Voice From The Back: Prisoners of want (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prisoners of want

“One hundred thousand pensioners in old people’s homes are living on allowances of as little as £10 a week. Most are not even receiving the £16 weekly payment to which they are entitled, according to new research. The revelation that legions of old people live on less than many prison inmates will greatly embarrass Ministers, who have boasted of tackling pensioners’ poverty. “We were shocked when we discovered this,” said Lorna Easterbrook, who carried out the study for Help The Aged. “There’s a huge sense of humiliation among these old people. Some are getting £10 of their due allowances, but others are getting just £3 or £4 a week after relatives or homes make deductions.” Observer, 20 January.

The Observer journalist’s view that the Labour government ministers will be “greatly embarrassed” is probably wide of the mark. Nothing could embarrass these vile supporters of capitalism. Fellow workers, this could be your future inside capitalism. If you live beyond your ability to produce surplus value for the blood-sucking capitalist class. A bed pan and a tenner a week.

No cause for celebration

Twenty years ago a British Prime Minister told the Sun, and other slimy tabloid newspapers to “Rejoice” at the victory of the British capitalist class against the Argentine capitalist class. No mention was made at that time about the loss of working class life. We have no figures about the deaths of Argentine workers, but twenty years on, we have some about British workers. 255 British servicemen were killed, but even more awful since that madness, 264 British servicemen, who were involved have committed suicide. (Figures from the Guardian, 19 January.) Excuse us if we don’t rejoice, Thatcher, at the deaths of members of our class in the defence of your system. There are many orphans and widows of the working class today in both Argentine and Britain whose tears make joy impossible.

They like it, My Lord

“A Trade Union Congress report out today estimates that four million people, 16 percent of the workforce, work more than 48 hours a week, the limit set by the 1998 (European Union) directive. Men work the longest weeks with one in four clocking up more than 48 hours; one in ten working 55 hours; and one in 25 working more than 60 hours . . . John Monks, the TUC General Secretary, said: “Britain’s long-hour culture is a national disgrace. It leads to stress, ill-health and family strains.” Times, 4 February. Not everybody would agree with the TUC, though. John Crickland, Deputy Director-General of the CBI offers a defence of the long hours. “Workers want the right to make their own decisions about extra working hours. Managerial workers often work longer hours because they want to.” This defence is rather similar to the Fox Hunting Lobby’s – “The fox enjoys the hunt.”

Science and the profit motive

Inside socialist society the pursuit of knowledge will be free to all. There will be no restrictions on scientific investigation. This is impossible inside capitalism, with its copyright laws and its profit motive. Sir John Sulston, one of the leading researchers in the Human Genome Project has shown how powerful the profit motive is in science-based commerce. “We can’t possibly prohibit discovery. But on the other hand to imagine that we should always exploit, especially if it makes extra money, is insane. I think most reasonable people, including those who run companies, would agree. The trouble is, once people get into a company boardroom, they have no other choice. They have shareholders. I am afraid you have to leave your principles at the door of the boardroom”, he says.” Guardian, 2 February.

Blair, bombast and bombs

At the Labour Party conference last year Tony Blair said: “The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world”. Poverty, corruption, famine and war, he thundered like an Old Testament prophet, must be tackled. It went down big with the delegates. It is the sort of thing the Labour Party adore – talking about social problems in sanctimonious moral tones, and then doing nothing about it. But this time they were doing something about it – they were making it worse! “The government was facing condemnation from protesters against the arms trade last night after new figures revealed that the value of arms sales to Africa will more than quadruple by next year . . . High levels of spending on arms are seen as one of the main causes of poverty in Africa. A report by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals that in 1999 African nations received £52 million worth of arms in deals with British firms. That figure rose to £125.5m in 2000 and is set to top £200m next year.” Observer, 3 February.

Post-combat syndrome

A report in the British Medical Journal claimed that post-conflict symptoms had been suffered long before the Gulf War and stretched back as far as the 1889 Boer War. “They concluded: “Post-combat syndromes have arisen in all major wars over the past century, and we can predict that will continue to appear after future conflicts” . . . The researchers said the best way to tackle the illnesses, which have cost subsequent governments considerable sums in financial assistance, was to better understand their characteristics.” Herald, 8 February. Surely, a much better way to deal with the problem is to abolish capitalism, the cause of modern warfare. No conflict = no post-conflict syndrome. You don’t need to be a trained medical researcher to work that one out.

 

America versus the World (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Bush’s State of the Union address at the end of January was a rhetorical declaration of war on the world; an assertion that US interests are now paramount and woe betide anyone foolish enough to think otherwise.

Bush boldly announced that the “war on terror” was “only beginning” and announced an enormous hike in military spending. This year’s military budget is up $36 bn to $379 bn and next year the US war machine will receive an extra $48 bn, with a further $120 bn promised over the next five years, bringing the total spent on the military by 2007 to $ 2 trillion. To get some estimate of this level of spending it is worth noting that this year’s increase alone is higher than the joint military spending of Europe, and larger than China’s existing military budget. Though just how such an awe-inspiring arsenal of state of the arts weaponry is to stop 11 September type attacks on the USA is yet to be explained.

America has at last declared that the “war on terror” has replaced the threat of the “international communist conspiracy” and found in this the pretext to set the agenda for the coming century. The Bush administration has embedded its flag in what it believes is the moral high ground. From now on it is a war of good against evil – evil being anyone standing directly in the way of the US and its aspirations of global domination, with the “war on terrorism” allowing it to intervene anywhere and whenever and to deem who it likes a terrorist. Clearly this new “war” will involve countless military interventions with no regard whatsoever for international sensibilities.

There are now bogeymen under every rock and the world needs protecting from them. Bush identified an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union Address, pointing to the threat the world faced from North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Vice-President Dick Cheney would later remark that the US is considering military action against 50 countries and that this ongoing conflict could last 50 years, without seeming to question whether this would be sustainable.

Bush’s adviser Richard Perle commented: 

“This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there . . . if we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

All of this has naturally left political analysts wondering just who will be next. Somalia (on a key oil export route and with untapped oil deposits off its coast and with whom the US has a score to settle following the botched “Restore Hope” operation of a decade ago, which left thousands of innocents dead), or Yemen, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or Libya? All harbour bogeymen whose existence sullies the notion of American hegemony. Any could be the next target for a war machine drunk with its recent victory in Afghanistan. And what a victory! – Osama bin Laden still not caught (the entire campaign was about catching him), 5 thousand civilians dead and 7 million facing starvation in refugee camps.

A key element in the US game plan for global hegemony is clearly control of the Caspian’s rich oil reserves – estimated to be able to produce 3.3 million gallons of crude oil per day and 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Hence US military manoeuvring in the states surrounding Afghanistan and thus the attaching of the “bogeyman” label to any state perceived as standing in the way of these profits.

Already Kyrgistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are under US military domination and there are US military tent cities in 13 states surrounding Afghanistan, with the map of US bases mirroring the route of a possible oil pipeline which would take oil through Iran to the Indian ocean.

The pretext for the US invasion of Iraq would be Iraq’s refusal to agree to terms laid down by a US-led weapons inspectorate into the country, hence Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union Address that Iraq “continues to flaunt its hostility towards the US” and that “this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world.”

The above may sound like so much scare-mongering, but when it is considered the US now accounts for 40 percent of global military spending, that it spends more on its war machine than the next 19 states, that in the past year it has discarded numerous international treaties, including those pertaining to weapons control, that the space taken up by its military hardware covers an area the size of Sweden, that it has served notice on all countries opposing the notion of US hegemony that their days are numbered, we can’t but conclude that warfare will be as much a part of life in this century as the one we have just emerged from.

We have every reason to be fearful for the future of humanity. War is competition for profits (either via trade routes, mineral wealth, resources or areas of influence) writ large, and to safeguard its future profits, its control of world resources the world’s greatest and largest military power is accumulating an unimaginable array of weaponry, rolling up its sleeves and marching forward to stamp underfoot all it perceives as being a threat to its interests.

John Bissett

What right to housing? (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every week we are treated to the latest front-page-filling concern for the paid scribblers of the capitalist class. The current crisis is concern over the spiralling cost of housing. In recent weeks, we have had announcements by banks, such as the National Westminster, that they intend to withhold mortgages on houses in certain post-codes (mostly in London), for fear of a burst in the house-price bubble. Simultaneously, on 7 February, we were treated to a round of reports about the average house price exceeding £100,000 in Britain. At the root of all this is the continuing inability of the market system to provide for even this most basic need of a human being, a place to live.

Over the last century, the structures of home ownership in Britain changed dramatically, from a situation where most people rented their home (with an average of 4 people per household), to a situation where the majority of homes are privately owned by their occupiers, with the famous 2.4 people per household. As the population of the UK grew by some 50 percent in that century the number of houses tripled. Since the 1970s the numbers in rented accommodation has steadily fallen, and now represent only 8 million out of 25 million households. Over that century, we saw numerous initiatives from rents controls, to council houses and housing associations to try and ensure proper provision of housing, none of which worked over the long run.

In the aftermath of the Thatcher regime, housing has been left almost exclusively to the open market, with councils at best being able to cut deals with developers to build “social housing” in exchange for planning permission on lucrative projects. Between 1988 and 1996 production of new houses fell yearly (especially compared with the simultaneous clearance of slum housing stock). In 1988 a net gain to the housing stock of 234,500 houses was made, compared to net gain of only 178,000 in 1996. This fall can be seen more clearly in the general reduction in output (in terms of raw materials for houses) of building products over the same period, with bricks being the best example, falling from 4,654,000 tonnes in 1989 to 2,939,000 tonnes in 1999.

Much of this malaise will be due to the falling investment by the state. In 1988 the state (central and local governments) spent a total of £5,273 million on housing expenditure, this plummeted to £2,825 million in 1999. Some of that fall was achieved by transferring housing stock from the public to the private sector in 1999. As has been noted in the columns of this journal before, the state is currently in the processes of divesting itself of as much capital as possible, hoping to transfer it into the private sector where it can be both valorised for profit, and used in a capitalistically more “efficient” manner. This has obviously, though, had some knock-on in terms of building of new houses.

This is particularly so with regards to being unable to manage the demand thrown up by the uneven nature of the market system. Given that workers must migrate to where they can find work, in some areas, such as London, the cost of houses is much higher than in areas of low employment, such as Hull. As the labour time that goes into their building and maintenance will be about the same, the difference is the price of the land on which they are built. What this illustrates is the difference between the cost of the house itself and the cost of the land it is on.

Land monopolists

In an agricultural economy, the rental value of the land would be derived from the differences in the quality of the soil. That is, land which could produce more, say, grain per hectare per hour of labour would give up a higher rental value than the least productive land (that is, land which could be exploited only for the given rate of profit in the economy). This remains partially true of land for industrial use. In the big cities, such as London, however, there is not the remotest chance of returning the land to agricultural use, and so it becomes human geography that provides land an income, from firms wanting office space, or volumes of people (with particular disposable wealth to hand) wanting housing.

Rent is derived not from any inherent feature or use of the soil, but solely through the titular owners’ parasitic capacity to prevent capital from being invested in an area without them being given a share of the surplus value generated (usually any in excess of the average rate of profit prevalent in the economy). This capacity is derived solely through their possessing property rights legally enforced upon others. The price of land itself, not being a product of labour, is calculated by taking the income it can generate and projecting it as a rate of return on capital over a number of years (so land that, say, generates £1 million rent per annum at a rate of 10 percent would have a nominal value of £10 million).

This is, in part, recognised in the national accounts, in that the “subsoil value” of land is now listed alongside computer software patents and electromagnetic spectrum rights as “non tangible fixed assets”. It is not the quality of these “things” that creates their rental/asset value, but merely proprietorship over them.

Pressure on wages

In recent years – as part of the “property owning democracy” gimmick – government policies have tended to encourage workers to buy houses and use them as a form of savings and investment to try to climb the property ladder. This increases the number of housing transactions (as some people speculate), and also means that the government is locked into policies which must attempt to ensure the continuing appreciation house prices (or which at least prevent negative equity).

According to the Office of National Statistics, in 1998 the average person was paying 17 percent of their gross income on housing costs. Obviously, that is a percentage of wildly differing incomes, so the top 10 percent of incomes would be paying £120.80 per week on housing, whilst the lowest would be paying £19.80. Even then these figures are somewhat deceptive, since many of the lower income households were only meeting their full housing cost of an average of £59.40 per week through housing benefit (which is tapered to achieve the 17 percent cost).

This means that any increase in demand for housing due to labour migration, or other events outside a general rise in wages, will increase the share of wages needing to go into housing, and thus create upwards wage pressure. An example of this is the current plan to raise the London weighting on salaries from £2500 to over £4000. This effectively means a potential transfer of wealth from productive capitalists to landholding ones (as well as some of the financial intermediaries involved). Given that the workers could press for higher wages (thus cutting profit rates), to off-set these rises in housing costs, unlike employers landowners have no direct interest in holding such costs down. Since the employers need their workers – and during periods of growth, more and more workers – they have to surrender this indirect tribute to the landowners.

This is why capital was once willing to accept rent and housing market controls to prevent the landowners taking its profit. Hence why, now, the state pays a portion of rent to smooth out the proportion of wages spent on housing. Given, though, the size of the housing benefit budget, and the notorious capacity of landlords and tenants to make “fraudulent” claims, the state is under pressure to curb even that mechanism for taming housing costs.

What all this means is that the anarchy of capitalist production – with its self-seeking economic agents, periods of boom and slump, its uneven migratory population pressures – creates a clear contradiction between profit seeking and providing for human needs. In a world in which everyone could be easily housed, even in a country like Britain we find millions leaving in what even the government classifies as housing unfit for human habitation and actual homelessness on the streets, while nearly everyone has financial worries over satisfying this basic human need.

Pik Smeet

Letter: Morality (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morality

Dear Editors,

In your response to J. Gleason (Socialist Standard January) you claim “our case against capitalism is not a moral one – morals are constantly changing – but putting the socialist alternative to workers and it being up to them to do something about it”. I believe this to be serious misconception; our case against capitalism is both a moral and an economic one.

What is morality? It is a set of precepts which give rise to rules about how individuals in a community ought to behave and, as such, reflect the underlying values of that community (which are internalised by its members). No human society can exist without some kind of moral code which is the inevitable expression of the values people hold. Social change involves inter alia the supplanting of some values by others and, hence, a change in the dominant moral code of society itself.

Socialism will have a moral code like every social system in history. However, the point you are making is that the case for establishing socialism (or abolishing capitalism) is not in itself a moral one. But you cannot separate the ends and the means. Wanting socialism is, in part, a moral statement because socialism is itself a moral construction. We are saying “this is how society ought to be” and “this is how people ought to behave”, and that is what makes our case for socialism a moral one.

Consider the implications of what you are saying if this were not so. If you argued that the case against capitalism was not a moral one how would you respond to the fact that, for example, millions of people go hungry while food is deliberately destroyed to keep up prices? If you yourself went to bed every night on a full stomach what grounds would you have for complaining? You regard such a fact as an intolerable obscenity – precisely because you empathise with those who are the victims, because it is an affront to your sense of justice. You are, in short, morally outraged by the kind of society that can allow this to happen and that is what prompts one to become a socialist in the end – not just by working out what is in one’s “material interests”.

Certainly, socialism would be in the material interests of the vast majority but to suggest that it is this alone is ironically to give succour to a narrow, selfish and atomistic bourgeois view of the world. After all, if morality is essentially the expression of our human solidarity, of our recognition of the needs of others then, if you took way this moral dimension from the case for socialism, all you would effectively be left with is the rational ego calculating what is in the interest of this ego alone. You might just as well become a businessperson, grab all you can while the going is good and be done with socialism!

One final thing. The fact that morals are “constantly changing” is no reason to suppose that morality can just be ignored. What is significant is not that morality is subject to change but that individuals should constantly feel the need to appeal to others on moral grounds, however variable these may be, in order to persuade them to their point of view. Socialists are no exception.

We, too, are human beings and, ipso facto, moral creatures – even if some of us like to pretend otherwise. To talk of morality—and, hence, the values that underpin it – is discomforting to those who delude themselves into thinking their analysis of society is totally “objective” and “value-free”. Such is the pervasive hold, even today, of the nineteenth century’s love affair with science as the answer to all our problems.

Moral concerns and economic concerns are not separate but inextricably intertwined. Bourgeois economics, with its quasi-religious belief in the benevolence of the markets’ “invisible hand” is what has sought to expel morality from the economic domain, thereby clothing it in the guise of religious “moralising”. It is this that you mistake for morality when you reject the latter. Such moralising does indeed smack of a kind of insidious hypocrisy; its claims to moral rectitude are constantly vitiated by the underlying conflict of interests endemic to capitalism

But take away that conflict of interests, give people a reason to recognise and acknowledge that we all depend upon each other and that our interests are convergent rather than divergent, then you will have the material basis for a truly moral economy in the proper sense of the term – socialism.

Robin Cox (by email)

Dyson discovers that the profit system sucks (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s official – Dyson “bagless” vacuum cleaners suck, but capitalism sucks harder.

On 5 February 800 workers in Wiltshire found they would soon be jobless when the vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson announced that it intended to switch production to Malaysia. Few were surprised by the decision, which was motivated by economic considerations, primarily the high cost of labour in Britain compared to that in Malaysia. According to BBC Radio 4, the average cost of labour in Malaysia is just £1.50 an hour, compared to £11.50 in Britain. By transferring production, Dyson will be able to cut production costs by 30 percent.

A difficult decision?

If the newspapers are to be believed, this decision was not taken lightly. James Dyson, the millionaire inventor who owns the company which bears his name, is a self-appointed ‘champion of British industry.’ He claims to have a deep commitment to the cause of manufacturing in Britain, and insists that he fought hard to make remaining in the country a viable option. But staying in the country was not a viable option. If Dyson had not been prepared to cut costs he would soon have found himself forced out of the market by other companies which were prepared to take that step. Dyson would not be able to match the prices of his competitors without sacrificing his profit margin. It was not Dyson who decided that his firm must move to the Far East – it was the crazy economic system under which we live.

Profit comes first

As Dyson and the workers in his factory have discovered, under capitalism it is profit which must come first. In the whole affair there has been no mention of what anybody wants – not the workers, not the consumers and not even Dyson himself. The only consideration which matters is the need to make a profit.

Dyson: decision made

The whole Dyson affair highlights the fact that, in many ways, the profit system imprisons bosses and workers alike. The owners of companies, factories, services etc. can amass enormous amounts of wealth, but they cannot go against the demands of profit. They must do its bidding, whether they like it or not, as James Dyson has demonstrated. Capitalism does not run, and cannot run, on the basis of what people want. Dyson may want to stay in Britain, he may want not to have to lay off workers, but what he has to do is make a profit.

What about quality?

Another factor has been noticeably absent from discussion of the Dyson affair. There has been no question at all of how to make the best or most effective vacuum cleaner. Capitalism doesn’t care what you make or how you make it – as long as you sell it at a profit. On top of which, it must be admitted that vacuum cleaners ought to be a pretty low priority anyway in a world where most people don’t even have the necessities of life. That never enters into it, however, because the world is not run on the basis of what people want, it is run on the basis of making profit.

What about the workers?

Eight-hundred workers will find themselves jobless as a result of Dyson’s transfer to Malaysia. In this instance, many will probably find new jobs relatively quickly, since Wiltshire has fairly low unemployment.

The point, however, is that will only find work if someone can make a profit from their labour. The fact that there are hundreds of thousands of useful things that people could be doing makes no difference. They could, for example, manufacture basic medical supplies which could save the lives of millions in developing countries. That activity would be a major priority in any system based on meeting human needs. It isn’t going to happen under capitalism though, because it would not make a profit.

As long as we allow the resources of the world to remain in private hands, profit will continue to reign supreme. However, there is an alternative. The world’s resources could be owned and controlled by everyone, and run in the interests of society, not in the interests of profit. This is common ownership and democratic control, the object of the Socialist Party.

Dave Templar

The binman (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Engelbassen'

Human behaviour (2002)

Book Review from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect’. By Paul R. Ehrlich. Island Press.

This is the same Paul Ehrlich who, thirty years ago, irritated Socialists by his shrill claims that it was “overpopulation”, rather than capitalism’s production for profit, that caused environmental deterioration and other ecological problems. However this, his latest book, will go a long way to restoring his reputation.

He sets out his intention without ambiguity in the preface. It is to refute

“the erroneous notion that people possess a common set of rigid, genetically specified behavioral predilections that are unlikely to be altered by circumstances. ‘After all’, we’re often told, ‘you can’t change human nature’. The notion that there is one such nature to change allows us to be painted in the popular mind as instinctively aggressive, greedy, selfish, duplicitous, sex-crazed, cruel, and generally brutish creatures with a veneer of social responsibility. Our better selves are seen to be in constant battle with a universal set of unchanging, primitives ‘drives’, which frequently break through the veneer and create many of the serious ills that afflict humanity. It is a view as dismal as it is wrong, considering what is actually known about our behavior”.

The basic answer he gives to the “human nature argument” is that there is no such thing as a single, unchanging human nature but, insofar as behaviour is the public display of our nature, there are and have been many different human natures (hence the book’s title) which change over time. This is a different approach from ours which distinguishes between a more or less unchanging biologically-determined human nature and human behaviour which is socially and culturally determined and which can, has and does vary depending on the type of society people were brought up in or live in. But this is essentially only a different of terminology to arrive at the same conclusion that our behaviour is not narrowly determined by our genes but that, on the contrary, one of our biologically-inherited characteristics is precisely the capacity, as a species, for behavioral flexibility and adaptability.

Ehrlich sets out the current state of scientific understanding of the issue which confirms that our behaviour is predominantly determined not by our genes but by our cultures (“socially transmitted behaviors, beliefs, institutions, arts, and so on”). Culture is transmitted by non-genetic means, basically by learning (which assumes of course a genetically-inherited capacity to learn), and is different at different times and in different places. Hence the great variety of behaviors exhibited by humans. Such complicated and changing behaviours, says Ehrlich, could not possibly be governed by our genes since aren’t enough of them. Writing before the first results of the human genome project Ehrlich quotes a figure of 100,000 for the number of human genes. The human genome project suggests a figure less than half this, so reinforcing Ehrlich’s “gene shortage” shortage argument against biological determinism.

Ehrlich writes as a member of the American school of “cultural evolutionists” which is not too far from Marx’s materialist conception of history. In fact, he refers at one point to “the great political economist Karl Marx”. He also takes a materialist approach to the mind: “consciousness, thinking, reasoning – activities of the ‘mind’ – are all centred in the brain and are phenomena as natural (and as material) as the legs’ actions of standing, walking, running, and kicking”.

So, a very useful book, even if Ehrlich does ramble on a bit in the last few chapters.

Adam Buick

Act in the Court: Dipti in the dock (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Standing there, just able to see above the top rail of the dock, Dipti did not look like a threat to the very fabric of civilised society. For one thing people who threaten civilisation are supposed to be reckless, defiant, composed. But Dipti was trembling and had desperate tears in her voice. And while she stood there civilisation, unthreatened, carried on outside the court. The list of cases for that day noted that she was charged with False Representation – between this date and that date, against the Benefits Agency, resulting in her being “overpaid” well over ten thousand pounds. In plain words – Daily Mail-speak – she was a Social Security fraudster, a benefits scrounger, a leech sucking the blood of the welfare state – a threat to civilised society.

Cases like this are prosecuted separately from the run-of-the-mill criminal charges, which are handled by the Crown Prosecution Service. Instead the Benefits Agency have their own lawyer to put to the court the details of the offences. The facts were, said the lawyer, that Dipti had applied for Income Support, stating that she had no other income. She had been sent a book of vouchers to cash each fortnight and on each of them she had signified that there had been no changes in her circumstances such as to affect her entitlement to benefit. But for some months she had been working as well. Nobody in court pointed out that the word “working” was hardly the right way to describe her experiences: “low paid, stressful drudgery” would have been more appropriate.

It was just another episode (although this was something the lawyer did not say) in a miserable life. Her parents were too poor to care for her properly and sent her to live with an aunt in England, in the hope that she would do better in another country. And so it turned out for a while, until both the parents died and her aunt, who she regarded as her mother, was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Alone and vulnerable, she was married when she was 18 and had three children. It was not the happiest of unions as her husband was an alcoholic who never had any silly ideas about supporting his children financially, which left Dipti to struggle on as best she could, doing whatever odd job was available, scraping a living for her family. It came as a relief when the husband left the home for good and when he had been gone long enough Dipti was able to get a divorce.

It would have been surprising if the children had come through this emotionally intact. And they didn’t: they behaved as might be expected of children whose short lives had been distorted by insecurity, violence and the stresses to be found in the deeper levels of poverty. They were, all three of them, incapable of coping with what is called – by courts, government agencies, the media – “normal” life. A psychiatrist, trained to brace people’s expectations of society to accept and tolerate the unacceptable and intolerable, would have interviewed each of them and written learned notes to the effect that they were “disturbed”. It is not their job, or within the scope of their training, to assess how “disturbed” is capitalist society; that might bring them to the conclusion that the people who react against the inhuman pressures of that society are sometimes healthier emotionally than those who are at ease with it.

In any case Dipti was too busy to bother about psychiatrists and their theories. She had found a job which suited her, allowing her to work irregular hours which could be fitted around the needs of her children – who were in their teens by then. It did not need any qualifications – she had problems with reading and writing – and provided periodical training. There were however two main snags. One was that it was demanding work and the other was that the wages were very low. It was agency work, as a care assistant, which meant Dipti had to visit people to do basic things which they could not do for themselves. From day to day she did not know where or when she would be asked to work; the agency would telephone her with the jobs on hand for that day. In fact she did get a lot of offers of work from the agency, because she had some huge debts and so was always eager to earn the extra money and she was always reliable and helpful.

There was a third snag. She did not tell the Benefits Agency about her job but carried on claiming Income Support, signing those vouchers to say nothing had changed for her. If she was ever bothered about this she told herself that after all each wage slip showed a reduction for Income Tax and in any case her husband had never paid anything towards the children’s’ upkeep. Did this not entitle her to some money from the state? But agency work is a field well-patrolled by the fraud seekers of the Benefits Agency and eventually they uncovered what Dipti had been up to. When they approached her she did not try to hide anything, although she was shocked when they told her how much she had been illegally paid. Her shock was not lessened when they also told her – a bit late in the day, some may think – that her wages had been low enough to qualify her for Family Credit, which over the period would have been worth some thousands of pounds – about a quarter of the amount she had overclaimed.

The lawyers briefed by the Benefits Agency do not as a rule prosecute with the same zeal as the Crown Prosecution Service. In cases of benefits fraud the facts are usually put to the court in the round, including some details which may make things easier for the person in the dock. So in that sense Dipti was not treated as harshly as she might have been – certainly not as she had feared. But of course the chairman of the bench had heard it all before, many times and he had come to the conclusion that the country was being overrun – and overturned – by people who were getting something for nothing – claiming state benefit which they were not legally entitled to. There is, he informed Dipti, too much of this going on. He had probably familiarised himself with the official estimate that social security fraud costs between £2bn and £4bn a year – and was too shocked to notice that the evidence to support those figures was so weak. It had got to stop. He stopped short of saying that he could do this all by himself. Instead he told Dipti she could well go to prison for this – all options were open. She would have to come back in a few weeks, after further enquiries had been made, when sentence would be passed. Meanwhile she could leave the court and civilisation, with its minority class getting a great deal for nothing through their exploitation of people like Dipti, could go on. Outside the court she grabbed her mobile phone and got on to the agency, asking what work they had for her for what was left of that day.

Ivan

World View: Zambia’s tribalist politics (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The results of the presidential and parliamentary elections that took place in Zambia on 27 December can only be analysed in terms of the prevailing ethnic and tribal prejudices that came to translate themselves in the voting pattern.

The heavily contested elections took place over four days instead of the stipulated one day. This was partly due to the large number of voters who had turned up to vote. The elections took place in the rain season and many roads and bridges were rendered inoperative and thus caused delays in the transportation of ballot boxes and personnel.

This time more than ever before the Zambian electorate was subjected to intense political propaganda coming from no less than twelve political parties, but the elections were held under a mood of cynicism consequent upon the nullification of the constitutional referendum that would have paved the way for a third term for outgoing President Frederick Chiluba.

Voting was heavily determined by ethnic and tribal loyalties rather than the intellectual and political integrity of the presidential aspirants. The strength of political parties has come to depend upon the degree of ethnic and tribal loyalties they can command. Tribalism in Zambia is politically motivated – a political contest among the Tonga, Lozi and Bemba for ethnic domination.

A brief resumé of Zambia’s political history may help to clarify this predominance and the pattern of ethnic and tribal loyalties. The beginning of political agitation that paved the way to the achievement of Zambia’s independence saw the emergence on the political scene of the most assertive tribes. Disenchanted with racial segregation, the nationalist movements manipulated the entrenched ethnic and tribal prejudices to win political loyalty.

Historically the Bemba tribe is regarded as being the most culturally and politically assertive in Zambia. The Bemba originated from the Lunda-Luba multi-ethnic empire that had once flourished in the 7th century in the Congo bassin. Demographically Zambia is heavily populated by the Lunda-Luba tribal offshoots, scattered across Luapula, Northern and Central Provinces. There still exist cultural and linguistic affinities among the diverse tribes found in these regions. In terms of lingua franca the Bemba vernacular has come to supplement English as Zambia’s second language, showing that language itself can be used as a vehicle of tribal domination

The first nationalist party in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) was formed by Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, a Lozi tribesman, in 1948, the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress. Later, in 1951, the party was re-named the African National Congress under the charismatic leadership of Harry Nkumbula, a Tonga by tribe.

Historically the Lozi and Tonga are not related. The Lozi were an offshoot of the Makololo invaders who came from Basutoland (Botswana) and settled in Western Province around 1800. The Tonga have a long ancestral record compared to other Zambian tribes. Traditionally, they are politically non-militant, with political leadership being restricted within clans and village headmen. Tonga and Lozi politicians come into open alliances whenever there is a presidential election.

It can now be vindicated that Kenneth Kaunda’s resignation from the ANC in 1962 was mainly motivated by the entrenched ethnic and tribal loyalties, less so than on the alleged corrupt leadership of Harry Nkumbula. Kaunda himself is not a Zambian. His parents came from Malawi (Nyasaland) with a white missionary society. But it was his early upbringing under a Bemba traditional society that came to play a major role in his political career. The emergence of the UNIP in 1962 under his leadership witnessed the growth of militant political demonstrations in Luapula, Copperbelt and Northern Provinces where the Bemba are concentrated.

In 1963 Nalumino Mundia, a prominent Lozi politician, resigned from ANC and formed his own political party, the United Party. This was essentially Lozi in outlook and derived a mass following in Western Province. The United Party formed a coalition with Nkumbula’s ANC during the 1968 general elections and managed to win 34 percent of the votes.

This voting pattern that emerged from the 1968 general elections emphasised the presence of ethnic and tribal loyalties that have continued to this day.

The inauguration of a one-party (UNIP) state by Kaunda in 1972 was made in order to arrest the trends perceived towards ethnic and provincial parochialism. The UNIP government under Kaunda believed that it had succeeded in containing ethnic and tribal parochialism in Zambia by fabricating the philosophy of Humanism, duly implemented in 1974 as the official political ideology of the party and government. The philosophy of Humanism was spasmodically enunciated by Kaunda in order to enhance the false image of tribal homogeneity under a single party dictatorship.

Throughout his beleaguered political career Kaunda, took account of the prevalence of ethnic and tribal allegiances and allocated political portfolios according to the relative strengths of tribal and ethnic loyalties. The rank of Prime Minister was always reserved to a Lozi tribesman. Thus it can be inferred that the defeat of the UNIP government in 1991 by Chiluba’s MMD was a defeat for the Lozi who had come to comprise the majority in the civil service.

The election victory achieved in December by the ruling MMD presidential aspirant, Levy Mwanawasa, can only be attributed to the large number of votes received from the Bemba-speaking tribes in Copperbelt, Luapula and Northern Provinces. In terms of tribal and ethnic groupings, we can see that the Bemba-speaking areas voted for the ruling MMD whereas the Tonga and Lozi speaking areas voted for the UPND leader, Anderson Mazoka (a Tonga tribesman). Mazoka’s routing in the Copperbelt, Luapala and Northern provinces was compensated by the huge victories scored by the UPND in Lusaka, Southern and Western Provinces. The UPND lost to the ruling MMD by a margin of 30,000 votes but increased its seats in parliament to 44 compared to the MMD’s 68. The UPND’s dissatisfaction with the election results reflects the ingrained ethnic and tribal allegiances that underlies multi-party politics in Zambia.

Our message to the people of Zambia remains the same. The real cause behind unemployment, inflation and poverty is capitalism, the social system based on class domination, competition and selfishness. We repeat: in countries subjected to foreign domination and wage-slavery capitalism feeds and grows by enabling ethnic and tribal prejudices. It encourages voter apathy in societies where political patronage is based on tribal identities. It bedevils political stability through encouraging expediency based upon strengthening tribal domination and ill-feeling.

Socialism can bring to an end all this rot. A classless, moneyless and stateless society will end the ethnic, racial and sectarian antagonisms. The struggle before you remains the same – a class struggle on an international scale.

Kephas Mulenga

World View: Election fever grips Zimbabwe (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Count down to 9 and 10 March. This is when the poverty-stricken and battling Zimbabweans will bravely trudge to the polling booths to cast their votes for whoever they think is the best candidate. To most, this will mean having the required capabilities to deal with the current political and economic crisis engulfing the country. Who is likely to scoop this crown of presidency is hard to predict, however, for the current campaign is the oughest in two decades.

Its now “all systems go” for these elections. Five candidates have entered the presidential race having recently submitted their nomination papers. These are: Robert Mugabe of Zanu PF; Shakespear Mayo of the National Alliance of Good Governance; Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change and two independents Paul Siwela and Wilson Kumbula. But among these, the NAAG chief and two independents are regarded as largely irrelevant enthusiasts. The real locking of horns is expected to be between Mugabe with his fading Zanu PF Party and the former trade unionist, Morgan Tsvangirai. There is now a tense atmosphere building up as the campaigns get into in full swing.

The beehive known as parliament has been closed for the duration because the club members were asked to take a break from debating monotonous bills and ordered to return to their constituencies and drum up support for their respective masters. Though the two leading competitors are rushing to opportunistically lure the voters, it is truly imperative that Zimbabwe stage an open and democratic election.

Robert Mugabe has already kicked off his partys’ presidential campaign with a rally in Mashonaland East which will be followed by numerous other rallies elsewhere in all his stronghold provinces. He is exploiting the land issue as well as the controversy surrounding the intervention of British PM Tony Blair and the role of foreign journalists who he is accusing of backing the opposition. But all this is just a political gimmick. Remember Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe attained its independence from its colonial master Britain. Why then should the land issue have become such an important matter now after all this time – or is it just a case of political expediency?

Not wanting to be left out, MDC leader Tsvangirai is also on his party’s campaign trail. He held his first campaign rally in February in Mutare, Manicaland. The opposition leader has sought to highlight the continuing economic deterioration and mismanagement of the country. Tsvangirai is also insisting that Mugabe should not use the land issue as his party’s preserve simply to gain more political support. Instead the issue should be resolved by everybody making a contribution.

Arguably this could have been taken as a matter of priority way back in 1980 in line with the general understanding reached by all concerned at the pre-independence Lancaster House Conference. However if Tsvangirai himself comes to power and neglects the question of land distribution, it is likely that he will pay a heavy price. People in Zimbabwe recognise that the land imbalance needs to be corrected – but without any element of dictatorship, racial discrimination or harasssment – and that dialogue and proper mediation is crucial.

However, as socialists we do not take sides in such issues; we do not go along with what the law enforcement agents, churches, chiefs, NGOs, etc appear to be after. For instance, consider the recent statement from the Defence Forces Chief Whip, Zvinavashe that the army will not salute any leader without “liberation” credentials. Was this a veiled threat to the opposition or did Zvinavashe just want to protect his rank?

As far as the opposition is concerned, the truth is that they are finding it too difficult to organise effectively. But that the MDC itself has urged capitalists to use the threat of sanctions against this poor nation says something too. It means that either side in the electoral contest can file a complaint that its opponents supported the use of intimidation to persuade voters to their cause. This is particularly true of the rural areas. Hence there is a possibility for the elections to be regarded as not being free and fair.

It’s time for the people of Zimbabwe and Africa as a whole to discover the truth, that they need to unite and fight for socialism.They should stop being used in exchange of terrorism. Go back down memory lane and see what happened in countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia and Yugoslavia.

These bourgeois leaders are after nothing but power. They are not really concerned about the Aids pandemic; looming drought; brutality; violence; rife sexual abuses; the unemployment crisis; shortage of food, clean water and shelter – issues that are affecting ordinary people. All they are after is their own self-aggrandisement.

What the outcome of the March election will be is hard to tell. But it has generated much interest abroad with invited regional and international observers now pouring into the country. Maybe they will play a vital role in reducing the already planned bloodshed by the main culprits: MDC and Zanu PF.

50 Years Ago: Stop being fooled! (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Stop being fooled!

The world is large, and individually workers are small and at present united under no cause beneficial to themselves. Because of his ignorance and feeling of inferiority the worker considers the affairs of state and the understanding of politics for too complicated for his inadequate brain to comprehend. So he trusts the course of his life to others – namely the government – and remains employed, exploited and ruled.

It is difficult to have to realise that the worker himself can suffer the horrors of the capitalist system without being even conscious of being exploited. He reads the national newspapers and is bemused with such meaningless boastings as “Why is the Daily Express the paper for the people? – because it represents the heart and soul of the people it serves.” (31/12/51). Come, workers, let’s stop being so naïve. Let’s get down to realising the fact that the ‘nation’ these newspapers serve is nothing more than the British capitalist class, and that they are part of the medium by which capitalists continue to fog your brains and sense of reason with such empty phrases as ‘national prestige,’ and ‘duty and honour first.’

[From the Socialist Standard, March 1952, the first by P. R. Lawrence]

 

The Printers Object to an Article

An article that should have appeared in this issue entitled “The King Is Dead” has had to be withdrawn. The compositors’ chapel at our printers objected to the article, and it was too late to carry the matter further without holding up publication of the issue.

The article dealt with the general question of kingship from an historical point of view, and only had two incidental references to King George VI in his capacity as king.

[From the Socialist Standard, March 1952]

London a hundred years ago (2002)

Book Review from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The People of the Abyss by Jack London. Pluto Press, Centenary edition, £10.99 paperback, 192 pages.

Those vaguely familiar with Jack London know him as a skilled writer, basing many of his stories on experiences from his rich, colourful and often dangerous life. Few remember him as the skilled political commentator and social critic who exposed many of the inequalities of his day. The People of the Abyss is Jack London the investigative reporter giving an impassioned account of the degradation and squalor endured by the people of the East End of London in 1902, and this year marks the centenary of his visit to this part of London.

Living in the East End doss houses, London posed as a stranded American sailor, down on his luck. He mingled with the poorest of the poor, worked alongside them, ate with them, drank with them and slept amongst them in the workhouses. His observations are documented in full; and this is no work of fiction. This is the London in the days when the Socialist Party of Great Britain was about to be formed, and reading Jack London's account of the privation endured by millions of his fellow workers, one can't help but ask why the clamour for an end to capitalism was not being screamed from every rooftop. He attempts an answer himself:

“Unhealthy working and living engenders unhealthy appetites and desires. Man cannot be worked worse than a horse is worked, and be fed and housed as a pig is fed and housed, and at the same time have clean and wholesome ideals and aspirations.”

And who could blame them? For many in the East End of London in 1902, the daily struggle to live absorbed all their energies. Their life expectancy was 30 years; 55 percent of children died before the age of five. Hundreds of thousands of impoverished men and women yearned only the public houses and alcohol in a pathetic attempt to “express their gregariousness” and because intoxication finally “brings the oblivion that nothing else can bring”. This is the England “where a constant army of 8 million lives on the border of starvation”; where hundreds of thousands of families inhabit one room, and where “children take turn about in sitting up and drive the rats away from the sleepers; where the lucky go insane and the courageous commit suicide. And all of this when Britain had the largest empire ever know and milked the world

The Socialist Party was not alone in the formative years of the 20th Century in pointing out that we live in the world of potential abundance. Lamenting the widespread starvation of the day, the “hunger wail” that echoed across the British Isles, London comments:

“And this in face of the fact that five men can produce bread for a thousand; that one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300 and boots and shoes for 1000 . . . and who dares to say that it is not mismanaged, this big house, when five men can produce bread for a thousand, and yet millions have not enough to eat?”

The People of the Abyss is a masterly recording of the lives of the masses in 1902, and a poignant indictment on the capitalist system, and London is to be commended. However he affords us no solution to the ills of the system he lambasts, but rather finishes with a lengthy note about how it is being mismanaged by its rulers, before ending:

“There can be no mistake. Civilisation has increased man's producing powers an hundred-fold, and through mismanagement the men of Civilisation live worse than the beasts, and have less to eat and wear and protect them from the elements than the savage Inuit in a frigid climate who lives today as he lived in the stone age ten thousand years ago.”

The People of the Abyss deserves to be read, for a century after this book was written it is still possible to record the same, in spite of all the scientific and technological breakthroughs that have occurred since 1902 and which should be benefiting humanity.

John Bissett

Who are "we"? (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Somebody once remarked that the most important word in the political vocabulary is “we”. It was a shrewd observation, since to get someone to use “we” in relation to some group of people is to get them to identify their interest as the interest of that group.

In the battle for “we”, socialists are trying to get all those excluded from ownership and control of means of production to recognise the fact of their common interest as one class within capitalist society, to regard themselves as “we” and to use “our” and “us” only in relation to that class and its interests.

Those who control one or other of the two hundred or so armed states into which the world is divided have to try to prevent this practice emerging, and deliberately seek to undermine it, in the interest of the other main class in capitalist society – those who do own and control means of production and who derive a privileged income from this. They seek to convince the people they rule over that the “we” they should identify with is “the nation” as the nation part of what they call the “nation-state” they rule.

It is in this light that should be seen David Blunkett's White Paper last month on immigration and nationality, which proposes that people seeking British nationality should be required not just to have a knowledge of “the British way of life” but also to publicly swear allegiance to the queen. It is part of the ideological battle waged by the British ruling class to appropriate the word “we”.

Immigration causes a problem for them since immigrants, having been brought up under some other state, have not gone through the same process of brainwashing and conditioning as have the “native” population. Those born and brought up in Britain have been taught, through what's been drummed into them in school and through what they continuously read in the papers or hear on the radio or television, to regard themselves as British. In school they are taught the history of the kings and queens of England, and of the wars in which the British ruling class has been involved in over the centuries, and of the evolution of the British state. The media reinforce this by reporting news from an almost exclusively British angle and encourage identification with “the nation” via identification with “our” sports teams and performers.

It therefore comes almost as a reflex action for people born and brought up in Britain to use “we” in relation to the British state and to regard themselves as part of a British “nation”. So people spontaneously say such things as “we beat the French at Waterloo” or “we won the second world war” or “we got five gold medals at the olympics”. Even opponents of particular policies pursued by the British state, yesterday as well as today, fall into the same trap and say such things as “we should never have conquered India” or “we shouldn't join the euro”.

Such usage is music to the ears of the ruling class as they know it means they are on top in the battle for “we”. They have succeeded in getting their subjects to identify with them and their interests. Wage and salary workers, instead of seeing “we” as their class, have come to see it as “the nation”.

Nation-building

It wasn't always so easy. Historians such as Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm have demonstrated that a nation is not a natural community that existed before the state, but that it's the other way round: the state existed first and then proceeded to impose on those it ruled over the idea that they formed a “nation”. The longest-standing states of Western Europe – England, France and Spain – emerged at the end of the feudal era and then had to create a national feeling amongst the population living within their frontiers. These frontiers were accidental and had been determined by a number of key battles amongst dynastic rulers in feudal times. Had the outcome of these battles been different, then southern Britain might have been part of the same state as northern France, while northern Britain might have been part of a state with Scandinavia and southern France part of a state with Catalonia and northern Italy. That's not how things turned out, but the point is that they could have done. States pre-existed and in a very real sense created nations. Nations are groups of people ruled by a state or a would-be state.

States that have been formed more recently – and most of the world's states today were only formed in the last 80 or so years, i. e., have only been going for two or three generations – have had, and some still have, a serious problem in convincing all those they rule over that they form part of a single nation with a common interest. It is why their nationalism tends to be more shrill and authoritarian. It has to be, to overcome the tendency of some of their subjects, especially those speaking a minority language within their state, to identify themselves with some other nationalism particularly that of a neighbouring state.

Even a long-established state such as Britain has not solved this problem entirely, as witness Northern Ireland where a considerable proportion of the population use “we” not in relation to Britain but in relation to the Irish State and the “nation” it fosters. On the mainland the British state's problem in this respect has been amongst the immigrants from its former Empire, many of whom, notoriously to Norman Tebbitt's annoyance, refuse to support the English cricket team and continue to support that of their country of origin or that of their parents. More seriously, the ruling class were shocked by the number of immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants who supported the Taliban in the most recent Afghan War.

Until recently the dominant opinion amongst those in charge of the British state about how to deal with this was to make a virtue of necessity and pursue a policy of “multiculturalism”. It didn't work. In fact, it has encouraged division, by getting people to identify with their “culture” rather than with the British “nation”. (Socialists, too, see “multiculturalism” as divisive but for the different reason that it gets workers to identify with some other group over and above their class.) Now a change of policy is under way, as announced in Blunkett's White Paper, a swing to “assimilationism”.

Queen Capital

The first to experience this change of policy are to be applicants for British nationality. Blunkett wants them to be able to show some knowledge of the British state, its institutions and the history of its rulers, before being accepted into the British “nation”. The expectation is that they will say “we beat the French at Waterloo” and “we should/should not join the euro” as readily as any true-born Briton. Perhaps too they will support England in test matches.

There are also to be required to publicly pledge allegiance to the queen in ceremonies akin to the patriotic flag-worshipping that applicants for US citizenship have to go through. Such a ceremony would be a farcical revival of feudal times, but it brings out the importance of the royal family to the British ruling class. The royal family's role is to act as a focus for loyalty to the British state. The 19th Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, is credited with first having thought this up. The royal family may be a relic from feudalism but it is easier to get people to identify with it than with some abstraction like the constitution. Nor is any superannuated politician dubbed “the president” ever going to be able to act as such a focus.

It is also less hypocritical, because members of the British “nation” are called what they really are –”subjects”, people subjected to the rule of a ruling class. Tony Benn, old-fashioned radical liberal still fighting 19th century battles against Disraeli that he is, finds this abhorrent. He wants us to be called “citizens” not “subjects”, as people are in France. But the people of France are no less subjects of the French ruling class and its state for being called citizens. Let a spade continue to be called a spade. What we should object to is not to being called subjects, but to being subjects.

Benn is a dissident member of the ruling class who hasn't understood their interests properly (though republicanism and “citizenship” could become a useful alternative way of ensuring loyalty to the British capitalist state if ever the royal family becomes too unpopular). But even though royalty is much less popular than it was even 25 years ago, as the media is noting as the queen's golden jubilee celebrations falter, it is still an asset that the British ruling class want to hold on to and use to the full. It serves to get wage and salary workers to be loyal to the British state and to use “we” in relation to the interests of its ruling class. A revealing demonstration of its effectiveness in duping workers can be seen elsewhere in this issue, in the Fifty Years Ago column, where we recall that the print workers – not the printing firm – refused to typeset an article in our March 1952 issue on the death of King George VI which pointed this out.

Perhaps we should have gone to a firm of printers that only employed immigrant workers who had not yet been broken in to considering themselves loyal subjects of the crowned head of the British capitalist state.

Adam Buick

Editorial: Take A Deep Breath (2002)

Editorial from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

As technology advances it has an impact on many facets of human existence. For example, people now live a lot longer than they did, at least in the 'advanced' capitalist states where access to reasonable levels of medical care is highest. But there are some anomalies, individual trends which seem to buck the prevailing tendency. In healthcare, one of these has been the tremendous rise in cases of asthma over the last century or so.

According to the Independent on Sunday (17 February) the Westminster Hospital in London admitted its first asthmatic child in 1910, whereas today one in seven children have asthma in Britain and over five million people in the UK are currently undergoing treatment for the condition. It kills at least 1,500 people in the UK every year and costs the NHS £850 million on an annual basis.

This situation is far from unique to Britain. The story is similar in other countries, and Australia, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore fare even worse than Britain. This had led to a concerted effort from medical researchers to try and determine the cause of this tremendous rise in the number of cases.

Several theories have been put forward, some of them reinforcing one another. The most common has linked asthma with modern carpeted homes, replete with central heating. This is because this environment is an ideal breeding ground for dust mites, the droppings from which cause allergic reaction (including asthma and rhinitis) in a large proportion of the population. However, a recent study by researchers at the University of Southern California has discovered another culprit, the influence of which had long been suggested but never proven – pollution from cars.

The study compared asthma rates with pollution levels, taking into account exposure amongst children to polluted air. It found that the children most likely to develop asthmatic symptoms were those living in areas of high pollution who played sport at least three times a week (children engaged in physical activity of this type draw air into the lungs typically at a rate seventeen times the usual rate). The chief culprit is low-lying ozone, which is a poisonous form of oxygen formed when sunlight interacts with pollutants created by some factories and, crucially, the internal combustion engine. The study showed that rhesus monkeys exposed to the same levels of pollutants as Los Angeles schoolchildren developed asthmatic symptoms at a similar rate.

Those most likely to develop asthma will typically live in centrally heated and fully carpeted houses, typically with a cat or dog, have parents who smoke (and whose mother smoked during pregnancy) and crucially, will be subject to ozone pollution. Indeed, the study found that pollution was a greater cause of asthma than any of the other contributory factors.

A problem such as this is serious but it will not be reversed overnight as the factors that have gone to bring it about are fundamental to modern processes of production and distribution as they have been built up by industrial capitalism. However, the market economy has little if any incentive to do anything about this situation at all. Some of the most powerful interests in global capitalism are the oil and petroleum companies together with the car manufacturers. As yet (and probably for the foreseeable future) there is not a lot of profit to be made by the production of hydrogen cars or cars that run on electricity. Sales of internal combustion engine vehicles continue to rise across the globe and as long as that continues the owners and controllers of the means of transportation will be happy. So the internal combustion engine will stay, even if it does go a fair way towards disabling the lives of a significant and increasing proportion of the population.

Of course, a sane society would attempt to tackle the problem now, freed from the constraints of profit and the domination of vested interests. But as we live in a far from sane society it is patently not going to happen. Unfortunately, asthma is here to stay for now. And equally as unfortunately, the alternatives to its principal cause will remain as side shows on Tomorrow's World, as apparently bizarre and utopian as the notion that we could organise our affairs without profits and money.

Reformism - or socialism? (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are two kinds of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about revolutionary change – indeed it may use reforms to oppose such change. The other kind cherishes the mistaken belief that successful reforms will somehow prepare the ground for revolution. Reforms are seen as necessary first steps on the long road to eventual revolution.

Reformism has some attractions over revolution – especially if you lack imagination, don't like confrontation. prefer to think only in the short term, and don't want to be accused of not living in the real world. You are also assured of being in good company because large numbers of people think (or fail to think) as you do.

Reformism is a most excellent strategy if you want only small changes in society, and are satisfied with what you get (which is usually substantially less than what you were promised). However, reformism is futile for two other groups of people: those who expect that capitalism can be reformed to operate in the interests of the majority, and those who believe that a programme of reforms will “win the workers for the revolution” and hence make a contribution to the achievement of socialism.

The idea that capitalism can be humanised and changed by a series of reforms is almost as old as the capitalist system itself. But reforms are implemented by political parties that seek and get a mandate to run capitalism. The motives for reforms may include anxiety to relieve suffering and keenness to promote well-being, but the measures have the effect of serving the system rather than meeting the needs of individuals or groups.

Examples of reforms serving capitalism over the last two centuries are not hard to find. The Poor Law of 1834 was a response to mass destitution as peasants were driven off the land – crime and the poor health of workers were expensive to the ruling class (incidentally, minimal “relief” pacified workers by removing their pauper status). The post-1945 Welfare State introduced measures of health and social security intended to raise workers' efficiency and thus make them more productive of profit for the capitalist class – poverty was re-organised, not abolished.

The role of hegemony – a powerful combination of ruling ideas filtered through conventional education, the mass media, and a culture of consumption – is important in understanding how reformism, like all policies designed to sustain capitalism, is actually carried out by members of the working class (the roughly 98 percent of the population who are not capitalists). Concerned as they are to maintain the profit system, they persuade themselves to do what is best for “the economy”. Furthermore, one person's advocated reform is sometimes another person's preferred status quo. To Old Labour, nationalisation was a reform; to New Labour, at least some privatisations are a reform.

The kind of reformers who believe they are taking the first practical steps on the long road to eventual revolution are looking for quick results, which means they want as many people as possible to support their proposed reforms. Reformers often say to revolutionaries “Don't split the Left. We are all working for the same goal, so why don't you join us? We can get strength through unity.”

Revolutionaries must reject this appeal if they are to remain revolutionaries. Reformism is never a contribution to the achievement of socialism – it is a diversion of energies working for that goal. The offer of unity proposed by the reformer to the revolutionary is always a poisoned chalice: “Join us today to promote . . . .[small but achievable reform] and tomorrow we'll start the revolution together.” But of course tomorrow never comes.

Another line of thinking that presents itself as friendly to revolution but is really calculated to frustrate it is “the time is not yet ripe” argument. Consider this statement by R.Biel in his recent book The New Imperialism:

  “The organised left has itself opted for a mode of action which downplays (without completely rejecting) the idea of directly challenging the system… The left has had to retreat for a time from organising an alternative political economy, and is working instead on the terrain of capitalism” (emphasis added).

“Working on the terrain of capitalism” is a euphemism for reformism. There are two implications in what Biel is saying. One is that there was a time when the left – or at least part of it – was working for socialism. The other is that, since the retreat was only “for a time”, there will be a time in the future when working for socialism will come to the top of the agenda instead of being downplayed.

A further interesting question is why the left supposedly “has had to retreat” from something it never really did anyway, that is, work wholeheartedly for socialism. Were the arguments for capitalism so strong that its opponents were forced into retreat? More likely those of the reformers who claimed to be willing to become revolutionaries in the long run succumbed to the status-quo-preserving goodies that they saw within their grasp in the short run.

The New Statesman journal offers general support to New Labour's reforms, but to describe that support as lukewarm would be to exaggerate the heat. Its editorial of 25 September 1998 is worth quoting at length:

“The arguments for electing Labour governments have never been based wholly, or even mainly, on the likelihood of their bringing about equality or the abolition of poverty or any of the other traditional aims of social democracy. Within two or three years of taking office, Labour, more often than not, is blown off course and forced to introduce policies quite at variance with its original intentions, slashing, for example, the public services on which the poor depend. But Labour governments have usually nudged things in the right direction. The economic gains for the poor folk of Barnsley, Blackburn or Bootle may be scarcely measurable at the end of a period of Labour government but at least, for a year or two, their voices have counted in Whitehall and Westminster and, with luck, their children will be taught in slightly smaller classes or their local bus services will run a bit more frequently or their hospitals will be a bit less dilapidated.”

But, looking at New Labour's achievements so far in its second term of office, don't bank on even those small mercies. Such are the “benefits” offered by a reforming party, proud not to be revolutionary. Thank goodness a party was not elected that nudged things in the wrong direction!

Capitalism, like an old car, has developed many faults and always seems to be needing costly repairs and new parts. Isn't it about time we scrapped it and got something new? The analogy isn't a particularly good one – for one thing, replacing a car costs only money, while replacing a social system takes much thought and organisation – but at least it reminds us that things (whether cars or social systems) don't have to be patched up for ever.

Going directly for revolution, refusing to settle for anything less than the full monty of socialism, is a policy that will take time to bring results. Many people will have to be weaned off the superficial attractions of “achievable” reforms. But going for revolution isn't just a long-term policy – it is also a good short-term one. Faced with an electorate who refuse to vote for capitalism-supporting candidates, confronted by a majority who no longer believe “there is no alternative”, challenged by a growing socialist movement that says revolution is possible and shows how life and society could be so much better, what else can those who wish to support capitalism do than concede as much as possible, in effect to narrow the gap between the old and new systems?

Stan Parker