The binman (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

What would you do if you grew tired of a successful career as a salesman, earning lots of dosh as you persuade people to part with their readies for things they probably didn’t want? Would you fake a smile and carry on, hating every minute of it but realising your suffering puts bread on your kids’ table? Probably. One man in my home town did something else. He quit that job and became a dustbin man.

He is quite an energetic guy. He doesn’t walk at all, he runs with the bins. Danish labour legislation has thankfully forbidden the old-style bins, without wheels, and law requires easy access to them for the binmen. No more busted backs or falling over gnomes. His fellow refuse workers tuns too. They get their job done in next to no time, which means our hero gets lots of hours for canoeing, his favourite hobby. He likes the outdoor life, the pace of the job, feels much happier, and is not concerned that his wage packet is smaller. Whilst it is a physically demanding job, he claimed the sales job was pretty demanding due to the mental tedium of waiting about for the next hard sell.

This little news story was one of those light relief space fillers we have grown accustomed to. However, it was by far the most interesting thing on the news that evening. It raises some intriguing points.

The reporter couldn’t understand why someone would turn their back on a big wage placket and become, “of all things” a binman. Why should refuse work be deemed less worthy than salesmanship? Why should anyone have to be asked, and justify, why they want to be a binman? A bin in summer can have a nasty, ripe smell, and it is obvious that public health requires, amongst other things, a clean environment – nothing could be worse than your Nan being plagued by rats, after all. What useful social function does a salesman have? None really, if you think about it. Salesmen are out to sell a product. Once the product is sold, the outlays are paid for and a tidy, little sum is netted in profit for the product’s pre-sale owner, who is probably wise enough to use another brand and who isn’t the salesman. Salesmen are only necessary in capitalism.

A salesman is, or so it goes, more educated than a binman. There is a social stigma attached. Only Dumbo empties bins. (Our hero is not a Dumbo of course.) It is a rotten snobbishness that overlooks a variety of things. The unemployed watching the news that night would jump at the chance to get a job. Perhaps some of them might be inspired to try a refuse job, even though the thought of rotting chicken and cat crap turns their stomachs. But then they could always change their job to salesmanship if they grow tired of bins, right? You see, what we want to do is pretty much irrelevant. You are employed only if you are exploitable. Jobs are plentiful in booms but come a slump you are put on the dole. You might get tons of papers from school, but does that mean you will get the job you want (and if you do, will the work conditions rapidly change your expectations); get a job; or even get educated? In any case schooling does not equate with education.

Hopefully our hero will continue to enjoy his job. Of course the Aarhus refuse workers’ strike some five years ago reveals the true nature of work in capitalism. There is a ceaseless struggle between capitalists seeking to up the tempo of work and reduce wages (in these days of permanent inflation, all they need do is freeze wages and workers will feel the pinch) and workers seeking to get their own back (by smoking on the WC and stealing the bog roll) or organising to implore conditions and pay.

Work should not really be equated with employment. Work will be an essential part of life in socialism; it will be a part of the individual’s development and a necessary, healthy expenditure of energy. Employment is wage labour (the ability to work is a commodity the workers are forced to sell – we are all “salesmen” in reality), commodity production instead of production solely for use. As such it has alienating factors associated with it; e.g. Monday to Friday is “their” time, whilst the weekend is your time, where you can enjoy working in the garden or painting. Employment is based on the division of labour. The upshot being workers are tied to one job for years on end, instead of being people able to do all kinds of things, which socialist society – run by conscious decisions instead of blind forces – will allow. (Of course it is a moot point as to how far the division of labour can be removed from socialism; not every one can have the steady hand and requisite knowledge of a surgeon.)

One of the strangest objections to socialism is “who will do the dirty work?” The man of this piece was not entirely motivated by cash. His sales job made him miserable; he loves his new job. We can speculate that there will be people willing to do dirty work in socialism. The hours required will be considerably reduced as the waste of unemployment and salesmanship, amongst many other occupations, will not exist in the moneyless, free access society of socialism; there will simply be more hands to do the unpleasant but necessary stuff. The objector is always a bit strange: “I don’t want to live in a world without wear and starvation, and where my needs are satisfied, if it means I have to do dirty work once a week.” Socialism can do lots of things, but not make crap smell of roses; that is one little fact of life we’ll have to put up with.

'Engelbassen'

Letter: Not peas in a pod (1996)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not peas in a pod

Dear Editors,

I am very disappointed with Graham Taylor’s interpretation (August Letters) of my letter to the July issue.

Not once in my letter did I say that I supported the Newbury rallies, and I do not believe it is very comradely either to suggest that I might hold Trotskyite or SWP views.

I am a member of the Socialist Party because I sincerely believe in the abolition of the capitalist system. The other views I expressed in my letter are quite clear, that I think some Socialists appear to make a fetish out of not demonstrating or showing solidarity with other workers. Socialists are people, individuals, not so many peas out of the same pod.

Heather Ball, 

Norwich

Letter: Opportunistic exercises (1996)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Opportunistic exercises

Dear Editors,

I found Heather Ball's comments (Letters. June Socialist Standard) somewhat surprising.

A socialist who compromises socialist principles is a notion that makes me feel very uncomfortable.

The question of strikes and the SPGB has been discussed often enough in the party’s history. and there is general agreement on the position individual members should take.

The comment ". . . being a Socialist means being a part of the struggle but without illusions” seems to be misplaced; I would expect to see it in a Trotskyite paper.

Does Heather Ball regard the Newbury rallies or strikes as being action against capitalism? The last paragraph of her letter seems to imply that this is the case, when in fact they arc feeble, defensive measures against aspects of capitalism, and where the majority of people are supporters of capitalism.

The SPGB has always made a point of putting the socialist case at demonstrations, not taking part in them. We leave such opportunistic exercises to the SWP.

Graham C. Taylor, 

Brabrand, Denmark

Feeble attack (2001)

From the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Attac France is another group who think they can tackle poverty. Is their answer any better to the World Development Movement’s?

The vice-president of Attac France, Susan George, addressed a public meeting on 27 March in my hometown of Aarhus, Denmark, attended by several hundred people. Attac was founded just under three years ago in France and professes to be an anti-capitalist movement. The acronym “Attac” stands for “Association pour une Taxation des transactions financières pour l’Aide aux Citoyens". Today it has some twenty sections around the world. An Aarhus branch was formed after the meeting was finished.

Attac has entered the popular vocabulary, especially after one of their very peaceful demonstrations, outside the Danish medicine firm Novo Nordisk. Novo was one of the companies involved in the legal action against South Africa. Novo produce AIDS medicine; due to its cost – South Africa has an HIV/AIDS epidemic – the SA government decided to import a copy medicine for medical aid. Novo were against this policy. The demonstration has the slogan: “People before profit”.

The flyer advertising the meeting already revealed that Attac is not anti-capitalist but rather anti-big business. It mentioned some of their aims: a redistribution of goods via taxation of currency speculation (the Tobin Tax) and the abolition of tax havens; better conditions for the Third World, necessarily involving the writing-off of debt; and democratic control of the market and the multinationals. None of these aims is strikingly original. There are a number of Social Democrats who share these views – and who believes those parties can be described as anti-capitalist?

The market cannot be controlled. Both inflationary policies of Keynes and the old, Eastern bloc command economics ought to be proof positive; the market simply cannot be regulated. Taking due consideration of the fact that a capitalist who has sold does not have to buy (i.e. reinvest), the market is nothing but the sum total of businesses buying and selling products, with a view to profit. Capitalist production is anarchic; this is never more obvious than at times of economic slow-turn and recession (slump). At the time of writing the Asian tech market has nigh-on crashed; America is facing a downturn; and Marks & Spencer have suspended their European operations. Capitalism runs through periodic cycles of boom-bust and back, despite Blair and Brown’s off-heard: “We will not return to the days of boom and bust.”

George was adamant “that public services are not for sale”. We might also ask what Attac’s redistribution of goods amounts to. It would seem that Attac want healthcare, etc to be state owned and funded by greater taxation of the (already taxed) capitalists. This is merely “Old Labour” policy.

Writing off Third World debt is already governments’ policy. The World Bank has a strings-attached policy on debt relief. What this reveals is that the (short-term) loss of money involved is not nearly so important as creating politically and economically stable areas for trade and investment, with future profit gains in mind. (“Debt prevents economic growth” – George.)

George’s lecture confirmed that the so-called anti-capitalist movements don’t attack capitalism as a system. George and the others single out multinationals as the baddies, as the root cause of the problems facing the workers of the world. We certainly can agree on what multinationals have done – that need not detain us. Attac, like others, base their critique of multinationals, however, on a caricature. Multinationals cannot act willy-nilly. They do have to abide by the laws in the countries where they are established as well as by international agreements. (The ultimate power in society is political power and not economic power.) Furthermore, multinationals are not immune to the economic laws of capitalism as expounded by Karl Marx in Capital. Whilst their size mean they only get a buffeting when others go to the wall, recessions do affect the Multis.

Whilst businesses are interested in shifting taxation burdens to others and do try to reduce wage claims – all of which eat into profits – it is not entirely true to state these are all they worry about. High taxation and wages are related to more developed capitalist countries, where the workers are educated and well trained. Such a workforce is more productive. Inefficient techniques and workers do not interest multinationals too much, when they have an adverse effect on profits. Capitalists seek high profits with security.

Capitalist realities

George revealed an ignorance of capitalist realities. She thought it strange that remuneration comes to capital from goods. Her explanation for financial crises was that anyone is allowed to invest anywhere in the world. Scathing remarks were saved for the WTO because “it wants to make everything a commodity”. (Fancy that! George ought to read the opening paragraph of Capital.) The word “capitalism” was hardly used; she talked of “globalisation” incessantly, and her definition of it was pretty flimsy. No mention was made of the unending rivalries between capitalists.

Attac’s ignorance of capitalism, both in the domains of economics and history is fundamentally crucial. Any political programme takes its starting point in axioms. In judging the Attac movement, and anything else, those axioms are the first things to be looked at. Attac clearly believe in the continued existence of capitalism.

Like all reformers, Attac limit themselves to attacking features which they do not like; they fail to realise that those features are due to capitalism. The Multies’ growth is a mere reflection of the growth of the global capitalist system – they aren’t anomalies. Because they fail to recognise this, Attac will not be able to eradicate inequality and poverty. Two features are at the core of capitalism – a minority own the wealth of the world, which forces the majority to sell their ability to work for a wage (and millions don’t even have jobs) and production is carried out for profit. It is true: “Capital is rewarded to the detriment of labour”, but she has drawn the wrong conclusions and ought to think about doing away with the capital-wage labour relationship altogether. Does she not know why the system is called capitalism?

How does Attac view changes occurring? They do not denigrate parliament. George stressed the need for laws, “new rules” and “political procedures”; broad coalitions should be formed; trade unions have an important rôle to play; and Attac are for “popular education towards action”. George is utterly mistaken if she thinks governments can ever work in the interests of the workers, since their policies are formed by the dictates of capitalism.

George described Attac. It was founded by people from a variety of backgrounds; the only organisation named was the French Small Farmers’ Union – Attac. She said Attac has internal democracy and that they work to get a consensus of opinions. She sent a message to those who would use Attac for their own ends: it is not permissible to use Attac as a front. This was fine, although it will do little good, since the local Trotskyist vanguard have been licking their chops and been busily promoting Attac. (These days, the Leninists are more reformist than they used to be.)

In the questions and answers session, I addressed some of Attac’s weaknesses. When I noted the Soviet Union was a state capitalist dictatorship some of the audience laughed; George, however, agreed with me – let us hope others in Attac share this view. I sold some Socialist Standards, received praise for my comments from my fellow workers, and was interviewed by national TV.

In conclusion, then Attac does not differ from other left-wing reformist groups. All they want is some nebulously-defined humane, egalitarian capitalism where business is accountable to the workers. And people call socialists utopian!

Graham C. Taylor

Obituary: Graham Taylor (2024)

Obituary from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have just learned of the death of Graham Taylor in Denmark. He joined the Central Branch of the Party in 1988 as a teenager. Originally from Gillingham in Kent he later moved to Denmark where his mother hailed from. Besides being our contact there, he contributed the occasional article to the Socialist Standard as well as transcribing articles and pamphlets to go on the internet, an essential part of our current activity. A sad loss to the socialist movement at the comparatively early age of 52.

Blogger's Note:

Such sad news about Graham's premature death. A really lovely guy who did a lot of good work putting forward the case for socialism in the early days of the internet on both the various socialist forums, and on his blog, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist.

Anti-immigrant party gains in Danish elections (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Elections are such depressing things. Once again the power to register a desire to change society in a fundamental way was open to the workers (in the shape of their vote) and once again it was squandered on capitalism. Of course it was not going to be otherwise – Danish workers, as elsewhere, are sadly not showing any high degree of class consciousness. The events in the US and Afghanistan have helped put a rotten breath of life into so-called “immigration debate”. And it didn’t exactly help matters when it was revealed one of Saddam Hussein’s generals – responsible for the 1988 gas attack on a Kurdish village – lives in Denmark.

The Danish election was on 20 November . It was a historic election. The turnout was a record; the Social Democrats were massacred, losing power everywhere, for example, for the first time in 82 years there isn’t a Social Democrat mayor in my home town of Aarhus; and the new government is the first “borgerlig” (literally “bourgeois) majority administration since 1926-29. In fact, the Social Democrats are the second largest party now; the neo-liberalists of Venstre have taken over first place.

Rasmussen has been replaced as PM by Rasmussen. (Tweedledum and Tweedledee spring to mind.) Not only did the two main actors have the same name, a lot of TV time was spend looking the lack of differences in the parties’ manifestos. (We say they are fundamentally the same anyway since both seek to administer capitalism.) It is the same spectacle of New Labour being the new Tories. Nyrup Rasmussen, the ex-PM, claimed in one election broadcast – when presented with a 30-year-old quote of his – that he has always stood for regulated capitalism . . . which is true, but at least he didn’t call it socialism.

The Danish Peoples’ Party has become the third largest party, and provides the Venstre/Conservative government with the extra mandates it needs for the “borgerlig” majority. (The Danish Folketing is built up on a complex PR system where posts and policies are negotiated by the parties.) The DPP is a nasty, nationalist outfit. Social Democrats are secretly hoping the DPP will scupper the government. And if you think that sounds like intrigue, what about the Socialist Peoples’ Party mayor who was backed by the DPP and a capitalist . . .

The whole tone of the election has led the Swedish and Norwegian liberals to call for Venstre’s exclusion from the liberal movement. International reaction has been negative too, some going to far as to compare Fogh Rasmussen with Haider. Venstre had put an ad in a national broadsheet about seven Arab boys who raped a 14-year-old girl in Aarhus not so long ago, which was roundly criticised for its suggestion that Arab boys are gang rapists. Immigration and taxation played a large role in the election. The ideas was: Danes pay high taxes; the Welfare State is in trouble, and we have waiting lists and our pensioners aren’t looked after; immigrants come here, do nothing, and get loads of taxpayers’ cash to live the life of Reilly. A few people realised that immigrants are an essential part of the labour force, which was vindicated by the post-election news that the firm Novo Nordisk are seeking qualified engineers in the immigrant population, even promising them support if they require a masters education. (There are too few engineers to cover industry” requirements at present.)

The need for a socialist on the debate programmes, in order to blow such nonsense arguments to bits, was obvious. But there were no socialists, just the sight of Frank Aaen of the Unity Party being foolish. The Unity Party is a ragbag collection of old Trotskyist and Stalinists, who married when the Eastern Bloc collapsed. Anders Fogh Rasmussen (the new PM) was harangued by Aaen. Fogh was quick to reply: “It’s obvious that the only thing you know about liberalism is what you learned at the Party school in Moscow.” It was a devastating hit. Aaen served the Kremlin Empire in his capacity as a leading Communist Party member. Socialists have pointed out that the silly gits who lionise Lenin do the socialist cause enormous harm. Fogh didn’t need to give a serious answer to Aaen – it was enough to use imagery.

There were some positive things. I produced a couple of hundred leaflets which were snatched up, made some contacts, and I sold a number of copies of this journal. An interesting thought to ponder: when the new government fails, as its predecessor did will workers begin to see that no matter which bunch you put in, it is King Capital first and the working class nowhere?

Graham C. Taylor

Letters: Marx and/or Freud? (2001)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and/or Freud?

Dear Editors,

I found the articles and discussion in the January and February issues on ads, capitalist art, psychology and Amos’s letter interesting; indeed one can make a synthesis of all this, which I would like to try and do, basing my discussion on Amos’s confused critique.

Your reply (Letters, January) was one way of answering him: socialism will be able to expand production of useful things in an ecologically defensive manner. There is another approach, and that is to point out how we see socialism being established. We have always stressed the need for majority, working class political action, based on understanding of and desire for socialism.

Capitalism shapes our needs through ads–you are what you own! Socialist society will certainly not be one of massive consumption since we will develop a new ethos; ideas become material forces when they lay hold of the masses, I believe Marx noted. Amos is judging consumption in socialist society through the eyes of a pro-capitalist when he says that everyone should, or would, be on a par with Western workers. Whoever said the lifestyle of Western workers is desirable? Also we certainly agree with Marx’s idea that humans make their own history, but only within the realms of what is materially possible. This is historical materialism, not utopian thinking of post-modernist idealism.

Seen in this light Amos’s view that social democratic parties are the best bet against fascism and barbarism is ludicrous. Concepts like fascism and democracy do not exist in vacuo. Democracy can only be safeguarded and expanded with the growth of socialist consciousness. That is the lesson Germany 1933-45.

That period does, though, raise troubling questions for Marxists. Class consciousness does not arise entirely spontaneously, it would seem. Some irrational factor is at work. Wilhelm Reich saw this as a result of sexual repression and the patriarchal family structure. Reich, however, was an unrepentant Leninist, and if his theory has any credibility it must be applicable to the truly fascist period of Stalinism as well.

A more credible approach is that taken by Erich Fromm (even though he made the mistake of equating nationalisation with socialism). Fromm is a good antidote to the idealist, psychological nonsense being peddled now, despite his works being some 30-50 years old. He took the concept of alienation, to be found in Marx’s philosophical worldview, and attempted to give it a Freudo-style twist. His Fear of Freedom, The Sane Society, and The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness are great books.

Homo sapiens is not in control of the products of sinew and brain, relations to each other, has lost himself and his connection to nature. (It is also factually incorrect of Amos to state Marx wasn’t green—he was, and he need only read Marx to find out.) The impersonal forces can leave the individual truly crushed; open to neurosis and inclined to let someone else solve problems. Only by establishing democratic structures and common ownership (socialism) can the individual and society progress. In this respect can Reich’s idea of human emancipation (necessarily involving sexual emancipation) be defensible.

Capitalism creates the material grounding for socialism, but a society of alienated people. The dialectic, socialisation of production but not in society’s interest, will be solved in socialist revolution. As will be the dialectic of mind: rationality and irrationality. This concept answers those who wonder about anti-social behaviour in socialist society; it will regress.

I realise Freudo-Marxism isn’t held as being tenable by fellow comrades, so it is prudent you comment on it.

Yours for a sane society

G.C. Taylor, 

Brabrand, Denmark

Reply: 

It is true that we are Marxians rather than Freudians, historical materialists rather than believers in psychoanalysis. Freud himself of course was not a socialist, but in fact embraced the “human nature objection” in an extreme form. He was a pessimist who believed that without morality and government to channel human sexual energies constructively utter chaos would result. To their credit, some of his followers—Wilhelm Reich, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm—did not go along with him on this and modified his theory to make the existence of a free, socialist society compatible with the Freudian view of human nature.

Reich’s The Sexual Revolution, written in the 1930s, has always been popular because it advocates a more relaxed attitude to sex—which Socialists share—but this message can be accepted without accepting the particular theory Reich put forward to justify it (which was very dubious and eventually led him to claim to have identified and to be able to measure “sexual energy” or “orgone” as he called it). Incidentally, although Reich was a member of the German Communist Party when he wrote it, he was soon expelled, partly because of it. In one of his later works, the pamphlet Listen, Little Man! he uses the term “state capitalism” in relation to Russia.

Marcuse’s Eros and Civilzation, like all his writings, is heavy going but his argument that abundance meant that sexual repression was no longer necessary found an echo amongst some socialists when it appeared in 1955.

You’re probably right about Fromm being the best of them, no doubt because (to the annoyance of the orthodox Freudians and even of Marcuse) he abandoned Freud’s explanations in terms of individual biology for social ones. The books of his you mention have always been popular amongst Socialist Party members—Editors.

Spying on the Trotskyists

Dear Editors,

In the article, “Chatham House and spies” (Socialist Standard, December 2000), I stated that the Security Service (MI5) has monitored, and heavily infiltrated Trotskyist organisations in this country, since 1943. In fact, the government’s Security Executive under the chairmanship of Viscount Swinton, using information obtained from MI5, reported under the heading of “subversive activities” on the British Union of Fascists, the Communist Party, pacifist and conscientious objectors; organisations, as well as Trotskyists, as early as 1941 (PRO: FO 371 32583).

In particular, the Security Executive considered the activities of Trotskyists in Britain, and concluded that nothing should be done to lessen their embarrassment to the Communist Party (PRO: FO 371 344 34416), and (PRO: FO 371 29523). Three years later, when the Trotskyists formed the Revolutionary Communist Party, Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, submitted a memorandum to the War Cabinet, in which he concluded that the Trotskyists had had little success in penetrating the Trade Unions. Among the leaders named was Ted Grant, the future leader of Militant Tendency, later ousted by the present leader, Peter Taaffe.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, Essex

World View: Euro or Krone? (2000)

From the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 29 September Denmark awoke to a crisp, sunny day. Various people were nursing hangovers because the result of the previous day’s Euro referendum had been a “no” (53.1 percent—no, 46.9 percent—yes; 85 percent of 4 million eligible voters—turnout).

The Ministry of Finance distributed a (lengthy) booklet to households discussing the euro. TV had live, lengthy debates (where the audience could put questions to the panel) almost every day. There were even TV phone-ins where “Joe Bloggs” could question, e.g. the PM and leader of the Social Democratic Party, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Of course the real alternative to the euro didn’t get aired.

The summer months saw the hive of various parties’ activity grow nigh-on exponentially. (The Minority Party turned down a debate with the World Socialist Movement because they were too busy on their anti-euro campaign.) It was intriguing to see how parties, who are opposed to each other, took the same side and often put the same arguments. The most humorous propaganda of the whole campaign, has Holger Nielsen (leader of the Socialist Peoples’ Party) and Pia Kjaersgaard (leader of the ultra-nationalist Danish Peoples’ Party) in a stance parodying the film poster to Basic Instinct. The poster was produced by the (Young) Social Democrats, who urged for a “yes”, just like the Liberal Party (who are more conservative than the Danish Conservative Party, who are like the British Liberal Democrats—confused?). And our old “friends”, the Leninists, were urging for a “no”.

One of the major talking points prior to the referendum was Denmark’s sanctions, now lifted, towards Austria. The Liberals claimed this policy made voters, who were undecided, more inclined to vote “no”. the sanctions were a part of EU policy in the light of Jörg Haider and the Austrian Freedom Party’s electoral successes, where they form part of that country’s government now. As it was, 60 percent of Danes opposed those sanctions (57 percent in Nyrup’s party were against). The Liberals’ argument was fallacious because all sides had people against the sanctions. Political analysts (various sources) noted that the “no” camp was swelling because people found the government untrustworthy, and not because of its sanctions policy.

Statistics from the “Institutet for Konjuktur—Analyse” showed that 61.4 percent said the euro would be good for business, 52.1 percent said a nay would increase unemployment, 45.5 percent said a “ja” would make an independent fiscal policy difficult—33 percent took the opposite view, 73 percent thought a “yes” would lead to a “United States of Europe”, 57.1 percent said the euro was a threat to “Danishness”. And so on.

The statistics are of interest since they give some indication of the views held by Danish workers and Party leaders. (It would be wrong to say that the parties were unified around a “yes” or a “no”.) A few other arguments are worthy of note. The SDP leader Holger Nielsen said a “no” would make it easier for the Baltic states to join the EU. A fringe group, consisting of refugees and immigrants entitled to vote, urged a “yes”; they argued that a “no” would lead to a deterioration in the Welfare State and give fuel to Denmark’s already growing far-right parties. And then there was the notorious argument put forward a few days before the referendum by PM Nyrup: a “no” would force up interest rates and thus cost 20,000 jobs. (In fact the, unaccountable, National Bank director put up the interest rate by 0.5 percent the following day.)

In the statistics above, people argued that an independent fiscal policy would be made difficult by a euro. This is true. A central European Bank would have the control over the issue of euro notes and coin. But for how long? Countries can make agreements but history has shown that each country can and does break agreements or push for amendments, since each country’s government is the executive committee of the collective capitalist class. A European Bank would still have an inconvertible currency (the euro) and could still influence price levels via inflation. A Central Bank could never avert economic crises, which are an inherent part of capitalism, because it is a system of anarchic production.

Control of currency issue and interest rates, high or low exchange rates, etc and what monetary policies are carried out depend on which section of the capitalist class has enough lobbying power. Each party stood for a policy of running capitalism. Capitalism cannot work in the workers’ interests. It’s creed is profit.

The working class should not side with any of our class enemies. It should stand for its own interests—freedom from wage slavery and exploitation; socialism: a society of production for use and free access, where all will contribute according to their abilities.

Despite all the debating and statements and what not through the weeks and months, one thing was patently clear: the basic previous which the politicians based their specious arguments.on were not examined. Thus anybody could say anything without being asked any awkward questions, like “What is money anyway?”, “Why does money exist?” and “I don’t have enough euros, does that mean I’ll have to go without food still?”

As this article has hinted, a certain viewpoint was not addressed at all: socialism. Socialists are against capitalism. This means socialists are for a global union, and not nation states, federal unions or global capitalism. socialists are also not interested in what the name of a currency is, as we are for abolishing money.

The question of “euro or Krone?” was of complete irrelevance, as will be “euro or Pound?” when Britain holds its referendum, to the workers. The real issue is “Capitalism or Socialism?” That is why your humble scribe wrote “World Socialism—Abolition of the Wages System!” on his voting paper.

Graham C. Taylor

A war to end all hooliganism (2000)

TV Review from the October 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

After several months of being “forced” to listen to the radio (and listening to such insane people as the rabid woman guest on Five Live saying England has a hooligan problem because we haven’t had a war and that the hooligans would be the first to enlist because they’d enjoy a good ol’ war) because the TV rental firm repossessed my box (“Thank you DER”, to employ their ad soundbite!), I have finally got hold of a TV and video on hire purchase.

Thank God! Now I don’t have to spend endless, boring hours talking to friends, painting and reading books. I can switch on and zap. Homer Simpson is right, you know—the remote is a true technical marvel.

I didn’t watch a lot of it when the other firm (not DER) delivered it. I had too much time to spend on moving all my furniture—firstly to make room for the house altar, and secondly, to position my chairs in the correct direction and make sure my plants and art didn’t block guests’ views of it.

After programming the cable channels in, I flicked through to see if all was OK. I watched bits and pieces of all manner of thing. On CNN a debate was taking place on child soldiers. (I wonder if they are hooligans? I always though they didn’t have the money to go and see a game, let alone buy a football.) Apparently they are abducted by the militias, grow up accepting violence as normal, and in peacetime they have trouble re-entering society: they are mentally unfit for anything and have no education to speak of. A UN man said he was working to make sure all countries have a minimum age of 18 for servicemen—how comforting, and philanthropic.

Zap! I caught a scene from the American Civil War soap North and South. One of the characters (Patrick Swayzee) is a slave owner. His friend is a Yankee capitalist—socialists can’t help chuckle at the man’s name: Hazard. Apparently they are friends, although they end up fighting each other (in the two armies). The Confederate looks at the diabolical conditions capitalist Hazard’s workers endure in the factory. “At least they are free—they can go where they want,” says our erstwhile Yankee. Quite. Capitalism needs this “freedom” to operate: you can work for a capitalist or choose to starve.

Zap! At last I can catch up on Eastenders. I see Nick Cotton has a son. He was caught trying to steal money from Dot’s purse by Mark. “Like father, like son,” says our fruit-and-veg philosopher. In 1987 “Between the Lines” was attacked in a dishonest article by the People newspaper, because we called Eastenders a morality play with a distorted view of what our class is like. Fifteen years on and it is still moralising: Nick’s son is “born evil”, and is it right to let Ethel end her life when her cancer is too painful to bear?

Zap! It was awful listening to the Republican Conference on Five Live’s Up All Night show; seeing and hearing it in glorious Technicolor was nauseating. Visions of Nazi rallies sprang to mind—people screaming in adulation at their “strong man”.

Zap! Zap! Zap! I saw Teletubbies in German, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Turkish. At least I know how to say: “Time for Tubby bye-bye” in several languages now. I could complain but, then, when I was a kid TV had Happy Days and The Magic Roundabout. I watched the Fonz whilst my old man followed the adventures of “Boing” Zebedee—probably to com to grips with his 60’s acid flashbacks.

Zap! Ah-something good: Woody Allen’s Radio Days film. After that, turned on my radio and listened to Brian Alexander’s show and Up All Night, whilst flicking through a book I was given, The Biology of Art, which studies how Homo sapiens’s need for art developed, through a comparative study of chimpanzees’ paintings.

But no doubt I shall be tuned in tomorrow to see if Mel will forgive Steve and to cry when Ethel snuffs it. Anything else would be boring, wouldn’t it?

Graham C. Taylor

Letter: Internet revolution (2000)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Internet revolution

Dear Editors,

I found the series on the Internet earlier this year (Socialist Standard, Jan-Apr) thought-provoking. I think Paddy missed out some points which are worth making. I’d like to hear other’s thoughts on these.

Fellow workers ought to read the series in conjunction with section one of the Communist Manifesto by K. Marx, since the points I am making derive mainly from this “idea association”.

At the recent Tokyo G7 meeting, there was a fair amount of talk about putting the African continent online. Some might be cynical and say this is just Sony’s way of creating a market for its computer section. However it should also be viewed as essential for the smooth running of African capitalism—they have to, are forced to, adopt the new technology. (“The bourgeoisie creates a world in its own image.”)

In order to win its political dominance the capitalist class had to enlist the working class in the battle against feudalist reaction. The Manifesto noted that capitalism creates its own gravediggers: the proletariat. It concentrated the workers into great cities, allowing our class to come into close contact. By using the workers in its politics, the capitalists are also unwittingly making workers think politically. They educate our class.

By pushing for parliamentary democracy the capitalists had also to give in to a demand of the workers: the vote—a weapon which the workers can use for their own interests at such a time as when they are no longer under the influence of capitalism’s sweet talk.

The internet is essential to the global capitalist system. But it, too, is a weapon the workers have acquired. Workers in Denmark can talk to workers in Canada, etc, etc.

The Internet will lead to a structural change; how big it will be is something we shall have to wait and see. Home-working may lead to a breakdown in social alienation—workers will begin to form communities again akin to feudal society. In Volume Two of Capital, Marx discusses the time in which capital circulates; whilst it is in circulation it cannot be realised—hence the growth of banks, etc which are the “middlemen” who reduce that time, and have become capitalists in their own right. The non-productive workers (bank clerks, who are also exploited like productive workers) may begin to find their position threatened by the advance in technology, and soon to swell the ever existent reserve army, along with the blue collar, whose labour is also threatened by machinery. The middlemen capitalists may also begin to be squeezed out with the advent of home banking and home shopping—capital will begin once more to be increasingly in the hands of a smaller, dwindling capitalist class.

And Communists? We disdain to hide our views! We will use the Internet to disseminate our views and create socialist party organisation. Let the bourgeoisie tremble at the prospect of an Internet revolution. Workers of the world log on!

Graham Taylor, 

Brabrand, Denmark

Party News (1998)

Party News from the December 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Denmark

On 21 October our comrade Graham Taylor represented the World Socialist f Movement in a debate in Aarhus against the “Internationale Socialister”, the Danish equivalent of the British SWP. The debate, in Danish, was mainly about why we did not regard the Russian revolution as a socialist revolution. On 4 November a lecture on Marxism in the same city attended by 90 people provided an opportunity for the case for socialism to be presented from the floor. A number of new contacts have been made and the local press has expressed an interest.

North East

Despite the shadow boxing between Labour and the Tory Lords over the election system for next June's Euro-elections, the North East branch is going ahead with plans to present a 4 person list for the North East regional constituency.

To date, on two separate occasions, a branch member has been a panellist on BBC Radio Tyneside's discussion and phone in programme "The Zoo" (their title) where they were able to put and answer questions on the socialist case.

Meanwhile, another vacancy has arisen on South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council, in Quay ward, Hebburn. The by-election is taking place on 17 December. The Socialist Party candidate is John Bissett. A meeting challenging the other candidates—Labour, Lib-Dem and Tory—has been organised at the Community Centre, Hebburn, at 8pm on Tuesday 15 December.

Letters: Malthus, people and pollution (1991)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Malthus, people and pollution

Dear Editors,

Your article. “Ecology and revolution” (April 1991), accepts the seriousness of the world ecological crisis but rejects Jonathon Porritt's claim that environmentalism has superseded the class struggle. Fair enough; I agree that environmentalism cannot wish away the conventional issues of politics.

However, you then change tack and question the seriousness of the crisis itself, beginning with the effects of population growth, which you tackle by rubbishing what you think Malthus said. (If you want to know what he really said. I recommend articles and reviews by Jack Parsons in People, 1977, No.3, and No.4; 1984, No.2 and New Scientist, 11 October 1979). Your approach to the alleged dangers of industrialisation is to argue that since it has been a good thing for millions of men and women (undoubtedly true), fears about its environmental consequences can be dismissed. Dr Pangloss might agree, but I do not.

Looking at the actual situation as it is now, it may be possible to find some common ground if you agree that, broadly speaking, the deleterious effects of human activities on the environment (enhanced greenhouse effect; loss of ozone layer; soil erosion; loss of forests, etc) are a multiple of number of people and per capita use of energy and materials. Not only is world population projected to double by about 2030, but an immense increase in per capita consumption would be inevitable if the poor countries emulate the lifestyles of the rich. Would you not agree that both factors should be reduced, as a matter of common prudence? If you do, then we can discuss the political implications.

John Davoll 

Shepperton, Middlesex

Reply:

Just because we have a different view as to its cause does not mean that we question the seriousness of the present ecological crisis nor that we think we are living in the best of all possible industrialised worlds. Far from it. There is an ecological crisis and it is serious, but its cause is not the pressure of population nor industrialisation.

The cause of the crisis is the capitalist system where firms compete for profits and where the resulting competitive pressures impose the accumulation of more and more capital out of profits as the over-riding economic goal (what some Greens call “blind economic growth"). This being so, the solution lies neither in depopulation nor in deindustrialisation but in getting rid of the profit system that is capitalism and replacing it with socialism and production for need.

If production was geared to meeting needs, on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, then not only could modern technology and industrial resources be used in a non-polluting way (productive units would no longer be under competitive pressures to minimise costs at the expense of social and ecological considerations) but the whole of the world's present population could be adequately fed and housed.

Pollution is not “a multiple of people and per capita use of energy and materials" but of the waste and profit-seeking of the capitalist system. It is in fact the waste that is built-in to capitalism— the waste of arms and armed forces, of government bureaucracies, and of all activities linked to money and finance—which is responsible for there being a high per capita consumption of energy and materials; since this figure is of course merely such consumption, wasteful as well as useful, divided by total population. With socialism—and the elimination of the waste of arms, the apparatus of repression, and money and finance—this per capita figure will come down even while more resources are devoted, as they must be, to satisfying peoples food, housing, health care and other needs.

Socialists are fully aware of what Malthus preached. After all, we've been combatting for nearly two hundred years now his view that it is impossible to improve the lot of the mass of humanity. But the best way to know what Malthus really said is to read the man himself. This is what he wrote in the very first chapter of his Essay on the Principle of Population:

  Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio . . . This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way of the perfectibility of society. All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears, therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society, all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and comparative leisure: and feel no anxiety about providing the means of subsistence for themselves and families. (Our emphasis)

We repeat this is rubbish. A society where the whole population can live freed from the fear of material want is possible. John Davoll undermines the case for birth control by associating it with the ideas of Malthus.

Editors.

Disgusted

Dear Editors,

I was disgusted by the International Socialists, the Danish sister party of the British SWP, because of the position they took during the Gulf War. In line with their Leninist dogma they gave their backing to Saddam Hussein. Their support was based on the fallacious belief that a blow to American Imperialism is in our class’s interests and that Hussein would have unleashed revolutionary forces that would have toppled him and other dictators in the area. There was actually a split in the IS over their attitude to the war. The local branch broke from the IS because they preferred to give their conditional, rather than unconditional, support. Some internationalists!

Socialists are opposed to such ideas which do nothing other than confuse the real issue. If Iran had won, it would have been American workers’ blood that would be soaking into the desert sands. You could imagine how IS'ers would explain their position to workers on a General Motors factory line—"Sorry Comrades, but its for your own emancipation”.

In times of peace, when they have patched up their differences, the masters are united against the workers in the greater war—the Class War. From Rolls Royce’s wage freezes and sackings to Gorbachev’s strike bans, from cops beating up Korean students to the brutal suppression of the Kurds and Shi’ites, its signs are everywhere.

Only when the workers of the world see through the lies of the capitalists, refuse to continue the idiotic butchering of their fellows and unite to take over the means of producing and distributing wealth so that the products of our hands and brains can be used for their logical purpose—the satisfying of human need, only then will peace truly reign, for when we cease to be plundered, there will be no plunder for a class of plunderers to make war over.

G. C. Taylor

Viborg, Denmark

Letters: Karen Horney again (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the January 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karen Horney again

Dear Editors,

A letter last month quotes Karen Horney. Her book on neurosis is really worth a read since she was much in the same social psychology vein as Erich Fromm, i.e. finding more to neurosis in the way our society is than merely positing biological and individual causes. She argued that the neurotic individual doesn’t have a large ego (real sense of self, not the negative connotation of ego) and substitutes an unreal sense of self in place.

As an illustration, every one of us gets told to get passes in this or that in order to get a well paid job. That can lead to someone knocking their head against a wall, doing things they aren’t in to, and having an unrealisable goal to achieve and thus having a measure for their failure to get down over.

It has always been a socialist argument that we will do what we like doing in socialism and thus this will lead to harmonious development of people. Horney the psychiatrist put a theoretical or psychological insight/argument that backs this up somewhat.

Graham Taylor, 

Brabrand, Denmark

Dear Editors,

Regarding Karen Horney, I found her first and last books the best and her other stuff mediocre. Her first book, New Ways in Psychoanalysis, is excellent if you want a crash course on Freud and she seems to be a bit more radical probably under the influence of “her close friend” Fromm. She seemed to have sold out a bit in her last book.

I don’t want to give the impression that Neurosis and Human Growth is not worth a read. I think it is a must and is one of the most influential books I have read. I think you have to read it at least twice to get the full impact.

Dave Balmer (by email)

Moneyless (2018)

Book Review from the July 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

A World Without Money or Politicians. By Colin Walpole, 2017. Order through Amazon.

I had two reasons to buy this. Colin is my old 'boss.' I helped him, in my very small way, develop rugby union — his favourite sport — in a local city. Ex-pat that he is, he brought rugby union with him to Denmark and developed a very decent side. The other reason is clear enough: the SPGB has put a similar argument: a moneyless society of democratic control by the world's people.

Colin's booklet does not quote Marx, economics, anything. He makes observations, discusses thoughts, that he has had for years. That might make the booklet refreshing for many who might be bored by quotes from the Grundrisse.

Colin states his thoughts a few pages in. Get rid of a money economy and replace politicians by a direct democracy: 'I've convinced myself that money gets in the way of self-fulfillment'.

Colin rips into money. If you don't have it, you'll do everything to get it. If you have it, life is easy and swell. This, though, is a weakness in the booklet. Capitalist society appears as a mass collection of commodities, to quote Marx (after all), where one – the money commodity – allows the exchange of all commodities because it is regarded as a universal equivalent. To attack capitalism, you must see it as a social relationship based on minority ownership, with majority exploitation: profits, rent and interest for the few; wage slavery for the rest. A class system with a class struggle.

I am certain people will enjoy this booklet: for one thing it shows workers are able to develop revolutionary ideas without a Leninist Party.

Graham C. Taylor

Same the world over (1997)

From the December 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to Marx and Engels, in their Communist Manifesto, society was developing in such a way that various classes that had existed were losing their historical importance and were being gradually replaced by a polarised class society, where a minority class own the wealth of society and the majority class own nothing but their ability to work.

History has vindicated this analysis, although listening to the Danish news recently, one would never guess this is the case. The reporter said, straight-faced, that class division in Denmark isn’t all that big compared with England. Quite what he meant wasn’t made clear, especially in the light of a report in the financial markets’ newsletter Børsens Nyhedsbrev which published a list of the richest people in Denmark.

The richest man is Arnold Marsk McKinney Møller. His wealth, which has doubled in the space of two years, amounts to 46 billion kroner (£5 billion). Number two in the list is the Lego toy king Kjeld Kristiansen, who has a “paltry” 20 billion kroner. If you want to get into the top fifty you must have wealth amounting to 460 million kroner (£50 million).

In another paper, the scribe wrote that Møller’s wealth was created by generations of hard work. Needless to say the article completely neglected to say whose hard work it was. Just for the sake of comparison, a university student gets 5000kr (£554) in university grants and loans a month. Less inequality? Surely some mistake?

Water, water, everywhere

A Kurdish friend showed me an article from Jyllands Posten (17 May) which was about Turkey’s "Günayadogu Anadolu Projesci" (GAP).

It isn’t just oil that is causing tensions to build in the Middle East, water is as well. The Turkish government initiated its ambitious GAP plan in 1984: the construction of reservoirs and twenty-two dams at a cost of some 370 billion Danish kroner. The idea behind GAP is to provide hydroelectric power and create 1.8 million hectares of arable land.

The dams are to be situated in south-east Turkey on the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, which also happen to feed Syria and Iraq. The major dam built to date is the Ataturk dam on the Euphrates. This has stopped the natural flow of sediments, and has resulted in the impoverishment of Syrian farm land. The amount of rich mud that is deposited when the Euphrates floods isn’t the same as before, and the farmers have had to move. One can only guess at the ecological consequences of the damming.

The PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party, so-called) was a minor nuisance to the Turkish government before GAP became a reality, and (yes, you guessed it) Syria has been only too happy to supply the PKK with weapons. In fact the PKK leader has his address in Damascus. The Syrian rulers are quite clearly using the PKK as pawns in a cynical manner.

What will happen in the future? Turkey lost a big market in the shape of Iraq as a result of UN sanctions in the wake of the Gulf War; Turkey’s rate of inflation is 80 percent per annum; the PKK "war” is using millions; and Syria has put objections to the UN in the hope that the UN will step in and stop the construction. One thing is certain though: just like in 1991 —where the issue was oil, and you can’t even drink that—workers’ lives are being expended for their rulers’ interests.

Graham C. Taylor

Did Communism Collapse? (2001)

From the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ten years ago this month Gorbachev was nearly relieved of power in a coup. It is ten years since those heady days of tanks in Moscow, Yeltsin in “The White House”, Yeltsin giving a speech on a tank, and workers fighting for democracy—although they didn't know what else they wanted, only that it shouldn't be the CPSU. The coup collapsed and the USSR eventually went with the perpetrators into historical oblivion. The western media greeted these events, which they have never given any indication of understanding how and why the happened, with hysteria: capitalism had won; we had reached the end of history; there was a New World Order; and socialism, communism and Marxism were dead.

It is unlikely that the media will do anything but repeat their tiresome “death of communism” mantra. It is also unlikely that they will analyse why August 1991 happened, despite having ten years to think about it. So let's look at their claim that “communism” collapsed in the USSR via a linguistical route.

The CPSU leaders never claimed that Soviet Russia was “communist”; they described their country as being “socialist”. Socialism, for them, was to be a period which was preparing communism. So straightaway the media's claim is at odds with the old Soviet leaders' own pronouncements.

Logically, then, they should have said that “socialism” had collapsed. This is, of course, not a nice thing to admit, since then “communism” could hardly be said to be dead, nor that history was at an end, since the New World Order could still be replaced by a Newer (Communist) World Order. So was it socialism that collapsed? Such a claim would have created new problems for the media pundits. The left-wing have not all supported the USSR; indeed non-socialist writers have also questioned the socialist credentials of Soviet Russia.

In Leninist theory, the state machine has to be smashed through insurrection and the economy nationalised under the auspices of workers' councils, but in reality under the vanguard party's political dictatorship. This is termed “the workers' state” or “socialism”. When Stalin began to eradicate all opposition, Trotsky developed the theory of the “degenerate workers' state”. He argued that the Soviet economy was basically socialist but that a party bureaucracy had smashed workers' control.

A section of the Trotskyist movement, later to be today's SWP, found this view so ridiculous that they said Stalin had restored capitalism to the USSR. This “restoration-of-capitalism” view was to appear again in two guises. After Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Khruschev became General Secretary. The Chinese Communist Party (under Mao) began to openly attack the CPSU as “reformists”¸ who were overseeing the restoration of capitalism. When Mao died, Enhver Hoxha (the Albanian dictator) said that capitalism had been restored under Khruschev and the new revisionist Chinese leaders.

It gets more bewildering. Lenin said that they were creating state capitalism in Russia as a necessary step forward; in addition he added, for complete maxi-confusion, that “socialism” was nothing but state capitalism made to benefit the people. The non-Leninist tradition was quick to point out that he was saying the same thing as Social Democrats, only that he thought the means to gain state power should be different. (Paul Mattick, in Marx and Keynes, analyses this quite nicely.) So there you have it: the founder of the USSR called black white. Fans of Douglas Adams will instantly recall the theological argument for the non-existence of God from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which ends up with Man getting knocked down at a zebra crossing.

How did this all arise? 1848—the publication of The Communist Manifesto; 1875—Marx's The Critique of the Gotha Programme; 1917—Lenin's The State and Revolution. Engels explained that he and Marx had to call their 1848 manifesto “Communist” in order to avoid being confused or associated with various movements calling themselves “socialist”. Engels and Marx, otherwise, used the words interchangeably. InThe Critique Marx said that there would be two phases in communism – a “lower” and a “higher” phase, the lower phase rationing goods via labour vouchers (which aren't money). It was Lenin in 1917 who claimed that the lower phase of communism was commonly called socialism; which completely falsified the facts.

We in the Socialist Party have always insisted that socialism and communism are two words which differ in the same way as spade and shovel, i.e. not at all. We were also pretty clear in saying the Bolshevik coup d'état heralded the real onset of Russia's capitalist development, not the creation of socialism/communism. So what is the Marxist definition of socialism? A world-wide society based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the world society. There will be no nations, states, commodity production, buying and selling, money or classes. Production will be based on the principle of: “from each according to their ability, to each according to their self-defined needs”.

So read this August's newspapers with a touch of salt; Marxism and Communism died in 1991? Certainly not!

Graham C. Taylor

Peace sells but who's buying? (2008)

From the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog

They are Islamic Fundamentalists, not big on democracy, have WMDs and are getting more. Another war on the cards then? No - it's called buisness and the people in question are Britain's staunch allies: the House of Saud.

"A controversial deal with Saudi Arabia catapulted Britain to the top of the world arms export league last year, as UK firms won a record £10bn in orders from overseas, official figures show.

The figure amounts to a third of all worldwide export orders for military equipment, ministers and arms companies reported. An essentially political, government-to-government contract - the sale of 72 Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft, for £4.4bn, to the Saudis - accounted for Britain's number one position, the figures make clear.

The Ministry of Defence says the terms of the contract - called Salam, Arabic for peace - and the total expenditure involved are confidential. But officials make it clear that when upkeep, spares and training were included, the deal could amount to £20bn spread over many years. The figures last year were also boosted by orders placed by Oman and Trinidad and Tobago for patrol boats.

The companies involved - chiefly BAE Systems and the VT Group - were praised by the trade minister, Digby Jones.

"As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first-class defence industry, with some of the world's most technologically sophisticated companies," he said.

From here

A trade minister praising sophisticated killing machines and a contract called "Peace"...? Orwell, anyone?

Graham C Taylor

The Basement Timewasters (2007)

From the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back

A former Socialist Party member (S. Coleman) used to bemoan the documentaries about socialism/communism in his monthly Socialist Standard TV column "Between the Lines." The June 1989 issue is a typical example:

"Somewhere int the basement of Channel Four there is an office in which is to be found a team of timewasters whose lifelong project is to make lengthy documentaries about "socialism" or "Marxism". Over the years the C4 audience has been subjected to numerous programmes of this kind. We wait excitedly, expecting a serious analysis of the subjects so seductively advertised in the titles - and with regularity we are left feeling frustrated, cheated and wondering when the case for socialism would at least be mentioned in passing.

"Utopias" [(C4, 10.45 pm, 1 May) was the broadcast time, [funnily enough on the Workers' International Day of Struggle - gray] was a classical production of the basement timewasters. The programme lasted for over an hour. It was clearly produced with enormous technical care, using props and recordings of speakers which looked like they were going to serve as a backdrop for something more than superficial. The title was intriguing. Socialists are often called utopians . . . Within the first few minutes that sinking feeling began.

I understand Coleman's frustration. Recently, Danish TV (DR 2 precisely) had an evening of programmes and discussion under the umbrella title of "Utopia." (20 January.)

I didn't understand why three quarters' of the programmes were shown as they were manifestly out of place in relation to the subject under discussion; e.g. the tediously boring documentary about some New Agers who have built a temple in a mountain.

The best part of the entire evening was the (all too brief) studio discussion related to Thomas More, his book and the other utopias of his age. (Utopia derives from Greek and has the meanings: 1)"no place" or "a place that does not exist" ; 2) or "the Good Place." Different from the usage common today, whereby utopia is envisaged as an impossible, unrealistic society.

People write utopias because of injustices they see around them and from a fundamental belief in the equality of all members of humanity. Quite common for the Utopias and their writers was the abolition of private property and money, and the establishment of common ownership of societal wealth. The argument was very straight forward - where there was property, there could exist a minority exercising control over others simply due to that ownership. The Utopians argued that a society of common ownership, where all the wealth of society is owned by the members of society or, put in a different way, where no-one owns property, would provide the basis on which to build a fair, egalitarian society that would meet the needs of its populace.

This lovely bit of honest telly was then utterly ruined by the studio "expert", a Philosopher, going on to tell the host Utopia is impossible because human nature militates against it - we want to accrue property for our own, individual ends - and that the utopias have been banished now anyway because everyone is rich (sic) and that we live in the best of all worlds. (Whether e.g. the 39 million people living in official poverty in the USA, or the parents who helplessly see their children die of starvation each year, would agree with that was not touched upon.)

Predictably, the absolute worst contribution of the evening was about Soviet Russia, Lenin and the Bolsheviks. (Speaking of bad contributions, the DR 2 studio presenter claimed Marx and Lenin were comrades!) It was a French documentary, well an episode at least, from 1999 called La Foi du Siecle. Literally "The Mistake of the Century."

The writers proposed to understand the attraction of "communism". What that meant was they were prepared to call anybody and any society "communist" without needing to indulge in such trivial academic procedures such as definition and rigorous, logical analysis. The long standing socialist analysis of these lands and leaders being state capitalist dictatorships and non=socialists wasn't mentioned.

So it was the programme opened with footage of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, etc and a voiceover asking how people could be attracted by the ideals of "communism" despite the brutalities it perpetrated. The narrator asked how it could be that the "communist" lie could continue, despite the fact that the ideals of communism were betrayed and that this had been pointed out quite early on.

Why left-wingers support the myth of Bolshevism is an interesting question for sure. The SWP et al continue to attract youngsters who hate capitalism yet abandon verifiable history and facts for the make belief of the discredited, anti-socialism of Leninism. (A partial explanation is that Trotskyism allows the Left to support the Leninist theory of party and revolution whilst distancing themselves from the Stalinist legacy which clearly developed from it.)

The documentary made some points, not followed up in depth if at all, which I must paraphrase from the scribbles I made as I watched (going from French to Danish to English obviously means things would get lost in translation!):

- the Bolshevik takeover was like a beacon to the workers after the brutalities of the War
- the storming of the Winter Palace as portrayed by e.g. film maker Eisenstein was far from historical reality, yet that sort of disparity between fact and mythology appeared often and impacted on unquestioning Western Parties, who went on to push the mythology to workers
- a fiction was that the Soviets held power, and people believed it, when in reality power was held by Lenin and the Bolsheviks; revolutionary institutions were emptied of influence
- whilst the workers of the world dreamt of a classless society, the party eliminated opposition, held power alone and created a secret police
- visitors to Russia from the Western left-wing intelligentsia developed an almost myopic love affair with the Bolsheviks and what they were allowed to see
- Comintern established 21 points for inclusion, one basic point being those prospective parties had to be Bolshevik in outlook and practice
- Bolshevism was declared to be not only correct but also of universal application
- Stalin deified Lenin and created the religion of "Leninism" with the latter's passing in 1924
- "Communism" and the Party become a religion where all doubt is extinguished, for the good cannot do any wrong
- "The revolutionaries without a revolution mimic the Soviet model"

At one point in the documentary, we are treated to the spectacle of a small group of men dancing on the head of a Czar statue on the roof of a Moscow building. These men, at the 1920 meeting of Comintern, had declared themselves the leaders of the working class. The authoritarian and leadership based nature of the Leninist Party is not compared to that quintessential Marxian idea of the working class acting consciously, politically and through democratic self-organisation for the abolition of capitalism.

As a documentary about the supposed failure of communism "La Foi du Siecle" is miserably dishonest TV. The points it raises about Leninist political psychology are pertinent and depressingly familiar to this writer who has met, talked with and debated numerous Lefties down the years.

Coleman remarked in his article: "We can only hope that the men in the basement (or wherever they are) take a long time before they produce their next intellectual tease."

Graham C. Taylor