Tiny Tips (2026)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Global real worker pay fell 12 percent while real CEO pay surged 54 percent between 2019 and 2025. At least four CEOs of major corporations each pocketed over $100 million in pay and bonuses last year. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan led the pack at over $205 million. Billionaires were paid $2,500 per second in dividends in 2025. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Oxfam are calling for urgent action to rein in extreme wealth, including higher, fairer taxes on the richest and binding limits on CEO pay.

[Common Dreams]

In 2011, he spent 81 days detained in China for criticizing the government following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which 90,000 people died. Ai Weiwei worked with hundreds of anonymous volunteers to identify and publish the names of more than 5,000 children who died under the rubble of poorly constructed schools, information that the government sought to censor. 

[El Pais]

…. the Housing and Land Rights Network, have argued that the real numbers are significantly higher and estimate at 3 million…Shelters, where available, are frequently inadequate, overcrowded, unsanitary, unsafe for women, or located far from work opportunities. Instead of treating shelter as a right linked to dignity, many city administrations treat it as temporary charity. During mega-events such as the Commonwealth Games 2010 or the G20 Summit gatherings hosted in India, homeless people are often subjected to eviction drives in the name of beautification. Pavements are cleared, encampments removed, and poverty hidden so that cities may appear modern to visitors.

[Countercurrents]

The right to life in Kenya is often treated as if it begins at conception and ends at birth. As in much of the world, self-described ‘pro-lifers’ claim to defend life at all costs – yet too often stop short of defending the lives already being lived, and those cut short too early.

[openDemocracy]

…the central question of his book, which is built around a concept Marx called ‘disposable time’—the time left over after workers have completed the labor necessary to sustain themselves and their families. Marx traced this idea back to an obscure 1821 pamphlet he discovered in the British Museum, in which the author argued that a nation’s true wealth lies not in gold or goods but in free time: ‘Wealth is disposable time, and nothing more’.

[People’s World]

The communist revolution, if it arrives in the nick of time to prevent humankind’s suicide, is a seismic event that changes everything. It is difficult to imagine it but it will leave nothing untouched. People will change. In the heat of the struggle for survival, proletarians will come together and become the self-conscious collective worker, which he/she already was but didn’t know it. All human relationships (between producers, family members, men-women, young-old, teachers-students and more) change in the process. The entire way in which society reproduces itself changes. Work changes. It no longer means labor.

[Internationalist Perspective]

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

Tiny Tips (2026)

The Tiny Tips column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

In almost all regions of the world, the top 1% of the population is richer than the combined 90%. Wealth inequality increases further with each passing day, mostly due to the lack of political will to stop it.

[Popular Resistance]

In China, inequality remains high… The top 10% of earners capture about 43% of national income, while the bottom 50% receive just 14%. Wealth disparities are particularly large, with the richest 10% holding nearly 68% of total wealth and the top 1% about 30%. 

[World Inequality Report]

Nearly half of Kenyans live in extreme poverty, i.e., on less than KES 130 [£0.75] per day. Yet a few have amassed enormous wealth. The richest 125 Kenyans have more wealth than more than three-quarters of Kenyans, about 43 million people. 

[Oxfam]

We celebrate the ‘recovery’ of fish populations that are stabilized at 5% or 10% of their historical population, mistaking the management of ruins for conservation. To understand the magnitude of what has been stolen, we must look back before the industrial age. In the 17th century, the ocean was a different planet. When Christopher Columbus sailed through the Caribbean in the late 15th century, he described the seas near Cuba as being ‘thick with turtles’, so numerous that it seemed his ships would run aground on them… in numbers estimated between 33 and 39 million adults in the Caribbean alone. They were a biological dominance that defined the seascape. Today, those populations are a shadow of the ‘mother sea’ that once existed. This report is an autopsy of the decline. It is an investigation into the specific species that the fishing industry has sacrificed on the altar of commerce. 

[Sea Piracy]

As both the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) monitor and Reuters noted, Poland is among multiple state parties in the process of ditching the Mine Ban Treaty. Citing the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the news agency reported that “antipersonnel mine production could begin once the treaty’s six month withdrawal period is completed on February 20, 2026”. 

[Common Dreams]

Greenpeace is a strong example, having emerged from ecological protest movements in the 1970s and 1980s, but having eased into largely cooperating with capitalist corporations and governments over time and giving legitimacy to their propaganda about individual lifestyle choices being the way to solve climate change.

[Counterfire]

The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, which has previously slammed vaccine skeptic Kennedy as a ‘paranoid kook’ whose ‘tinfoil hat is blocking out all sense’, tore into the Trump Cabinet member for his war on what it called ‘one of the biggest public health wins of the last century: the widespread use of disease-eradicating vaccines’. 

[HuffPost]

Therefore, we do not offer any support to wars waged by any capitalist state or any faction aimed at creating or strengthening a new state, whether aggressor or aggressed, whether or not they describe themselves as ‘socialist’ or ‘democratic’. 

[Internationalist Perspective]

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

Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo! column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now supposing there was such an entity as a god, what would you think of a supreme being who demanded that males, while still a baby, were compelled to have their reproductive organs mangled, maimed, mutilated and chopped about?

‘God says, “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised”. The act of circumcision is to be performed on every male child on the eighth day after birth, whether born into the household or purchased from a foreigner, and it serves as a physical sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s lineage’ (Genesis 17.10.).

Male circumcision is not mentioned in the Quran but it is practised by followers of Islam too.

Unless you’re a misandrist feminist there is nothing at all humorous or jokey in the act described above. And there’s nothing funny about the mangling, maiming, and mutilating carried out on females in the name of religion either.

A UNICEF report issued in March 2024 on the subject of FGM (female genital mutilation) noted that 230 million females, young and adult, had been subjected to FGM. The report noted that over an eight year period, from 2016 to 2024, 30 million more individuals, a 15 percent increase, had had FGM imposed upon them. The report said that there were grounds for believing that FGM was being carried out on girls at even younger ages, ‘often before their fifth birthday’.

A little like the creationists in the USA who are always trying to get rid of Darwinist teachings in schools there are those who use the judicial process to maintain the continuation of FGM. In Gambia at the end of 2025 its supreme court heard from ‘religious traditionalists who are hoping to topple the country’s poorly enforced ban on female genital mutilation.’ Apparently, ‘The Gambia has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world, with 73 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49 having undergone the procedure (Unicef). FGM was outlawed in 2015 in the West African nation by then dictator Yahya Jammeh, who branded it outdated and not a requirement of Islam. The ban was subsequently upheld in July 2024 when lawmakers rejected a controversial bill… plaintiffs filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in April, arguing that the procedure is a deeply rooted cultural and religious practice’.

In Kenya, The Standard reported that attacks had been carried out on church property and personnel and on girls and male church associates and that some of their members had been forcefully re-circumcised. The report gave no indication as to who was carrying out these attacks.

A December article at LBC is unequivocal as to FGM: ‘FGM/C is not a cultural ‘practice. It is not a medical ‘procedure…It is not an “ethical dilemma”. It is violence against women and children.’

DC

Letter: Kenya school scam (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kenya school scam

Dear Editors,

I worked as a school manager at Bridge International Academies from  2010 to mid this year. The company’s business is educating the less fortunate in society at an affordable cost. Most of the company’s schools are constructed using iron sheets. And they are located in the slums.

Workers (teachers, school managers) in these schools are poorly paid, work for long hours and are not represented in any trade union. The proprietor of these schools is a top American capitalist. Profit is his main theme, though from time to time high quality education is dangled to parents and in prospectuses to attract them to the schools.

Workers are paid per the pupils who pay that month. Those who pay later on don’t count for this and the money remains the profit of the company (worker’s sweat). Any worker who makes an attempt to complain or show displeasure is shown the door.

Morale has been low and prospects of employees scaling the corporate ladder are slim as there is no upward mobility in the firm. The company pays US nationals handsomely while Kenyans are left to feed on crumbs.

Out of the 210 schools, 75 percent are profitable but this profit doesn’t get to those who make this a reality (teachers and school managers).

If that’s the way capitalism operates, then damn the system. It’s ugly and repugnant. Companies ought to realise that without their workers the wheels of their operations would grind to a halt.

Patrick W. Ndege, 

Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenya and Berlin (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enemy of an Enemy

Cardinal Richelieu was credited with basing his foreign policy on the maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The capitalist groups in the modern world work on the same slogan. In present world conditions Russian capitalism and its allies in the Soviet bloc, is in conflict with the capitalists of the Western world. The latter in their turn are engaged in struggles against the working class in each of the Western countries. Therefore the working class of the Western countries are the potential allies of the Russian rulers. This is the reason why the Russian rulers hold themselves out as the friend of “the toilers of Britain and America" and try to enlist the sympathy of the latter by means of the Communist Parties in those countries. The assiduity with which the Communist Party of Great Britain has built up the legend of “The Jolly George"—in which incident the workers of Britain are supposed to have prevented the British ruling class pursuing the war against the Bolsheviks in the early days of the Russian Revolution—shows, in spite of the fact that the story as related by them is not true, the direction in which their thoughts are moving, For the Russian rulers realise that, however powerful the Anglo-American ruling class might be, it could not, without the active support of the British and American workers, embark successfully on any war against the Soviet Union.

Vast Subversive Network

On the same principle, the ruling class of Britain and America show great sympathy for the oppressed workers in the countries under Soviet regimes, and try to stir up discontent and organise opposition. In the conditions obtaining in the Stalinist countries, this work has to be done underground, in exactly the same way as the Communist Parties have to work secretly in many western countries, among them Spain and Portugal, some of the South American republics, and (to an increasing degree) the United States itself. Thus an article in the “Readers' Digest” of October, 1952, says "West Berlin, an enclave deep in the Soviet Zone, continues to be headquarters for a vast subversive network radiating throughout Red Germany, warning police officials of the punishment in store for them, smuggling refugees to the West, ceaselessly distributing propaganda.”

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

But, one need scarcely add, the sympathy felt by the ruling class of Russia, and of Britain and America, for the struggle of the workers against their masters, stops at their own boundaries. The workers of an enemy country are fit subjects for sympathy; but never the workers of your own. Chapter and verse for these statements can be found in the recent events in Kenya and East Berlin. When in East Berlin and other German cities, on June 16th and 17th, the workers turned on their masters and protested by mass demonstrations against their wages and working conditions, the German Stalinist police, supported by Russian tanks and machine-guns, suppressed the demonstrations by force, killing a number of demonstrators. This was the signal for a barrage of sympathy from the rulers of the Western world. Dr. Adenauer said, “betraying deep emotion,” that “even in a cynical age there were still men prepared to die in the streets for an idea. They did not fear Russian tanks and machine-guns; they had shown to the world that they would not be slaves, and that the age of tyranny was over.” (The Times, 24-6-53; subsequent references are also to The Times, unless otherwise stated.) In Parliament Mr. Maclean, a Conservative, called the Russian action a “barbarous massacre” (25-6-53); and a group of Labour members tabled a motion reading: “That this House notes with intense interest and deep sympathy the struggle of the German workers against the Russian military dictatorship in Eastern Germany and deplores the execution without trial of the leaders thrown up by the workers in the struggle for bread and liberty” (24-6-53). Mr. Dulles, the American Secretary of State, found that the episode "demonstrates that the people do retain their love of God and love of country and their sense of personal dignity. They want to run their own affairs and not be run from Moscow. The unquenchable spirit of the people was dramatised in East Berlin, where unarmed youths tore up paving stones from the streets to hurl in defiance at tanks . . . The people want to be governed by those whom they select as responsive to their needs and desires, rather than to be ruled by those who take their orders from aliens and who give their orders with a view to achieving their own ambitions without regard to the welfare of the people concerned ” (1-7-53).

Kenya

If this is the attitude taken by the Western rulers to the events in East Berlin; why do not they deliver the same kind of stirring speeches about the disturbances in Kenya? Mr. Dulles thinks the East Germans want to run their own affairs; but the East Germans are at least allowed the semblance of free elections (skilfully manipulated though they may be by Herr Ulbricht and his friends) whereas in Kenya the Kikuyu and other Africans are openly barred from the franchise. A defender of the attitude of the Anglo-American ruling class might say that the two cases were different; the Kikuyu, in rebelling, did not stop short at peaceful demonstrations, but actually killed those whom they thought were oppressing them. The answer to this is— so did the East Germans: a number of police and state-officials were reported shot or beaten to death during the riots of June 16th and 17th (1-7-53). And this should cause no surprise; when workers are driven to desperation point, be their skins black or white, they often try to seek escape by using violence against individual members of the oppressing class or their hirelings.

Savagery

But again it might be alleged (by a supporter of the British ruling class) that the behaviour of Mau Mau adherents in Kenya has shown them to be savages at heart, and to be therefore beyond the sympathy of “civilised” men. But this is the last argument .which could be used by members of the British ruling class. If individual acts of barbarity are to blacken for ever the character of the nations to which their perpetrators belong, and place those nations for ever beyond the pale of civilisation and civilised rights, then why this sympathy and support for the Germans? These Germans are exactly the same as those against whom our rulers were lashing us into furious enmity only eight years ago, on the grounds of the savagery, the barbarity, the bestiality they had shown in the treatment of minorities inside Germany and of the populations of the occupied countries. Our rulers cannot now ignore the six years of unending propaganda with which they overwhelmed us in the second world war. The truth is that neither the East Germans nor the Kikuyu are any more brutal by nature than other human beings, though some of them have been driven by oppression and bad conditions into brutality (as were the East Germans on June 16th and 17th, and as the Kikuyu have been from time to time since a year ago).

“Fatherland of the Proletariat”

Just as East Berlin has shown up the hypocrisy of the rulers of the Western world, so it has shown up the hypocrisy of the Stalinist leaders. The Communist Parties of the world claim to be parties of the workers, organised in the interest of the workers; the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and the other Soviet countries are always to the fore with denunciations of “capitalist oppression” whenever the workers of the Western world are suppressed by force. In East Berlin the German and Russian Bolsheviks had the opportunity to show how they themselves deal with similar situations; and the outcome was as one would expect, for no capitalist system, whether its superstructure is of the Stalinist or the Western kind, can tolerate insubordination among its workers. By using the rifle, the machine-gun, and the tank against striking and rioting workers, the Stalinists have once more demonstrated the division between the master class and the working class in the countries under their control. 

Worse Than Useless

The Socialist attitude to these events can be explained in a few words. While we have sympathy with workers who are driven to break out in open violence, whether against Stalinist or a western ruling class, the killing of individual members of a ruling class does nothing at all to alter the economic basis of society; so long as that basis is unchanged, so long will there be a master class and a working class. Acts of violence on the part of the workers merely provoke the ruling class and its armed forces, and give it the excuse for bloody reprisals. In Eastern Germany, scores of workers are reported to have been killed; in Kenya, the “security forces" boasted that in three days last month they had killed a hundred “terrorists,” which is far more than the total number of whites killed by the Mau Mau since the beginning of the troubles (27-6-53). When workers become Socialists, they use their resentment at their conditions to spur them on towards ending the society that causes them, not in sporadic and pointless acts of violence. The Western leaders claim to be opposed to violence and murder as political weapons; but they reveal themselves as double-dealers when they incite the workers in Stalinist countries to use these weapons, although they know that the result can only be a slaughter among those who try to fight their political battles in the streets.

Alwyn Edgar

Food for profit: food for thought (2003)

From the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

The work of growing and preparing food should involve pleasure, not exploitation of those engaged in it. The environment should not be damaged by profit-seeking, short-term policies for “marketing” food. The consumption of food should be a healthy activity based on need, not ability to pay.

Capitalism cares little about the working conditions of the people who produce food, the effects on the environment of how it is produced, or the well-being of its consumers. Socialism will mean a fundamentally different set of priorities regarding food – no exploitation of producers, proper regard for environmental consequences, need not profit as the motive for distributing and consuming it.

Exploiting producers

There is ample and growing evidence that workers engaged in the food industry are among the most exploited and poverty-stricken producers of a vital “commodity”. This is especially so in the Third World. The Guardian (17 May) gave details of the working conditions and daily lives of wage-slaves in just one African country, Kenya. The general picture, if not the details, could be repeated in many other parts of the economically underdeveloped and developing world.

A group of Kenyan women are picked up by the company truck from their homes at 4 am to arrive at the workplace in time for the 4.30 am shift, which lasts until 3.40 or 4 pm, as laid down by Kenyan law. Their job is to top and tail beans for the English market. They work in refrigerated packing sheds next to Nairobi airport, standing at stainless steel benches. They work “flexitime”, depending on the amount of orders they have to complete each day. Sometimes they can go home early, but if the orders are big they have to work until they are finished.

Gladys (not her real name) is dead on her feet after a 12-hour shift with only one break. She lives with her husband and three children and works to earn enough money to send them to school. In the block where she lives 100 people share a lavatory and outside tap. She has no choice about the hours she works or the way she is paid. There is no overtime, but performance-related pay instead. The employer’s representative is candid about this: “We’ve found that by introducing PRP we can reduce the number of the workforce.”

Environmental consequences

The capitalist food industry is bad for the environment as well as for the workers. In many parts of Africa and elsewhere, land where people were growing food for local consumption has been turned over to land growing food for export – cash crops. The greenhouses and tunnels of the intensive farms shrink the lakes and blight the shores with algal bloom. There is excessive extraction to water the crops, pollution from pesticide run off, deforestation caused by the logging industry and workers having to cut wood for cooking fuel.

In the last 20 years or so there has been much controversy over the introduction of genetically modified crops. There is nothing inherently damaging to people or the environment about genetic modification. For thousands of years the seeds of plants with more desirable characteristics have been selected for planting the following year – in effect, a form of genetic modification. What is harmful is not the technique but its use in the pursuit of profit. Agribusinesses have sought to patent the “terminator” gene introduced into plants. Crops are harvested normally, but the germ of the grain is sterile and seeds have to be purchased each year. Only in capitalism, where the prime aim is not human welfare but profit, could such a mad idea be put into practice.

Bad for consumers

Food today is bad for consumers in a number of ways, all connected with the market system. On a world scale there are crises of starvation and obesity happening at the same time in different places. Peasants who were once self-sufficient can no longer earn a living from their produce. Increasing numbers of people in the economically developed world grow grossly fat and unhealthy on the heavily promoted commodities of the junk-food industry.

Capitalist methods of food production have led to a number of outbreaks of food poisoning resulting in deaths and serious health damage. In the 1980s it was the injection of hormones into calves to fatten them quicker that led to birth defects. There followed salmonella, E coli, BSE and a spate of more recent food scandals. The causes are a mix of misuse of GM technology, pesticides that induce cancers, animal maltreatment, no or inadequate labelling, and abysmal hygiene standards. Market forces always value profits above human welfare. Whatever remedial measures are taken are usually too little and too late.

Food in socialism

Marx famously dissuaded us from writing recipes for future cookshops. We can speculate about the future, but would be wise not to go into too much detail. However, since socialists advocate the replacement of capitalism with socialism we are obliged to outline, at least in principle, how the new system will work. Without majority agreement and action on these principles some form of capitalism, reformed or unreformed, will continue.

Socialism means a classless society – no working class employed and exploited to produce food among other commodities, no capitalist class to own the means of food and other production and distribution. With no workers required to be employed in activities useful only in capitalism – banking, insurance, the war industry, among many others – more of us will be able to devoted more time and energies to producing and distributing food. With profit no longer the spur to activity, short-term policies leading to environmental damage will give way to long-term and sustainable policies.

Probably there will still be big eaters and small eaters, vegetarians and carnivores, even those who like fast food once it is rid of its capitalist connotations. In our pamphlet Socialist Principles Explained we discuss how food production and distribution may be organised in a socialist world. To some extent existing bodies like the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN may be converted and used for socialist purposes. But it may be that other and novel arrangements will be called for.

Socialists today lean towards being technophiles or simple-lifers, or somewhere in between. Some of us look to a future of socialist restaurants and hotels and less home cooking – others like the idea of having more time for artisanal rather than industrial food production and preparation. All tastes will be catered for.

Stan Parker

News: Socialist imprisoned in Kenya (2001)

From the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of our members in Kenya was imprisoned last year for holding a meeting in a member’s house. Police descended on the house on 18 August demanding a licence for such a meeting as required (in their view) by law – although the law says nothing as such about holding meetings in a private residence (which is why they did not apply for a licence). Our comrade was sentenced to 6 months without the option of a fine. It took his wife a month to find out where he was jailed – it was the Nairobi Short Sentence Prison – and she had to bribe officials to find out. His relatives likewise had to bribe the prison warders now and then to ensure his stay was reasonably satisfactory. On his release on 12 December he sought to negotiate with the editor of a top newspaper to publicise his plight. This was refused but a brief reference to his time in prison was mentioned in the Watchman column of The West Winge Sunday Nation (17 December) but no mention was made of the reason why he was imprisoned. Our member has pointed that to try to obtain any documentation from the prison authorities would be “courting trouble”. Prisons in Kenya operate in secrecy and committal warrants are the property of the government.

Elections worldwide (2024)

From the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Elections are not just happening in the UK this year: around the world there have been national elections in South Africa, Bangladesh, Mexico, Taiwan, Indonesia and Pakistan already. The United States is due to have an election in November. There have even been elections in Russia and Iran and European Parliamentary elections. There may be more, but what is certain, is that a majority of the human species will vote in national-level elections at some point in this year.

This is something worth taking on board: particularly for ourselves as socialists who maintain that a worldwide revolution is possible. It becomes conceivable that in one particular year, socialist movements could win elections not just in a preponderance of states, but with a majority of the species on the planet.

This is the first time in recorded history that so many people will be engaged in this way, and the likelihood is that such occurrences will become more common. Yet, despite the spread of democracy, we still see the overall rule by a minority. The capitalist class holds sway both within and between states. The evidence is that democracy is a form of government that supports and promotes minority rule.

The first factor to take into account is the very division of the world into nation states. Many electrons have been sacrificed in recent stories about Georgia’s new Foreign Agents law (widely seen as a pro-Russian imposition to cut out western NGOs and other bodies). Yet, the UK has recently passed a similar law which makes it an offence to work as an agent of a foreign government. As it is worded, it’s not entirely inconceivable that were a part of the World Socialist Movement to win an election anywhere in the world, it could lead to our members being proscribed (as we would be acting as part of a single worldwide organisation).

On top of that is the process that can be most easily demonstrated in Russia and Iran. In both countries, great steps are taken to restrict who is able to stand, with candidates being vetted by an electoral commission. Whilst in the abstract, this could lead to protest votes being cast for smaller parties (since there are multiple candidates in the elections) the bombardment of propaganda is one-sided so people feel there is no point to voting against the incumbent (or, in many cases, will be persuaded that he is the best candidate).

In Iran, this results in very low turn-outs, down to 40 percent. In Russia, there are suggestions that the vote is inflated by outright ballot fraud and box stuffing (there are no independent observers in Russia, so it’s hard to say).

This process still happens in the ‘open’ democracies in some ways, where the barriers to standing are financial, time availability and co-ordination. Concentration of wealth gives the capitalist class minority the head start in being able to organise around winning elections.

Counting the ballots is a vulnerable point in electoral politics, hence why Donald Trump has been able to maintain his claims of voter fraud. This technique was pioneered in Kenyan Presidential elections, and works by filling the airwaves with claims of cheating, backed up by having enough energised supporters to mean the claims cannot be easily ignored. Clearly, this approach is backed up by clever psychological studies of group behaviour. All over the world, skilled professionals are paid precisely to game any election rules to try and support one faction over another.

Even where such blatant fixes aren’t in place, the whole structure of representative elections is actually stacked towards minority rule. In practice, parliaments and legislatures only ever have one vote: who is the government? Handing power to an individual executive in practice creates an elected monarch. The so-called division of power much vaunted by liberal doctrine simply frees up the executive branch to behave as it wants, with parliaments being oversight committees on the activity of the executive.

That is not to say they have no influence. Parliaments can threaten to obstruct the executive and rob it of authority. Indeed, this is a way in which minority politics operate, since it is in the interest of parliamentarians to form minority factions which threaten the overall majority, and quietly exact policies from the executive in return for their continued loyalty.

Likewise, the existence of the executive allows for a band of courtiers who jockey for position and patronage: they have privileged access to information (especially timings of announcements) and the ability to co-ordinate easily because their numbers are small and they are personally known to one another. They can offer each other jobs and opportunities to make contacts.

Here again, the inequality of wealth rears its head. The small number of courtiers can themselves be courted, and if not outright bribed, they can be made aware of the revolving door between politics and business: comfortable sinecures await those who prove sufficiently pliant to business interests. If they all move in the same circles, they form a common way of looking at the world which means they do what is needed without even having to be asked.

Informal networks and factionalising are almost inherent to human society and cannot be eliminated, but the more open and diffuse the decision structures are, the less these traits can have an effect on the outcomes of decisions. The fact that the billions who vote are in effect insulated from the day to day decisions by the election of intermediaries in parliament simply exacerbates the opportunities for scheming and domination.

Election and delegation of defined functions would continue to be an essential part of running a society based on common ownership, as would (indeed) some representative bodies. The abolition of concentrated private wealth and the active participation of the billions in ensuring that as many decisions are taken as closely as possible to the public gaze means that we can look to transforming the current means of deception and fraud into a means of liberation and effective administration for us all.

Pik Smeet

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The gap between rich and poor has widened particularly in countries that have become more integrated into the global economy, such as China, Russia and some Eastern European countries…. ‘The influence of globalization on income inequalities worldwide was greater than we had expected’, summarizes Valentin Lang, junior professor of International Political Economy at the University of Mannheim and author of the study. ’We were particularly surprised that these differences were mainly due to the gains of the richest and that the lower income groups benefited little or not at all’. 

(ZeroHedge)

Still, over the years the men have been re-considering many of the customs they took for granted in their youth. This includes even female genital mutilation – which is practiced on daughters as a rite of passage. ‘We’ve noticed that it makes our girls weak’, says Lengees. With hindsight, Lengees says he wishes he could have traded his past Moran life for an education. ‘Look at this phone my children gave me’, says Lengees, holding it out. ‘I only know how to press this button to answer it if someone is calling me. I can’t even call out.’ Being illiterate, he says, ‘is like being a deaf person. You don’t understand the language people are using. It’s like you’re not even fully in the world’. 

(NPR)

….Topham noted how the Smurfs live in a Kibbutz-like farming community and rely on self-sufficient methods of means and production. Moreover, the Smurfs coexist happily without using money, sacrificing themselves for the greater good of the community.

(Movieweb)

‘New study in Nature confirms that if we want to avoid the next pandemic—we should stop destroying biodiversity, heating, and polluting the planet’, Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, who leads the World Health Organization’s climate change unit and was not involved with the study, wrote on social media. ‘Just one more reason to go for a greener, healthier future’.

(Common Dreams)

Salman Rushdie says free Palestinian state would be ‘Taliban-like'.

(Middle East Eye)

‘Millions of children across the country do not have anywhere safe and decent to call home. These children are living without space to study, play or even have a good night’s sleep; while their parents struggle to afford essentials like food and clothes’. 

(wsws.org,)

It is a system driven not by human needs and wants, but by the pursuit of profit that has no end. This system has only been around for a few hundred years. But in that short time it has reshaped the world with new technologies, infrastructures and innovations. This has given us the potential to truly meet the needs of everyone, to give everyone a life of freedom and fulfilment. 

(Communist Future)

The US government is currently considering a reclassification of Vietnam under the US Tariff Law as a “market economy,” which would provide Vietnam major economic benefits, even though Vietnam does not satisfy basic labor rights standards. 

(Human Rights Watch)

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

The Passing Show: As such (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the April 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

As such

The two American RB-47 airmen who were released by Russia recently after being shot down over the Barents Sea gave their own stories to reporters at an American air force base. They said that they had returned the fire of Russian fighter planes. One of the reporters recalled that previous American reports of the incident had claimed that the aircraft was unarmed. The airmen replied:

The aircraft, as such, was not armed with an offensive weapon of any sort. We carried two 20-millimetre automatic cannon which were mounted aft, pointing to the rear. This was a defensive weapon purely to protect us from attack from the rear. 

How automatic cannon, whether pointing up, down, forwards or sideways, can be anything else than offensive weapons was not made clear. And what exactly does “as such” mean in the first sentence? An aircraft carrying automatic cannon is armed as an aircraft, not as a submarine.

But merely to point out the absurdities of the airmen's statement would be to over-simplify the matter. For these airmen are only repeating what their masters, the American ruling class— along with every other ruling class—have always said. No country has a "Ministry of Attack”. No country produces "Offence Estimates". No country, to judge from its own propaganda machine, ever attacks another. In all wars, each country simply defends itself against the others: the enemy is always the aggressor. And if the hydrogen bomb is claimed as a "defensive" weapon, who can blame the two airmen for claiming that their automatic cannon were not offensive?

Jomo Kenyatta

Sir Patrick Renison. the Governor of Kenya, recently refused to release Jomo Kenyatta and gave two reasons for his decision. They were:

The political campaign for Kenyatta's release, “which has roused many emotions and which has not allowed divisions and personal fears a natural atmosphere in which to diminish. 

Kenyatta's refusal to “make any statement or reveal his thinking about the great issues which Kenya is facing." in spite of the fact that six Ministers, including three Africans, had visited him in August.

These reasons (given in the Times. 2-3-61) are remarkable. Leaving out the long words, the first one means simply that the Governor of Kenya isn’t going to release Kenyatta because the Kenya Africans have made it plain that they want him to be released. The Governor can hardly expect anyone to believe that he would have released Kenyatta if there hadn't been a campaign demanding it.

The second reason is even more extraordinary. Dictators have often put people in jail, or kept them in exile, because they have ”made statements” or "revealed their thinking" about public issues; this must be the first time a political leader has been kept in exile because he refused to take up a political stand

When thieves fall out

The Socialist position is straightforward. We are opposed to any attack on democratic freedoms, whether it is jailing for political reasons, restrictions on the right to vote, or any other weapon in the colonialists' armoury. But we are not blind to the real nature of the struggle in Kenya, it is the old struggle between land and capital. On the one side are in Kenya, it is the old struggle between capitalists, whether they are those who hope to establish full-scale industrial capitalism in Kenya, or those who have already established it in Great Britain. We welcome any extension of democracy in Kenya which this struggle between two rival propertied classes has produced or will produce. But we know that democracy is never safe in a capitalist society. That has been seen in Germany, in Italy, in Spain, in Czechoslovakia and the rest. Only in a Socialist society will democracy be safe from overthrow.

Out of my way

An irate letter-writer in the Sunday Express recently told how he had parked his car beside a parking meter in accordance with the instructions on the meter, went to the theatre, and returned to find his car vanished.

Eventually, after very considerable frustration annoyance, and expense, I found it at one of the police yards miles away. 1 was ordered to pay £2 to recover it—which I refused to do. The only explanation I could get from the police was that I had committed the offence of being on the royal route to the cinema— although how I was expected to know this is beyond my power of reasoning.

The removal of one’s car. however, is only one of the minor inconveniences that may follow if one gets in the way of a royal progress. It could be much worse. In Katmandu, for the visit of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Nepal, a new road was built from the airport to the royal guest house. It took 14.000 men over a month. It wasn't a question here of simply removing cars to make room for royalty: whole houses were bulldozed down. Even churches were not sacrosanct. "One temple was shifted 30 yards and worshippers one morning found the principal idol hanging on the end of a crane " (The Observer, 26-2-61). So much for the respect paid to religion when it conflicts with the convenience of the ruling class. Religion, of course, is maintained by ruling classes because it helps to keep the rest of us in our places. Perhaps it is naive for us to expect a ruling class to take its own propaganda too seriously.

Alwyn Edgar

Here and There: On Initiative (1933)

The Here and There column from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Initiative

It is a commonplace argument of the apologists of capitalism that the possession of wealth is the reward for and the result of the initiative of its owners. Socialism, they argue, would destroy this initiative and progress would be impossible. Three reports in the Daily Telegraph for January 1st and January 2nd completely upset this claim.

It was stated that Professor Haldane, who was Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Cambridge University, was resigning his position to take up a position at the London University. Some remarkable facts were given of his career. It was stated that he had produced in his own body the condition of certain diseases in order to discover a remedy for them. In doing so he had knowingly and deliberately endangered his own life in order to increase the knowledge of science in the conquest of these diseases.

Yet he does not appear to have had any pecuniary advantage in view.

Another instance was given in an appreciative obituary notice of Dr. Alfred Smith: Dr. Smith was one of the eighteen pioneers of X-ray work. In devoting his life to X-ray research, he fell a victim to X-ray dermatitis. The consequences for Dr. Smith were the loss of a leg, semi-blindness, and physical ruin. Unable to practice in his profession, his life savings gone, he was rewarded with a disused army hut to live in, and 35s. a week from the Carnegie Hero Trust.

The Daily Telegraph also gave the names of twelve others who had lost their lives in the cause of X-ray.

The same newspaper reported the trial of J. Geen, the associate of Factor, the fraudulent company promoter, who had successfully displayed initiative in relieving his fellow capitalists of millions' of pounds. It was stated of Factor that he was an illiterate, who "was even unable to sign his own name without difficulty.

Such are the rewards for initiative. It would be true to say that the ownership of wealth by the modern capitalist class is as much due to initiative as Factor’s millions were due to his academic attainments.

Some Effects of Capitalism

From Wépszava (“The People’s Voice”), the Hungarian Social-Democratic daily, for December 22nd, 1932: —

In 1932 down to December 20th 1,126 women began giving birth to children in the street, and were taken to a hospital or nursing home. 1,126 fearful blows in the face for Hungarian social policy, which does not even take steps to see that new-born children shall come into the world with a roof over their heads! . . . A mother who finds herself lying in the hour of her greatest stress in the filth of the street instead of on a clean operating table, not only feels that society has no use for her, but that her child is born with the chains of poverty shackling its limbs, and to a destiny devoid of hope.

And from The Star, December 22nd, 1932: —

The best study I have seen recently of the psychological effect of unemployment is the vivid report on life in the Austrian village of Marienthal which appears in “Character and Personality.” The 1,500 inhabitants have been workless since a local factory closed three years ago, and are living on 5d. per family per day.

The investigators got at the facts in an ingenious way. Before distributing clothing they called from house to house, inquiring into the need, and in this way secured an insight into the domestic conditions. They also organised sewing classes and made the keeping of household accounts a condition of membership.

The inquiry revealed that the unemployed, having time on their hands, lose all sense of it. They become unpunctual and slowly resign themselves to a state which renounces even the discussion of politics and the reading of newspapers.

After three years the inquiry tabled only 14 per cent. as unbroken in spirit. Of the rest most were resigned to enduring their present state and the remainder broken completely. “heedless of the future as of the present.”

We can imagine all the parsons and priests in the kingdom arising with a great self-righteous show of protests if animals were treated with a fraction of the inhumanity meted out to the unwanted wage-slave.

Incidentally, these conditions and their results on the workers in Austria are a somewhat tragic commentary on the notion held by many woolly headed persons that starvation makes Socialists.

In the House of Commons

During the debate on the Kenya New Lands Trust Ordinance, which deprives the Natives of Kenya of the right to their lands on it being required by the Kenya Administration or White Settlers, Sir J. Sandeman Allen, commenting on the protests on behalf of the natives made by several prominent clergymen, said: “ . . .  If Church dignitaries in East Africa confined themselves to their missionary work and did not try to do anything outside of their proper sphere it would be. better for all concerned.” (Hansard, February 8th, 1933.)

The social influence of the Church seems to be in its twilight. When it interferes in class conflicts, as in the “General Strike,” it is told—in the words of Mr. Baldwin to the Archbishop of Canterbury—to ” mind its own business.” In short, the business of the parson is to console and not to interfere.

The varied attitude of the British Government in foreign affairs makes a somewhat interesting and contrasting reading. Mr. J. H. Thomas, being asked in the House of Commons what there was to be gained in pursuing the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland, replied (amidst laughter): “I have got a few hundred thousand pounds more as a result of the increased duties.” (Hansard, February 9th, 1933.)

On Saturday, February 10th, a wireless debate took place between students of Yale University, America, and students of Cambridge University, England, on the subject of War Debts. The English case was for the complete cancellation of War Debts, thus summarising the attitude of the British capitalist class as expressed through its Press. The reasons given for cancellation were ingenious, and were to the effect that cancellation was really in the interests of the United States of America. Somewhat after the sanctimonious manner of the schoolmaster, who, having punished a pupil, claimed the punishing to have hurt the schoolmaster the most. In Kenya the attitude of the British capitalist class is one of the heavy boot; in Ireland, that of a. bullying braggart; but their attitude to America is—well, sycophantic is a mild word, perhaps Pecksnifian would be appropriate. The reasons, of course, are obvious. Beneath the tender solicitude for backward countries and the polished verbiage of diplomatic documents, there are hypocrisy and greed as crude and as vicious as that which characterised the early days of Capitalism..

Strange Bedfellows.

The Leader, February 7th, 1932, contained an article called “Blasphemous Attacks on Christianity.” Among other books that were quoted was our pamphlet (without reference to its source of publication), “Socialism and Religion.” The Leader is very concerned about these attacks and thinks leaders of the Labour Party, especially ”those who call themselves Christian Socialists,” should do something about it. The Leader is a "tipster’s ” journal, which thrives on the belief among millions of gullible workers that they can get rich quickly and easily from betting and competitions of the kind run by popular newspapers for large money prizes. (Quite recently, a mathematician publicly stated that the chance of winning a prize in one of these competitions was many millions to one.) It is perhaps quite fitting that those who thrive on one form of superstition should feel a brotherly concern for those who foster superstition in another form.

The I.L.P. Finds Inspiration.

During January, letters appeared in the columns of the New Leader from members of the I.L.P. on the subject of “ Religion and Revolution.” The varied views held aptly expressed the confusion of ideas of the I.L.P. on the subject, and ranged from the view that “Christianity is Socialism” to an attitude that more or less approached the Marxist position on the subject. In the issue for January 10th, Dr. John Lewis replies in what the Editor of the New Leader describes as an “able contribution” to the discussion. Dr. Lewis's reply is a typical piece of I.L.P. shuffling. He evades the essential points in the letters from critics of Christianity, and, like Paton in his reply to a similar discussion on "Parliament and Democracy,” attempted to placate and satisfy all the diverse elements that make up the I.L.P. Christianity, he says: —

. . . .Takes on a totally different form according to the period, and at no period is it a mere reflection of a static economic order. . . . At periods of crisis in which we are mainly interested, religion splits. One part sanctifies the obsolete; one part champions the new order.

Which, as historical summary, is fairly accurate. But his conclusion, based on the above, is as follows: —

To-day religion inspires, for the first time, a movement which can achieve its ideal by building a classless society, and finally overthrowing the exploiters.

Dr. Lewis's view, which he attempts to support with Marxist formulae, is that the demand for Socialism by the workers will express itself in a religious form inspired by Christianity. Dr. Lewis is, of course, entitled to his peculiar views, but to pretend that these are the views of Marx is sheer misrepresentation of Marx's explanation of religion. Had Dr. Lewis gone one step further he might have discovered that the forces which, in the past, determined that Christianity took on a “totally different form according to the period,” also determined the decay of Christianity in Capitalist Society. So much so that, for all practical purposes, Christianity is dead so far as the workers are concerned. It is almost a certainty that if Christianity ceased to be taught in the Schools and subsidised by the State, it would quickly take its place in the museums of antiquities.

It is an interesting explanation, however, that the I.L.P.'s latest pose as a “ real revolutionary party ” is so inspired. This is a new angle on the decisions of the Bradford Conference, which was perhaps a waste of time.

Harry Waite

Voice From The Back: The Inequalities Of Capitalism (2006)

The Voice From The Back Column from the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Inequalities Of Capitalism

A good example of the class division in modern society can be seen when we look at the wealth of the top 0.1 percent of the population in the USA. “An analysis by David Cay Johnston in the New York Times found that the average annual inflation-adjusted income of this group increased by 2.5 times, to $3 million (£1.6 million), from 1980 to 2002. The average net worth of those on the Forbes 400 list has mushroomed in the past 20 years, rising from $390 million (£206 million) to $2.8 billion (£1.48 billion)” (Times, 17 August).  As for you and your family, “inflation adjusted” how are you doing? A little less than $3 million this year I would imagine.

Pardon Our French

Nothing sums up capitalism better than the article that appeared in the Observer Magazine (27 August) when dealing with the former member of the Workers Revolutionary Party John Bird, who it describes as an entrepreneur. We think this might mean con man but we never went to French classes. This enterprising person may be more familiar to you as the owner of the magazine The Big Issue – yes the one you bought because you felt sorry for the lady outside the bus station.

Here is the owner of that magazine on the homeless and how he feels about it. “Fifty years ago a homeless person wasn’t allowed to sleep rough or beg. They’d get a menial job but they were part of society. Nowadays they pay nothing. They are infantilised. And it costs us £60,000 to keep each one of them in that state.” We must go to French classes. Perhaps entrepreneur really means “arrogant owning class bastard.”

Exploitation

It is a basic premise of socialists that all wealth that is produced inside modern capitalism is the product of the working class and that the capitalist class live off the surplus value that the working class produce. Now we have such pillars of capitalist society as the Observer and Reuters agreeing with us. “The 20 largest quoted companies in the UK make an average of over £96,000 pre-tax profit per employee, according to research carried out by the Observer. … BG, formerly British Gas, made by far the most – approximately £445,000 ..” (Observer, 27 August). Are you understanding these figures? On average your employer cons you out of more than £1,800 a week and in the case of BG over £8,000 a week. Why aren’t you a socialist? Are you a shareholder in BG?

The American Dream

There is a popular misconception about that as the USA is the world’s most developed capitalist country and the most productive the American workers must be well off. A recent report from the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute shows that this is not true.

“Adjusted for inflation, average wages in the US are now lower than they were in 2000 – so the benefits of the rapid increases in productivity . . .  are not being passed to the workers. In fact, as the New York Times reported last week, official figures show that wages and salaries now make up the smallest part of GDP since records began in 1947 . . .  In 1965, CEOs earned 24 times more than the average worker; by 2005 it was 262 times. . . . The top 20 per cent of asset-holders now control 85 per cent of all America’s wealth.” (Observer, 3 September)

Bones of Contention

The National Museum of Kenya is to reopen next year after extensive renovations. It will feature a special exhibit The Origins Of Man which will display the key fossil finds of Africa’s Great Rift Valley – considered by many to be the cradle of humanity. All round celebrations locally, you may imagine. Not a bit of it. “It’s creating a big weapon against Christians that’s killing our faith,” said Bishop Boniface Adoyo, who is leading the hide-the-bones-campaign.” (Observer, 10 September). This individual is chairman of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, which claims to represent churches of 35 denominations with 9 million members. No surprise there, he is carrying on the long tradition of Christian suppression of scientific enquiry.

 

Big Brother Is Watching You

George Orwell’s 1984 was a dystopia where every move of the worker was monitored, but Orwell’s nightmare has arrived. “Learn that truth, and learn it well; what you do at work is the boss’s business. Xora and SurfControl are just some of the new technologies that have sprung up in the past two years peddling products and services – software, GPS video and phone surveillance, even investigators – that let managers get to know you really well. The worst mole sits right on your desk. Your computer can be rigged to lock down work files, restrict Web searches and flag e-mailed jokes about the CEO’s wife. ‘Virtually nothing you do at work on your computer can’t be monitored’, says Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the US National Workrights Institute, which advocates work place privacy” (Time, 11 September). The article goes on to quantify how widespread this snooping is. 76 percent of employers watch your use of the Web, 36 percent track the content and time spent on the keyboard. 38 percent hire staff to sift through your e-mail and 38 percent have fired workers over the last 12 months for misuse of the email.

Material World: Emptying the ocean with a teaspoon (2023)

The Material World Column from the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

We learn from the Guardian about a food programme aimed at primary school children in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Seventeen percent of the Kenyan population, over nine million people, live in extreme poverty (worldpoverty.io/map ).

From the article: ‘According to Save The Children, 26% of children in Kenya are living with stunted growth due to malnutrition’ (tinyurl.com/w949dmee).

A Kenyan ‘not for profit’ organisation involved in helping to provide four hundred thousand meals a day to 225 primary schools and young child development centres in Nairobi states, on its website, the obvious truth that hungry children cannot learn properly and can’t grow healthily.

Their solution? To improve educational outcomes through the provision of nutritious food.

This Kenyan charity is to be commended, within limits, in concentrating on the single aim of feeding hungry children. Many charities express their aims, or visions, as being bringing about positive changes but none of them involve the replacement of capitalism. The legendary Greek hero, Hercules, was tasked with twelve ‘impossible’ labours. The task of cleaning out the Augean stables would seem the most relevant one to that of ‘cleaning up post-capitalism’. Not an impossible undertaking as there will millions of people across the world involved in accomplishing that.

In contrast to the Kenyan charity, Lankelly Chase with £130 million in assets is planning on divesting itself of that amount because the people who run it are having a crisis of conscience. The organisation gives £13 million a year toward ‘hundreds of charities operating in areas such as social, racial and climate justice’.

They claim: ‘We will make space to reimagine how wealth, capital and social justice can co-exist in the service of all life, now and for future generations’ (tinyurl.com/4ramn7wf). Is that ‘wealth’ as used by Adam Smith, national income? By ‘capital’ do they mean the asset-owning class, the minority who continue to exploit the majority?

What’s this organisation’s aim, is it to persuade the former class to be nicer all round and give out a few more bob from their ill-gotten gains? Will a promise be made in return to persuade the rest of us not to instigate a revolution?

The term ‘jam tomorrow’ comes to mind. At the present time a vast number of people can’t even afford margarine.

Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological condition – over time those held captive by a group or individuals begin to identify with the purpose of their captors. Capitalism would appear to have successfully indoctrinated many into that frame of mind.

Would it be stretching a point to infer the same of recipients of charity? Whether being fed in Africa or being given food parcels in a rich economy where social ills should be better able to be alleviated, there is a sense of ‘thank goodness for X because I don’t know how I would manage if it wasn’t for so and so’.

To quote Dylan Thomas, the response should not be one of grateful subservience but one of ‘Do not go gentle into that good night / Rage, rage against the dying of the light’.

Some might argue that given the ongoing present conditions, not just in the UK, but across the world of devastating rises in the cost of food, housing and many other commodities, charities are more welcome than ever before.

There are people who now find themselves dependent upon charity when that wasn’t previously necessary. Whilst capitalism exists the moral dilemma of those who find they have no option but to accept such largesse, providing they don’t fall into the category of the ‘undeserving poor’, is conditioned by the instinct of survival irrespective of the sources from whence it comes. However, that doesn’t mean being grateful, being appreciative, being thankful or singing the praises of charities necessarily.

Those Stockholm Syndrome devotees of religious fairytales may point to the biblical comment that the poor are always with us. Ergo, it’s an insoluble problem. One religion demands that once personal wealth goes above a certain amount then two and a half percent of it must be paid toward charitable relief of the poor and the orphans. With the number of adherents it has, that must work out to a very tidy sum every year. Given how long it must have been collecting, has it achieved a successful resolution of the problem? Answers on a postcard.

Lankelly Chase tell us, ‘We are striving for a world healed by justice, equity and inclusion by challenging existing systems and creating the conditions for much healthier systems to emerge.’

Oh dear. Not to doubt the sincerity of those running this charity but the naivety is unbelievable. Our refusal to endorse charities being taken as read in this case, one cannot help thinking that the £130m might do more good if transferred to those providing meals for hungry children in Africa.

But when that money was used up, what then? Would the number of people living in extreme poverty be reduced? Would children stop going hungry?

Perhaps the millions might be donated to the Socialist Party, if legal, which entity, be assured, would put it to very good use in accelerating the ‘conditions for much healthier systems to emerge’. Only one emergent system is necessary. Alternatively, if they would like advice as to how to participate in the aim of replacing capitalism with socialism it will be immediately forthcoming.

Socialism, you know it makes sense!

Dave Coggan

Gaspers (1967)

From the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Czechoslovakia to create an internal money market (Financial Times, 24 May 1967).

“We will not unite with people whose aim is our disruption” (Draft resolution for conference of the Young Communist League).

“The Churches could make a great contribution to swing the African from his traditional attitude towards labour, and to teach him to work harder and to work regularly, the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr. Botha, said … ‘I think that in this connection the Churches can be of great help, and that is, when rendering spiritual services, they must stress the value of sustained labour. In fact, it should be done in respect of the Whites as well…’ ” (Star, Johannesburg, 31 March 1967).

“Very regrettably a few Communist Trotskyites in certain sectors of our industry continue to mislead the good craftsmen and operatives … These Trotskyites, professional militants and other extremists whose only aim is disruption and to mislead good honest workers, are shockers” (Frank Taylor, chief of the Taylor Woodrow group in his annual report to shareholders, 17 May 1967).

“One man—one vote”, he said, would lead the country to a state of complete and utter chaos. A street sweeper would have as much say in running the country as the most brilliant and educated person. “No one could believe this to be right, “he added (Ian Smith, reported in Financial Times, 23 May 1967).

The Government’s policies have cut the standard of living of a great many workers. (The Observer—28.5.61).

… conquest is not internationally accepted as the way of changing frontiers (The Times—7.6.67).

Coffee seedlings burned

“Over 300.000 coffee seedlings were uprooted and burned on a nursery near Nairobi today as the first step in the Agriculture Ministry’s plan to restrict coffee production.

Mr. G. R. Medforth, the Kenya Coffee Board’s chief inspector, who supervised the burning, said about one million — or 20 per cent — of the plants in nurseries throughout the country were surplus and would be burned. Growers would get compensation.” The Times, 25.5.67.

Letters: Karl Marx and Russia (2003)

Letters to the Editors from the April 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx and Russia

Dear Editors,

I would like to discuss the issue of “the necessity for capitalism to have been achieved for socialism to occur” (“Desai on Marx”, Socialist Standard, November 2002).

Desai suggests that Russian Communism was wrong to use the principles of Marx being as Russia was a backward country. Then he goes on to suggest that Russian Communism developed a capitalist economic model as it developed the Russian economy and industries. What could be wrong about the development of a backward country under socialist principles? What would socialism look like if it only ever occurred in capitalist countries?

Desai appears to suggest that only an economically wealthy country, developed through capitalism can support a socialist system. Does he mean to say that socialism, should it succeed, should stagnate and decay as it devours the capitalist system of economics of its predecessors. A progressive, organised socialist party should enable economic growth to sustain socialism within one country but also to develop new industry and technology under its guiding principles. How is it possible to totally eradicate capitalist consciousness when socialism is developed that relies heavily on its economic principles for stability?

Socialist policies should inform the new methods of economics and seek to build a set of new socialist methods of production, in short a socialist economy based on Marx. This is not merely a question of graduated taxes, but a fairer system with a socialist aim, and cultural and aesthetic values that reflect the working class and encapsulates socialism.

Marx states that socialism should occur out of a capitalist economy because he thought that the working class were the intrinsic factor in a communist revolution; and the working class were common to developed countries under capitalism.

If socialism is to succeed, the party must win the support of the working class who desire to see an end to the current ideology of world capitalism.

In order to eradicate capitalism completely the Socialist Party must have a firm vision fixed in its mind, that by adhering to its principles, must revolutionise the consciousness of the people in areas of politics such as: economics, the environment, foreign policy and culture; in order to achieve power, not for a bureaucratic system (the fault of Russian Communism) but to achieve equality and fraternity among the working class.

G. Cubbage, 

Bolton, Lancs

Reply:

We define socialism as a society without private property, money, wages, nation states, where production is for use, not profit. In order for socialism to be successfully established, capitalism would need to develop industry to the point where a society of common ownership would be possible. Along with this, a modern working class would need to emerge that understands and desires socialism. It is clear that neither was the case in Russia in 1917. It was a predominantly agrarian country where the industrial working class were in a minority of the population.

It is true that Marx and Engels in the introduction of the 1882 Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto raised the possibility that Russia could, through an old system of common ownership of land maintained by the peasantry known as the Obshchina that existed in Russia at that time, could pass directly to socialism, without the necessity of developing the capitalist mode of production. However this could only be possible if the Russian revolution ignited a revolution in the West. This did not happen in 1917. Although working class uprisings did occur in the West, such as in Germany, they were more expressions of discontent arising from the First World War than a conscious desire to bring about socialism.

The Bolsheviks did not rise to power on a programme of genuine socialism, but to provide relief to a war-weary population and distribute land away from the large landowners to the peasantry. In fact, Lenin admitted that only state capitalism could be established in Russia at that time. As he wrote in The Chief Tasks of Our Times: “Reality says that State Capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State Capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us”. We also believe that the Leninist theories of the Bolshevik Party are prescriptions for state capitalism: the belief that socialism can only be brought about by a party of professional revolutionaries leading the working class and the establishment of a centralised state under the theory of so-called democratic centralism. We insist that the establishment of Socialism require the political actions of a socialist conscious working class without leaders.

Therefore, we agree with Lord Desai that only state capitalism could have emerged from the Russian Revolution. However, we part company with him when he insists that we need many more years of private capitalism to raise the level of society’s productive forces. We maintain that globally the size of society’s productive forces today would allow for the establishment of socialism.

Our definition of socialism above implies that it can only be established on a world-wide basis. Clearly a society where there is common ownership, money has been abolished and production is for human use cannot co-exist with countries where there is still private property, buying and selling and production for profit. Many of the measures that Marx and Engels outlined in the Communist Manifesto, including the call for graduated taxes, were based on the assumption that the working class would take power in Marx and Engels lifetimes. They would be necessary to develop the means of production to levels required for the establishment of socialism. However, since then, capitalism has done the job for us and there is no longer any need for these measures.

We can only agree with the last two paragraphs of your letter. If you study our object and declaration of principles, we hope that you agree that the Socialist Party fits the bill–Editors.

 

The urgent need for Socialism

Dear Editors,

Here we are, having finished the twentieth century which saw many advances in science and technology. Yet despite the potential to satisfy world-wide human need, there are still millions of people suffering from hunger and human misery. Unhappily our social organization has not changed in a way that would enable the human race to reap the full benefits of the useful advances—and abandon the harmful ones. Instead science and technology are commodities produced for sale and profit—they serve the needs of the market system. Presently the only access to the means of life is through money and for the majority this means employment of some kind. However, jobs only come when there is the prospect of profit. Also the standard by which men and women are judged is their material possessions. In every country a minority win out at the expense of the majority. Oh how apparent is the most urgent need for the Earth to belong to its entire people! Then, freed from the shackles which sale and profit places on human endeavour, there will be sufficient resources for everyone to have a satisfying way of life.

Justus Weijagye, 

Kabale, Uganda

 

Castle Breweries Kenya Limited

Dear Editors,

It was June last year when Castle Breweries Kenya Limited ceased its operations in the country. The company had been in operation in Kenya for only five years. A total of 1015 employees were affected by the closure. They, their children, families and relatives were left without any means of earning their daily what is famously called “bread”.

What led to the closure of the company is perhaps illustrative of how capitalism works. Castle Breweries had only one competitor—Kenya Breweries Limited. The South African company thus found it easy going at first but not so during the subsequent years.

Barley, an important ingredient in the manufacture of bee, is grown by a clique of farmers who are contracted by Kenya Breweries for their beer. Most of these farmers are either relatives or associates of senior officials of Kenya Breweries Limited. And thus any other person, or brewer for that matter, had to buy the barley at a higher cost. The only alternative is to import the barley. And this is what Castle Breweries used to do.

Since in its inception in Kenya, their idea or main motive was for profit making, Castle Breweries found it uneconomical to brew and sell its beer at the same price as the competitor, so the company vigorously campaigned for a tax waiver from the authorities.

Kenya Breweries, who had enjoyed monopoly for more than 70 years, found their existence being threatened and thus had to bribe the then President, Daniel Arap Moi. There was to be no tax waiver and in fact in his budget speech, the then Finance Minister Chris Obure increased the taxes on beer from 25 percent to 30 percent.

And thus Kenya Castle Breweries closed its brewing factory at Thika in June 2002 and went ahead at the same time to open others in the USA. The whole thing is Castle Breweries Limited had no intention of remaining in Kenya as long as there were no profits to be made. The welfare of the company’s 1015 employees was far from the concern of Castle’s ‘Bosses’.

The world will continue to witness cases of such nature as long as the so-called investors have only one goal when they are establishing their investments—profits. They go to any lengths to maximise profits and leave the conditions of those making the profits to be the same—Judas wages and salaries and slavery conditions of work.

We, the workers of the world, need to understand that no matter how much money you are paid, you’ll not be able to make ends meet because the wages or salaries are never commensurate to the profits made by the company, organisation or group you are working for. We need to know that the amount of time spent working for profits could be utilised elsewhere working for the welfare of the whole society. Our unity is vital and the capitalist way of doing things will end once we organise and work for the good of all. This will entail us going for political power and make it easy for capitalism to be replaced. Let’s unite to establish the system that caters for the needs of all the members of the society—Socialism.

Patrick W. Ndege,

Nairobi, Kenya