Voice From The Back: The Obscenity of Capitalism (2008)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Obscenity of Capitalism

The columnist Richard Morrison, in an article mocking the ridiculous prices paid for modern art, refers to Don Thompson’s book The $12 Million Stuffed Shark and brings to notice the obscene wealth enjoyed by a handful of billionaires. Remember we are dealing with the social system of capitalism where many exist on a $1 a day. “He looks at the buyers for ‘trophy’ art; billionaires such as the American asset manager Steve Cohen, who bought the shark with what, for him, was loose change (it would have taken him five days, Thompson estimates, to have earned the $12 million price tag).” (Times, 16 January) Overlooking the term “earned”, we are talking about someone whose income is over 2 million times that of another. Doesn’t capitalism make you sick?

Not So Primitive

Daniel Everett once was a missionary in Brazil dealing with so-called primitive tribes, but his experience of the Pirahã people made him give up that calling to become a linguist. When asked how he had changed his views he replied: “They lived so well without religion and they were so happy. Also they did not believe what I was saying because I did not have any evidence for it, and that made me think. They would try so hard to understand what I was saying, but it was utterly irrelevant to them. I began to think: what am I doing here, giving them these 2000-year old concepts when everything of value I can think of to communicate to them they already have?…” (New Scientist, 19 January)

Toothless Watchdog

The sole purpose of capitalist society is to make profits, so we can imagine the following report will come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about how it operates. “The government will be publicly castigated this week over its failure to help poor people – by the watchdog that ministers set up to monitor fuel poverty. Ofgem, the energy regulator, will also be criticised for not stopping energy companies from making excessive profits at the expense of consumers. Peter Lehmann, chairman of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, will criticise the government over its record on fuel poverty, which he labelled ‘incomprehensible, unjustifiable and shocking’. Consumers now pay more than 50 per cent more on utility bills compared with five years ago, yet energy companies’ costs have risen by only a fraction of this. In the past month, four of the biggest suppliers have announced substantial rises in the price of gas and electricity.” (Observer, 3 February)

Loaded But Stupid

We are constantly being told by supporters of capitalism that the extremely rich got that way because of their superior intellect. That seems invalid thinking when we see how much the extremely rich will pay for a stupid pointless motor car licence plate. “But nowhere is the craze for a unique plate more intense than in the United Arab Emirates, the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation that holds the world record for the six most expensive plates. Here, it’s all about how low you can go — with people battling it out at auctions to win the chance to show off license plates with the lowest digit. The numbers “5” and “7” have already been snapped up,

Transcendental Materialism

The death of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi led to many newspapers rehashing the stories about the Beatles contact with his Transcendental Meditation, but it has transpired that his TM could have more properly stood for Transcendental Materialism. It seemed the great man had sited his HQ in a Dutch village for tax reasons. “As ever, the business-savvy guru was ahead of the game: the big draw is a financial regime that has made the Netherlands the EU’s top tax shelter. Among those who have set up holding companies there are Ikea, Nike, Coca-Cola and Gucci.” (Guardian, 7 February) Like many religious leaders before him this guru told his followers not to be concerned with the material things of life, but in practice was very shrewd about the way capitalism operated.

To Campaigners for Nuclear Disarmament (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first ban-the-bomb march from Aldermaston to London took place at Easter 50 years ago. We reprint here a leaflet we put out for the 1961 CND March.

“Writing only a few years after the end of the second world war and witnessing on every hand the active preparations for another on an even more gigantic scale, it is not necessary to emphasise that war is literally an issue of life and death for men, women and children in every part of the globe. Nor is it necessary to prove at length that another war may be immeasurably more destructive of life and the means of sustaining life than were the wars from which the human race has suffered already during the present century. Everybody who takes even a casual interest in news of the atom and hydrogen bombs and other weapons of mass destruction of cities and peoples has received some impression of the agonising fate that may be in store for all the centres of civilisation if the Powers again come into armed conflict.” (From Socialist Party and War, June 1950).

Ten years ago the writer stood on a Socialist Party platform in a North London suburb, flourishing a copy of the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.” The atomic scientists had written with concern – many with disgust – about the horrible effects of the weapon (conceived in 1942), which in desperate haste, the American Government was developing in an attempt to maintain its atomic supremacy – the “Hydrogen Bomb.”

Few stopped to listen. People did not want to hear about nuclear weapons or war or politics. They had had their fill. The piteous agonies of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively unknown and their import not understood. Such knowledge tormented only an insignificant few who lacked the resources to make known all the terrors of the past and the perils of the future. Others even more knowledgeable, such as the Labour Cabinet, under Mr Attlee, whose representative was present at the bombing of Nagasaki, quietly arranged the making of a British atomic bomb – thereby smoothing the way for nuclear weapon development under the Conservatives. The so-called Communists who in 1945 had called for further attacks on Japan, were engaged in nullifying the Western monopoly of atomic striking power by a hypocritical “Ban the Bomb” campaign.

Later, in 1954, the tragic incident of the Japanese fishermen aroused the anger of millions in Japan and stirred many thousands in other countries to protest. In Britain information about the nature of atomic weapons was gradually assimilated and after a number of false starts, the National Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapon Tests came into being. From it, in 1958, sprang the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Long before the emergence of the anti-nuclear movement, members of the Socialist Party had become aware of the problems associated with nuclear warfare and weapon tests. Did the use or testing of nuclear weapons make it necessary to modify our political standpoint in any way? Must we deal with the nuclear menace first in order to make the world safe for Socialism? Much discussion ensued and in this article, therefore, we put forward a point of view which is neither a dogmatic response to a new situation nor a hastily conceived compromise designed to gain political support.

As there are still a number of “Campaigners” who are attempting to change Labour Party policy, it may be useful to comment briefly on the Labour Party’s actions in the past. In its history it has supported several major wars; it was in office when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. It has supported the testing of nuclear weapons and in fact, is committed to the use of hydrogen bombs in an “all-out” war.

Those who support the Labour Party – which is alleged to have been struggling for Socialism and the “Brotherhood of Man” – are now reduced after fifty-four years of “Socialist” thinking and re-thinking, to seek CND support on grounds which, were the issues not so tragic, would be laughable. After having played a vital part in the making and using of atomic weapons they have the effrontery to claim a sympathetic hearing from “Campaigners” on the grounds that a minority of the Labour Party are now wholly or partly opposed to nuclear weapons – and this is supposed to be a “Socialist” Party!

In 1950, the writer recalls asking a Labour Party member how he could reconcile his party’s support of atomic weapons with its professed concern for human brotherhood. After a very apologetic defence, his parting words were. “Ah! Wait for the Conference! We’ll show the right-wingers!” Every year we have heard the same pathetic tale. Now, when pressure from CND and elsewhere has made an anti-nuclear weapon vote a possibility at the Labour Party Conference, the Parliamentary Labour Party is considering ways to avoid implementing such a decision! It is a tragedy that so many well-meaning people spend their lives attempting to build a more sensible world through the Labour Party. If they pondered deeply they would see that in the early days of this century, when Labour Party supporters chose to disregard the sounder theoretical (and therefore more practical) position of the Socialist Party, the path was taken which eventually led to Labour Party support of the trench massacres, the deliberate saturation bombing of working class dwelling areas, the atomic bombings, nuclear weapons and their testing and other chemical and bacteriological weapons. May we say to those young people who seek to use the Labour Party as an instrument of social change, that the problems which now confront us are, in fact, the result of the allegedly more practical policies of those parties prepared to administer capitalism. It would be quite illogical to assist those who bear a share of the responsibility for a world where our innocent children play in the shadow of deadly rockets, as yet unaware of the insidious strontium in their bones.

Do not fall under the spell of left-wing orators who one minute talk feelingly of a world socialist community and who, in the next breath, admit that the Labour Party is hardly ‘socialist’.

Whenever the deeds of the Labour Party give rise to dismay among its active minority, wherever there is the possibility that numbers way break away, there always appears to be on hand, a ‘militant’ left-wing leader to challenge’ the leadership, to thunder against capitalism or “the Establishment” and to give fresh hope to the doubtful.

When, however, it is time for voting, it is not unknown for these ‘militants’ to seek support for the Party whose policy they had bitterly opposed!

We do not question their sincerity. We merely point out that this kind of action is inevitable while these left-wing leaders give their support to parties which are prepared to administer capitalism.

What is required is not a trust in leaders and their promises but an attitude of self-reliance and a determination on the part of ordinary people to understand the nature of world problems.

The Communist Party?

In 1945, two days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Russian Rulers fearing, perhaps, a belated American attempt to deprive them of some of the spoils of Yalta, hastened to declare war on Japan. A right to participate in the final share-out of the Far Eastern loot; a desire to safeguard their sphere of influence, these were the real concerns of the Russian Government. No protest at a sickening outrage. No sorrow expressed at the agonies of the Hiroshima victims, the seared, stunned survivors; the radio-active remnants of what had been men, women and little children! So much for the party of Lenin and Stalin in the glorious fight for Peace!

The Russian Government has not hesitated to test high-yield nuclear weapons when it has considered this necessary, and it has contributed its share of Strontium 90 to the atmosphere. It Is obvious that the major H-Bomb Powers have carried out sufficient large-scale nuclear weapon tests for their Immediate needs – this is the main reason for the suspension of such tests. It should be noted, however, that in common with the Western Powers, the U.S.S.R., in spite of its propaganda sallies, did not commit itself to unconditional, unilateral cessation of these tests – it reserved the right to resume if it deemed that its security was in jeopardy. Time-honoured diplomatic double-talk!

It must not be thought that Russia comes into conflict with the other powers because of. ideological reasons; because its social system is alleged to be “Socialist.”

Russia is a capitalist country. All the basic features of capitalism exist there; class monopoly of the means or production, backed up by a powerful state apparatus, the dominance of commodity production and the profit motive, the subjection of the majority to wage-labour, the “anarchy or production” called “state planning;” all are there.

All modern nations have these basic attributes. They may have particular features arising from the different national and economic backgrounds from which capitalism developed in each country. Each emerging capitalist class was born into a certain historical situation. The new industrial capitalists of England in the nineteenth century had the world at their feet; the later arrivals to the capitalist jungle, while having advantages in being able to learn and apply the latest techniques, found themselves surrounded by already entrenched rivals.

It is not what men think or say about themselves that is crucial to the analysis of a social system. It is how they are related to other men about the means of production, what role they play in the productive process, what, in fact, they do. In struggling with the traditional capitalist groups of the world, the top representatives of Russian capitalism, are different in no fundamental way. They are all as helpless to prevent war, and all as ruthless in its prosecution when diplomacy has failed.

The Campaign?

What have we to say about the Campaign itself? To Socialists, to see so many people expressing their displeasure, after a long period of political inactivity, at the stupidity and recklessness of their rulers, was a refreshing change. Discontent, however, if it is not to undergo an eventual decline from determined idealism to a hopeless cynicism, must partake of sound theory. What has held “Campaigners” together, so far, has been a common revulsion against one of the weapons of mass-murder and a belief that even if the movement was divided in its aims and methods, it was the only means by which the semi-apathetic majority of ordinary people, on whom the pro-Bomb parties relied for support, could be shaken from their dangerous lethargy.

When one examines the propositions of the Campaign (“Sanity or Suicide” Page 8), its inadequacies can clearly be seen. CND says that all wars, even if they did not start as nuclear wars, would become nuclear wars, because the losing side would use nuclear weapons. If it accepts that all wars are going to be nuclear wars, then it follows that it should oppose all wars. It does not take up this position, however, at no time has it advocated opposition to conventional programmes.

The fundamental weakness of the Campaign is emphasised in one of its own comments on the subject of nuclear weapons, for it says: “Even if they had been outlawed and stocks destroyed, the knowledge would be there in the heads of the scientists and they’d be made again.” In other words, even if the Campaign achieved its aim it would soon have to start all over again . . . and again! If, as it suggests, however, society would not survive another war, it would be wiser to take sound political action rather than wait to see the awful results of an admittedly futile policy.

Some “Campaigners,” while agreeing that capitalism is the cause of war in the modern world, maintain that although a new social organisation may be necessary, a nuclear war would prevent the establishment of this, perhaps for all time, and therefore the anti-nuclear movement should be given priority over Socialism. This argument is logically unsound; it assumes that which has yet to be demonstrated. It presupposes that the campaign will be able to prevent a nuclear war occurring. For the Campaign to “succeed” it must have a majority of people who are opposed unconditionally to nuclear weapons, in the major countries of the world. These majorities must be prepared to oppose their own governments, to put aside all nationalistic or racial feeling, and be immune to all attempts of their rulers to influence them during periods of international crisis and tension. Is it possible that such international solidarity could be achieved by a movement which is composed of so many fundamentally diverse elements and which lacks any clear conception of an alternative to our inhuman social system? Only a revolutionary Socialist consciousness could ensure such a united unshakeable attitude and in that event the question of opposition to nuclear weapons alone would be redundant.

Some members of CND are conscious of its lack of a positive social policy and they have devoted much effort to examining the causes of war and other current social problems. It does not seem, however, that the depth and value of the genuine Marxist analysis of society have yet been understood. The leaders of the Campaign still have many illusions about the effectiveness of the United Nations Organisation as an instrument for peace, although they are not unmindful of the economic and political pressures which can be brought to bear on it by the two great power blocs. Sincere attempts to initiate a serious discussion within their movement seldom go beyond a humane liberalism; even the contributions of its associates in the New Left movement are devoid of any ideas radically different from their political predecessors of past decades.

The Vote

It is worth recalling that, during the last General Election, the CND was reluctant to demand of its members that they should abstain from supporting candidates who were not unconditionally opposed to all aspects of nuclear weapon policy.

The S.P.G.B. is opposed to war, and is opposed unconditionally to all weapon tests of any kind by any government. We do not seek support at election times on specific issues other than that of Socialism in the sense that we mean, i.e. a world-wide system without frontiers, where the means of production and distribution are held in common and production is carried on solely in order to meet human needs.

In our election literature we write to ensure, as far as possible, that only people who agree with our fundamental position will vote for our candidates. No advantage can ever accrue to a genuine socialist party from vote catching.

Members of the S.P.G.B. vote only for S.P.G.B. candidates or, where there are none, they abstain or spoil their voting papers. Our view is that there is no way out of the contemporary dilemma other than by the building of a new kind of society.

Conditions favoured the rapid growth of the CND. Who could foresee the results of active, determined, knowledgeable support of genuine socialist ideals, by those who have become disenchanted with the political parties and groups that sought to lead them?

Letters: Work and leisure (2008)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work and leisure

Dear Editors

Although I agree with much of what the editors write in reply to the letter by N.B. (February Socialist Standard), I think there is more to say about work and leisure in a socialist world.

N.B. writes “People need a contrast between work and leisure in order to appreciate and enjoy their leisure time.” The editors comment on this: “Of course, there will still be a distinction in socialism between organised work to be done during set hours, even if enjoyable, and recreational activities carried out at the individual’s discretion.”

Both N.B. and the editors assume that the line commonly drawn between work and leisure by people in capitalism will also be drawn by people in socialism. I question this. A few people today—some retired workers and some capitalists who are more than non-employed parasites—are able to live productive and enjoyable lives which they don’t divide into work and leisure segments. In socialism I expect many more such people and society will be the better for having them.

In capitalism it is understandable that workers do divide their lives into work (paid employment) and leisure (mostly as customers of the leisure industry). In socialism there won’t be employment or the leisure industry. Instead there is likely to be a division (though not a hard and fast one) between socially committed activities and individually chosen activities. Both types of activity will straddle what we today call work and leisure.

Most of us will commit some of our time to being, for example, train drivers, classroom teachers, members of orchestras or football teams. Most of us will also spend some of our time doing things that don’t require being with other people at a specified time and place—for example, handicrafts and individual sports.

Michael Schauerte (in the same issue) writes of the socialist revolution: “The first change that seems likely, for a number of reasons, is a major reduction in the length of the working day.” Michael shows too little creative imagination about what work will mean for us in socialism.

Certainly we won’t want to spend more time than we have to on activities or in circumstances that we find unpleasant, boring or damaging. But why should we be concerned with “the length of the working day”? Some activities and interests—socially committed or individual chosen—may be so absorbing, thrilling or delightful that it wouldn’t make sense to long to reduce time spend on them.

People will have much more choice about their lifestyle than they do now. Some may choose Marxian multi-tasking: hunter, farmer, critic, philosopher, blogger, all in one day. Others may devote their whole lives to one interest or activity, bordering on the obsessive. I guess most of us will be somewhere between these two extremes.

Stan Parker, 

London NW3.

Northern Rock

Dear Editors

The Tories have always presented themselves as the party of low taxation, and with another ‘former left’ turned New Labour Cabinet Minister carcass for them to succulently devour (Peter Hain over allegations of sleaze), are naturally revelling in the government’s current dilemma over whether to either nationalise completely Northern Rock or initiate a cobbled up tax funded financial scheme that acts as a veneer for doing something.

The principal question therefore for a party which is allegedly in opposition and whose fundamental tenet of ideology is low taxation to promote free enterprise (albeit also rigidly upheld by New Labour) is why don’t they let this tenet do the talking, by insisting that Northern Rock is an unequivocal market failure and should, like other failed firms, go into liquidation to save the billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money necessary to prop it up?

The reality is, despite all the hype and bluster between both, neither they or New Labour could possibly allow this to happen because if a financial institution of this magnitude were allowed to collapse it would expose to the voting public at large the underlying fragility of the entire capitalist system. Hence this is why most mainstream financial commentators seem reluctant to emphasise that Northern Rock is the first obvious symptom in the UK of a far greater endemic problem of the global financial system where borrowing and speculation has basically outweighed actual economic growth. Indeed the term ‘credit crunch’ is simply a useful euphemism that conveys the myth that it was all down to politicians or financial gurus failing to exercise foresight beforehand. In fact the majority of mainstream politicians in parliament today simply oversee these inept ‘fat cat’ policies as a formality, regardless of the detrimental effects they have on the livelihoods of millions of their constituents particularly if they are working class or homeowners with mortgages.

So for the Tories, as long as New Labour carries the can for this Northern Rock debacle the better. However for the average voter, where the whole fiasco and the billions that are conveniently found to save it should be precipitating a public revival in socialist thinking in some shape or form, the chronic ideological vacuum that exists in British politics today is comprehensively exposed.

Nick Vinehill, 

Snettisham, Norfolk

Reply: 

Good point. The ideological supporters of capitalism like to preach the virtues of competition eliminating lame ducks, but the government – guardian of the interests of a national capitalist class as a whole – doesn’t always let this happen, especially not in a case like Northern Rock which could have a domino effect and even if this costs “the taxpayers” (i.e., the rest of the capitalist class) money. 

Editors.

 

The Hull Floods

Dear Editors

Last year’s floods were the widest spread, if not the worst on record, in Britain. Great swathes of the country were affected including the West Country and Yorkshire. Worst affected, however, was Hull, my home town. Local events did not attract much attention in the national media. Hull is a visually uninteresting town, off the beaten track, with few rich people to make a noise (it is the ninth most deprived area in England). The death toll was low, with only one person killed, and, unlike in Gloucester, the floods did not generate any stunning aerial views. However in terms of human impact the northern port was certainly in the front line as can be seen in the recent “The June 2007 Floods in Hull: Final Report by the Independent Review Body”.

Stated simply the rainfall on the 25 June was exceptionally heavy and followed in the wake of another heavy storm ten days earlier. The soil was already completely saturated and the drains filled to capacity. There was just nowhere for the water to go. This is a matter of some concern for the area is completely flat with much of the built up area below sea level. Nearly 9,000 homes and 1,300 businesses were affected and 91 of 99 schools in the area damaged, 43 severely so. Institutions affected included the University, where the library (once run by poet Philip Larkin) was badly damaged. As might be expected, the poorer areas, including Bransholme (said to be one of the worst estates in Britain), suffered most. Some 6,300 people had to seek temporary accommodation; around 1,000 are still living in caravans, upstairs or in lodgings.  The trauma of being flooded out has been considerable and, with repairs badly backlogged, long lasting.

Immediately after the event great play was made in local papers over the state of the roadside drains. Undoubtedly in some cases these were blocked due to reductions in street cleaning budgets. However the official report largely negated claims of any major impact. The Independent Review Body did find there were “serious issues” with the drainage facilities, specifically a failed pumping station on Bransholme, and commented “detailed information about the performance and operation of water utilities’ drainage systems should be in the public domain”, a clear condemnation of the damaging privatisation undertaken over the past quarter century. It also picked up on insurance problems faced by many, recommending that the state underwrite flood risks.

Ironically given these proposals of intervention by the state (which clearly isn’t interested), it was the community response which provided back up to most people: “The people of Hull showed extraordinary levels of goodwill, comradeship and willingness to help neighbours during the floods”. So much for selfish human nature.

Keith Scholey,

Hull

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pieces Together: Tough at the Top? (2008)

The Pieces Together column from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Tough at the Top?

“A study by the Bow Group, a centre-right think-tank, found that 27 per cent of FTSE 100 chief executives have contracts that continue to pay bonuses if profits rise by as little as 1 per cent above inflation. Nearly one in ten firms will still pay bonuses if profits fail to beat inflation.” (Times, 4 February)



Smile, damn you Smile

“Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. ... The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure.” (Times, 16 January)

Words of Wisdom

David Attenborough in an interview said: “Every society that’s ever existed has felt it necessary to have creation myths. Why should I believe one? People write to me and say: `You show us birds and orchids and wonderful, beautiful things - don’t you feel you should give credit to He who created those things? My reply says: what about a parasitic worm that’s boring through the eye of a four-year-old child on the bank of an African river? It confuses me that I should believe in a god who cares individually for each and every one of us and could allow that to happen” (Observer Magazine, 20 January)

This is Progress?

“Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome, said: ‘We’re seeing more people hungry, and in greater numbers than before. We’re seeing many people being priced out of the food market for the first time. We’re seeing less crop production in many places; shorter harvest times.’ ... According to the UN world food index, prices rose by 40 per cent last year. Ms Sheeran said oil prices were driving up costs because oil was used for planting, fertiliser and delivering food.” (Times, 13 February)

Labour’s Sorry Record

“Poverty affects 3.8 million children in the UK, making ours one of the worst rates in the industrialised world. Children living in poverty are likely to have lower self-esteem, poorer health, and lower aspirations and educational achievements than their peers. Poverty also shortens lives. A boy in Manchester can expect to live seven years less than a boy in Barnet, North London.” (Times,  February)

A Brave New World?

“Here’s a vision of the not-so-distant future: Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items — and, by extension, consumers — wherever they go, from a distance. A seamless, global network of electronic ‘sniffers’ will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, ‘live spam,’ may be beamed at them. In ‘Smart Homes,’ sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets — all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants’ private lives.” (Yahoo News, 26 January)

Peasant revolt (2008)

Pamphlet Review from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Symond Newell and Kett’s Rebellion, By Peter E Newell. Past Tense (c/o 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton Street, London, SE17). 2007

Mostly family history is a rather tedious collection of meaningless names and dates, occasionally however genealogical research can provide one with a true insight, a personal link to historical events, thus demonstrating the reality of what would otherwise be just a story. Thus it is with Peter Newell’s excellently researched pamphlet. The essentially economic causes, the rather alarming course of events in and around what was then England’s second city, Norwich, and outcome (none too good) of this peasants’ rebellion are clearly illustrated. All in all this is an interesting and informative account of a little known incident in English history.

Kaz.

Further reading:

Symond Newell and Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk

50 Years Ago: The Uses of Monarchy (2008)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present Royal Family comes as close as any capitalist politician could desire to the modern monarchical ideal. No interference in politics, but a worthy interest in science; admirably suited to gather prestige abroad; most of all, a continual and absorbing attraction to the working class. There have been hints recently that the publicity has been overdone, that there have been too many chambermaids’ reminiscences and news items like the Sunday Pictorial’s announcement that the Queen’s bust-line had improved to maintain the essential dignity of royalty. Nevertheless, the Crown today as never before embodies the national ideals—the ideals, that is, of the national ruling class.

But does monarchy serve any interest for ordinary people, beyond giving a holiday and a pageant now and then? It may be said that if it does them no good, it does them no harm either. If it were true that to fill people’s heads with nonsense did no harm, that might be so; and most of it is nonsense. There is no reason for thinking that the Queen and her husband are not pleasant, decent people. If things were otherwise, however, the truth is that they would still be presented as paragons. Some monarchs have been cruel, irresponsible and contemptibly low, but their subjects have still been asked for reverence. Within a week of Edward VIII’s abdication his shortcomings were common knowledge, and Sir Charles Petrie (in the book already quoted) hinted at a strain of abnormality in Edward from the Hanover ancestry; would those things have been said if Edward had remained the King?

It is not the monarch that is at fault in all this, but the social system which needs a shining symbol; where there is no monarch, something else has to be held up to dazzle the dispossessed. The man with the flag and the girl admiring the pictures in her magazine have the light full in their eyes just now—but they need only look away for a moment to see who holds it up, and why.

(From front page article by Robert Coster, Socialist Standard, March 1958)

Anarchists against democracy (2008)

Book Review from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anarchy Alive! Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory. By Uri Gordon. Pluto Press

There are many currents of anarchism; some, often called anarcho-communist, hold political ideas not so different from our own. The course of the twentieth century, however, saw these currents fade, and by far the most common ‘anarchist’ today is the individualist or libertarian.

Because they start from the premise that individuals exist independently of society and that the freedom of the individual ego is the most important thing in the world, these anarchists have always had a problem with democracy. They have never been able to see why anybody should be bound by a majority decision; the individual must be free to ignore or even defy such a decision if he or she wants to, otherwise they would be being oppressed. That would be “the tyranny of the majority”. Some anarchists have been able to overcome this prejudice and try to practise democratic forms of organisation: but not Gordon, who launches a head-on attack on the whole concept of democratic control and accountability.

"“Democratic discourse assumes without exception that the political process results, at some point, in collectively binding decisions. That these decisions can be the result of free and open debate by all those affected does not change the fact that the outcome is seen to have a mandatory nature. Saying that something is collectively binding makes no sense if each person is to make up their own mind over whether they are bound by it. Binding means enforceable, and enforceability is a background assumption of democracy. But the outcomes of anarchist process are inherently impossible to enforce. That is why the process is not ‘democratic’ at all, since in democracy the point of equal participation in determining decisions is that this is what legitimates these decisions’ subsequent enforcement – or simply sweetens the pill. Anarchism, then, represents not the most radical form of democracy, but an altogether different paradigm of collective action”.

Socialism, on the other hand, does represent the most radical form of democracy. The socialist justification for accepting majority decision-making is that people are not isolated individuals but only exist in and through society, and that when there is a genuine community (either society as a whole or some collectivity within society) the best method of deciding what it should do, on matters of common interest to it as a community, is by a vote of its members after a full and free discussion. Of course the field of community activity has its limits and some decisions should be left to the individual (what to wear and eat, for instance), but we are talking about matters which concern the community as a community with a common interest.

Capitalism resolves the problem by leaving common goods (basically, the means of production) in minority hands, so there is no popular debate about their use; socialism holds these goods in common, under democratic control; the anarchist trend is to minimise these common goods by wanting them small scale and being anti-technology, which as we can now see is more to do with a failure to resolve the democratic issue than a particular dislike of technology per se. Why do these anarchists like laptops but hate computer factories? The answer is a dislike of democracy.

Gordon’s book is an attempt to give some theoretical coherence to the tactics and ideas of the anti-authority wing of the amorphous anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movement. He openly admits they do not function democratically and is proud of it. They come together loosely – organise wouldn’t be the right word – in networks which do hold meetings with each other from time to time to discuss some activity. But those attending are not mandated delegates from their group, and no group is bound by any decision that might be reached; they are free to take it or leave it. Some do, some don’t. At demonstrations some will give out leaflets to the general public arguing a case, others will throw stones at the police. Hence the “pluralism” which Gordon celebrates but which is really a cop-out.

Gordon goes further and argues that no individual anarchist or group of anarchists should be held accountable to anyone for what they do; they are quite free to take any action they like and that is how it should be. In answer to Jo Freeman’s important 1970 pamphlet The Tyranny of Structurelessness in which she argued that the absence of formal, democratic structures leads to domination by informal elites, Gordon says “Freeman’s proposals run against the grain of anarchist priorities”. He sees nothing wrong with some informal group of anarchists taking the initiative, it being up to others to decide whether or not to go along with it. The latter seem suspiciously like followers to us but in Gordon’s eyes they are merely showing “solidarity” with the unaccountable group. He doesn’t seem to realise that the same might be said of those who vote for some capitalist politician or party.

Gordon also discusses other matters such as the attitude of anarchists towards violence, technology and nationalism, which are just as confused – or “pluralist” – as over decision-making. But his book is well-written and can be read on a know-your-opponent basis.

Adam Buick

Pathfinders: The Socialist Gene (2008)

The Pathfinders column from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is there a gene for socialism? Are we hard-wired to organise a communal society, share everything and live a peaceful and democratic life in harmonious coexistence with nature and other species? Is anybody asking this question? If not, why not?

Let’s face it, people have asked much sillier questions. Recent examples have included: is there a gene for aggression, or ‘obedience’, or ‘homosexuality’, or whatever human behavioural tic is currently inspiring tabloid copy-editors. Usually they are on the lookout for ways of explaining away character traits which their readers regard as undesirable, and which through cod-genetics can be made to look like evolutionary flaws or dead-ends, or else alibis by which the readers can avoid taking any personal responsibility. Serious researchers do ask questions about cooperation, altruism, sacrifice and other socially more admirable traits, but of course, ‘serious’ research is all a matter of what funding bodies are willing to pay for, so while the military will certainly be interested in studies which show aggression to be innate, and which thereby affirm the importance of the military, it is hard to see who, in a capitalist world, would be very keen to bankroll research pointing to the desirability of abolishing banks.

What’s odd about these questions is that they run counter to the trend of all the evidence, which suggests that genes do not operate in isolation but in matrices, and that one single gene can never be identified as being attributable to one single and discrete characteristic, either mental or physical.

This is strange when you consider how the brain works, and how it is popularly supposed to work. Nobody expects to be able to extract a single brain cell and find, encoded within it, a phrase from Romeo and Juliet or a picture of a Ford Mondeo. We realise the brain doesn’t work like that. With a hundred trillion neural connections to play with, the brain distributes its memory and cognitive processes in various different places at once, operating as an integrated network which, like the internet, is even capable to some extent of rerouting round damage and adapting spare parts to new uses.

The nature and adaptability of the brain ought to be a clue. Humans are so adaptable that it is doubtful if anything beyond basic bodily functions can be ascribed to nature. But this doesn’t stop the speculation, because there is a small window of opportunity, via the study of identical twins, to explore the ‘nature’ side of the nature-nurture debate. For, argue people like Steven Pinker, we are not born a ‘blank slate’, so something must be genetically already in there. Something, but what? That’s the trouble. Until some intelligent life form is discovered in the cosmos, which can be studied and compared, there is no way to guess what is natural and what isn’t.

A recent article in New Scientist illustrates the problem, when it asks whether political leanings are encoded in the genes (Feb 2). Some disparity between voting habits of identical twins is cited in support of this outlandish claim, which is being seized on by political scientists as a potential magic key to unlock the voter’s brain. Identical twins, it seems, are more likely to give the same answers to political questions than non-identical ones. While interesting, this is hardly ‘startling’, as the article puts it. If identical twins are truly identical, and if they are brought up together, it is not very surprising that they would develop the same views. The article does not mention identical twins who were brought up separately, however. If one twin is brought up in an impoverished mining town and the other in a mansion, would they still hold the same political views? If they did, this really would be startling. And where non-identical twins hold different views, no mention is made of a comparison with non-identical non-twins and whether the two correlate. This is significant because different siblings within a family experience that family differently, and differential experiences of attention, affection, expectation and responsibilities may well affect their subsequent political development. Lastly, we are told that identical twins tend to give the same answers, but we are not told what these answers are. Logically, of the 30,000 twins studied over two decades in Virginia, one would expect by random chance a greater number either of Democrats or Republicans. This information is not provided, possibly because the obvious conclusion to be drawn from either case is that humans are genetically disposed to be one or the other, which is plainly nonsense.

Genetics has made huge strides in understanding the biological basis of many diseases which afflict humanity. Less successful have been attempts to investigate the supposed biological basis of human behaviour. As has often been stated in this magazine, our ability to think may be innate. What we think about, and what we then do about it, are not. Were it otherwise, there would be no point anyone discussing anything.

Paddy Shannon

Basic Income: a dangerous reform (2008)

Book Review from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Green Party’s idea of paying everyone a minimum income whether or not they are working might seem attractive, but it won’t necessarily leave us better off.

In 1795 the magistrates of Speenhamland in Berkshire started a system under which farm labourers on poverty wages had their income supplemented from the poor-rates. The result was predictable. Farmers were encouraged to keep, and even to extend, paying low wages. The payment from the poor-rates became a wage subsidy to employers. Today, the Green Party wants to revive this under the name of “Citizen’s Income”, which they describe as “an automatic, unconditional payment sufficient to cover basic needs of every individual, working or not”.

This is more commonly called a “Basic Income”. Daniel Raventós, whose study (and advocacy) of the proposal has just been published by Pluto Press, goes into more detail:

“Basic Income is an income paid by the state to each full member or accredited resident of a society, regardless of whether or not he or she wishes to engage in paid employment, or is rich or poor or, in other words, independently of any other sources of income that person might have, and irrespective of cohabitation arrangements in the domestic sphere” (Basic Income: The Material Conditions of Freedom).

He lists various things in its favour: that it would abolish poverty, enable us to better balance our lives between voluntary, domestic and paid work, empower women, and “offer workers a resistance fund to maintain strikes that are presently difficult to sustain because of the salary cuts they involve”.

Maybe it would do some of these things, but two linked questions arise. Where’s the money going to come from, and how likely is it to be introduced in the form its advocates want?

Abolishing means-tested benefits such as income support (in Britain) and paying every citizen a state income equal to the official poverty line (of 60 percent of average after-tax income) wouldn’t be cheap. Raventós, basing himself on income tax returns in his native Catalonia, calculates that it could be done by means of a 50 percent flat-rate tax on all incomes. Others have suggested that it might be financed by a wealth tax or by a tax on pollution, but Raventós wants to show that his scheme could be financed merely by redistributing the money the state already collects and spends on family allowances, pensions and means-tested benefits, without any extra taxes. In other words: that the total amount of money paid by the state either as benefits or tax concessions would remain the same, merely distributed differently amongst workers. As we said of the 1943 Beveridge Report that laid the foundations of the post-war “Welfare State” in Britain: it would be “a reorganisation of poverty”.

Raventós lists various objections to the Basic Income scheme, basically that it would reduce the incentive to work, an argument he is able to refute; but he misses the main objection that, like the Speenhamland system, it would be a wage subsidy to employers. To understand this, we need to look at the economics of wage labour in some detail.

Labour market forces bring it about that the income of workers is more or less what they need to keep their working skills up to scratch and to raise a new generation of workers. At one time, in the early days of capitalism, workers’ incomes were made up exclusively of what their employer paid them. Since the introduction of pay-as-you-earn income tax and the “Welfare State” matters have become more complicated. The income of many workers is now made up not only of their take-home pay from their employers but also of various payments from the state, mainly family allowances but also tax credits for the worst paid.

If a basic state income of say, £200 a week (or £10,000 a year), was brought in, this would upset the balance: market forces would tend to bring about a new equilibrium, with those workers who currently get no extra income from the state (those without a dependant family) seeing their take-home pay from employers tend to fall by £10,000. Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as this since in many cases the extra state payment would be compensating for the abolition of family allowances, but there would in general be a strong downward pressure on wages and salaries.

That there would be a tendency for something like this to happen has been recognised by less naïve advocates of Basic Income than Raventós. C. M. A. Clark, who wrote a study of the effects of the introduction of a partial Basic Income scheme in Ireland (The Basic Income Guarantee: Ensuring Progress and Prosperity in the 21st Century, 2002), admitted this was a possibility. In a previous article in the American Journal of Economic Issues in June 1996 he and fellow author Catherine Kavanagh had gone into more detail. They described part of the “conservative case for a Basic Income” as follows:

“By partially separating income from work, the incentive of workers to fight against wage reductions is considerably reduced, thus making labour markets more flexible. This allows wages, and hence labor costs, to adjust more readily to changing economic conditions” (See Here).

And “the liberal argument against Basic Income” as being that:

“if a Basic Income policy is seen as a substitute for a full employment policy in the traditional Keynesian sense, then it is a major step backward and would harm all workers. The Basic Income would, in effect, subsidize employers, allowing them to lower wages . . .”.

Clark and Kavanagh conclude, rather over-optimistically:

“Whether a Basic Income policy would weaken or strengthen workers’ power in the labor market is a more difficult question to answer. It would depend on the context in which the Basic Income policy was instituted and the support workers already received from the state. The existence of a minimum wage, strong unions, and enforced pro-labor legislation might be essential to preventing the Basic Income from becoming a wage subsidization policy”.

Clark and Kavanagh are being over-optimistic because no union can be that strong and because no state could sustain “pro-labor legislation” for any length of time that adversely affected profits.

Unions do have some power, but it is limited to working with favourable labour market forces to get higher wages and better working conditions. When, however, labour market conditions are against them the most they can do is to slow down the worsening of wages and working conditions. If all workers got a basic income from the state of £5000, let alone £10,000, a year, this would change labour market conditions in favour of employers. In pay negotiations they would point to the state payment as evidence that they did not need to pay so much in wages or salaries to maintain their employees’ accustomed standard of living. The workers and their unions would realise this and the negotiations would be about what the reduction in wages and salaries should be. If the reduction was less than the Basic Income then the unions would be able to cry victory, but a reduction there would be. It is just inconceivable that a state payment to everybody in work would not adversely affect wages and salaries.

As to “pro-labor legislation”, this presumably means that the state should take the side of workers against employers. Many Labour and similar governments have come into office promising to benefit wage and salary earners, and all of them have left office without doing this; most in fact have done the opposite and have ended up restraining wages and cutting state benefits. Why? It is not because they were sell-outs or were not determined or resolute enough. It was because they were attempting the impossible: to make capitalism work in the interest of the wage and salary working class.

Capitalism runs on profits, derived from the unpaid labour of workers, and can only run as a profit-making and profit-accumulating system in the interest of those who live off profits, i.e., the capitalist class who own the means of production and employ others to operate them. Any government has to accept this and that, if it’s not to provoke an artificial economic crisis, it has to give priority to profit-making over “pro-labor” legislation. This is why Labour and similar governments have always failed.

In fact, insofar as Basic Income is seen as a “pro-labor” measure as it is by Raventós, then that is a reason why it is never likely to be introduced, at least not in the form that people like him want. As we saw, Raventós puts forward as an argument for Basic Income that it would “offer workers a resistance fund to maintain strikes that are presently difficult to sustain because of the salary cuts they involve”. But can anyone realistically imagine that any government would bring in a measure that would make striking easier for workers? Already, today, there are provisions to cut state benefits paid to strikers. No state is going to shoot itself in the foot by undermining in this way the profitability and so the competitiveness of enterprises operating from within its borders.

So, if a Basic Income scheme is ever introduced, it’s not likely to be more than some limited reform of the tax and benefits system. But even it were to be introduced in full it could turn out to be counter-productive for the working class by leading to an across-the-board decrease in wages.

Adam Buick

War: the socialist attitude (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since our formation in 1904 our response to the problem of war has clearly distinguished us from other organisations claiming descent from Marx and Engels and the early socialist pioneers.

We analyse social affairs in class terms. We approach problems in the field of economics and politics from a consideration of what we see as being the real interests of the world working class. It is our contention that there are only two classes in present day society. Firstly, the working class, who collectively produce the wealth of society and who, in order to live, have to sell their ability to work for a wage or a salary. Secondly, the capitalist class who accumulate profit through the economic exploitation of the working class.

This situation leads to an inevitable conflict of interests and the generation of social and economic problems that cannot be solved while capitalism of whatever form continues. Commodity production (production of wealth for sale with a view to profit) inevitably brings conflict over access to markets and sources of raw materials, and for the control of trade routes, and for strategic point around the globe. Attempts are made to resolve these conflicts through discussion and diplomacy. Where diplomacy fails there remains the threat of force of arms to get what is wanted. From time to time this clash of interests breaks out in armed conflict. For the Socialist Party “capitalism and war are inseparable. There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest.” ( SPGB: War and the Working Class. 1936. p.1)

Within a year of our founding the Party published an article putting forward our view on war. In it the author wrote:

“I do not think it will be questioned by any socialist that it is his duty to oppose the wars of the ruling class of one nation with the ruling class of another, and refuse to participate in them.” (‘The curse of national prestige.’ Socialist Standard, August 1905.)

This has been our consistent view ever since. So long as the working class continue to support capitalism so long will its wars, and preparations for war, continue. Before the mass slaughter of the First World War we argued that because wars were the outcome of economic and strategic conflicts between the capitalists of the various nations any attempt to abolish war while those economic conflicts remained was bound to be futile. International meetings passing pious resolutions aimed at achieving “universal disarmament” were doomed to failure. This is what one early member wrote in December 1910 about a pre-World War I peace campaign:

“[That] the ‘anti-war campaign’, as such, is, from the working class standpoint, absurd. Just as the class struggle cannot be abolished save by abolishing classes, so it is impossible for capitalist nations to get rid of the grim spectre of war, for Capitalism presupposes economic conflicts which must finally be fought out with the aid of the armed forces of the State.” (‘Socialism and the anti-war campaign.’ Socialist Standard, December 1910.)

The only solution to war and the myriad other problems that face the workers of the world is to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. This involves democratic political action by a majority of the working class who understand the need for change and know how to bring it about.

We do not call for people to love one another (though we are not opposed to that of course) rather we appeal to the workers of this and other countries to recognise their common class interest and to organise consciously and politically to gain the political power necessary to dispossess the owning class – to strip them of their right to own the means of life – and to put in its place a system of common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production – socialism.

Socialism will be a classless, propertyless and moneyless world community of production directly for use without the mediation of buying and selling. Nothing else will suffice. Abolition of class ownership will result in the abolition of conflicts of interest both between the owners and the non-owners and also between competing national groups of owners organised politically into armed nation states. We can conceive of no situation in which we would give our support to either side in any of capitalism’s armed struggles.

The role of the Socialist Party in helping bring socialism about is one of agitation and education. We are an instrument to be used by a conscious working class once the need for a revolutionary social change is recognised. Because they don’t stand for socialism, we are “hostile to every other Party”, even to those which claim to have socialism as their goal.

Much of our argument with the left-wing revolves around their demands for reforms. Most radical left-wing parties say (or in the case of the Labour Party used to say) that their goal is “socialism“. However they also pursue reforms of capitalism as “stepping stones” to socialism. Any political party doing this soon find themselves saddled with the problems inevitably associated with the running of capitalism.

In an article written in the Journal of Modern History on the eve of the Second World War the historian Harry J. Marks dealt with the collapse of the German Social Democratic Party as a revolutionary party in 1914. He encapsulated and highlighted the dangers to a working class movement inherent in the pursuit of reforms. The author wrote that:

“By accepting the policy of the German Government on August 4, 1914, as fundamentally its own, the role of this enormous organisation as an independent factor in world history sank to insignificance and became no more than that of a cog to gear the labour movement into the German war machine.” (Harry J. Marks: ‘Sources of Reformism in the SDP of Germany 1890-1914.’ Journal of Modern History XI (1939) p. 334.)

Our hostility therefore is no mere semantic quibble. It goes to the heart of our case against adopting the “something now” approach to problems, including the problem of war. Unlike those on the left who are choosy as to which wars they object to, we in the Socialist Party are against all of capitalism’s wars. Nor do we single out one or two aspects of war – atomic weapons, or land mines, or poison gas, or the use of child soldiers – we oppose the system that give rise to these things.

Both the established capitalist class and those intent on joining them by force of arms need these weapons to defend and advance their interests against threats from competing groups of capitalists also armed to the teeth to defend their interests. The working class on the other hand have no such interests to defend. The workers have no country. What they do have is a common interest in making the world the common heritage of all who live in it.

Gwynn Thomas

Greasy Pole: Flint’s Hard Line (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

“She prefers to ignore the real complications hampering so many people when they must face the need to survive through employment”

Anyone with a surname like hers will need to become insensitive to pedestrian jokes about it so we shall not risk adding to Caroline Flint’s irritation with feeble cracks about her being hard and unyielding or liable to strike sparks to light your fag. In any case it is clear that her confidence is more than enough to brush off such attempts at humour; for example on a recent episode of The Politics Show she showed herself to be a match for the suffocating conceit of Andrew Neill, persisting in making her point – albeit a typically weary New Labour one – in spite of the presenter’s contemptuous interruptions. Obviously, this Blair Babe will not easily be shaken off her ascent of the Greasy Pole. So it was significant that, as the newly-promoted Minister of State for Housing and Planning she should choose to make her first serious bid for self-publicity with a proposal that unemployed council house tenants who fail to display the appropriate energy in looking for work should risk eviction. This was serious stuff, a challenge to the crustier of Labour’s dogmatists.

Housing
In any effective sense, council housing originated just after the 1914/18 War, when councils were able to build on a large scale by access to government subsidies. Massive slum clearance was encouraged by the 1930 Housing Act and the housing shortage after the Second World War saw the peak of council building, including huge inner-city estates some of which have acquired such grim reputations. Flint acknowledged that her speech was likely to stimulate a “strong debate”. That should be a warning to us all for in the mouths of New Labour leaders “debate” does not mean a free discussion culminating in a popular, constructive conclusion. Rather it serves notice that, to keep favour with as many voters as possible, there will be an enforced policy change emphatic enough to amount to a denial of what once stood as the party’s inviolable, defining principles. Council housing was originally designed to provide homes built to standards way above those of profit-hungry private contractors to be available at rents, set by the democratically elected council, affordable by the ordinary, working people in their area. This article of faith for Labour supporters encouraged numerous architects’ fantasies of sensitively designed estates where the lucky inhabitants could take their ease in safely pedestrianised areas beneath lush green trees. For the tenants an estate address was not supposed to act as a status symbol; but more a badge of communal security.

Unemployment
As she is the Minister for Housing, it has to be assumed that Flint is aware of councils’ statutory duty to provide for homeless people (although the exact definition of “homeless” can vary from one council to another and from time to time). In fact this legal obligation has caused families and individuals with what are known as “multiple problems” – mental and physical illness, addictive personalities, a history of institutional care – being placed by councils in their own, more easily available, accommodation, thus creating the dreaded “sink estates”. It is common for unemployment to be a contributory symptom of those other problems, which may be behind Flint’s sneer at the “no one works around here” culture which she said takes a grip on some communities. The most casual of visits to some estates can impress with the aimless apathy there, too often taken out in assaults on the fabric of the area. In one such high-rise hell in West London people hang dazedly around as the entrails of telephone junction boxes lie strewn across the pavement. A tenant who had just emerged from a long prison sentence was welcomed home by a TV set aimed at him from an upper level balcony (it missed – he later beat up the person responsible). Such places have a stigma of their own, often originating in the very sense of a supportive community which the estate pattern of living was supposed to encourage. A recent letter in the Guardian recalled that when the writer first moved to York she was advised that to try for a job with her address on the Tang Hall estate was to ensure that her application would be ignored; much more hopeful to say she lived in Heworth, which had a happier reputation.

Contracts
Flint suggests that this can be dealt with by making new council tenants sign a “commitment contract” to seek and participate in skills training programmes with a view to employment. She did not say whether the opposite process would apply – whether anyone who had demonstrated their commitment by training and getting a job would then be entitled to council housing. She prefers to ignore the real complications hampering so many people when they must face the need to survive through employment. Her argument was effectively exposed by Adam Sampson, chief executive of Shelter:

“The government wants to return Britain’s unemployed to the workhouse by throwing them onto the streets. What is being proposed would destroy families and communities and add to the thousands who are already homeless.”

In many cases a worker who is unemployed, untrained and aimless, finds their situation complicated by their making unwise life choices. Flint herself should be aware of this and should take it into account when she is ranting about the unemployed and the homeless. When she was 23, a trainee manager at the Greater London Council who had been through college where, like so many other prospective Labour ministers, she smoked cannabis, she met a man while on holiday in Tunisia. Perhaps it was his commitment to training and employment, and that of his family, which impressed her; his father was Tunisia’s Attorney General and he himself was a high earning stock market dealer. At any rate, she said he swept her off her feet; two children were born to them but the man’s family disapproved and eventually the couple married hastily in London where the reality of family life in poverty confronted them and essentially destroyed their relationship. Alleging that he had two convictions for violence, one of them against the police, Flint obtained a Restraining Order against him and soon afterwards he was arrested and deported on the grounds that he had no permanent home in this country. A year later they were divorced, leaving Flint to brush off the experience as an event which “unfortunately didn’t work out”.

Blears
In any case the episode did not hamper her career, which took her through jobs in local government and the GMB trade union until she was elected for Don Valley in the Labour landslide of 1997. In the Commons she voted as the whips required on matters such as Trident renewal, ID cards, the war in Iraq, justifying Andrew Roth’s assessment of her in the Guardian as a “loyal Blairite with a soft line in stooge questions” - which shows just how hard an operator she really is. She held a series of minor jobs until in the reshuffle of January this year she was appointed to Housing and Planning, a job which entails her attending the Cabinet. She may prefer to forget her victory in a 2007 poll to find “The Sexiest Female Politician” as well as her experience as Campaign manager for Hazel Blears’s attempts to become the Deputy Leader, in which Blears came sixth. Unless she takes consolation from the fact that this may have opened the way for her own attempt at a top job some time in the future.

Ivan

Labour In Hell: Mining Sulphur in Indonesia (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

“A man labours in hell.” So opens an article on the work of artist Darren Almond (Guardian Weekly, 25 January), referring to his video about workers who extract sulphur from the Kawah Ijen volcano in eastern Java.

Imagine the scene. We are standing on the inner slope of the volcano’s crater. Below lies a spectacular and extremely acidic turquoise lake. Hot sulphurous gases (300º C+) rise through an opening in the earth’s crust (a solphatara) and hiss through fissures into the crater. Some of the gas passes through pipes that have been driven into the solphatara. In the pipes it starts to cool and condense. Molten sulphur trickles out of the pipes and solidifies on the slope.

Here the miners, working with hammers and metal poles, break the deposits up into chunks and load them into baskets. Balancing a pair of baskets on a bamboo pole over his shoulder, each man makes his way over the crater rim and down 3 km to the collection point on the road below. The sulphur is then weighed and awaits delivery to the processing plant 19 km. away. Near the collection point is a row of shacks, which are used by miners who live too far away to return home every night.

A load is typically 50–70 kg., though according to some sources it may be 80 or even 100 kg. The purchasing cooperative pays 350 rupiahs (almost 2 p.) a kilo, so for delivering two standard loads a day – some deliver three – a man earns the princely sum of 42,000 rupiahs (£2.31).

Worse than tear gas
Miners have a life expectancy of “not much over 30 years.” Carrying heavy loads up and down steep slopes progressively cripples them. They are constantly exposed to sulphur – both the solid sulphur on the ground and in their baskets and the acidic sulphurous fumes that intermittently waft their way. Their only protection is a rag stuffed in the mouth and the temporary shelter offered by a few big rocks along the path.

Sulphur is a corrosive irritant. It smells of shit – though a chemist would say that shit smells of sulphur. It gets all over the skin and into the eyes, mouth, teeth, nose and lungs, damaging everything it touches. It makes you dizzy, so maintaining your balance is a constant struggle. So is breathing. A tourist remarks in a blog that his exposure inside the crater was worse than getting tear-gassed.

Miners’ reports of day-to-day changes in the severity of these effects are used in assessing the risk of an impending eruption.

Hell and volcanoes
Why does the metaphor of hell come so readily to mind when describing this environment? I strongly suspect it is because the very idea of hell has its origin in people’s experience with volcanoes. The bible refers to hell as a place of “fire and brimstone” and it was with a rain of fire and brimstone that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Brimstone is just an old name for sulphur.

A tourist attraction

The conditions of many jobs are rarely if ever witnessed by outsiders. Many people from various countries, however, have seen the miners of Kawah Ijen at their labour. The volcano is a tourist attraction and tour advertisements mention the miners as part of the exotic scenery of the place. When they get the chance, miners take time off to act as tourist guides: they are hired for 20-30,000 rupiahs (£1.10--£1.65) for half a day.

A fair bit can be learnt from the accounts that tourists place on the internet, though perhaps more about the tourists than the miners. An Australian student has posted an unusually sensitive essay. He recounts his conversation with a young man reluctantly going to the volcano for the first time. He has no choice, he explains. His family is poor and landless. His father, apparently already dead, had also mined sulphur, leaving home well before dawn to walk the almost 20 km. from their village – although sometimes he would rent a place in one of the shacks and stay at the volcano for two weeks at a time. As a child he used to see his father in daylight only on days when he was too sick or tired to work. Now the young man is taking his father’s place.

The origin of landlessness

The student does not think to ask when or how the family had lost its land. Landlessness in Indonesia has its origin in the nineteenth century, under Dutch rule, when the land of farmers who could not pay the land tax was stolen from them and handed to colonists for plantations of export crops. The tax, of course, was imposed precisely for this purpose. (The British played the same trick in their African colonies.)

When Indonesia gained independence in 1945 the land was not returned but claimed by the state, which took over the role of the plantation owners. That is why the bus to the volcano passes by coffee and mango plantations. Now the government is promoting the cultivation of an oilseed plant called jatropha for biofuel exports, despite its toxic nuts and leaves. The landless will labour in hell in order to keep filling the voracious maw of the motor car as the oil runs out.

Why not mechanize?

Why, in our high-tech age, does a horrible job like sulphur mining have to be done by such primitive means, by the hard labour of “human donkeys”? Surely it could be mechanized? I see no technical barrier. A socialist society, to the extent that it needed to mine sulphur at all, would certainly mechanize the process.

One possibility that springs to mind is the use of specialized robots. A major advantage of robots is that they can be designed to function in environments hostile to human beings, such as the surface of another planet. And being inside a volcanic crater is rather like being on another planet. In both cases the atmosphere is unsuitable for human respiration. In fact, there are thought to be “solphatara-like environments” on Mars.

Probably sulphur could be extracted from volcanoes perfectly well by much less sophisticated mechanical means. It would suffice to extend the pipes over (or, if necessary, through) the crater wall and empty them into sealed tanks mounted on trucks. Possibly some pumping would be required. The engineers installing the system would be properly equipped with protective clothing and oxygen cylinders.

Such an investment is evidently considered unprofitable. That reflects the low value – close to zero – that the profit system places on the health, welfare and lives of the poor.

Technological regression

Despite its enormous and growing potential, the scope for applying technology within capitalism is limited. A key constraint is the availability of cheap labour, which reduces the savings from mechanization below the level of its costs. When operations are transferred to regions where labour costs are lower, the result is likely to be regression to more primitive technologies.

One striking example is shipbreaking – the dismantling of decommissioned vessels to recover the steel. In the 1970s this was a highly mechanized industrial operation carried out at European docks. Ships are now broken at “graveyards” on beaches in countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey, where workers labour with rudimentary tools, wearing little or no protective gear despite exposure to toxic fumes, gas explosions and fires, asbestos dust and falling pieces of metal.

The illusion of freedom

In the May Socialist Standard I wrote about another group of desperately poor people (men, women and children) engaged in hellish labour – scavenging for saleable items in a radioactive dump in Kyrgyzstan. Clearly it is not an exceptional situation.

For me the most remarkable thing is this. Although these jobs are comparable in horror to the worst of the tasks that were imposed on prisoners in Nazi and Stalinist labour camps, people do them of their own “free” will, without the least hint of physical or legal compulsion. They can leave at any time. No one will stop them. But they don’t.

Their freedom, of course, is illusory because the consequence of leaving would be starvation for themselves and their families. And yet the illusion – the economists’ fiction of the “free market actor” – suffices to dull perception of their plight. If the miners at work in the crater were prisoners labouring under physical compulsion, the tourists observing them would surely be a little less complacent. Perhaps some human rights organization would even get angry on their behalf.

And so the sulphur miners keep going. Because capitalism denies them all other access to the resources they need to live. And they want to live. Even knowing that they will be dead by their early thirties. Even if their lives seem – to those of us whose choices are less stark – hardly worth living. The survival instinct is strong!

Stefan

Cooking the Books: Marx and corals (2008)

The Cooking the Books column from the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his latest book, Coral, A Pessimist in Paradise, the biologist and popular science writer Steve Jones attributes to Marx the statement that “we see mighty coral reefs rising from the depth of the ocean into islands and firm land, yet each individual depositor is puny, weak, and contemptible”. Marx was something of a polymath, but an expert on corals?

These words do appear in Capital – in chapter 13 of Volume I on “Co-operation” – but were not written by Marx. He was quoting a passage from a book by Richard Jones making the point that by working together humans can construct things which they would not otherwise be able to.

The Rev. Richard Jones (1790-1855) was the Rev. Malthus’s successor as Professor of Political Economy at the East India College in Haileybury. Marx held Jones in fairly high esteem – a whole chapter of Theories of Surplus Value is given over to a discussion of his views – because he did not regard capitalism as an ideal system deduced from assumptions about human nature but as just one historically evolved way of organising the production and distribution of wealth.

But to return to Jones the Biologist. After misattributing the quote to Marx, he continues, believing himself to be summarising Marx’s view:

“Every atoll proved that collective action, by polyps or by people, was a natural law. Society had been ruined by an altogether artificial medium called cash, which matured into capital and led to exploitation. In an ideal world all would give what they could and get what they needed. In time the state – and money – would lose its raison d’être and a global system of mutual aid would begin” (chapter III).

Although Marx did want a society without state or money in which people “would give what they could and get what they needed”, he did not base the case for this on what happened in nature. That was the position set out by the anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book Mutual Aid, A Factor in Evolution.

Kropotkin’s position has an obvious attraction for socialists as it would turn the tables and make socialism natural and capitalism unnatural. His book has always been popular amongst socialists as an answer to the Social Darwinists who argued that Darwin’s “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest” applied to human society too and that any attempt to limit it would lead to the degeneration of the human race.

Kropotkin sought to counter this argument by bringing forward evidence that the struggle for individual survival was not the only factor in biological evolution but that co-operation and mutual aid both within and between species were too. Kropotkin was a scientist in his own right – he had done some pioneering work on the geography of Siberia – and Jones says his contribution was taken seriously by biologists who called his theory “mutualism” (not to be confused with the market anarchism of that other anarchist Proudhon). It is now called “symbiosis” (literally, living together) and is a recognised fact of nature.

The trouble is that, whereas there is agreement on this fact, there is no agreement on its interpretation. While Kropotkin saw this as an argument for a co-operative, communist society, others have argued that it is not really mutual aid but rather mutual exploitation. As a self-confessed pessimist Jones tends to agree, but he does make the point that the science of biology can’t contribute anything to what he calls “philosophy” beyond supplying facts. He’s basically right, though we would express it differently: that conclusions about how human society should be organised cannot be derived from the behaviour of other organisms. The Social Darwinists (and their latter-day incarnation, the Sociobiologists) are wrong to try to do this but so, even if unfortunately, are Socialist Darwinists like Kropotkin. Marx was right to steer clear of such arguments and base the case for a stateless, moneyless communist society on an analysis of human society not biology.