Voluntary service oversold (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every year VSO recruits and sends several thousand volunteers to work in countries economically less developed than Western nations. This has arisen for a variety of historical reasons, largely to do with the exploitation of people and resources during the colonial era.

I am nearly half-way through my VSO posting with the Malaysian education department, and something I have suspected for some time has become very clear: "volunteering" is in fact another name for cheap wage slavery. In a social system where men and women are forced to sell their labour power in order to gain access to goods and services, VSO is able to provide the less successful capitalist nations with highly skilled workers from the West at a low price — they call it “low cost technological assistance". The word "volunteer" misleadingly suggests that we work for nothing. In fact, we are paid a wage which is supposed to be roughly equivalent to what a local worker with similar qualifications, doing a similar job. would receive. How this works in practice varies from country to country. The wage is paid by the employer in the country to which we are posted, although VSO does negotiate our salary, terms and conditions.

Most volunteers here earn a good deal less than Malaysian colleagues with similar qualifications. Furthermore, those of us working in East Malaysia, a very expensive part of South East Asia, with a shortage of qualified workers, find ourselves alongside teachers, doctors and engineers from other parts of the country who receive large allowances to encourage them to come and work here. Many of us have also found that our terms and conditions of work are far from clear. Only some volunteers know exactly what their working hours are, what sickness benefits they are entitled to and how much leave they can take. The only written agreement VSO have with the Malaysian Economic Planning Unit, which approves and administers postings. concerns pay. Yet like our unfortunate local colleagues we are expected, for instance, to apply for leave in triplicate months in advance and clock in and out punctually. Because we are foreign workers our behaviour is carefully noted and any signs of "irresponsibility" or disrespect can be held against us.

And so we are encouraged to believe that "development" is about redressing social, economic and technological inequalities in the world and, where VSO is concerned, particularly at the grass roots level. In other words, it is about using our skills and expertise to help some of the world’s poorest workers achieve greater self-reliance. The VSO logo states that “VSO sends men and women overseas to share their skills with the people of the third world" and one of the VSO objectives is that ‘‘Emphasis should be given to work which benefits poor and disadvantaged people and to enhancing the status of women" (VSO Volunteers Handbook). It is claimed that by volunteering we are doing more than just sharing our skills; we are also helping to undo some of the racist myths and stereotypes about people from Africa and Asia, to repair some of the economic damage inflicted on them during the colonial period. We are, according to VSO, helping to promote greater understanding between workers in different parts of the world and educating the people in Britain about the causes of third world poverty and inequality

In fact, this is all a VSO confidence trick. These vague, idealistic visions of development obscure the fact that organisations like VSO, along with the governments of countries who request volunteers, are firmly committed to capitalism — the kind of economic Development which will not bring about a world in which everyone has equal access to resources and technology and where there is mutual co-operation between people. The governments of third world countries are committed to perpetuating and developing a system where most of the world's wealth is owned and controlled by a minority. Its driving force is profit and even basic human needs will not be met unless it pays.

Organisations like VSO are committed to try and reform the system in order to bring about a more equal distribution of the world s wealth, but their effect is to improve the prospects of a rising capitalist class in the world scramble for profits. They also promote cultural and technological institutions which accompany the development of capitalism. In Malaysia, for example, VSO has provided a large number of volunteers to work in government social service departments, in the belief that this will help to bring about some improvement in the lives of Malaysia’s poorest — the mentally ill, handicapped, schoolchildren. What is overlooked is that workers only have access to social, welfare and health provisions for as long as it is profitable or in the interests of the owning class. For instance, although many diseases could be prevented by providing communities with safe drinking water, children still die because it is not profitable to do so. In Singapore, a rapidly developing capitalist state, workers are noticeably healthier than those in the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore water can be drunk straight from the tap and need not be boiled before drinking; there is no malaria and the medical facilities are probably better than in many Western countries. But then, as Singapore is extremely short of labour, it cannot afford to have a sickly workforce.

Capitalism, then, only provides workers with what is profitable: children who do not have a nourishing diet are still able to buy Coca Cola! They may lack adequate hospital facilities but are taught how to operate a submachine gun. Low paid volunteers are recruited from the West to develop a country’s health services, while millions are spent on arms and foreign experts to train the military in their use.

Another aspect of development is the emergence of an increasingly sophisticated education system. A developing nation needs workers whose minds are trained in new ways, and VSO provides many teachers for schools and training programmes. We do not usually teach young workers skills to enable them to articulate grievances and improve conditions, although this may sometimes be a side effect.

The process of urbanisation, the breakdown of communities into family units and the increasingly alienated lives of working men and women are all part of the development of an industrial capitalist nation. Mental illness, drug abuse, crime and child-battering become increasingly regular features of daily life and expertise is needed to deal with these problems. A VSO staff member suggested that the level of development attained by a country could be measured by the kind of volunteer workers it requests. A less developed country would ask for agricultural experts and primary health care workers; a more developed country like Malaysia will request social workers, mental health workers, probation officers and teachers. This is an interesting indication of what VSO understands by development. It certainly does not seem to be something in the interests of the people at grass root level.

But at least we do not suffer high-flown statements about promoting international understanding and racial harmony! It is made quite clear that we are here to assist Malaysia's social and economic development by filling gaps in expertise, until such time as qualified Malaysian workers take over. There are constant reminders from the VSO and the Economic Planning Unit that we must be sensitive to, and accept, the Malaysian way of doing things. This means that we should not question the racially divisive policies pursued by the Malaysian government, to keep workers separate and subjugated. If we are seen to be taking too close an interest in politics we will be deported very quickly. VSO, despite all that is said in their literature, is working closely with a government which locks up workers who attempt to take industrial action to better their lot.

At best, VSO volunteers are foreign workers filling expertise gaps at the same rate of pay as local workers. This can be a rewarding and educational experience for both the volunteers and the local people with whom they work. At worst, volunteers are directly supporting the anti-working class policies of oppressive governments Occasionally, volunteers are recruited for posts when qualified and experienced Malaysian workers are available but rejected because of their ethnic origins. This, of course, is in direct contradiction to the VSO's declared anti-racist position. . .

As volunteers we are learning another lesson in exploitation — our own and that of follow workers in other parts of the world. We are not putting an end to exploitation by promoting the development of a global community based on co-operation. That will only come about when a majority of politically conscious workers across the world challenge minority ownership and control resources. Socialists work to that end; we cannot leave it to organisations like VSO, who are in the "development business" merely to promote and perpetuate the profit system.

K.

Blogger's Note:

Understandably, because of the critical nature of the article, this article was signed off as the anonymous 'K'. I understand that 'K'. was the SPGB Bristol Branch member, George Marcelo. He wrote further articles in the Socialist Standard whilst based in South-East Asia which have yet to appear on the blog. They will do eventually.

Also worthy of note, another member of the Bristol Branch of the SPGB during the same period, Naomi Roberts, also undertook VSO work and wrote about her experiences in Ghana in the pages of the Socialist Standard:

• Letter from Ghana (1988)

Computers in a socialist world (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are in the middle of an industrial revolution. Once, the craftsman had to give way to the factory worker. Now, the factory worker has to give way to the computer worker. In the future, the computer worker will have to give way to a worker with another skill. This is necessary because capitalists, the men and women who own and control the things needed to produce wealth, compete with each other. They need to employ (exploit) workers to run the most efficient production methods available.

Since most computers are owned by capitalists, they reap the benefits of computer technology. Computers are used in "defence" (Star Wars, controlling guided missiles). finance (calculating bills, cash vending machines) and industry (controlling robots, designing products). There are other uses but these are the main ones. There are some workers who own computers, but these are toys. If you disagree, try borrowing a factory from a capitalist and running it with your computer.

Eventually, the penny will drop for the wage and salary earners of the world and then the means of producing and distributing wealth will belong to everyone. This will mean that computers will be used to satisfy the needs of everyone. It is not possible to predict exactly the uses to which computers will be put, because it all depends on the will of the majority of people at the time and none of us is a mind reader. But it is useful to think about what computers could be used for, because this gives us an insight to what socialism could be like. The possible uses are:

• matching production to needs;
• “electronic democracy”
• automation of dangerous or unpleasant work;
• others that you can think of.

Matching production to needs:
If you want to know what people need, you ask them, or better still, arrange for a computer to ask them for you. It saves you travelling all over the world, asking monotonous questions such as: "Do you use aftershave?" — useful information for someone who does his/her bit by brewing aftershave. In turn, the aftershave brewer could enter into the computer the raw materials that are needed and in what amounts. The computer would transmit this information to the suppliers. And so on. Of course, you could use the Post Office. A computer does the same thing, only quicker (for a more detailed account of such a system, see Socialist Standard, July 1984. p.131).

“Electronic democracy”
No, this is not a souped-up version of the BBC's Election Battleground. If a computer can count aftershave users, it can also count votes cast for and against any proposal presented by any person, such as "Should we continue making aftershave?" Cash vending machines and telephones could be voting machines. In the evening, the aftershave brewer could turn on the TV and see the result. This system can also be used to elect and instruct delegates. It is likely that the system will be hierarchical, a local computer counting votes for local proposals, a regional computer counting votes for regional proposals and a world computer counting votes for world proposals. Bigger decisions affect more people and so would be decided on higher up the hierarchy. A TV channel could be dedicated to listing the "decisions of the day” in the morning and reporting on the results of the poll in the evening. This system could be implemented today. Ask yourself why governments which spend millions on supposedly defending democracy are not willing to spend even thousands implementing it.

Automation of dangerous or unpleasant work:
There will always be dangerous or unpleasant work that needs to be done. It will be possible to automate work that produces essential goods and services. The technology to do this has existed for several years. Robots can now assemble cars, manufacture computers. make furniture and so on. More recently, computers can mimic workers that make decisions according to rules, such as quality control inspectors, lawyers and doctors. The reason some work is not automated yet is because it is still unprofitable to do so. But the technology is there, waiting to be used should society decide to use it. For example, if our aftershave brewer decides to grow bananas for a change and no replacement was immediately available, he/she could see an expert systems programmer. This programmer would write a programme that would instruct the computer to operate the aftershave brewery. Should the ex-aftershave brewer get nostalgic, he/she could always return and pull the plug on the computer.

Others that you can think of . . .
The building blocks for constructing the computer systems described above have been available from up to ten years ago. What you have read is not science fiction. It is fact. World-wide computer networks exist today. They are used by companies, especially multi-nationals, in order to co-ordinate their activities and to communicate with each other. The hardware is already in place. All that is necessary is for programmers to reprogramme the computers to perform the tasks described in this article, should that be the wish of the majority of the people at the time.

Defenders of the capitalist status quo tell people that socialism is not workable. They think that workers are not intelligent enough to run a system of production for use, one where there are no followers and leaders but a system where everyone co-operates in decision making. They forget that workers are intelligent enough to perform the tasks necessary to run capitalist society. It is workers who design, build and operate computer systems. When the wage and salary earners of the world, the working class, want socialism they will have it.

George Marcelo

Your Money or Your Life (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The NHS was set up shortly after the Second World War, after years of reformist pressure and pledges by the wartime coalition government of a better standard of care for workers as a reward for their wartime sacrifices. It was meant to be a health service that would be free at the point of use. Since then, it has been run down. Charges for some services have been introduced, and the NHS budget reduced.

Waiting lists for treatment are getting longer all the time. The simple explanation for this — insufficient funding by government — needs to be qualified. Recently, there has been an increase in overall NHS spending but this was not enough to meet the ever-increasing demand for health care. Hospitals have also been closed before new ones are ready to replace them. This has resulted in an increase in the number of people waiting for treatment and fewer hospital beds for them (fig.1). Hospitals in the cities have suffered particularly in this, because there has been a transfer of funds from urban to rural areas.

One way out for the government might be to lower the demand for health care, by taking steps to prevent disease. This is very expensive. The NHS has never been designed to prevent disease on a large scale — it is mainly a disease-curing service. It cannot give every person a check-up every six months. It cannot afford to repair dwellings that are poorly heated and ventilated, or dangerous to live in. It cannot afford to clean up the environment. It cannot ensure that everyone is provided with a balanced diet and a stress-free lifestyle. All these, and more, are necessary to prevent disease and therefore lower the demand on the health service.

Another way is to increase the supply of health care, by building hospitals and employing more health workers. In recent years this has been implemented to some extent but the queues are still getting longer Why? It is essential to cure disease when it happens; a failure to prevent disease adequately means that the health service will be swamped. Many people treated in hospitals only get ill again because the cause of their illness — poverty, stress and pollution — was not dealt with.

The government's plan to promote private health care will not solve the problem. It may lower the demand on the NHS by transferring some of the health care for some illnesses to the private sector but, because the private medical services use some NHS facilities, those who cannot afford private treatment will be moved further back in the queue. Tories argue that the NHS can be run down in order to give people a tax cut so that they will be able to afford private medical insurance. Ignoring the fallacies about workers paying taxes which this argument rests on, even if it were correct the result would be chaotic. A person who really needs to be insured, because s/he gets sick rather easily, would find it very difficult to insure him/herself at a price that s/he can afford. There is also a limit to how much treatment one can be insured for at a given price. Most people would not be able to insure themselves so that they would get the same range of services from the private sector that they would get from the NHS.
Increasing efficiency through a tough management for the NHS will not solve the problem either. The NHS is already very efficient. It had to be because it was swamped from the moment it was set up. The savings made will not amount to very much. The most likely result of this policy will be to prepare the NHS for privatisation.

The NHS functions the way it does because it exists to provide employers with as healthy a workforce as possible to recruit from. At a time when the number of people waiting for work is greater than the number of jobs for them, preventing disease on a large scale is not cost-effective, because if a worker gets ill a person without a job can replace the sick worker. However, it is not in the interest of employers to have disease run uncontrolled; exerting control is what the NHS does, so that the number of workers available for work does not fall too low. This role may not have been envisaged by some of the reformers who wanted the NHS set up. But the system we live under forces everything to conform to the needs of profit. The reformers promised a health service that would satisfy the health needs of everyone. Instead, we got a health service designed to serve the need of the employer class for a healthy workforce.

However, for employers a healthy employee is one that is able to work as hard as s/he is told to. It does not matter to them if managers die of heart disease, caused by the stress of meeting deadlines. A fresh manager can take her/his desk. It does not matter if factory workers die of cancer, caused by pollutants that are unprofitable to remove. There are plenty of people without jobs to replace them. It does not matter if unemployed workers feel hopeless and kill themselves. They are not needed.

The health services, public or private, are owned and controlled by the employer class and so it is their interests that are served. When the wealth of the world is owned and democratically controlled by everyone, the wealth of the world will be used to serve everyone's interests. The health service will be able to offer the best care, because medical supplies will be produced for use. and not for exchange at a profit. When food is produced to feed people, then infant mortality will fall, because mothers will have enough to eat. When life is no longer a stressful obstacle-course but a daily satisfaction of needs to create and consume, the number of people dying of heart disease and suicide will fall. When we look after our environment properly. because unprofitability will no longer have any meaning, cancers caused by pollution will fall.

We had an election not long ago. Promises were made. The Conservatives promised us the freedom to pay for our own treatment. Labour promised to spend a bit more on the NHS (they did not dare to insult us by printing the percentage figure in their manifesto). The Alliance promised to increase the NHS budget by £1 billion per annum higher than that planned by the Conservatives. (The Conservatives promised to spend £21 billion, and so the increase amounts to about 5 per cent).

If we want a problem to be solved, we must not leave it to leaders to put things right. The wage and salary earners of the world are the most powerful class. Without them, not a single hospital can be built, staffed, maintained or supplied. The time is long overdue for this class to democratically take control of the world's resources, and to use them for everyone's benefit.

George Marcelo

The final frontier (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Have you ever looked up at the sky at night? If you have, you might have seen the moon, the stars and the planets. There are people who admire the beauty of the heavens but who also get excited about the potential real estate out there. You are probably not one of them. Most people have enough trouble trying to own a piece of this planet without worrying about owning a chunk of another as well.

The first enterprise to venture forth into space was the Communist Party Inc. (USSR). On October 4 1957, they launched a satellite into orbit called Sputnik 1. Capitalists all over the world were deeply shocked. So the American capitalists' minder (US government) decided to play Celestial Monopoly and even landed on the moon. Arianespace pic. (Europe), another Communist Party Inc. (China), and Gandhi & Sons (India), entered the game with down-market satellite-launching businesses.

It was all very expensive — especially the moon trips. There was nothing of value there — no gold, no uranium, no workers. The USA mumbled something about feeding people being more important than manned exploration of the moon, and spent the money in developing the Star Wars programme. There are rumours that the Russians are going to have a go at Mars. Europe, China and India are cashing in on the satellite business, especially after the Space Shuttle blew up, due to a cost-cutting exercise.

Do workers come into this? Do we get to play Celestial Monopoly as well? I'm afraid not. We make the rockets, the rocket fuel and the gallons of white paint. We even polish the rockets so that they will look good for the TV cameras. We also make the computers that guide the rockets, the spacesuits, the sticky space food . . . The list goes on. All these things are made by the wage and salary earners of the world, the working class. We do not own what we make though, which is why we can 't join in the game.

However, as far as games go, Celestial Monopoly is rather silly. Why not co-operate in the exploration and use of space, so that all people can enjoy the benefits? The same could be said for all endeavours. But the rockets and the satellites and the farmlands and the fisheries, are not owned by everyone. They are mostly owned by a minority, to satisfy their own interests. It is in their interests to use the raw materials and machinery that they own, only if the things produced can be sold at a profit. It is not profitable to feed starving people who have no money to pay for food.

What uses-of-space are profitable? Communication satellites owned by large companies are one aim. There are. of course, the spy satellites, anti-satellite satellites and perhaps even orbiting missile silos. The owners of the world take "defence" very seriously. They have a lot to defend.

Are these of any use to the working class? Communication satellites enable anyone to dial direct to any phone in the world. However, after chatting for three minutes, it begins to get expensive. The major shareholders of the company that owns the satellite can afford to talk as long as they like. How long can the people who assembled the satellite talk?

As for "defence", the wage and salary earners of the world have no country to defend. Most of the wealth in any country is owned by a minority. Yet it is the workers who produce this wealth — the workers have much more in common with each other than with those who own and control most of the world and everything in space.

Today space is for sale. It is so expensive that even capitalists are finding it difficult to exploit it. The raw materials are there. The skills are there. The people who want to use space are there. But profit is nowhere to be seen. This is why the colonisation of space is still seen as a utopian dream. The worst thought-crime in capitalism is to want what capitalism cannot give.

The day before Sputnik 1 was launched, most people thought that space exploration was impossible. Science fiction, they said. People say the same thing about socialism today. They do not believe that a society where everyone co-operates in decision-making is possible. However, the wage and salary earners of the world already co-operate in producing and distributing everything. It only remains for them to have the power to decide what will be made, and how things will be made. It is this class alone which has the power to co-operate to produce a socialist society.

George Marcelo