Greasy Pole: Like father like son (2007)

The Greasy Pole column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no reason to believe that he was asked what he thought about it but Tony Benn has been transmogrified from an unbending leftwing critic, protester and campaigner into a National Treasure. Manacled in this identity he will find that participation in any future marches, petitions or demonstrations will provoke only the kind of fond indulgence normally given to senile dogs. In addition Benn may be disturbed by the fact that no offspring has followed in his stumbling political footsteps, for his son Hilary made his attitude clear from the very beginning of his time as an MP: “I am a Benn but not a Bennite” – which may be translated as “please forget all that daring but embarrassing stuff I once raved on about – my career is more important to me than any principles you may have attributed to me”.

We may ask why there are so few examples of admiring offspring following a parent into a successful career in politics – which is, after all, supposed to be an honourable profession with rewards both material and in public esteem. Is it just a matter of rebellious youth defying parental assumptions? Or is there something about the work and the esteem which discourages?

The Greenwoods

Arthur Greenwood was a leading Labour figure, an MP from 1922 until his death in 1954, who held a number of Cabinet posts. In the chaotic 1929/31 Labour government he was Minister of Health and in 1935 he became Clement Attlee’s deputy leader. In the wartime coalition Churchill made him Minister Without Portfolio and then in 1941 Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee – a grandly titled body with the even grander job of organising post-war reconstruction. This committee was expected to produce practical proposals covering a wide range of spheres of action and to this end Greenwood recruited a number of economists and others who thought highly enough of themselves to believe that, at that time of extreme peril for British capitalism, their opinions would have any effect on governmental policy.

In any case the very fact of Greenwood’s appointment was evidence of the low priority given to post-war “reconstruction” for his serious drink problem made him quite incapable of keeping up with the demands of the job. Mercifully, in 1942 he was sacked (the Committee had met only four times) and the government could get on with the serious business of organising the slaughter.

His dismissal from the Cabinet left Greenwood free to take on the (unpaid) unofficial leadership of the opposition. The style of his “opposition” may be judged by his contribution to a debate, in February 1943, on the Beveridge Report, heartily welcomed by so many war-weary people under the impression that the type of reforms Beveridge was proposing would be the reward for all their suffering during the war. The coalition, however, was not to be rushed into any such extravagance and Greenwood, by pre-arrangement with the government, introduced an analgesic motion greeting the Report with the meaningless hope that it would – sometime, somehow, somewhere – be implemented.

Anthony Greenwood

In the post war Labour government Greenwood held a couple of minor jobs but his health steadily declined; in 1950, virtually immobile, he was brought to the Commons in a wheelchair by his son Anthony. “He looked dying” recorded Tory MP Henry Channon, “…Anthony, also a Member, has a Surbiton accent but a pleasant, well-soaped appearance”. That was alright then, everything well set for another, eminently acceptable, Greenwood to take his place in the most exclusive club in the world where they do the business of managing British capitalism.

Greenwood Junior was among those who conform to whatever the priorities of capitalism demand while protesting that their principles as left wingers would prevent them behaving in that way. A member of the anti-nuclear movement from its early days as the Hydrogen Bomb National Campaign Committee, he stood for the party leadership against Hugh “Fight And Fight Again” Gaitskell, who won with almost three quarters of the votes cast. Gaitskell’s death in 1963 brought Wilson into the leadership and Greenwood was plucked from the back benches to become Secretary of State for the Colonies. This was either a mistake by Wilson or an example of labyrinthine subtlety for he had grumbled to Barbara Castle that “Tony has no brains. I soon realised that all he is good at is public relations” – a breathtaking sneer from one who was himself a keen student of the shadowy art of public relations.

Anthony Greenwood had responsibility for a number of decisions which would have outraged any self-respecting left winger. In 1964 there was concern, in London and Washington, that a general election in British Guiana would bring into power a government led by Cheddi Jagan, who was likely to pursue policies unfavourable to American interests in the area. Stifling his earlier reservations for such subversive, undemocratic activity, Greenwood co-operated with the Americans in an intelligence campaign successfully aimed at undermining Jagan’s chances in the election. In 1965 the Americans had designs on building a nuclear base on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean. The problem was that the islanders did not want to leave so they were removed forcibly, through deportation or attrition; for example Britain bought the only employer on the island and then closed it down. By 1975 the job was finished and the base was there, where once the islanders fished, farmed and harvested the copra.

Hilary Benn

There is nothing in the family antecedents for any existent Greenwood to take pride in. But the tradition, or whatever it is, lives on; the grandson of Anthony Greenwood, Leo Murray, is a co-founder of Plane Stupid, an organisation which in its own way tries to defy the realities of capitalism by campaigning against airport expansion. Watch out for Leo Murray; there is time for him also to get into Parliament, become a minister and forget the days when he was devoted to trying to make capitalism behave out of character.

Such has been the story of so many politicians, among them Hilary Benn, a fourth generation MP who began as a local councillor at Ealing in London. That was in 1979, when Ealing surprised itself by electing a council which, with policies which were presented as eradicating discrimination but which on balance probably had the opposite effect, made them contenders with others such as Camden and Hackney for the title of loony lefties. At the same time Ealing council significantly upped the local rate which, to voters who are under the delusion that such things are important to them, was little short of electoral suicide. In 1983 and 1987 it almost certainly helped to increase the majority for the sitting Tory MP for Ealing North, where Benn was making his first attempt to get into Parliament. Avoiding another failure at that constituency, in 1999 Benn was returned at a by-election for Leeds Central. He has been the most compliant of Labour MPs, voting for ID cards, university top-up fees, the war in Iraq, replacing Trident…and he has moved smoothly up the greasy pole, to his present Cabinet job in charge of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Enough has been said and written about Hilary Benn’s father Tony Benn, left wing irritant turned National Treasure. It is however useful to remember that he was a minister in as succession of Labour governments during the 1960s and1970s, beginning with Postmaster General for Harold Wilson in 1964 and including the misery and chaos of the infamous Winter of Discontent. Among his notable achievements was his very own carbon footprinting when he oversaw development of the Concorde airliner which, apart from what it did to the ozone layer, was the rich person’s exclusive mode of air travel.

If the history of family politicians tells us that successive generations learn little or nothing from experience – well the same, even more so, must be said about the people who, in obdurate masochism, vote to keep them in power.

Ivan

Coronavirus crisis. Ventilator fiasco - Updated (2020)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

Over the coming months, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States are going to come down with severe forms of COVID-19 infection. How many of them will pull through and how many will die of suffocation depends crucially on the availability of life-saving ventilators in the intensive care units of hospitals. There are only 62,000 ventilators in service across the country. A recent survey found that even acute-care hospitals have on average only eleven ‘full-feature’ ventilators. Failing urgent acquisition of many tens of thousands of additional ventilators, hospitals will be overwhelmed as the pandemic spreads.

In a desperate attempt to mitigate the disaster, hospital staff are preparing to link up each of their ventilators to four patients. A video posted on YouTube shows them how to do it. As the instructor admits, this is an ‘off-label use’ of a machine designed to serve one patient at a time. I can’t help wondering how well it is going to work.

Go for it auto execs!

Initially Trump took the orthodox ‘neo-liberal’ view that there was no reason for government to get involved. ‘Unfettered free enterprise’ could be trusted to rise to the occasion. However, he ended up brokering a deal for a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems. General Motors would retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Indiana as a ventilator production facility using Ventec’s technology. A government order for 80,000 ventilators was to be fulfilled in just two months. Trump’s enthusiasm was unbounded. ‘Go for it auto execs,’ he tweeted excitedly on March 22, ‘let’s see how good you are?’ [1]

Then suddenly it was announced that the deal was off. Officials in the Administration were unhappy about the cost – over a billion dollars, a large part of which had to be paid upfront. True, it worked out at only $13,000 per ventilator – not bad, considering that the machines usually sell within the range $25–50,000. ‘But for Chrissake,’ lamented officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ‘for that money we could buy eighteen F-35 fighter jets!’ And if you think I made that up for ironic effect then you are wrong. They really find it distasteful to spend large sums of government money for the benefit of ordinary people. 

An interdepartmental working group under the direction of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (who was admitted to college only after his dad paid a hefty bribe – I mean ‘donation’) is now exploring the issue in detail. The GM-Ventec project remains on the table, but another dozen or so other proposals are also under consideration. The target of 80,000 ventilators has been whittled down to 20,000 and then to 7,500. So a plan to more than double the number of functioning ventilators ended up as a scheme to increase that number by just 12%.

You see, some officials are worried that too many ventilators may be ordered. What are they to do with the surplus?

Exclamation points

Give the guy credit where it is due. Trump must have started to get impatient, because on March 27 he issued the following statement:

  Today, I signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to accept, perform, and prioritize Federal contracts for ventilators. Our negotiations with General Motors regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course. General Motors was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.

The Defense Production Act of 1950 authorizes the President to require businesses to sign contracts and fulfill orders deemed necessary for defense, but it has also been invoked occasionally in non-military emergencies. Democrats in Congress were urging him to invoke it in the current crisis. Trump was under pressure from corporate CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce not to do so.  

Trump then fired off tweets to General Motors and Ford, which was working on its own plan to adapt car parts for ventilators, declaring that they ‘MUST START MAKING VENTILATORS NOW!!!!!!’ (yes, in capitals and followed by six exclamation points). 

It seems that this ‘very stable genius’ — as Trump has described himself — momentarily forgot how capitalism works, even though most of the time he understands this very well. How else could he fondly imagine that a few presidential exclamation points might induce a corporation to set aside considerations of profitability in order to satisfy a human need, however urgent?     

As of this writing (April 4), no new facility for the production of ventilators is yet in operation in the United States. 

An even harsher light

But there is another aspect to this problem — one that casts the functioning of capitalism in an even harsher light.

While American hospitals have only 62,000 ventilators in service, they have in storage a very large number – estimates run as high as 100,000 – older ventilators that could be brought back into use if repaired. Hospitals, however, are unable to have these machines repaired due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturers (Siemens, Philips, General Electric Healthcare, Medtronic, Ventec Life Systems, Hamilton Medical), who also fight legislative challenges to their repair monopoly.[2] 

First of all, purchasers of ventilators and independent technicians are denied access to the documentation and software required for repairs. Second, unauthorized attempts to repair a ventilator are blocked by special ‘anti-repair software.’ Third, a hospital that hires a technician who manages to overcome these obstacles and repair a ventilator will face legal ramifications.

Of course, it is not only medical equipment manufacturers who deliberately make it very difficult or very expensive or altogether impossible to repair their products. Manufacturers of computers, tractors, and many other devices do exactly the same thing. It is one of the ways by which they artificially shorten the service life of their products with a view to ‘persuading’ consumers to buy new ones. The phenomenon is known as built-in obsolescence. It is a normal feature of capitalism and a major source of the enormous waste generated by that system. 

A waste of labor, a waste of resources, and – as in this case – a waste of human life.

Added and updated April 4th

Figures that don’t add up

The prospects of the pandemic in the United States vary widely from one place to another, depending on the timing and strength of the response from city and state governments. At one extreme are places like Seattle and the San Francisco – Bay Area where strong measures were adopted at an early stage and have had stellar results, comparable with those achieved by South Korea and Hong Kong. Here the pandemic is already on the wane; numbers infected are relatively low; hospitals have coped well.

However, such ‘oases’ are few and far between. More typical are the many areas where measures, though in effect by late March, began only after significant delay. These include such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, and New Orleans. In quite a few of these ‘hotspots’ hospitals are already in crisis.

Even worse are likely outcomes in areas where in early April adequate measures had still not been taken. Most but not all such areas are in the Southern ‘bible belt.’ Here, for instance, religious services are still being held – sometimes for the explicit purpose of vanquishing the virus by prayer or exorcism.

For the time being, however, media attention has focused on the plight of New York City.

At a press conference on March 28, Andrew M. Cuomo, governor of New York State, stated that according to projections New York State was going to need 30-40,000 more ventilators by May 1. The Clown Prince responded that according to his projections New York did not need so many, though Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, MD, the immunologist who serves on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that he saw no reason to doubt Cuomo’s estimate. The Clown Prince urged Trump to ‘push back’ against Cuomo.

Where were the additional ventilators to come from?

Can they be purchased? The trouble is that high demand and short supply have created a seller’s market with sky-high prices. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of coordination at the national level, which forces state governments to bid against one another and against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. [3]

The Strategic National Stockpile is supposed to supplement local medical supplies during a public health emergency. And federal authorities have sent New York State 400 ventilators from this source – 200 earmarked for New York City and 200 for the rest of the state. ‘What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000?’ asked Cuomo. Not to mention that many have parts missing and do not work. It is unfortunate that New York State has a Democratic governor, as only Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis get their requests met quickly and in full by the Trump Administration. [4]

At a press conference on April 4, Governor Cuomo announced that 1,000 ventilators would be arriving by air later that day – a donation ‘facilitated’ by the Chinese government. The State of Oregon, which is now over the hump of the pandemic, is donating, unsolicited, another 140 ventilators to New York. [5] 

Yet somehow these figures do not add up, though I have checked several times to make sure. 400 + 1,000 + 140 equals only 1,540, which is nowhere near 30,000.       

Who will be left to die?

So it seems that hospitals in New York – and other places – are going to be overwhelmed – meaning, in particular, that they are going to run out of ventilators. What happens then? Who will be hooked up to a ventilator? Who will be left to die?

According to a TV talk show broadcast from New York on April 3, these life-and-death decisions will be based on ratings that combine three factors:

• age of patient (younger people have priority)
• the patient’s state of health prior to infection (people otherwise in good health have priority)

health insurance status (people with ‘good’ insurance or able to pay for themselves; people with less ‘good’ insurance; people who are uninsured)
Those with the highest ratings get a ventilator all to themselves; those with the lowest ratings are left to die; those in the middle share a ventilator with other patients.


In other words, a class system has been devised – as befits a class society.

Stephen Shenfield

Notes

[1] This account relies mainly on three articles published in the Daily Kos on March 27: here and here and here.

[2] They do this both directly and through their lobbying group, AdvaMed. See Jason Koebler, ‘Hospitals Need to Repair Ventilators. Manufacturers Are Making That Impossible,’ Vice, March 18.

[3] Daily Kos, April 2.

[4] Daily Kos, April 2.

[5] See https://time.com/5815687/cuomo-ventilators-china-coronavirus/. It is not clear who in China is actually footing the bill. 

Corrupt America and Pure England. (1928)

From the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our October issue we left Mr. Baker gravely pointing out to a sullen House of Commons that there were many right honourable gentlemen, whose conceptions of what was right and honourable were inadequate. Doubtless the right hon. gentlemen will endeavour to put other conceptions of those qualities before Mr. Baker, before the Wireless and Cable Merger question goes off the stage. He went on to speak of some of the big people, as he called them, in the business. There was Sir Robert Kindersley, mentioned before, who was managing director of Lazard Bros., and also one of the directors of the Bank of England. His firm, Lazard Bros., were represented on the board of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Electric Supply Co. Lazard Bros, and S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., were associated with the Whitehall Securities Corporation, Ltd., which holds half the share capital of Messrs. Pearson & Dorman & Long, Ltd., whose electric power interests in the Kent coalfield interlock with the County of London Electric Supply Co. S. Pearson & Sons completely controlled Whitehall Electric Investment, Ltd., along with the Power and Traction Finance Co. Ltd., in the Hungarian Trans-Danubian' Electrical Co., Ltd. Messrs. S. Pearson & Sons are associated with Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co., the G.E.P. of Berlin and Callenders Cable and Construction Co. Mr. Baker expressed himself as puzzled at the attitude of The Times newspaper, in view of his previous feeling that The Times at least is a national newspaper. And then he made the discovery that the Hon. R. H. Brand, one of the directors of The Times, was also a director of Lazard Bros. Another director is Sir Campbell Stuart, who is a member of the Imperial Wireless Conference, which is settling the whole thing. After briefly referring to the ramifications of Hambro’s Bank, he next referred to Mr. Szarvasy. So far as is known, he was a mere shareholder in this country in 1910, but from 1912, became substitute director for Baron Springer, of Vienna. To-day he is managing director and chairman of the British, Foreign and Colonial Corporation, and a director of the Dunlop Rubber Co. When Lord Rothermere formed the Daily Mail Trust, it was through Mr. Szarvasy that the British Foreign and Colonial Corporation issued a mortgage debenture for £9,000,000. Mr. Szarvasy is also a director of the Danube Navigation Co., the Guardian Assurance Co., and Martins Bank. With the late Alfred Lowenstein, and Albert Pam, of J. H. Schroeder & Co., he is on the directors’ committee of the Hydro-Electric Securities Corporation of Quebec. This last belongs to the group of interests which control the power used by the Canadian Marconi Co., Ltd. Mr. Szarvasy is also chairman (and Lord Derby, president) of the Anglo-French Banking Corporation.

Proceeding with the big people, as Mr. Baker put it, there is Sir Charles Coupar Barrie, who is linked with Mr. Szarvasy on the directorate of the Danube Navigation Co. Sir Coupar Barrie is a member of the Post Office Advisory Council. There is Mr. F. R. S. Balfour, associated with Mr. Szarvasy on the Guardian Assurance Co., is also a member of the Bank of Montreal. Both these gentlemen have recently been added to the board of the Marconi Company. A third addition is Sir Frederick Sykes, who has been appointed Governor of Bombay. He was a director of the Daily Mail Trust, the Marconi Telegraph Co., the Underground Railways of London, the London Express Newspaper, Ltd., the Sunday Sketch and the Sunday Herald. And to-day he is Governor of Bombay. Of course as a Governor, he should give up his other jobs as director. But still, it is interesting, isn’t it: yesterday a Daily Mail governor, to-day a Bombay Governor!

There are a few more columns of similar engaging facts, and it will be well worth the while of anyone interested to obtain a copy of Hansard, for Thursday, August 2nd. It should be carefully read over two or three times between now and the next General Election. Then, when you are passively listening to the fervid oratory of the sleek, oily, persuasive gentlemen who are anxious to serve their country once more, permit yourself to reflect on the vast and intricate network of interlocked capitalist interests, and to wonder just where the orator before you, fits in. At the moment, it may be useful to remember that the catchword for the next Election has not yet made its appearance. Doubtless behind closed doors, what they will call the plan of campaign is now being carefully sketched out, including possibly Another “Red Letter,” or some similar fooltrap. But this can safely be prophesied. Each of the capitalist parties will assure you by all they hold sacred, that never in the whole history of the planet was there such a set of moral, virtuous, upright, self-sacrificing patriots as those now seeking your suffrages as so-and-so candidates. Likewise, never hitherto, has this burdened earth been required to support on its suffering breast such a vile, scurrilous, inept rabble as is comprised in the other party. You will be emphatically assured that between the one party and the other, there is fixed a great gulf, a yawning abyss.

But then, if you have read your Hansard, and your Socialist Standard aright, you will perceive that interlocking directorates and international capital make light work of any gulf. You will see your Melchetts and your Derbys, your Szarvasvs and Lowensteins, your French Bankers and German Barons, your Hungarian financiers and Canadian company promoters, all without distinction of race, religion, sex or creed, joined in one happy family whose name is PROFIT. It is for you to see behind the trickery of Elections, the pomp of ceremonial, the intoxication of oratory, to the reality beyond, capital exploiting labour. You will notice, if you listen to one of our speakers, that we do not divide our political opponents into good men and bad men, clever men and numbskulls, upright men and tricky men, rich men and poor men. No! We go deeper than that. We see society divided into two distinct classes, those on the one side who own our means of existence, and on the other, those who have to work for them and who are in consequence the slaves of the first. This system is an excellent one—for the Melchetts, the Derbys and the rest of them. One does not expect them to favour an alteration of it. Therefore, when they, or their friends, appear before you at Election time, a vote for them however obtained and however given, is a vote that society shall remain divided as at present, with a few very rich and a vast number poor. But the system is not an excellent one for you, and for me. It is necessary, therefore, that we band our greatly superior number together, and appoint our own representatives to Parliament who will not spend their time in delivering marvellous, flowery speeches, to sullen, bitterly hostile opponents, but who, when in a majority shall use the whole powers of Parliament to take our means of life from the hands of private profit-makers and convert them into socially owned tools of production. As Mr. Baker’s speech has revealed and as we have tried to make clear frequently in our columns, day after day, at amazing speed, capital is actively engaged in linking up the civilised world’s life-units into closely knit monopolistic trusts. There is only one alternative, Socialism, and there is only one party fighting for it, the Socialist Party. Capital is moving, rapidly, ceaselessly, remorselessly. What are you doing?

W. T. Hopley