Material World: Malawi after capitalism — chaos or common ownership? (2026)

The Material World column from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following interesting communication.

Comrades, friends, fellow workers of across the world.

To begin, I shall explain why the Socialist League of Malawi exists today. Although LESOMA was first formed in 1974 to oppose Banda’s dictatorship, the objective of our founding fathers led by late Dr Attati Mpakati who was assassinated in 23 March 1983, was never simply to replace one government with another. LESOMA objectives then, as now, is the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole society.

The current situation in Malawi: A crisis of the market, not of nationality

Sixty-two years after formal independence, the working class of Malawi remains trapped in the wages system. Successive governments — MCP, UDF, DPP, PP, have all administered capitalism. The results are before us:

1. Economic: Malawi remains a supplier of raw tobacco, tea, sugar, and uranium for the world market. 70 percent of us live on less than $2.15 a day. Yet warehouses are full of maize that cannot be sold at a ‘profitable’ price. Hospitals lack drugs that sit unused in private pharmacies because patients lack money. The kwacha collapses, debt rises, and the IMF dictates our budget. This is not ‘underdevelopment’. This is capitalism working normally.

2. Political: We have multi-party elections, but every party stands for the same thing: managing the market, attracting foreign investors, and maintaining the state. Corruption scandals from Fieldyork and Cashgate to fertilizer subsidies are not abuses of the system, they are the system. The state exists to protect property and profit, not people.

3. Social: 4.4 million Malawians face food insecurity in 2026 despite good rains. Our youth flee to South Africa for piece-work because there are no wages here. Women carry water 5km while bottled water is exported. Cyclones Freddy and Ana showed that climate breakdown hits workers first, because safety is unprofitable.

LESOMA’s position: There is no Malawian road to socialism

Since our reconstitution, LESOMA has set out its objectives clearly in our Constitution and Declaration of Principles. We do not seek to ‘develop’ Malawi inside capitalism. We do not call for a ‘national democratic revolution’ or alliances with employers. Capitalism is a world system and can only be replaced by world socialism.

What does that mean for Malawi?

1. Common ownership: The land, the tea and tobacco estates, the uranium at Kayelekera in Karonga District, the lake, the factories — all held in common, not by the state, not by foreign companies, not by ‘patriotic’ businessmen. Democratic control by the whole community.

2. Free access: Food, housing, healthcare, education, transport provided for use, not for sale.

3. No state, no borders: The armed forces, police, and prisons exist to protect property. Without property, their function disappears. Administration of things replaces government over people. There will be no ‘Malawian’ socialism, because socialism cannot exist in one country.

This is now a practical option. Workers in Malawi and worldwide have developed productive capacity to meet everyone’s needs. The barrier is not technical. It is the market. We produce for profit, not for use. That is why fertilizer is locked in warehouses while farmers need it. That is why nurses are unemployed while clinics are understaffed.

The international socialist stand in 2026

LESOMA seeks partnership with your party and all serious socialist movements worldwide. Our position is unchanged since 1974:

1. We reject all war. Competition for oil, lithium, trade routes, and markets caused the wars in Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine. Even now it is the cause of the war between Iran and Israel and the United States of America. Only common ownership ends the economic basis of war and environmental destruction.

2. We reject reformism. Trade unions, minimum wage laws, and aid projects cannot abolish the wages system. They can only negotiate terms of exploitation. We do not oppose workers struggling for better conditions, but LESOMA’s sole objective is socialism, not better-managed capitalism.

3. We reject self imposed leadership. Socialism cannot be brought by a vanguard, a coup, or a guerrilla army. It requires the democratic action of the majority. Our task is education and organization, not to lead workers but to make socialists.

Our immediate work in Malawi

Once we get registered and have enough funds, LESOMA intends to:

1. Educate: Spread the case for a world of common ownership in Malawian languages like Chichewa, Tumbuka, including English which is the current official language in Malawi. We will explain to the masses why fertilizer subsidies, ‘youth empowerment funds’, and foreign investment cannot solve poverty.

2. Organise: Build a political party hostile to all other parties — because all other parties stand for capitalism. We will contest elections, not to run capitalism, but to win a mandate to abolish it.

3. Internationalism: Work with workers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and worldwide. The problems of a miner in Karonga Malawi and a call-center worker in London are the same: no access without money.

We will not call for armed struggle. Violence is the method of capitalists.

Chaos or common ownership?

Malawi today faces rising debt, climate shocks, and political disillusion. The danger is not only poverty, but that workers turn to ethnic parties, religious sects, or military strongmen out of despair. That is chaos.

The alternative is not regime change. It is change in economic system. Given free access to the means of life, the energy and creativity of Malawi’s workers could end hunger in months, not 40 years.

Comrades, there is no ‘Malawian solution’. There is a world solution, and Malawi’s working class is part of it. The time has come for workers to stop electing new managers of our poverty, and instead to organise for a world of free access. When the majority wants socialism, we can have it.

For world socialism,

Patrick Nthakomwa, President, Socialist League of Malawi (LESOMA)

Pan-African "Socialists" (1963)

From the February 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pan-African socialism, so-called, is essentially a creation of West Africa. But with the spread of education and the growth of communications in Africa these ideas have been absorbed also by Africans living in the East and the South of the continent. The main African political parties in these areas all claim to be Socialist. Frequently their leaders appear in London and ask the workers of Britain to support them in their struggle against imperialism. But nationalism is incompatible with Socialism and it is actually a barrier against the spread of Socialist ideas. On occasions it is even worse; for nationalism frequently hinders even the effective organisation of workers on the trade union field which is so essential under capitalism. Recent events in Central Africa well illustrate this point.

In Southern Rhodesia the Pan-Africanists whose political party, the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union was recently outlawed, have provoked a split among the African workers. Previously there was only one organisation claiming to represent the African worker, the Southern Rhodesia Trade Union Congress (SRTUC), led by Reuben Jamela. However, Jamela betrayed a pro-Western leaning by maintaining, in defiance of Ghana, that the SRTUC should remain affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). In addition, Jamela, although himself a nationalist, held that . . .

the declared position of Jamela's trade unionism is that the workers as workers must not be involved in politics and it has been argued by politicians and trade unionists that the two cannot mix: trade unionism must be for economical well-being of the working class, while politics is the game of both the worker and employer for political and social rights.

Without in any way supporting Jamela, we must say that the arguments which he presents against the association of the trade unions with the nationalist parties are basically sound. After all, trade unions are primarily organised to protect the workers of a particular trade section, or of a group of more or less allied trades. People of varying political and religious views are united in trade unions on one issue alone: the recognition that collective action is more effective than individual action when dealing with employers. Politics within the trade union tends to destroy this unity. This is what has happened in Southern Rhodesia. The Pan-Africanists have broken away from the SRTUC and set up their own African TUC which is rapidly gaining support at the expense of the SRTUC and which, incidentally, has not been banned.

The particular party which it is suggested the unions support is, despite its Socialist pretensions, basically capitalist and nationalist. The nationalist case for turning the trade unions into little more than the labour wing of the nationalist party is based on an appeal to racial sentiment. “The absence of large African companies,” argues The People's Voice, “of African-owned mines and large factories—a natural consequence of colonial oppression—turns the African workers in an anti-imperialist direction. The European colonialist became the enemy of the African workers,” but the paper goes on to suggest that because of this the trade union struggle is against the “European rulers” just as is the African political movement and hence it is reasonable for them to unite.

But is the trade union struggle exclusively anti-European? Whatever may have been the position in West Africa, the idea that the European in Central Africa is merely a “monopolist” or a capitalist is as absurd as the notion that all Jews are financiers. First, there are over 80,000 European workers in Southern Rhodesia compared with 9,000 European employers and self-employed and, second, although nearly all the large businesses and factories are European or foreign owned, there are in actual fact more African businessmen than European. Nor the the Europeans the only people who have opposed African strikes. ZAPU’s allies in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland have done just this and worse.

In July this year the supreme council of the Northern Rhodesia African Mineworkers’ Union decided to call a strike for higher pay as they considered the copper mining companies' offer inadequate. Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party decided that a strike at this time might harm their chances in the October general elections. UNIP therefore advised the workers to accept the offer and itself took steps to prevent the strike. During the weekend before the strike was due to begin leaflets were distributed calling on the workers not to strike. One such leaflet, signed by A. B. Mutemba, UNIP Kitwe, Kalulushi and Mufilira Regional Secretary, read:

Tell all our people that UNIP docs not agree to the strike call. This strike will spoil our forthcoming elections. We ask you all to report for work as usual. If you want a strike you will do so after October — not now. Anyone who strikes on Tuesday will be regarded as an enemy of the African cause (Northern News 9/7/62).

Other leaflets, later repudiated, accused the union leaders of organising the strike for their own selfish ends. As a result of these leaflets so much confusion was created that the union decided to call off the strike. At least this is one explanation, but the strike was called off after Kaunda had met the union leaders. Only later did it become known that one of these leaders, previously not known as a nationalist, had agreed to stand as a UNIP candidate in the elections. Whatever the reason, UNIP and the Companies won. This episode clearly shows the attitude of the Pan-Africanists towards the trade unions: they want to see the African workers organised in order to use them for their own ends.

The Malawi Congress Party, led by Our Great Ngwasi Kumuzu Banda (Ngwasi means '‘sage" but is probably better translated “fuehrer”), which rules Nyasaland has also clashed with the unions. No sooner had the MCP formed the government than it acted against some strikers, members of the Motor and Allied Workers Union, whose leaders had called a strike for higher pay. A Pan-Africanist writing later complained “what a burden it was for the new African Minister to start his duties by solving a strike problem," and went on:

In any event, the Malawi Congress Party condemned the strike and since then the destructive actions by this Union have been less apparent. (Daily News 22/6/62.)

Trade Unions

This turned out to be a little optimistic as the Motor and Allied Workers Union and the Commercial and General Workers’ Union continued their “irresponsible*’ and “destructive actions” of trying to improve their members’ working conditions and living standards; For their trouble the leaders of these unions were suspended from membership of the MCP and accused of “importing Trade Union ideas from America and Western Europe in this country.” This was judged incompatible with the principles and policy of the party. Which is a frank admission that the MCP is not in favour of allowing the workers to form genuine trade unions or of allowing them to strike.

Banda and his colleagues have continued to abuse and insult these union leaders whose only crime appears to be their belief that trade unions should be independent of Government. In August Dr. Banda referred to these trade unionists as “self seekers who are misleading the workers” and accused one of getting money from Europeans to “further his selfish ends.” Banda went on to say that his ruling Malawi Congress Party “will crush mercilessly anyone who allows himself to be used by imperialists and colonialists.”

Such is the way the Pan-Africanists treat the workers when once in power. With African businessmen it is a different matter. Far from saying that the African worker has no interests in common with these African property-owners the Pan-Africanists seek to win them for their cause. UNIP has a clause in its programme which reads: "to work and protect the interests of commercial traders and help them in their progressive business schemes." The Daily News (10/9/62) reported that at a ZAPU meeting “Mr. S. J. Ndebele ... urged African businessmen to rally behind ZAPU and sacrifice both money and time.” In addition the President of the African Farmers’ Union is also a well-known ZAPU member. Such is the confusion of Pan-African “Socialism” that it preaches the identity of interests between African worker and African capitalist and ignores the European worker. Indeed one of the smaller African nationalist parties in Southern Rhodesia which calls itself Socialist, the Pan-African Socialist Union, has denounced ZAPU as a “capitalist multi-racial organisation ” and one of its leaders is on record as having said: “I loathe European membership in a pure African nationalist organisation.” Pan-Africanism as a political creed has more in common with Fascism, insofar as it is a radical nationalist movement, than with Socialism and there are no grounds at all on which Socialists can support it.

It is not an accident that African nationalist parties, once in power, “crush mercilessly,” to use Banda’s own words, the workers’ independent trade unions. Even people with more regard for democracy than Banda or Nkrumah, people like Nyerere, who have taken in Western liberal ideas, are forced to pass laws restricting civil liberties and trade union freedoms. They do so because they have chosen to develop capitalism in their respective countries. Why this means they must attack the workers was recently well explained by a writer in Africa Today. “Independence,” he writes, “upset the conditions under which the African union movement had flourished. The state is African now, not European; the issue of patriotism can be, and is, turned against the unions if they oppose the government. The state is concerned with holding down labour costs in both private and public sectors. ... Governments dedicated to rapid economic development obviously must hold down, or reduce, real wages in order to raise capital.” So it is in Ghana and in Tanganyika; so it will be in Central Africa. It is for this reason that the right to strike is more often denied than granted in post-colonial Africa.

This in itself is a good enough reason why the workers of Britain should not listen to these glib nationalist leaders who come here asking for help — help to “crush mercilessly” the workers back home. Nor is there any hope for the workers of Africa in nationalism or racialism; Socialism remains the only hope for the workers of the world. But in Central Africa the workers of all races have yet to learn that the dividing line there, as elsewhere, is that of class not colour. White and non-White workers should stand together against White and non-White property owners. The sooner the workers realise this the better. Meanwhile the danger of racial clash remains.

Adam Buick

News in Review: Cunarder on the Clyde (1965)

The News in Review column from the February 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cunarder on the Clyde

Both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were built in the Clydeside shipyard of John Brown.

When it was confirmed, on the eve of Hogmanay, that the same shipyard had won the contract to make the replacement for the Queen Mary, both God and Commercial Television celebrated.

Church bells rang out in the Clydebank parish of Kilbowie. Scottish Television look huge press adverts, which crowed that the right yard had won the contract. Perhaps they are hoping that their blatant appeal to ignorance and patriotism will persuade some of the five thousand who will be employed on the new Cunarder to spend some of their wages on television sets.

No bells rang on the Tyne and in Belfast, homes of the other two firms competing for the contract, Swan, Hunter, Vickers-Armstrong and Harland and Wolff are probably hoping that John Brown’s preoccupation with the new Cunarder over the next three years or so will leave a more open market for them.

But this is by no means certain, British ship-building is still struggling, pushed hard by the Japanese and the Swedes and some Continental yards. The Cunard affair underlines the fact that in such competition there can be only one winner. There could be gloomy times ahead for the shipyard workers in Belfast and on Tyneside. Perhaps Scottish Television will make a small donation to their soup kitchens.

The profitability of the new Cunarder is doubtful. More and more people are crossing the Atlantic by air, and fewer and fewer by sea. The shipping lines have largely given up the struggle to compete in cheap travel, and now concentrate on selling the sea voyage as a more gracious and rejuvenating way of travelling than a clamourous jet flight.

The new liner is designed to accept these conditions. It will be a flexible ship, with accommodation which can be rearranged into two classes and a draught shallow enough to permit cruising, if this seems more profitable. Meanwhile the ageing Queens have to face competition from more modern, faster ships; next year Sweden and Italy enter the race.

This uncertain world, into which the new liner will be launched, does not resemble the leisured and gracious image which Cunard once built for themselves.

The reality of capitalism is grim, and never grimmer than when a proud example of craftsmanship and ingenuity is pushed out into the rough seas of commercial anarchy.

Agin' the Guinea

Next month, at Largs in Scotland, the Labour women will hold their annual national conference.

There they will discuss the customary sheaf of meaningless and hypocritical resolutions.

Consider, for example, the motion which condemns the practice of pricing goods in guineas and which calls on the government to abolish the guinea system.

On the face of it, this may seem a genuine expression of a desire to protect the consumer interests of the working class. But let us look at it a little deeper.

We are all familiar with the ruse of pricing in guineas. Perhaps some people are actually taken in by it, and think that a suit costing fifteen guineas is no more expensive than one costing fifteen pounds.

But such people are obviously beyond the help of pious resolutions. They would be just as easily deceived by another, equally transparent, trick if the Labour women got their way over the guinea.

So what will the conference be worrying about? Do the Labour women think that abolishing the guinea will do something to stop prices rising? Are they looking for an excuse for their government’s failure to keep that part of their election programme?

Let us get down to basic facts. The Labour Party supports capitalism, which is a system of production of goods for sale and therefore a system in which there are buyers and sellers and prices at which they buy and sell.

The interests of buyer and seller are directly opposed. One wants the price to be as low as possible, the other wants it as high as possible. These opposing interests are mostly asserted in ways which are within capitalism’s laws.

Sometimes they are asserted by illegal methods. And sometimes they are asserted by methods which, while not illegal, are not exactly honest. These methods include monopoly control and such diddles as pricing something worth half a crown at two shillings elevenpence halfpenny and the use of guineas instead of pounds.

Whatever method is used, it must be the forces of the market which finally control the fluctuations of a price, however it is expressed. All of this is very proper and necessary to capitalism, even if it sometimes means that prices rise sharply, or come crashing down in a slump.

Sly ruses, by buyer or seller, have no effect upon that. They are only a part of capitalism's competitive scramble. Individual members of the Labour Party may not like some of the effects of the scramble, but they ardently support the social system which produces it.

It is that basic issue, and nothing else, that they should be discussing at Largs.

Prices: up, up, up

“We was robbed!” has always been a favourite complaint of the Labour Party when contemplating the frustrations and the failures of their governments.

In 1931, they said they were beaten by a Bankers’ Ramp. After the war it was the unmanageable dollar gap. Last November the Gnomes of Zurich were said to be busily undermining the finances of Labour Britain. Now the grocers are on the rampage.

Rising prices are proving to be one of the government's big problems, especially in the grocery trade, where items like frozen foods, biscuits and sausages have recently gone up. This is not the end of it: during four weeks spanning the turn of the year, nearly one thousand retail prices were increased.

All of this makes Labour's promises in their election programme, New Britain, to introduce “ . . . new and more relevant policies to check the persistent rise in prices” look pretty sick. So the squeal —"We was robbed!” can be heard" again.

This time it is Mr. Frank Cousins, at one of his Nuneaton by-election meetings, who squealed:

  The 15 per cent surcharge does not apply to foodstuffs, so there is no excuse there (for price increases). . . to pretend that an extra 6d on fuel justifies an extra 1d or 2d on a particular tin, packet, or bcttle . . . is just plain nonsense.

Now what does this amount to? Mr. Cousins also complained; ”. . . some of the firms . . . are already making record profits.” What that means is that the Labour government are being given the run-around by the grocers; it means that they cannot control the mechanisms of capitalist society.

In the same way, if we accept the excuse that there was a Bankers’ Ramp in 1931, it follows that Labour could not control the international financiers. On the same argument the Attlee government could not control its financial crises and now Mr. Wilson’s lot cannot control its own retailers.

But the Labour party, like every other capitalist party, has always claimed that they can control capitalism. Hence their optimistic election talk of plans, control, priorities, all of which evaporates in face of reality.

The reality of prices is that they do not depend on the level of import duty and taxes. In the short run, the fluctuations of a price are governed by the forces of supply and demand, which means that the seller will charge as much as the market allows.

This is exactly what the grocery trade is doing, and what Mr. Cousins is complaining about. But nobody who supports capitalism can complain when the system takes its logical course.

Mr. Cousins cannot complain and the Labour government cannot complain. Neither can the millions of people who put them into power.

African turmoil

“Malawi,” said Dr. Hastings Banda recently, “is at war.” He is not the first of the leaders of the new States on the African continent to-make such a declaration.

Egypt, we have been told, is at war. So is Zambia. Nigeria and the Congo are immersed in internal conflicts of varying intensity. And so on.

There have been, of course, no formal declarations of war. But that is not what Dr. Banda and his counterparts mean when they use the word.

The new states are struggling to establish themselves against pressures both external and internal. One of their governments’ problems is to break down the old tribal allegiances and substitute a wider ranging patriotism.

Africans who once thought of themselves as belonging to this or that tribe, under this or that chief, must now be persuaded that it is better to belong to a developing capitalist nation, under this or that leader or dictator.

And how is this achieved? The techniques are wearyingly familiar. There are the patriotic declarations, the empty mysticism over the new flag, the dark warnings of impending danger from outside, the calls to arms. There is also the synthetic worship of the new nation’s leader—the personality cults of men like Nkrumah and Banda.

Part of this process is the “discovery” of alleged plots against the security of the state. Dr. Banda said that his former Foreign Minister, Mr. Chiume, is combining with the Zanzibar rebel Mr. Okello in a scheme to invade Malawi. Neighbouring Zambia is to spend £7 million on “defence and internal security,” double its border posts and step up its naval forces on the boundary rivers and lakes.

Dr. Banda appealed to the Malawi people to arrest any strangers and report them to the Congress Party; “ Investigate every strange face,” he said.

This is like a small-scale re-enactment of Europe in the Thirties. It is also reminiscent of the spy-scares which helped to keep war fever up to pitch during the two world wars.

But the African nationalists always claimed, when they were struggling for power, that they would be above the tricks and subterfuges of the old colonialist powers.

There need be no surprise that they have turned out to be different. Tricks and lies are always used in the fights between capitalist powers. As the new, African states enter these fights, it is inevitable that they should use the time honoured methods.

Perhaps Dr. Banda is right; perhaps Malawi is at war, for in war the first casualty has always been the truth.

The Passing Show: You and Your Job (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

You and Your Job

Have you what is commonly known as a “good job”—one that has “gd. sal. to right person and excel. conds.” as the small ads put it? Even if you can answer yes to this, even if you are one of the more highly paid workers today, it's still a pretty certain bet that you have a struggle to get by at whatever standard of living you are accustomed to and are expected to maintain. And because you are a worker, you will always have to count the pennies at some stage or other before you can have things which you may particularly need. “Consumers choice” is a pretty empty term under these circumstances—the restriction of choice begins in your pocket, not in the shop window.

But accepting that we all live a pretty narrow sort of life with drabness and insecurity in varying degrees according to size of pay packet, what do you really think of your job? By that I mean just what do you think of the work that you have to do, the duties and responsibilities that it entails? If we are again to judge by the small ads columns, there is no such thing as a dull, monotonous, boring job; “interesting work” is always their claim, but they are usually careful to add “gd. hours”, which is a hint of what they really think of the mental attraction of the job. They know that no one will want to stick at it a second longer than necessary and that come knocking-off time, the factory or office will be deserted within minutes. And although many workers do work overtime, it’s not generally out of love for their work, but because of the extra cash.

Before the war, when jobs were scarce, you just had to put up with the monotony and make the best of it, but in a time of labour shortage like the present, this is one (but only one) of the factors which make for frequent job changes, particularly among younger workers. One young man still in his twenties was recently reported as having had some hundreds of jobs since leaving school. Despite the reformer’s prattle about “opportunities for youth”, the essential conditions of capitalism—the division of labour and the worker’s divorce from ownership of the means of production—will throw up this problem more and more as time goes by.

These thoughts are prompted by a small cutting from The Guardian of October 14th. Mr. J. E. Newton, general secretary of the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, has drawn attention to this very problem. He thinks that workers are getting less and less satisfaction from their jobs and wants Mr. Brown to set up a ministry of industrial psychology “to find out what workers think of their jobs” and “try to redirect personal interest to the workplace or provide the means for obtaining other satisfactions outside work.” Without wishing to be rude to Mr. Newton, I think we could well be spared yet another government ministry, especially of psychology (what a horrible thought). And why does he want an investigation to find out what he seems pretty certain of already, anyway?

But his other proposal is interesting. I think it suggests that he does not have much hope of workers ever being able to get fulfilment from their jobs. Indeed, he admits by implication that the search for it outside of working hours is here to stay, and of course he’s quite correct. I should say that it will last as long as capitalism; in fact, catering for pastimes and sports has become an industry in itself. Many of us have hobbies of one sort or another and we often work harder at them than we do at our jobs. Others vent their frustrations on old ladies, telephone kiosks and railway carriage upholstery—a particularly ugly trend which is really just the other side of the same coin.


In a Socialist World . . . ?

Yes, you have a right to ask that question. In a Socialist world we would work, but work would take on a new meaning. It would not be synonymous with employment, which is merely the means of getting a living wage, but since it would aim at the full satisfaction of people’s needs, it would be also a way of expressing and developing ourselves to the fullest extent. True we would work to live because that is essential in any society, but we would also live to work. I should think that monotony and frustration would be well-nigh impossible under such conditions, not least of all because the heavy specialisation demanded by capitalism would disappear. And we won’t need any psychologists to try and teach us how to kid ourselves we’re happy when we’re anything but.


An Old Story

My father is an old age pensioner and belongs to the local old age pensioners association. The other day he handed me a copy of Pensioner’s Voice, the official publication of the National Federation of O.A.P. Associations. “We speak for the older generation,” says the caption at top right on the front page, and it’s a good job that somebody speaks for them, but let’s see how effectively Pensioner's Voice manages to do this..

Right off, it denies any political affiliations and claims it has always advised its members to “support any candidate who will support us.” Now that should pose quite a question. After all, you have only the election address and speeches of your candidates to go by and the one who does not promise support for the pensioners must be a rarity indeed. You could of course try eliminating from your support list those who had a poor record on the pensions question, but then that would mean eliminating the lot if you were really honest with yourself.

Actually, I was struck by the naivité of this journal. The National Federation was formed twenty-five years ago and represents millions who have a lifetime’s experience of working class existence behind them. Yet it still puts the view that Parliament is an impartial body—taken as a whole—and that “all the political parties should be willing and anxious to see that justice is done.” Now let us assume you are a pensioner and acted on the Federation’s advice during the last election. Perhaps you voted Labour, in which case on Page 3, you will find the Rev. T. E. Nuttall complaining vide the government’s national plan, that:—

  . . . We cannot find anything in the white paper about the electoral promise on an entirely new policy to provide an adequate income for each pensioner . . .

Pensioner’s Voice has an interesting editorial comment comparing the lot of a £4 a week pensioner with that of a shareholder in I.C.I. It mentions that their £50 millions capital issue in early September was heavily over-subscribed. Not only was this a well written commentary on the glaring inequality that is capitalism, but by this very comparison the writer spotlighted the indignity which is built into working class existence. Yet is there any real questioning of such a world, or even the faintest spark of anger? Not at all. Just a pathetic appeal to put “all hands to the pumps to make his (the pensioner’s) life a bit easier.”

In looking at the pensioner’s movement in Britain over the last few years I have noted this attitude, which runs like a thread through its literature. Always it is an appeal, rather than a demand, for better income and social services. Granted that old workers do not have the same vigour to push their interests as youngsters have, but the really big factor behind their failure is their lack of bargaining power because they are now out of the production line. This is the biggest slap in the face that capitalism gives them.

So to them, the need for Socialism should be of particular interest, and it is especially sad that many of them will die without ever having considered it.

Gaspers 

  “. . . We are under the constant survey of foreign friends . . . Any back sliding on our part, which lays us open to accusations that we are . . . putting social needs before financial responsibility, would very quickly cause the leaves on the plant of confidence to shrivel.” (Lord Cromer, 21/10/65)

   “It is a remarkable thing how in the last quarter of a century the doctrine of Socialism as a way of life . . .  is everywhere, even in Russia, thoroughly discredited.” (Lord Shawcross, ex-Minister in the 1945 Labour Government. 4/11/65)

   “One MP suggested the skinning alive of hanged men and the use of their skulls as beer pots.” (The Guardian, 11/11/65, reporting the debate in the Malawi Parliament on the Penal Code Amendment Bill)

Eddie Critchfield

News in Review: Heil Banda! (1965)

The News in Review column from the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Heil Banda!

The tireless supporters of African nationalist movements will doubtless have been glad to hear that Dr. Hastings Banda, who was once one of their heroes, and who was once said to be a gentle, humane man, and who is now Prime Minister of Malawi, is running true to form.

Next July, Malawi will become a Republic and Dr. Bandas’ party—the Malawi Congress Party—is getting ready for the event.

First, they nominated (who else?) Dr. Banda as their candidate for the Presidency. Then they accepted some proposals which make it clear that Dr. Banda does not intend his Presidential rule to be restricted by the sort of checks which are on the leaders of a much maligned, imperialist country like the United States.

The Constitution the Malawi Congress Party accepted, and which will probably become law, lays it down that the country will become a one-party state with a President who is both the Head of State and the Head of the Government.

There are, of course, no prizes for guessing which party will be the only one allowed to exist and who will be the all-powerful President—or dictator, as he will be known in places where speech is still comparatively free.

This is typical of many of the new African states which are now under one-party dictatorships, run by the men who came to power on a promise to bring freedom to a people governed by a foreign nation.

On what grounds are the new dictatorships excused? Dr. Banda told his party’s convention: “It does not matter whether there is a dictator or not as long as the people choose the dictator”— which is exactly the argument used by, among others, Adolf Hitler.

This is hot a far-fetched parallel. A couple of weeks after the convention, Dr. Banda revealed what sort of dictatorship he hopes the Malawi people will choose. Commenting on the trial of the “rebel” Medson Silombela, he said: “I know he is going to be found guilty. What sort of judge can acquit him? After that you can come and watch him swing.”

Life under British capitalism is tough enough, but at least political leaders do not make it their business to go around pronouncing verdict and sentence before a trial is ended.

The rising capitalisms of Africa are no better than those of the older, more established countries.

The experience of Malawi—and of Ghana and Kenya—should be remembered, the next time there is an appeal to support a nationalist movement which aims to replace one type of suppression with another.

Failure of the incomes and prices policy

“Mr. Brown,” wrote William Rees-Mogg in the Sunday Times last April, “Plough the Sands.” He was referring to the government’s incomes policy, to the incomes policies which have gone before, and to the near certainty of Brown’s policy failing.

Well, the policy has been running for about a year. We have had the Declaration of Intent, we have Mr. Jones and his Prices and Incomes Board, we have the Early Warning System and the TUC’s capitulation to it.

And we have Mr. Brown. Talking.

What else have we had?

Prices, we know, have gone up. What about wages?

The Motor Agents’ Association have agreed with the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the Transport and General Workers’ Union that from January 1st the basic rates of about 300,000 workers in the motor retail and repair trades will go up by between 14 and 16 per cent.

Figures arc pliable things but on any argument this rise is considerably more than the government’s hoped-for limit of between 3 and 3½ per cent. a year.

This is only one detail in the picture. In April the Scottish plumbers got a rise of 11 per cent.; in August Trustee Savings Bank Staff got 8.1 per cent. 

Between last December and September this year, the Index of Hourly Wage Rates, taking a base figure of 100 for the year 1956, rose from 152.2 to 160.2—an increase of 8 per cent. 

These developments have provoked Mr. Callaghan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer to confess that he is ". . . disappointed with the way in which the incomes policy has gone so far.”

There is really no reason for Mr. Callaghan feeling like this. Any incomes policy will always run up against a basic feature of the capitalist social system which the government are trying to run.

Capitalism imposes upon the mass of people the condition that they have to sell their working abilities in order to live. In its barest essentials—that is, in times of slump—this is a matter of living. At other times it is more a matter of defending and improving living standards.

Here is the root cause of the disputes over wages and working conditions. It is inevitable that the working class will struggle to get the most they can from their employers, and that their employers will protect their own interests.

Since the war, conditions in this country have generally favoured the working class in their struggle. A persistent shortage of labour has given strength to many wage claims.

Thus, although the trade unions may formally accept an obligation to restrain wages, the very conditions of their existence force them to do the opposite, for their members would hardly agree to hold wages down when they could push them up.

The assistant secretary of the TGWU showed how the trade unions justify themselves in this situation when he commented on the rises awarded to the motor men: “In fact, this was consolidating local wage rates into a national agreement and was merely formalising what already existed.”

This is what Mr. George Woodcock once called “a bit of good old TUC”, but in essence it is a fairly common sort of statement.

Whatever policy the government may try to impose, and the unions accept, the battle to consolidate and to improve wages will go on. It is simply part of capitalism.

Other incomes policies have failed in the past and Brown’s policy, brought in to such deafening fanfares, is failing now. However many times they are ploughed, the dead sands will remain.

Crisis in Rhodesia

The crisis in Rhodesia showed—if indeed it was necessary to do so—that whatever else we may be short of there is still plenty of nonsense being talked.

We heard, for example, talk about our “kith and kin" in Rhodesia, which suggests that there is a sacred, family tie between British workers and the Rhodesian ruling class. Perhaps this propaganda was effective: it was reported that the British government hesitated about sending troops to Rhodesia because they feared something like a repetition of the Curragh Mutiny in 1914.

We heard lots about the “rights" of majorities and the “legalities" of Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, as if such things are immutable and are not ignored and defied when it suits a governments’ purposes to do so. Human “rights" have had such a rough time of it during the past few years that it is surprising that any government still dares to speak in their name.

And, of course, we had the familiar racist nonsense, about the supposed inferiority of the African, and his inherent inability to behave in the same way as the established proletariat of the older capitalist countries.

There were signs that the decision to make a UDI was not reached without considerable argument in Salisbury. Mr. Smith prevaricated for a long time, after originally giving the impression that the break was due in the immediate future.

Perhaps this was a result of the arm-twisting by the British government. But whatever the short term effect of the sanctions, there is every reason to think that in the long run Rhodesia will weather the storm. It will find other outlets for its produce, and reach other arrangements on its international finances to replace those which have been ended. Indeed, there may even be some sort of tie-up between Rhodesia and some of the Negro African states. Malawi for one made it clear that it did not favour the imposition of sanctions, which might mean that the two countries will get together over a trade deal.

Mr. Wilson was at some pains to establish the fact that Labour's policy was a continuation of the Tories’. This did not prevent Mr. Heath getting what advantage he could from the situation, by making the familiar charge that, although there was no difference in principle between the two parties, Labour were bungling the job.

This basic agreement indicates that the British ruling class as a whole, whatever Lord Salisbury may think, realises what will be the result of a UDI. The present Rhodesian government can probably stay in power only by imposing a system similar to what exists in South Africa.

This will have its repercussions in terms of sabotage and other forms of violence, and in continual unrest. It will hold back Rhodesia's development into a modern capitalist nation. This may suit the interests of the Rhodesian farmers but the country’s industrialists, and the capitalists abroad who have money invested there, must take a different attitude.

They are more likely to be in favour of accepting the inevitable and salvaging what they can, as they have done in the other newly independent states of Africa.

If a Negro-dominated Rhodesia is inevitable—however far into the future it maybe—what is likely to follow? There will probably by changes in the white landholdings. Some of them may be split up and distributed to Africans; so called Land Reform often accompanies the success of nationalist revolts.

There will also be changes in Rhodesia’s social structure. The tribal chiefs will decline in power, to be replaced by a new ruling class, mostly with coloured skins. The African people will be developed into a fully-fledged proletariat.

And, if recent history is any guide, Rhodesia may well become another Negro dictatorship, with the new government’s opponents persecuted, exiled, even murdered.

Who can say that this is preferable to the white settlers’ dictatorship under Mr. Smith? For the people of Rhodesia the outlook is unpromising.

Material World: Malawi: Children of the Tobacco Fields (2009)

The Material World Column from the November 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

We all know that tobacco harms those who smoke it. Few are aware of the damage it does to those who pick and process it.

The “children’s organisation” Plan International recently issued a report about children in Malawi, some as young as five, who toil up to twelve hours in the tobacco fields for an average daily wage of 11p. (Hard Work, long hours and little pay).

The finding that has attracted most attention is that these children are being poisoned by the nicotine “juice” they absorb through the skin – and also ingest, as they have no chance to wash hands before eating. Many of the ailments that plague them -- headaches, abdominal and chest pain, nausea, breathlessness, dizziness – are symptoms of Green Tobacco Sickness.

But much of their suffering has nothing to do with nicotine. All have blisters on their hands. All have pains – in the shoulders, neck, back, knees – caused by overexertion of their immature muscles. About a third of the children are coughing blood, which suggests TB.

Many of the children examined had been beaten, kicked or otherwise physically abused by estate owners or supervisors. Many of the girls had been raped by them. One boy had deep knee wounds as a result of being made to walk across a stony field on his knees as punishment for “laziness”.

Who owns the estates?
Who are these estate owners? Commercial tobacco farming in Malawi began late in the 19th century, when it was the British colony of Nyasaland. White settlers seized much of the best arable land for plantations of tea, coffee, tung trees (for their oil, used as a wood finisher) and – mostly -- tobacco. Even today the majority of owners of large estates are descendants of the colonial settlers, although now there are also black owners.

In 1948 some tung and tobacco plantations (estates) were taken over by the Colonial Development Corporation, funded mainly by the British Treasury. After Malawi gained formal independence in 1964, these came under state ownership. Later they were reprivatised. Another recent change is the direct acquisition of some estates by international tobacco companies.

The estates were established on land stolen from traditional peasant communities. The process began in colonial times but continued even after independence, under the Banda regime. Land theft impoverishes local communities and compels those worst affected to offer themselves – or their children! – to the estate owners as wage slaves.

Tobacco is also grown on many small family farms. Here too, children work and suck in nicotine juice, alongside their parents.

The tobacco cartel
Malawi’s tobacco market is dominated – through subsidiaries -- by two international corporations, Universal Corporation and Alliance One International. These corporations operate a cartel, refusing to compete and colluding to keep tobacco purchase prices low. This in turn intensifies the pressure on farm owners to minimise costs by exploiting cheap or free child labour – a practice that the corporations hypocritically claim to oppose.

Representatives of the corporations sit on several committees that advise the government of Malawi on economic policy. By this means they ensure that their interests are served and block any initiatives to diversify the economy and reduce the country’s dependence on tobacco.

The main reason why child labour is so prevalent in Malawian agriculture is the poverty – in particular, land hunger -- of most of the rural population. This reflects not any absolute shortage of land but rather the highly skewed pattern of land ownership. Large tracts of land lie fallow on the big estates.

A pathetic contrast
How does Plan International propose to help the children on the tobacco farms?

Well, it will “educate farm owners and supervisors” and persuade them to provide the children with protective clothing. Taking the tobacco companies’ PR at face value, it will urge them to “scrutinise their suppliers more closely”. It will not, however, support a ban on children picking tobacco because that is “unrealistic” – as indeed it is if you refuse to challenge underlying social conditions.

But what a pathetic contrast such “realism” makes with Plan International’s “vision” of “a world in which all children realise their full potential in societies that respect people’s rights and dignity”!

Environmental degradation
Besides ruining people’s health, tobacco degrades the environment. The tobacco monoculture that dominates much of Malawi depletes the soil of nutrients. It also causes extensive deforestation, as trees are felled to provide firewood for curing the tobacco leaves, and this in turn further erodes the soil. Water sources are contaminated. After over a century of tobacco cultivation, all these processes are already far advanced. (For fuller analysis, see the chapter by Geist, Otanez and Kapito in Andrew Millington and Wendy Jepson, eds. Land Change Science in the Tropics: Changing Agricultural Landscapes, Springer 2008.)

Tobacco in socialist society?
Will tobacco be grown in socialist society? On a small scale, possibly, by addicts for their own use. But it’s hard to imagine socialist society making planned provision, within the framework of democratic decision-making, for tobacco production. People aware of all the harm caused by tobacco will surely prefer to halt cultivation of this noxious weed. They will seek to restore soil fertility, reverse deforestation and enhance local food supply.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we suppose that the decision is made to continue producing tobacco, will it be implemented? Will the free people of socialist society, no longer spurred on by economic necessity, voluntarily poison themselves just to feed others’ addictions?

Stefan

Malawi Musings

From the Socialist Banner blog

Malawi is much in the news. Not for any particular reason other than music icon Madonna is visiting and being rumoured to be planning another adoption of another Malawian youngster. Malawi's economy is said to be 1% of Scotland's - about half the size of Falkirk's. The country's population is 12.6 million people, one million of whom are orphans. More than half the population lives below the poverty line. Malawi is ranked as the 10th poorest country in the world by the United Nations. Life expectancy in Malawi is now as low as 36.5 years, five years lower than it was 50 years ago.

The Herald reports how business is sponsoring aspiring capitalists to learn their trade in Scotland. A small number of students have been brought to Scotland as part of a vanguard of gifted entrepreneurs who it is hoped will provide expertise, enthusiasm and business acumen to transform the economic fortunes of Malawi. They are spending 18 hours a week learning customer care skills, cooking and working as waiters at Brel and Ad Lib, both part of the Baby Grand Group in Glasgow. They will also be enrolled on four-year tourism undergraduate degrees at Glasgow Caledonian University. All very noble.

Yet activist George Monbiot writes of how international capitialism have failed to provide the necessary foreign aid and have imposed spending restrictions upon on the bill for public-sector pay in Malawi that ensure that even basic schooling cannot be improved. In Malawi the IMF sets the ceiling for public-sector wages directly. The pupil to teacher ratio in Malawi is 72:1. The failure rate to complete primary education in Malawi is 70%.

In Malawi, the goods required for the most basic level of subsistence cost $107 a month. A trained teacher receives $55. ActionAid argues that Malawi has now achieved sufficient stability to start raising teachers' pay. But in no case did the IMF consult either the public or the state's own ministry of education before laying down the law. The amount of money a teacher in rural Malawi is paid is decided by the men in London and Washington.

Good deeds like Madonna airlifting some pitiful child out of deprivation, or philanthropic gestures from Scottish businessmen of assisting Malawi's budding capitalist class may hit the headlines. But it is who controls the economy and pulls the financial strings that decides the future of all Malawians and for the moment thats the IMF.

Madonna danced with Malawian children when she toured the $120,000 facility that is home to 4,000 orphans and which she helped to fund and during a visit to an orphanage urged them to "help themselves" instead of relying on her.

Wise words because the only solution to the poverty will be when the poor do join together and do begin to "help themselves" - by seeking the common ownershiop and control of the means of production and distribution - the establishment of Socialism.

Alan Johnstone