision among other racialist organisations in this country. For some years, it has led the field in this particular brand of anti-working class propaganda, trumpeting its object of making racism respectable. It has had some ominously successful election campaigns.

But behind this facade—and behind the dramatic, flag-forested parades, the strutting leaders, the hooligan rank and file all has not been well with the NF. It has gone through a succession of leadership crises and has seen its votes fall away.

Now the Front is experiencing yet another schism from which, perhaps, another equally obnoxious party will emerge. This schism is reported to revolve around the objectionable personality of the NF propaganda specialist Martin Webster, who has indeed never gone out of his way to cultivate a reputation as a sensitive artist in human relations.

There is a certain irony in this struggle. If the Front were in power it is likely that the losers of the battle within its ranks would suffer a consequence a lot less gentle—and a lot more final—than that of simply being expelled from the organisation. So perhaps they have something to be thankful for, in those poor election results.

If there should be an open split in the Front, there will probably be rejoicing among such bodies as the Anti-Nazi League and the Socialist Workers Party, who will see this as a triumph over racism. In fact, the pernicious ideas put out by the NF and the like will always find a receptive audience among workers who are degraded, exploited, poverty-laden and confused about the reasons for their condition.

Racism is the nomination of a scapegoat for the evils which capitalism brings. The most effective weapon against it is not in violence or repression but in a clear, consistent analysis of capitalism and of how it causes workers’ problems. No banners are waved in that but it is more enduring—because it answers to reality—than any parade.