The Class Struggle in Poland (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of June, following the announcement of huge increases in food prices, strikes and riots broke out in many Polish towns. The government subsequently altered its proposals. At the end of 1970 strikes and riots were started by the dockers and shipyard workers of Gdansk (Danzig), in which the police shot down and killed at least six workers. The 1970 strikes led to a change in the leadership of the “Communist” Party with Gierek, the present Party leader, replacing Gomulka (who had himself come to power following strikes and riots in Poznan in 1956 in which 38 workers were murdered by the police).

The Polish working class like workers the world over, has had to resist attempts by their capitalist rulers to reduce their living standards. If the protest has taken the form of rioting and looting, as well as going on strike, it is partly because there are no independent trade unions in Poland: though no doubt there are political axe-grinders urging workers that this is what they should do. The organizations calling themselves “trade unions” are merely government agencies for disciplining workers and getting them to work harder.

The strikes in Poland show clearly that, even in state-capitalist countries ruled by a dictatorial “Communist” party, the class struggle of the working class against their exploiters cannot be suppressed. It is a myth that the exploitation of the working class has been abolished and Socialism established in Poland, as claimed by the government. The workers of Poland are exploited by the privileged minority who, through their dictatorial control of the State machine, monopolize the use of the means of production just as much as the private capitalists of the West.

An increase in food prices without a compensating increase in wages means of course a cut in living standards; it was to object to the size of the cut that the Polish workers went on strike. For the present the government has postponed its plans, but it has no choice in this matter because the world crisis has led to Poland developing a serious trade deficit. Exports have fallen and import prices risen, so squeezing the profits of the country’s state-capitalist enterprises, the source of income both for capital accumulation and the privileged consumption of the Polish ruling class. As The Times (26th June) put it:

The increases had become an economic necessity. Since 1970, real wages have risen by about 7 per cent a year while food prices have been artificially frozen. At the same time, world inflation has been pressing in on Poland. Government subsidies for protecting the consumer have reached enormous proportions and became a particularly heavy burden because Poland needs desperately to pay off its heavy foreign debts.

So working-class living standards are to be reduced in order to pay off the debts of the Polish state capitalist ruling class! A familiar story and a proof that the establishment of state capitalism with a State monopoly of foreign trade, in place of private capitalism does nothing to free a country from the pressures of capitalism on the working class. A further proof that there is no national solution to working-class problems.

Our message to the workers of Poland is to urge them to recognize this and, while doing what they can and must to maintain their living standards, to join with their fellow workers in other countries with a view to replacing world capitalism, in both its private and State forms, by world socialism. 

Adam Buick

Extreme reaction (2024)

From the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wednesday, 14 August found me on a day’s family excursion to Brighton, particularly to visit the exaggerated opulence of the Royal Pavilion. An edifice, if ever there was one, symbolising the class division of society.

This Regency Pavilion was built in the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a time of dramatic economic change in Britain. This early period of the industrial revolution would witness the emergence of the Luddites and a perception by the British state of a danger of insurrection. Machine breaking and mill burning caused the authorities to respond with force and punitive punishments, up to and including capital sentencing. There was much talk of shadowy influences, such as ‘General Ludd’, orchestrating these outrages.

Riots were a feature of affairs in the eighteenth century. Between 1756 and 1757, stores and shipments of food were looted. Again in 1766, poor harvests and the consequent rising price of wheat and corn resulted in riots across England; 131 recorded between September and the following August. The government reacted, in those pre-police force days, by deploying military units. Large numbers of people were arrested and eight shot dead. Special commissions of assizes were set up that imposed sentences including hanging, transportation or imprisonment.

If these sentences were intended to deter future outbreaks they failed. There were further such riots between 1770 and 1774. This was the period just before the building of the Royal Pavilion.

Ready-made headlines

Walking from the railway station I had a brief conversation with a couple who had come into Brighton to visit a particular shop. Originally their intention had been to arrive later in the day, but the shop was planning to close at 3 that afternoon. The rioters, it seemed, were on their way. Not eighteenth century rioters looking for cheaper bread, but twenty-first century malcontents demanding that immigrants and immigration be dealt with. The tragic murder of three young girls in Southport had been hijacked, largely via social media, by malicious individuals and groups.

Immigrants, especially those who had arrived uninvited on England’s shores in inflatable small boats, were extrajudicially condemned by minority opinion of guilt by association with that dreadful murder. That the one arrested was not an immigrant proved immaterial. For nights running, firstly in Southport, then across England more widely, a number of immigrant accommodations were besieged, as also, as in Southport, were mosques; Muslim equals immigrant seems to have been the ‘logic’.

The disturbances gave the media ready-made headlines and stories for the August period traditionally referred to as the silly season by the media. Parliament is not sitting, so while there is terrible news from abroad, domestic issues are in short supply. A few riots provide dramatic footage for the TV news channels, and are a gift for journalists to report and opine about. Watching footage of howling mobs confronting lines of police generates feelings of insecurity and reinforces the notion that society faces perpetual threats.

Far right and far left

Following the recent elections in France in the first round of which populist nationalism triumphed, only to be thwarted in the second by an alliance of convenience of liberals, social democrats and what’s termed the far left, it was inevitable that participants in the riots would be labelled extreme right.

Left and right are exceedingly broad political categories, designations that emerged in the national assembly of eighteenth century revolutionary France. So broad that extreme right easily covers neo-nazis/fascists, demagogic nationalists, racists and such like. Far left encompasses those who adhere to some degree or other of Leninist organisation of which there are many and various. Most claim to be socialist, though not advocates of a post-capitalist worldwide moneyless commonwealth based on the principle of meeting everyone’s needs.

The problem with the left and right designations is that there is no actual intention of ridding society of capitalism, as they are descriptive of relative political positions within capitalism. Left socialist? Right fascist? What about national socialists? Right-wing socialists? Left-wing Nazis?

What comes through is the confusion of ideas, a confusion helping to maintain capitalism by keeping people divided. It has the effect of focusing most political vision myopically on that other political category, the centre, as the alternative. Offering the alternative to capitalism that socialism is demands going beyond these political categories and an engagement by the vast majority of people to consciously challenge and then transcend capitalism, overthrowing by democratic means the apparent necessity of the status quo.

Underlying insecurity

Undoubtedly, those who took an active part in the various disturbances were motivated by a variety of reasons. However, like those in the eighteenth century food riots, the basic cause is economic. In present-day society only a privileged few prosper, most experience financial insecurity and some suffer downright poverty. Those with very little are fearful of losing the little they do have.

Dr Abdul Hamid, chairman of the Abdullah Quilliam Mosque in Liverpool, confronted by demonstrators, recognised underlying insecurity as the basic problem. Then ‘the other’ is perceived as a threat, those who are seen to be outside limited perspectives. Dr Hamid said there is a ‘fear of the unknown’ and ‘if they don’t get answers, they will try to find any excuse to label you’. Adam Kelwick, a mosque volunteer, went on to say of the demonstrators, ‘I don’t think they knew what they were protesting about – I think they’re just angry, fed up.’

Mosque members made a point of meeting rather than confronting those outside. Conversations took place and food rather than half bricks were exchanged. Then, Kelwick went on to point out, ‘Some of the most vocal protesters, after everyone else had gone, came inside the mosque for a little tour’.

Extreme rightists? Or those with ill-defined grievances who got caught up in something that, for a while, got out of control. As Kelwick observed, ‘None of the people I spoke to mentioned Southport’.

The good news

In a Brighton pub for lunch I overheard the manager on the phone confirming they were definitely closing at 6 that evening. Later that afternoon, walking back to the railway station I saw a number of shops being boarded up. That evening it seems there was an outbreak of nothing happening: no riots, no confrontations. The news featured the Prime Minister vowing judicial punishment for all participants in disturbances. He may have to reintroduce capital sentences and transportation to be true to his word, as the prisons, it seems, are already near enough full.

The good news is that very quickly there were far more diverse groups of people declaring their common humanity with migrants, than the very much smaller numbers of antagonists. Although reported, this was nowhere near as big a story. Bad news is more dramatic it seems.

For the immigrants who were targeted it was a highly distressing few days. Those involved in the riots should ask themselves why people put themselves through all the hardships of migration. They might realise that they have more in common economically with migrants than what seems to divide them. Certainly, one overwhelming common interest that all but the privileged few has, migrant, demonstrator and those watching on TV, is in removing capitalism, the insecure society that of itself breeds riot and social disturbance.

Dave Alton

Pathfinders: Double Bubble Trouble (2011)

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

The ‘peoplequake’ currently tearing up streets across North Africa is not just about dictatorial rulers and lack of democracy, it’s also about poverty, unemployment, corruption, social exclusion, simmering religious tensions and, significantly, rising food prices.

World wheat prices rocketed by 50 percent during 2010, and countries which are net importers of wheat, and whose populations spend on average a third or more of their income on food, are the most badly hit by these rises. The Japanese investment firm Nomura has created a Food Vulnerability Index (NFVI) of 80 countries in its report The Coming Surge in Food Prices. In the top 10 of these countries are Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, as well as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. In the top 20 are Tunisia, Romania, Ukraine and Libya. If another surge in prices is imminent, as Nomura predicts, the NFVI may suggest where the political heat will burn hottest.

Let us however dispose of one misconception at the outset – the volatility of food prices does not correspond with a similar volatility in the supply of food. The 80 percent increase in global wheat prices in 2008 occurred during a ‘super-harvest’ of American wheat and has been blamed squarely on speculators in Chicago and Minneapolis who have only recently converged like locusts on the world’s farm crops (see for instance ‘How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it’ by Frederick Kaufman, Harper’s Magazine, July 2010). That speculators were entirely responsible for creating a financial ‘food bubble’, as Kaufman claims, is frostily denied by Goldman Sachs, the chief bad-guy of his essay, but also disputed by several other independent reports, citing other factors such as the 40 percent crop loss due to the Russian drought, as well as floods in Pakistan and China, and the spike in oil prices which nowadays correlate closely with food prices. Nevertheless, speculator-frenzy was sufficient to alarm the Indian government into banning all agricultural futures trading in 2008.

Another misconception is that population is causing food prices to rise. Global population has been rising steadily for decades while real food prices have been falling since 1970. World population is expected to reach around 9.5bn by 2100 but a recent report from the UK Institution of Mechanical Engineers argues that the anticipated food demand can be met with current engineering methods and that the barriers are largely political. They point to the 25 percent wastage of post-purchase food in developed countries, and the staggering 50 percent average post-harvest crop loss in developing countries because of poor storage and management: “It is evident that the barriers to deploying solutions are not technological. The issue is often one of implementation and in this area action should be taken by society and political leaders at national, regional and local levels” (Population: One Planet, Too Many People? p.40).

Meanwhile, other researchers are less optimistic, citing the unsustainable exhaustion of non-replaceable water supplies driving much of current global food production. In China an estimated 130m people rely on food produced through overpumping groundwater, in India around 175m, while Saudi Arabia, currently self-sufficient in wheat, has almost drained its fossil aquifers and next year’s harvest may be its last (New Scientist, 5 February). Agriculture accounts for 70-85 percent of global water consumption and half the world’s population live in countries with falling water tables. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, argues that this environmental ‘food bubble’ could burst at any time, with catastrophic consequences: “No civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural support systems. Nor will ours….. the world is only one poor harvest away from chaos” (‘When Will the Food Bubble Burst?’, Earth-Policy.org, 12 January).

The UK engineers agree over the problem: “Indeed if there is one common factor that [we have] identified in the issues relating to water around the world, it is the unsustainable abstraction of groundwater at a higher rate than natural replenishment allows” (Population report, p.24) but they point out that this does not need to be so: “Given current techniques and capabilities there is no valid reason why there should be a shortage of water for human use. Fundamentally, there is no shortage of water on the planet to meet the anticipated rise in consumption of 30 percent by 2030. There is however, a spatial and temporal misalignment of supply and demand” (p.5). China, whose water is mostly in the south and population centres in the north, is currently dealing with this ‘misalignment’ in a refreshingly low-tech way, with a big canal. Other countries, given the removal of economic and political barriers, could theoretically do the same.

World food supply is affected by a number of factors, including population growth and rampant urbanisation, land and water depletion, invasive species, pollution, climate change and El Nino events. But prices are a function of the market system and volatility here is also driven by protectionism, speculation, oil costs and consequent biofuel demand, and plain old fashioned hoarding to inflate prices. The problem with the forecasts of Nomura, the engineers and the Earth Policy Institute, is that they are obliged to think within the capitalist box, and as far as solutions go that box is pretty much empty. Socialists can only hope that the world doesn’t have to starve half its population to death before coming to the conclusion that leaders are not going to change anything and that capitalism is the real bubble that needs bursting.

Paddy Shannon

Voice From The Back: The Gap Widens (2008)

The Voice From The Back column from the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Gap Widens

Much is made of the progressive nature of capitalism by journalists eager to prove that it is a society that is gradually making us all better off. A dissident view has recently been aired by the journalist Phillip Blond. “The New Economics Foundation has shown that global growth has not aided the poor. In the 1980s, for every $100 of world growth, the poorest 20 per cent received $2.20; by 2001, they received only 60 cents. Clearly neo-liberal growth disproportionately benefits the rich and further impoverishes the poor. Real wage increases in the top 13 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have been below the rate of inflation since about 1970 – a situation compounded in Britain as the measure of inflation massively underestimates the real cost of living. Thus wage earners – rather than asset owners – have faced a 35-year downward pressure on their standard of living.” (Independent, 23 March)

Double Standards

“Too much public money is spent on prolonging the lives of the elderly when it could be diverted to helping young offenders, according to a senior Church of Scotland minister. The Reverend Maxwell Craig, who is now retired but retains the honorary position of Extra Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland made the comments yesterday in a newspaper column.” (Times, 27 March) We are fairly certain that the reverend gentleman is complaining about the expense of keeping old workers healthy and not the Royal Family whom he serves and who have a fairly good record of longevity. In the east end of Glasgow, in an area known as Calton the average life expectancy of males is 57. Make your own mind up.

American Illusions

During the primary elections in the US much has been made of Hilary Clinton’s care for the under-privileged against the super-rich, but what is the reality? “Democrat Hilary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have made $109 million since leaving the White House, including $51 million in speech income for Bill Clinton, according to eight years of tax records released on Friday.” (Yahoo News, 4 April) We don’t take sides in this political ‘beauty contest’, but we can recognise that all of the candidates are hypocritical self-serving people who wish to administrate the awful system of capitalism. We hate their system and we detest all of them who try to con us into supporting it.

This is Progress?

Apologists for capitalism like to paint a picture of a system that is gradually improving the lot of the world’s poor, but recent developments show that this is a fallacy. The development of the markets in China and India and the process of arable land being used to produce bio-fuels instead of less profitable foodstuff have led to chaos throughout the world. “Rising food prices could spread social unrest across Africa after triggering riots in Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, African ministers and senior agriculture diplomats have warned. Kanayo Nwanze, the vice-president of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agriculture, told a conference in Ethiopia that food riots could become a common feature, particularly after the price of rice has doubled in three months.” (Financial Times, 4 April)

A Grim Future

Recent droughts in places like Australia and Africa combined with the explosive competition inside modern capitalism have led to many experts forecasting future disasters. “In recent months the commodity prices of rice, wheat and corn has jumped 50 percent or more, pushing retail prices to levels unseen in a generation and prompting grain-exporting countries to curtail trade to suppress domestic inflation. On March 20, the World Food Program issued an emergency appeal for more funding to keep aid moving to the world’s poorest countries. Last week World Bank president Robert Zoellick called for urgent global action on the part of rich nations ‘or many more people will suffer or starve’”. (Newsweek, 14 April)

Editorial: Food security (2008)

Editorial from the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The United Nations warned recently of a “new face of hunger” – it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay. Is this due to drought, pestilence or civil war ? No, it would appear that there is now a fifth apocalyptic horseman stalking the planet – a hike in the price of food.

Annual food price increases around the world of up to 40 percent accompanied by dramatic rises in fuel costs have stretched the already flimsy safety net of global capitalism to breaking point. Josette Sheeran, head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) earned her crust by identifying what might just turn out to be the problem: “There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market”. Not for the first time, capitalism appears to have made history of recent attempts to reform it.

It’s no longer just the countryside that is suffering: famine is coming to the cities of the third world. There is vulnerability in urban areas never seen before. Food riots have sparked recently, from Morocco to Mexico, Senegal to Uzbekistan. An increasingly globalised society appears to be presenting the same problems worldwide.

Of course the hungry and malnourished have never actually been away. Famines are just the tip of the iceberg: even between the droughts and civil wars, fellow members of our species die needless deaths (usually before their 5th birthday) and in their thousands everyday. The exact figures are not known or recorded: the Tomb of the Unknown Famine Victim grows bigger by the minute.

It is clear now however that, for every death from hunger, there is no genuine technical cause. For every child’s life that hangs in the balance, sufficient food has always been available within a matter of hours’ – if not in some cases minutes’ – distance. It’s not a logistical problem or a matter of distribution. Neither is it an error in the market: the system is operating as it is meant to.

But isn’t the market meant to send signals between consumers and producers ? That’s its claim to fame surely, that it efficiently lubricates supply and demand, matching the two. In reality the signal which the market often responds to is not one regarding supply and demand but the one identifying profitability. The entire edifice of the money system is not geared to satisfying the needs of the majority for even the simplest means of living, such as food. Instead the objective is nothing more or less than profit, and it is an objective shared by the small minority who own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of us.

If you are an individual capitalist, why sell your entire warehouse of grain for a small profit per unit ? And just to watch the market price drop? Far better to make just as much profit by restricting the amount you sell, and keeping the price high, and make just as much profit, while keeping your stock levels up for making a killing during the next famine. The invisible hand of the market can send all the signals it wants, but there is often an invisible hand picking up a telephone to tell fellow capitalists to keep stuff back, restrict sales and keep prices up. This society offers little security – food or otherwise – except the security to make profit.

New Departure. And a Warning. (1917)

From the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much excitement has been caused by the more frequent air attacks and the means adopted to frustrate them. As might be expected, very little truth is allowed to be known, and the good old game of bluff is made to do full service. Following the raids it is now the practice to have somebody of note make a speech of the grin and bitters order, in which care is taken to provide a sufficient amount of sympathy (with the tongue in the cheek), a deal of praise for the fortitude of the sufferers (workers, of course, every time), but, above all, to point out the necessity for steeling OURselves to yet greater efforts in order to vanquish, once for all, this dastardly method of warfare, adopted by an unscrupulous enemy, etc., etc.

Much use is made of the gag that the raids are deliberately organised for the purpose of striking terror and wreaking destruction in the ranks of Britain’s working class, and colour is lent to this assertion by the fact that it is they who chiefly suffer.

Contrast this with the statements of others who now and again come very near to letting the cat out of the bag as to the real object of our aerial visitors. Then, again, we have the silly remark made by a certain august personage that he “couldn’t make out what the Germans were trying to do.” All of which goes to show what a confused state of mind must exist in the workers regarding many things that are happening.

And now comes news that surely cannot fail to be understood—news of a new departure in the use of these devilish machines, and one that will be certain to commend itself to the capitalists of this country. The news comes from Rome, and was revealed in the Italian Parliament on its re-opening in October.

Reference was made to the serious riots which took place in Turin during the second fortnight of August, and the general food crisis throughout Italy which led to the resignation of the Food Controller.

  The Turin riots, partly due to delay in providing the town with sufficient bread, partly to political discontent, lasted a few days, and the authorities were obliged to use machine-guns to restore order, while some barricades were destroyed by bombs thrown from aeroplanes, this being the first occasion on which aircraft have been used for such a purpose. No official figures were published of the number of dead and wounded, calculations varying from 50 or 60 to 500, the latter number having been in he report of a non-Italian authority in Turin.

—”Manchester Guardian,” 24.10.17.

This, mind you, is an act committed by one of our devoted allies, and therefore will be considered quite in order. In fact, British capitalists will be grateful, not only for the suggestion, but for its initiation. It shows to what uses aircraft can be put after the war. Its efficacy is proved, and there are people in this country who will not fail to support the adoption of the same methods should a similar occasion arise.

At this point we may ask ourselves a question. If, as our rulers say, it is cold-blooded, dastardly and detestable for a country at war to attack towns in such a way that must involve the loss of civilians’ lives, irrespective of age or sex, how much more cold-blooded and dastardly must it be when such means are used deliberately by the Allies against unarmed men, women, and children of their own nation for simply demonstrating their dissatisfaction at a state of affairs which deprives them of the very necessities of life? Is it not sheer hypocrisy on the part of our rulers to condemn acts committed against them and their interests whilst at the same time acts far worse are committed for them and in their interests?

The Socialist is not surprised, of course, for it is no new thing for the workers of any country to lose their lives whilst defending their interests against those of their masters. We have had numerous instances in this country, such as Featherstone, Hull, Grimsby, Tonypandy, Llanelly, Dublin, and Belfast—all during the last twenty-five years.

It is to be hoped that this latest method of dealing with working-class opposition will not be forgotten by those whom it most concerns—the workers themselves. In fact it is hardly likely to be, because it is a new method of attack which the workers here must expect when the world war is over and the respective sections of the capitalist class can turn their attention more to the class war. To us the class war is the only war that should claim our interest. It is not a war wherein capitalist nations fight each other, but a war in which international capital—British, German, and so on—combines to wage war on its common enemy, the working class.

Why are we the enemy of capital, national and international? Because the capitalists own the means whereby we live. All that we own is the power to labour. In order to live we are compelled to sell this to those who own the necessaries of life. It is they who decide whether we shall live or not. It is here where the interests of capitalists and workers are opposed. It is from this the class war springs, with its strikes and lock-outs, its police and bayonet charges, its hellish punishment of the workers. Poverty, unemployment, almost all the evils we are subjected to, arise from this fact of ownership by a class of the means of life. It comes to this, that in order |that we may exist at all, it is necessary first of all to obtain their permission.

Such was the position of all workers, whether English, German, or of any other nationality, before the war “for liberty” commenced, such is their position while it is being waged, and such it will be when it is over. This must be, because the capitalists, after the workers have shed their blood in defence of the system, will still be in possession of the means of life, and will still control them through the political machinery also in their possession.

If the workers desire to be free and to abolish the class war with all its evils, they must organise themselves as a propertyless class against the property-owning class on the political and industrial fields, and seize from the capitalists their political power, thereby clearing the way for the freedom of the whole human race.

This is the work the Socialist Party has set out to accomplish, but it can only be done when the workers decide to do it. Therefore we appeal to ALL readers of the Socialist Standard to endeavour to understand our Declaration of Principles with a view to accepting it and joining us, so that the day will be appreciably nearer when we shall smash up this rotten and inhuman system, and institute a healthier, happier, peaceful, and truly prosperous state of Society.

Fiat Lux

Crisis in Indonesia (1998)

From the April 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1965, General Suharto came to power in a military coup in Indonesia that had the full backing of Britain and the US. During a Cold War arms build-up and a world focusing on the Vietnam War and the "communist threat", Suharto became a welcome ally as he massacred 600,000 of his opponents. In the years that followed, Suharto would consolidate his power, corruption would take on a whole new meaning and Indonesia would become a by-word for human rights abuses, most notably following the annexation of East Timor and the massacre of a further 200,000. All the while, the West turned a blind eye, supplying him with arms and training his military staff--interested only in the vast oil reserves Indonesia straddles.

Western eyes are now looking cautiously at Indonesia. In July of last year, the economy began to collapse and reached real crisis point during January of this year. Inflation rocketed and bankruptcies followed. Basic foodstuffs have more than doubled in price and thousands have died of hunger.

That much of his happened during January--a month of self-restraint (Ramadan) for Indonesia's moslems--perhaps explains why food riots born of country-wide discontent did not erupt fully until February, with Chinese food stores and restaurants taking much of the impact. The Chinese, who make up five percent of the population, were readily perceived as being the cause of the food shortages. That they own 70 percent of Indonesia's wealth was reason enough to convince angry crowds that they had grown rich off the backs of the masses.

Media analysts fear more trouble ahead, indeed a total meltdown of the Indonesian economy within the next month, particularly in light of a recent IMF decision to delay disbursement of the next tranche of a $43 billion bailout.

The IMF agreed to the $43 billion lifeline on condition that Suharto reformed a structure of monopolies, tariffs and subsidies--in other words, the targeting of the interests of his cronies and six offspring.

Suharto accused the IMF of trying to impose a liberal economy on the country, which he claimed was not in line with Article 33 of the Indonesian constitution, which stipulates that the economy should be developed along "family principles and which stresses 'regulated cooperatives' rather than the 'free market'".

Back to basics

"Family principles" takes on a whole new meaning in Indonesia. Not only is nepotism rampant, with Suharto's relatives up to their necks in all manner corruption, but Suharto himself is estimated to have assets worth over $40 billion (coincidentally the size of the IMF loan he is haggling over).

Having promised to give Indonesia's central bank full autonomy over monetary policy, Suharto then sacked its governor and directors for objecting to his plans for an "IMF-plus measure"--the setting up of a currency board charged with pegging the Indonesian rupiah to the US dollar. Not only was this opposed by the IMF, the World Bank, the US and the EU, but his own critics in Indonesia lambasted it, pointing to the country's limited foreign reserves and corrupt bureaucracy.

Having just been elected president for the seventh time, to rule for another five years, by a 1,000-member electoral assembly he vetted himself, Suharto is taking economic advice from his schoolfriend Professor Jusuf Habiba. Habiba's economic competence has long been questioned--even by Western economists who still dream up futile models of how capitalism can best work--at least since his "zig-zag" theory which professed that rising inflation is best offset with low interest rates.

It is highly likely that a state of emergency will be declared shortly. Riots have been widespread, often urged on by students less inclined to the rhetoric of scape-goating. Panic buying has emptied shelves and forced many shops to close and the military is becoming edgy, fearful for its own interests. With a restless population of over 200 million, split into 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia faces a precarious next few months.

If the worst does come, we can well imagine the front page analysts pointing to Suharto's corruption and poor economic insight as a cause, and others to the "bursting bubble" of the Asian economic miracle and its wider dimensions. None, we predict, will point out that this is how capitalism functions, that capitalism is an archaic, chaotic and ungovernable system. And we are not being churlish in suggesting that nothing out of the ordinary is happening Indonesia--for this is capitalism working normally, according to its own insane logic.

Our sympathies go out to the millions destined to suffer in the madness, the millions who will in fact lend their support to the same system that has impoverished them, and who will always suffer until it dawns on them there is an alternative and that it is they alone who can bring it about.

John Bissett

Death on an empty stomach (1984)

From the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

RESULT OF RIOTS IN TUNISIA: AT LEAST 120 DEAD (Headline in Libération, 11 January).

MOROCCO: 150 to 200 DEAD ACCORDING TO SPANISH RADIO (Libération, 23 January).

How is it possible, in an age of potential plenty, when Common Market Ministers are discussing how to get rid of butter mountains, milk lakes and other food “surpluses", that on the other side of the Mediterranean people are rioting against increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs and being shot down for doing so?

The answer is that we are living in a society which is geared not to serving human needs but to producing goods, or rather commodities, to be sold on a market with a view to profit. In these circumstances food, and indeed everything else, can only be obtained in exchange for money. Until now the governments of the countries of North Africa have heavily subsidised food prices as a means of keeping the cost of living — and so wages — down. But. in the current world capitalist crisis, this has become too expensive and the International Monetary Fund has put pressure on these governments to economise as a condition for continuing to bail them out. The governments of Tunisia and Morocco — and indeed of other countries subject to similar pressures, such as Brazil and Egypt — have thus been faced with the problem of how to further decrease the already low standard of living of the mass of their populations.

The Tunisian government chose to try to increase basic food prices in one sweep: prices of bread and other cereal products were to be doubled from 1 January 1984. It is doubtful whether the government really believed they could get away with this, since a similar austerity programme had already led to riots and deaths in January 1978. In other words, they were testing the situation. If the price increases were accepted without too much trouble, then so much the better; but if the protests proved to be too strong then, after shooting down some rioters, they could be withdrawn and re-introduced gradually over a longer period. In the event this was what happened, leaving, according to a provisional estimate of the Tunisian Human Rights Defence League, at least 120 people dead. Naturally the members of the government who decided and carried out this cynical test remain in their comfortable villas enjoying the best things in life.

Not that a more gradualist approach would necessarily have avoided riots (or will in the future) since this was the policy adopted by the Moroccan government, to no avail since riots broke out there too. The petty king of Morocco, Hassan II, was particularly upset by these riots in the Northern part of his kingdom as they coincided with the Conference of Islamic Heads of State in Rabat at which emirs, sheiks, tin-pot dictators and other nonentities were entertained in an extravagant style which reflected the contempt in which they hold the people they exploit and oppress.

Riots are endemic in this and similar relatively underdeveloped parts of the world. In May and April 1980 there were riots and deaths in Tizi-Ouzou in neighbouring Algeria and in June 1981 hundreds of people were shot down in Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco. Rioting is in fact one of the few means of defence that these populations have against their repressive governments, be they republics (like Tunisia) or monarchies (like Morocco). But it is clear that all this does is slow a downward movement. In the end they cannot win. For them, as for workers in other more developed countries, the only way out is the establishment of world socialism.

Adam Buick

So They Say: The Boys on the Bandwagon (1978)

The So They Say Column from the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Boys on the Bandwagon

If every expression of moral indignation were worth a pound, many politicians would be wealthy people. This is merely a notion, most of the politicians manage well enough for other reasons. But a showing of respectable dissociation from the latest social skeleton to emerge forms a part of the repertoire. The stimulus need not be a new one. Frequently it is not. The current “scandalous” discovery has political hypocrites of all colours expressing dismay by the bucketful.

More than 3,000 patients in the terminal stages of kidney failure die every year because the treatment which could save them is not available, it was stated yesterday.

Daily Telegraph, 30th November 1977

An all-party deputation of MPs and Peers is now calling upon Mr. Ennals, the Social Services Secretary, to remedy this state of affairs. But what do they expect him to do?

In early November a government offer to supply kidney machines to six regional health authorities was rejected by five of them “on cost grounds”—the running costs of the machines would have worked out at £64,000 a year for each authority. The chairman of the British Kidney Patient Association described the rejections as “immoral” as do the self-righteous MPs. The fact that Mr. Ennals’ department is putting pressure on regional health authorities to curb spending, has nothing to do with them.

Chop Logic

Poland has been much in the news following the signing of a ship-building order with Britain in November. This caused a spate of newspaper reports on the country; in turn these remind us that the Poles refer to themselves as “communists”. In fact their society exhibits the characteristics which, in other countries, are accurately referred to as capitalistic. It is amazing what effect a national boundary can have on the labelling processes employed by newspapers— a process they occasionally refer to as analysis.

On the domestic scene, the drive towards a consumer society has slowed down. Continuing inflation, shoddy goods, shortages of certain products and, in particular, a chronic lack of meat characterize the consumer’s lot.
The Times, 24th November 1977

It was the latter aspect which caught our eye; reading further we found “People do not understand why, in a meat-exporting country, meat is scarce”. Readers wishing to learn the answer to this remarkable riddle arc invited to enquire at any of our meetings.

The Italian Connection

The visit of the Polish leader, Mr. Gierek, to the Vatican in early December illustrates how the so-called marxists seem to have forgotten what Marx said about religion. Or have they? He called it the opium of the people and the Polish leaders, like any other capitalist leaders, have learned that a pipe dream can have its uses. When it is considered that of thirty-five million Poles, thirty-three million are Catholics, the church clearly presents a formidable propaganda outlet.

At the time of the food price riots in Poland last year, the Catholic church issued a call for "solid work” and “sacrifices for the common good” from the Polish people. They also called for the government “to cease its oppression of workers who took part in anti-government protests”. The government, as The Times of 29th November puts it, “did not play fair” however and only gave publicity to the first part of the message. The “common good” representing the pipe dream. With indications that there are further price increases to come, bringing with them the likelihood of protests and disorder, Mr. Gierek has been obliged to ensure that there will be an adequate supply of opium of government approved quality.

Mr. Gierek’s visit was the first by a leader of the Polish party to the Vatican. This in itself would have given it high importance. It has certainly shown the extent of the need felt by the Polish government for some degree of collaboration in Poland from the Catholic hierarchy.

The Times, 2nd December 1977

Sweet Dreams

Up until recently we were under the impression that all the parties of capitalism claimed at least, that they would introduce justice and fair play. The phrases are sufficiently ambiguous and pleasant sounding to be considered as key-stones in any respectable manifesto. In the forefront stood the Labour Party. It was extremely common knowledge that the working man and woman could expect justice and fair play from them in incalculable quantities.

We say the working man because these worthy aims were offered exclusively to him. The non-working man, the capitalist, manages well enough on material posession to require much ethereal property. But the Labour Party has now unearthed a difficulty: Mr. Callaghan has lost the way.

I ceased to worship free collective bargaining more than 10 years ago. There is nothing new about that. I went to the TUC Congress and said that. Collective bargaining is not a means of obtaining justice or fair play, but at the moment I do not know of a better system.

The Times, 2nd December 1977

This is quite a problem. Mr. Callaghan will have to work on it. More likely though that he and the rest of them will do what they have always done, and sleep on it instead.

Alan D'Arcy

Some Pars From America: Not read at the Peace Conference (1919)

From the March 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

As news of the American labour movement is so scare in these days of censorship and Press laws, perhaps the following notes from the December issue of the New York "Class Struggle," an unofficial organ of the so called left wing of the also so-called Socialist Party of America may be of interest to the reader.

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In a candid article on the recent elections it is admitted that the large vote received by the S.P. of A. at the 1917 election was more of an anti-war vote than one for Socialist principles and that this vote has now gone back to the "old parties." By this means the recent "slump" is accounted for.

Nothing seems to left of the sprinkling of Socialist legislators that were elected in the previous year in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California. Kansas, Idaho, Illinois, and Minnesota are again without Socialist representatives in the legislatures, and Minneopolis lost its Mayor Van Lear, which is hardly to be regretted. This precious "Socialist" who, at the beginning of the war had opposed the "infamous Public Safety Commission" as the new election approached "compromised himself and the party that elected him, by joining hands with the American Alliance of Labour and Democracy, and by speaking from its platform at a so-called Victory Meeting . . . That Van Lear took this stand not so much from a change of conviction as from openly opportunist motives, above all to get re-elected, by no means detracts from this sorry spectacle.

The article declares that the defeat of Meyer London, the late "Socialist" Congressman for New York, is "one thing to be thankful for." After telling the tale of his reactionary, pro-capitalist activity in Congress during the war the writer concludes: "His re-nomination is not to the credit of the membership of New York, even though it was prompted by the consideration that the district would be lost if another candidate were nominated in his place."

Such are the methods of the anti-revolutionary, anti-socialist ideas which permeate the membership of the S.P. of A. Is this the party which is going to overthrow the best entrenched and most unscrupulous capitalist oligarchy in the world? I think not.

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Very little news has reached this country about one of the most dastardly outrages among the many which American capital has perpetrated upon its wage-slaves. The sequel, too, is interesting. In Bisbee in Arizona, in 1917,

"four thousand miners went on strike against the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation for a ten per cent. wage increase and a reduction of the ten-hour workday to nine hours . . .  At that particular time there was an enormous demand for metal ore, and the highest prices were being paid. The Company saw fat profits slipping away between their fingers; the strike was costing them millions of dollars. They were, therefore, prepared to come to terms on the question of wages, and would perhaps have granted a reduction of working hours. But they refused point blank to consider the recognition of the union demanded by the striking miners.

Then on the 17th June the bosses took action:

A great crowd of striking miners that had gathered about the entrance to one of the mines was surrounded by an army of police, deputy sheriffs, and gun-men, were driven, unarmed as they were, before the loaded guns of their captors, to the railroad station. There, all of them, men, women and children, were forced with unbelievable brutality into a waiting freight train, in which they were shipped across the border into New Mexico about seven hundred miles from Bisbee, where they were thrown out of the cars in the midst of an uninhabited desert. In this deserted region of New Mexico, completely cut off from all communication with their families and the world, these unfortunate men, women and children were exposed to the most intense suffering. And only the foodstuffs that were brought them by organised labour at the earliest possible moment saved these thousands of workers from a miserable death.

 It took some time before the energetic protests of labour in the West were finally able to force an investigation. It was disclosed that this dastardly crime had been committed not only with the knowledge, but with the assistance of the management of the mines and the local authorities of Bisbee. The corporation officials had paid the gun-men, while the local authorities had engaged the scoundrels who did this dirty work. Indictments followed, indictments that incriminated the highest officials among the millionaire knaves at the head of the company. Proudly the capitalist press showed that there was no class justice in the United States of America, that rich and poor were measured by the same standards, that not even the richest of the men were responsible for the Bisbee outrage would be able to escape the hand of justice.

That was six months ago. Since then things have been strangely quiet. And now comes the news that the entire matter has been dropped because of a technical error in the indictment.  (Italics mine.)

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A very interesting account of the recent food riots in Japan is given by the well-known Sen Katayama. The immediate cause of the riots was the high price of rice, the staple food of the Japanese workers. Dr. Yokoi, "the agricultural authority of Japan, says in 'Industrial Japan': 'The past five years have produced super-abundant rice crops in Japan. Statistics show that there is no shortage of rice this year.'" The article following the Japanese "Oriental Economist," declares that the high prices were directly due to the policy of the Government in aiding and encouraging export trade. The political machinery of the country functions exclusively in the interests of a few big capitalists, while the interests of the vast majority of the people and the workers are completely disregarded."

The various phases of the riots are described in some detail. They "usually began in a peaceful demonstration that went to the homes of the rice dealers or to the granaries to demand cheaper food. Invariably it was the police who met the demonstrants with drawn sabres that turned these for the most part peaceful demonstrations in furious attacks." The riots were very wide-spread, extending "over three prefectures, Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, over thirty provinces, and in Hokkaido, the northern part of Japan. Altogether this rising affected over two-thirds of the Japanese Empire. The 'Oriental Economist' reports that there were destructive riots in 142 different localities; that in 38 places they could be put down only by armed troops. In Osaka (the Manchester of Japan) the rioting continued for three full days and nights, and it is roughly estimated that at its height a force of over thirty thousand soldiers, including cavalry, was necessary to control the infuriated masses."

"In Kure, where the chief Navy Yard of the Empire is located, the marines were called out in full strength to quell the desperate mobs, while all thoroughfares and important crossings were armed with machine guns. But in spite of the rigid military discipline that obtains in the Japanese army, it was found that a number of the marines had made common cause with the rioting masses  . . . In Kobe the populace burnt down stores, offices, and even the residences of the wealthy rice speculators. The rioters were joined in a sympathetic movement of the 8,000 workers in the Mitsubitu shipbuilding yards." It must be remembered that working-class organisations, which might have rendered the movements more effective and less chaotic and violent, are illegal in Japan.

After August 13th the Government, fearing the spread of the disturbances, suppressed all news relating to the riots. "In Osaka the Governor published an edict forbidding more than five persons walking together on the streets. In Yokohama street assemblies were limited to nine persons."

"When the Government saw the magnitude of the movement, it appropriated $5,000 000 with which rice was bought up to be given away to the poor, or to be sold at greatly reduced rates to stem the tide of popular dissatisfaction." This, however, failed to have the desired result, for the movement had developed new characteristics. "Since food riots have ceased there have been labour troubles all  over the country. The 'Oriental Economist' gives a detailed account of seven large strikes that occurred between the 1st and the 19th of August, while the daily newspapers enumerate at least 40 others." The legal machinery, of course, reaped a rich harvest. "According to the latest reports (Sept. 12) over 5,000 persons were arrested and are awaiting trial. It is estimated by the Government that the number of arrests will reach more than 7,000 before the whole matter us settled. Among them are numerous Socialists. Chief among these is Yei Osugi, arrested at Osaka. The Government is particularly desirous of incriminating our comrades as mob leaders."

The article further hints that a contributory cause of the riots was the discontent of the workers with the Government's policy of intervention in Siberia, Whether this is so or not the political sequel to the disturbances was significant, for the Terauchi Government was superseded and the new ministry under Premier Hara reversed the policy of the old ministry in Russian affairs, and openly declares that Japan desires only  a responsible government in Russia, whether it be Bolshevik or not." Of course, this eyewash may satisfy for a time the workers of Japan, but we know that a working-class government can in no circumstances be considered "responsible" by the bourgeoisie.

R. W. Housely

Food Security

From the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog:

The United Nations warned recently of a "new face of hunger" - it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay. Is this due to drought, pestilence or civil war? No, it would appear that there is now a fifth apocalyptic horseman stalking the planet - a hike in the price of food.

Annual food price increases around the world of up to 40 percent accompanied by dramatic rises in fuel costs have stretched the already flimsy safety net of global capitalism to breaking point. Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) earned his crust by identifying what might just turn out to be the problem: "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market". Not for the first time, capitalism appears to have made history of recent attempts to reform it.

It’s no longer just the countryside that is suffering: famine is coming to the cities of the third world. There is vulnerability in urban areas never seen before. Food riots have sparked recently even in countries with no history of such events, from Morocco to Mexico, Senegal to Uzbekistan. An increasingly globalised society appears to be presenting the same problems worldwide.

The cause of the price rises is complex but is in part due to increased demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, who have rising expectations of a "western" lifestyle. Climate change has also had a direct impact due to increased extreme weather events affecting productivity. Indirect climate change impacts include the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels rather than for food. Is a starving child factored into your carbon footprint calculation? No sooner does the market system start to try and solve one problem - making production of supposedly renewable biofuels profitable in order to address global warming - than it appears to create another problem.

Of course the hungry and malnourished have never actually been away. Famines are just the tip of the iceberg: even between the droughts and civil wars, fellow members of our species die needless deaths (usually before their 5th birthday) and in their thousands everyday. The exact figures are not known or recorded: the Tomb of the Unknown Famine Victim grows bigger by the minute.

It is clear now however that, for every death from hunger, there is no genuine technical cause. For every child's life that hangs in the balance, sufficient food has always been available within a matter of hours' - if not in some cases minutes' - distance. It’s not a logistical problem or a matter of distribution. Neither is it an error in the market: the system is operating as it is meant to.

But isn't the market meant to send signals between consumers and producers ? That's its claim to fame surely, that it efficiently lubricates supply and demand, matching the two. In reality the signal which the market often responds to is not one regarding supply and demand but the one identifying profitability. The entire edifice of the money system is not geared to satisfying the needs of the majority for even the simplest means of living, such as food. Instead the objective is nothing more or less than profit, and it is an objective shared by the small minority who own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of us.

If you are an individual capitalist, why sell your entire warehouse of grain for a small profit per unit ? And just to watch the market price drop? Far better to make just as much profit by restricting the amount you sell, and keeping the price high, and make just as much profit, while keeping your stock levels up for making a killing during the next famine. The invisible hand of the market can send all the signals it wants, but there is often an invisible hand picking up a telephone to tell fellow capitalists to keep stuff back, restrict sales and keep prices up. This society offers little security - food or otherwise - except the security to make profit.