Socialism on tape (1991)

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

From the above list, the following recordings are available on the SPGB website:

• Capitalism or Socialism? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (E. Hardy) and the Conservative Party (Arthur Johnston). (1983)
• 'Looking forward': The way ahead for Socialists. DEBATE between The Socialist Party (Steve Coleman) and Socialist Organiser (Simon Pottinger). (1983)
• Is Britain Worth Dying For? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Lady Olga Maitland (Women and Families for Defence) (1984).
• After The Miners Strike — Which Way Forward For Socialists? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party (speaker Colin Tipton) (1985).
• Did Lenin Distort Marx? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Monty Johnstone (Communist Party. Marxism Today) (1982).
• The Crisis In Capitalism — What Is The Next Step? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (speaker Clifford Slapper) and Bill Etherington (General Secretary. Durham Mechanics NUM) (1986)
• The Politics of Rosa Luxemburg, Speaker Vic Vanni (1983)
• Marxian Economics And Capitalist Textbooks. Speaker Adam Buick. (1987)
• Marx's Conception Of Socialism. Speaker E. Hardy (1987)
• The Gulf Crisis — Another War for Oil. Central London rally with panel of speakers (1990).

Education Conference on Working-Class Culture (1986):

• Folk Music and Workers' History. Speaker: Sandy Easton
• Educating the Workers. Speaker: Brian Rubin
• Soap Operas and Working-Class Life. Speaker: Gary Slapper

Education Series on Marxian Economics. Speaker: E. Hardy (1980).

• Labour Theory of Value.
• Crises and Depressions. (Part 2, Part 3.)
• Productivity.
• Rent, Interest and Profit.
• Marxist and Monetarist Theories of Inflation.
• Taxation and the Working Class.

SPGB Meetings (1984)

Party News from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

A recording of one of the meetings from the Islington Branch Weekend Educational Conference on Working For Socialism is available in the audio section of the SPGB website. Click on the following link for more information:

How to organise a branch 

Islington Branch meeting

Date: 9th December 1984

Speaker: Clifford Slapper

SPGB Meetings (1996)

Party News from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Sadly, none of the meetings listed were recorded. Or at least the audio files - if they exist - are not readily available. I remember accompanying Binay Sarkar of the World Socialist Party of India (with Dave Flynn) to a trip into Central London where we visited the Karl Marx blue plaque at 28 Dean Street.

I didn't attend the election fundraiser at Clapham High Street, but I remember being told that Julius Merry was in attendance and gave a generous donation to election funds. Professor Merry was another one of those fascinating SPGBers from yesteryear who don't usually appear in the Party histories.

SPGB Meetings (1985)

Party News from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1991)

Party News from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1983)

Party News from the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recording of Eddie Grant's meeting 'Are world unity and cultural diversity compatible?' - from the SPGB's Socialism as a Practical Alternative Weekend School - is available at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1987)

Party News from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Turf Hotel in Wrexham is the pub featured in the Hulu documentary Welcome to Wrexham. So, 34 years before McElhenney and Reynolds were pulling pints, you had the SPGB in the same pub putting the world to rights. The circle of life.

Danger: capitalism at work (2000)

Book Review from the June 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The profit system’s in-built culture of risk-taking inevitably leads to danger for those who are the real wealth producers.

In his introduction to Blood in the Bank: Social and legal aspects of death at work by Gary Slapper (268pp Ashgate) American academic, anarchist-superstar Noam Chomsky execrates the unaccountable and deadly rule of corporations with powerful well-practised and passionate arguments. Chomsky’s preface contrasts with Slapper’s own text, which, with care, deliberateness and precision explores the complexities and the structures of the legal process of dealing with corporate manslaughter. The two styles, however, far from clashing, are complementary; as Slapper’s meticulous explication of the subject of death at work, and its relationship to the capitalist system, resolutely builds up to an impressive substantiation and justification for Chomsky’s resounding fusillade.

Slapper begins by going back to what a crime is and how criminal law came into being. This enables him to examine the practice of law as a whole, and to proceed on the basis that “it is reasonable to judge the system’s functioning: (i) by the extent it meets its aims . . . (ii) whether its policies have been formulated in accordance with its . . . accepted purposes”. He exposes the circularity of those stated aims and purposes, which summed up merely say “a crime is anything the state has chosen to criminalise” and then back it up with metaphysical flim-flam about social order and human nature. In place of this, Slapper deploys the materialist critique developed by Marx and Engels which sees law as “a code which generally sought to maintain the social and economic system” of its day.

Corporate culpability

Highlighting the divergence between ideals and reality is the way in which the law of manslaughter applies to death at work, and corporate culpability. In 1989 576 deaths were recorded as personal homicides, “the number of people killed at work during the same period was 517”, along with some 28,900 non-fatal injuries. Using Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reports and his own research and analysis of coroner’s court hearings, Slapper estimates that around 70 percent of deaths at work could have been prevented by due management care.

The modern test for manslaughter is that of “objective culpability”. If the accused can be shown to have taken an unnecessary risk, or have been indifferent to risk, resulting in a death then they could be culpable of manslaughter. Since for this to apply it is necessary to consider how far “conduct must depart from accepted standards to be characterised as criminal [it must be] supremely a jury question”. This means that manslaughter is a highly complex and nebulous crime, depending on the cultural expectations of juries. However, Slapper proposes that we can discern “an essence of criminal culpability” which can be applied to show whether death at work is manslaughter. He proposes three tests which could be applied to deaths at work to determine corporate liability: if an employer creates a situation of deadly risk; where the risk is serious and obvious; and where they decide to run that risk either choosing to ignore it, or attempt to avoid it in a negligent and incompetent manner.

The problem, though, lies in applying criminal law, which has traditionally dealt with individuals, to corporate entities. Initially, employers were utterly immune from prosecution, because it was deemed that their employees had willingly volunteered to undergo the work for their employer. However, the evolution of a duty of care both towards employees and the wider society has meant an end to that line of defence. Prosecution is still hampered, though, by the need to identify a criminal “mind”, a person to be held to account. In cases of failures by entire companies, proving one individual director to be guilty within the terms of the “controlling officer test” can be immensely difficult, especially as police would not usually exhaustively search through company records after an “accident”. In 1996 the Law Commission recommended that a change ought to be made, making it possible to prosecute companies for management failure, but the requirement for a controlling officer is still current. Thus, most legal action resulting from death at work comes under the aegis of Health and Safety regulative legislation rather than the more serious criminal law.

The Health and Safety Executive, however, “has severely restricted resources”, reflecting the lack of political priority given to its existence. Further, the HSE’s own policies mute its effectiveness, as it prefers to promote “negotiated compliance” with safety law rather than work as an outright enforcement agency, casting itself as the good angel sitting on the shoulders of corporations, whispering words of conscience. Even then, such negotiation is ranked sixth in the league of the HSE’s own priorities, with enforcement coming seventh.

Culture of capitalism

Beyond simple policy matters is the cultural view of death at work as an “accident”, which is the automatic presupposition of investigating authorities, a presupposition that downgrades the severity of the occurrence. Both police and juries are likely to react lightly towards the respectable management, who do not fit with their pre-conceptions of criminals, and so are less inclined to use their powers of discretion to pursue those cases, unless-as in one gruesome case with a cutting machine that is cited-the details are so gross as to fit with the traditional horrific and violent concepts of murder. Slapper attributes the ultimate causation of this cultural influence to the social conditions of capitalism. The result of the practice over corporate killing is to avoid “too serious a deterrent to the risk-taking that is part of competitive industry”. Capitalists must remain flexible enough to take risks that may brings greater rewards in the interest of profit.

This competitive aspect of capitalism also nullifies any real prospect of solving the problem through the law. As Slapper notes, the Indian authorities failed to prosecute the directors of Union Carbide for the Bhopal disaster (see Socialist Standard, December 1999), yet did manage to prosecute an elephant for trampling someone to death. “Attempts to deal effectively with cavalier attitudes to safety within one jurisdiction can only have a limited effect because, . . . then the problem is exported by capital . . . Like water running down a hill, capital follows the path of least resistance”. Global competition between regulators undermines effective control over working conditions.

Capital views safety as simply another cost to business, as is illustrated via the Ford Pinto case of 1977, where the firm decided the cost of paying law suits was cheaper than actually correcting a fault in their product. That this calculation was repeated in 1997 by Chrysler, and again in 1999 by General Motors, shows how this sort of problem is endemic to the market system. The problems do not end there as there are those who argue “that the burden of fines is inappropriately borne by shareholders”. Despite the fact that it is exactly the constant baying of the shareholders for profit that is the root cause in the system, they are not, and never can be, in any way personally responsible under the law.

Slapper’s book has been picked up on by the usual rag-tag band of reformists. George Monbiot referred to the book in his Guardian column, in which he concluded by calling for a change in the law. Monbiot neglects to mention, though, Slapper’s conclusion that it is the profit system that must go, to be replaced by non-market socialism, and that this can be the only solution to the problem. Likewise, Channel Four News asked for a soundbite on an item about death at work. Again, they failed to explore his radical, and entirely deductive conclusion. Gary Slapper’s book is a rewarding and informative read, that deserves to be known as more than simply a useful source of horrifying stories and statistics to back up calls for milk and water reforms.

Pik Smeet

Blogger's Note:

Full disclosure: Gary Slapper was a member of the SPGB. He wrote for the Socialist Standard under the pen-name of 'Gary Jay'.

Voice From The Back: Poisoned, not bombed (2000)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Poisoned, not bombed 

For the first time, more people are leaving their homes because of environmental factors than because of war. The world now has 25 million environmental refugees, compared with 21 million war-related refugees. The crisis is largely the result of more than half of the world’s rivers drying up or becoming seriously polluted, according to a report from the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century. The Amazon and the Congo are the two healthiest of the world’s 500 major rivers—probably because they have few industrial centres near their banks, the commission suggests. It blames abuse of land and water resources and poor management by regional authorities for the problem. Guardian, Science, 2 December.

Asking dangerous questions 

The only way to judge the success of an agent of change would be to ask: is it affecting the human condition? Does the internet move food and supplies around the world to the people who need them? Does it relieve human suffering, make us more aware of political prisoners, change the plight of refugees? The role of computers as agents of change is to administer the planet properly, and help us figure out, for example, why farmers in some countries are paid to burn food while people in others starve to death. Or to co-ordinate human effort around the globe in a way that hasn’t been achieved before. Guardian online, 2 December.

Capitalist art 

It isn’t just the bitchiness which, judging by her book, is endemic in ballet. The pain is no joke either: like her fellow ballerinas, [Darcey] Bussell hates giving in to injury partly because ballet is such a short career, and will dance on if humanly possible, smiling through the pain . . . There is also the mental pressure. Criticism in ballet is unrelenting, intense emphasis is placed on the body, and at every stage girls are weeded out and dumped. No doubt this is why, as Bussell observes, “dancers are neurotically unsure of themselves”. Add to this the internecine competition for roles or just to retain a three-month contract, and you have a very nasty environment. But, as Bussell explains, “we can’t be too nice because it’s the rivalry that keeps us hungry and drives our careers”. Night & Day, 21 November.

Where can it go? 

“Capitalism is a force that moves, but it does not know where it is going.” Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister of France, Yorkshire Post, 20 November.

It goes this way 

As the world enters a new millennium, children are continuing to be killed and exposed to abuse in flagrant violation of their rights, according to the executive director of Unicef, Ms Carol Bellamy . . . Despite unprecedented wealth in the global economy, where currency markets exchange $1.5 trillion a day, more than 1.2 billion people struggle to survive on less than $1 a day and more than 600 million are children. Per capita income, adjusted for inflation, is lower today in 80 countries than it was a decade ago. Herald, 13 December.

So much for rights! 

A year after the UN approved a declaration to protect human rights activists, repression has increased throughout the world, according to findings published in Paris today. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders said more than 200 activists had been executed, tortured or arbitrarily arrested since the UN vote. But the picture was incomplete as nearly a dozen countries made it impossible for independent associations to operate, while a further 30 states systematically obstructed investigations. Guardian, 8 December.

Games 

America is taking the threat of terrorism at the Olympic Games in Sydney next year so seriously that a US navy battlegroup, with an aircraft carrier, destroyer and submarine will be on stand-by off the Australian coast throughout the games. They will be in international waters ready to respond to any attack with force, including biological and chemical warfare units. Times, 15 December.

Class war casualties 

Up to 55 cases of corporate manslaughter a year should be brought against companies and directors where employees have been killed in the workplace, according to new research. Gary Slapper, director of the law programme at the Open University, said the law needed to be changed and a tougher approach taken to fatal safety lapses in the workplace . . . “When a reckless company kills, the legal system usually just yawns and turns away. There is virtually no deterrent,” he said . . . Since 1965, 25,000 people have been killed at work or in major commercial disasters. Health and Safety Executive reports suggest that 70 percent of these deaths resulted from a management failure. Dr Slapper’s research also shows that 60 percent of deaths were attributable to economic factors, cutting corners to save money as opposed to simple ignorance about safety. Independent, 29 November.

Hard times 

The Duke of Westminster’s nine-year-old heir, the Earl Grosvenor, has been named on a High Court writ. The reason? The lad’s £1 billion inheritance. Thankfully, young Hugh is not about to be cut out of his father’s will. The move, says Jeremy Newsum, the chief executive of Grosvenor Estate Holdings, is “a bit of housekeeping”. This has been made necessary because of dramatic changes in the way the family’s assets, estimated at £1.75 billion, now have to be managed. Times, 15 December. 

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1991)

Party News from the June 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• The ILP that the Party debated in Cambridge was in fact the old ILP of Maxton, Brockway and Hardie fame. In the mid-1970s the ILP had re-affiliated to the Labour Party and renamed themselves Independent Labour Publications. By 1991, they were publishing a well produced magazine, imaginatively called 'The ILP Magazine'. I used to subscribe to it.
• The two meetings in the North West with Gary Slapper under the title of 'Is Your Job Killing You?' possibly tied in  with his research into workplace deaths which eventually became the book, Blood in the Bank: Social and Legal Aspects of Death at Work.
• The meeting in West London with the guest speaker, Khachik Pilikian, would have been good.

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1989)

Party News from the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tiny Tips (2011)

The Tiny Tips column from the March 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

A quarter of all of Britain’s income tax revenues this year will be paid by just one per cent of earners, according to official data:

[Dead Link.]

The British crime map doesn’t feature corporate crime so it is a bit like a British flood map that registers only bathroom floods:

[Link.]

Egypt’s secret police, long accused of torturing suspects and intimidating political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, received training at the FBI’s facility in Quantico, Virginia, even as US diplomats compiled allegations of brutality against them, according to US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks:

[Dead Link.]

Four decades after the Green Revolution seemed to be solving India’s food problems, nearly half of Indian children age 5 or younger are malnourished. And soaring food prices, a problem around the world, are especially acute in India:

[Link.]

In one of the deadliest strikes on the Pakistan army, a schoolboy suicide bomber sneaked into a heavily-guarded Pakistani army training centre in the country’s north-west today and blew himself up in the midst of a parade, killing 31 soldiers and leaving 40 more wounded. “It was a suicide attack by a 12-year old bomber in school uniform,” top police officer Mr Abdullah Khan said:

[Dead Link.]

A jury in western New York deliberated for only an hour on Monday before finding a television producer, who ran a cable studio designed to promote understanding of his Muslim culture, guilty of beheading his wife:

[Dead Link.]

It seems President Hosni Mubarak isn’t the only leader who has grown out of touch with ordinary people following an extended period in power. Tony Blair has praised the Egyptian dictator as a “force for good”. Appearing on Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, the former British PM said: “Where you stand on [Mubarak] depends on whether you’ve worked with him from the outside or on the inside. “I’ve worked with him on the Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians and on that issue, I have to say, he’s been immensely courageous and a force for good.”

[Dead Link.]

Joe Biden says Egypt’s Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn’t step down…and wonders what the Egyptian protesters want:

[Link.]

English Legal System (1994)

Book Review from the January 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

English Legal System. By Gary Slapper and David Kelly. (Cavendish Publishing. £l3.95.)

This textbook is intended not just for law students but also for the increasing number of other people who in their work or their daily lives find they need to have some knowledge of the legal system in England. This readable and accessible book will meet that need.

As Socialists we know that the capitalist state has been in a financial crisis for the last twenty or so years and has had to cut back its spending in all departments. What has mainly struck us is how this has affected the various services national and local government provide for the population. This book shows (chapters 12 and 13) that the legal system has been affected too. Not only has legal aid been drastically cut back ("in some categories over 10 million people have been made ineligible by recent changes"), but since 1991 magistrates’ courts, which deal with 97 percent of criminal cases, have been forced to operate in accordance with market principles.

The amount of money they get from central government now depends on the number of cases and the speed they deal with them. As they can attract more funds by dealing with a larger number of minor offences (TV licences and motoring) than a smaller number of more serious ones, it is in their financial interest to pursue the former:

  "The clerk is thus under pressure to list more cases of this sort and fewer serious ones resulting from police charges as the latter only generate about £150 income from government funding per case hut take much longer to deal with if there is a not guilty plea and cost the court money.
  One justice's clerk in Hampshire who ’tots up' the points scored each week from the court's caseload said in an interview that he had come to speak of cases as 'earners' and some cases, like motoring matters, make much better profits than others"(p. 331)

So if you have ever wondered why the police pursue motorists rather than burglars, now you know why: it’s more cost effective. Increased recourse to fines (which bring in money) rather than jail sentences (which cost an awful lot of money) and the increased use of cautions by the police are other aspects of this cost-cutting exercise.

The irony is that all this weakening of "the fight against crime’ is happening under the Tories. But it is a measure of the seriousness of the financial crisis of the capitalist state that those in charge of it have been forced to skimp even on its primary role of maintaining Law and Order.

Adam Buick

Obituary: Gary Slapper (2017)

Obituary from the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to have to report the death of Gary Slapper, a member of long standing who first joined the Party in 1980. Gary was part of a large group of new young members who entered the Party around this time, many centred on his own branch in Islington, which became a particularly vibrant and energetic one throughout the 1980s. Gary played a very full part in expanding the branch to the extent that from small beginnings it became the biggest in the Party. He was a regular speaker and debater for the Party at this time and also regularly spoke on the outdoor platform at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.

In addition, he was a writer, contributing many fine articles to the Socialist Standard over the years under his pen-name of Gary Jay. A number of these focused on aspects of popular culture, often reflecting Gary’s deep interests in phenomena such as ‘new wave’ music.

Over time, Gary also pursued a very successful academic career – after a spell at Staffordshire University he became Professor and Head of Law at the Open University, before latterly becoming Director of New York University in London. Many readers will be aware that for years Gary was also a specialist law columnist for The Times, writing articles focusing on unusual and quirky legal cases, and which were illustrations of his good humour and keen eye for the absurd. He also wrote several well-regarded books in the field.

Gary’s death at the age of 58 was sudden and unexpected, and a tragic loss. He was a genuinely popular figure and a highly congenial man who will be missed greatly. The Party extends its condolences – including to his siblings Clifford and Maxine, both Party members.