Just Stop Oil: the failure of a tactic (2025)

From the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just Stop Oil was set up at the beginning of 2022 as an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (XR) which had been launched four years earlier. The disagreement was over tactics not strategy. Both were committed to the strategy of getting 3.5 percent of the population to engage in non-violent, disruptive civil disobedience, the minority considered sufficient to spark off a popular movement to topple a government and impose a new policy. This figure was based on calculations by Erica Chenoweth, an American academic.

XR say on their website that they are committed to:‘mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change – using ideas such as “momentum-driven organising” to achieve this’.

At one time they had added: ‘The change needed is huge and yet achievable. No regime in the 20th century managed to stand against an uprising which had the active participation of up to 3.5% of the population (for Erica Chenoweth’s research, see bit.ly/3Gn0NoV)’.

Roger Hallam, the driving force behind JSO, has put it this way: ‘You can basically save the next generation with 2 per cent of the American population mobilised, engaged in an intense intra-relationship between high-level disruption and intense mobilisation’ (Times, 24 October 2022).

And in his book Common Sense in the 21st Century (subtitled Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown And Social Collapse) he writes:

‘We should not make the mistake of thinking “the people have to rise” in the sense of the majority of the population. We need a few to rise up and most of the rest of the population to be willing to “give it a go”.’

‘Momentum-driven organising’

The formal aim of XR was a non-violent rebellion to get a government that would adopt measures to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. Hallam, one of XR’s founders but more hard-headed and a more experienced agitator than the others, considered this too remote an aim to mobilise the 3.5 percent minority. In his view, the aim needed to be more concrete, but also one that was more immediately achievable. Initially, he chose ‘Insulate Britain’, to get the government to insulate every home in the country, as the immediate mobilising aim. Then at the beginning of 2022 he switched to stopping further drilling for oil in the North Sea.

His thinking was the opposite of the Trotskyists. They put forward demands that they know can’t be achieved under capitalism in the expectation that those they get to support the demand will, when the campaign fails, turn to them for leadership to overthrow the capitalist state. Hallam’s view was to put forward a demand that could be achieved and that, when it was, could be presented as a victory for the movement, giving it self-confidence to carry on struggling for more, and more ambitious, objectives, eventually the toppling of the government and its replacement by one seriously committed to reaching zero net carbon in a few years.

We don’t have to judge whose tactic — Hallam’s ‘momentum-driven organising’ or the Trotskyists’ ‘transitional demands’— is the less realistic since we reject the basic assumption of both self-appointed vanguards of a leadership manipulating followers. If there is going to be successful and lasting system change a majority must want and understand what it involves and actively take part in bringing it about.

Self-delusion

At the end of March Just Stop Oil announced that it was disbanding. The formal reason given for this was that its goal had been achieved. Oil had been Stopped. The current government had suspended giving further licences to drill for oil in the North Sea. Their website proclaims that ‘we have kept 4.4 billions of oil in the ground’ and that this was ‘one of the world’s most effective climate campaigns’ (juststopoil.org). This is just bombast and self-delusion.

The suspension of licences to drill in the North Sea had nothing to do with their campaign of disruptive civil disobedience. If anything, that was counter-productive as the stunts they pulled inconvenienced and annoyed people. It was in fact brought about through the ballot box when a new government, committed to suspending new drilling, was elected. That said, should the ‘economic headwinds’ prove too strong the government could easily reverse its position and may well.

In any event, JSO’s self-proclaimed ‘victory’ did not give the movement the momentum anticipated and so, from their own point of view, they failed. Their only achievement has been 15 of their members in prison under legislation brought in by the government to counter their actions. That includes Hallam himself who is serving four years, though he probably thinks that having martyrs is part of ‘momentum-driven organising’. That will prove to be a delusion too.

Their disbanding statement does, however, say that ‘nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms’. This is a change from previous statements whose language suggested that they would be satisfied with a change of government or of governance or even just of government policy. But what kind of revolution — minority-led or majority — and with what aim — a change in the basis of society from class ownership to common ownership or something less?

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: Scots Nationalism (2025)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Today the SNP seems to have left the lunatic fringe behind and appears as a modern, mass political party using the techniques of public relations and advertising industries to give it a new slick image, and the Executive Suit has replaced the kilt as standard dress for the party candidates. Not only does the party have a large and youthful membership of 120,000 but they carry out their propaganda with a style and enthusiasm which leaves the older reformist parties gasping. At the October general election they all but demolished the Liberals, hammered the Tories, and promise it will be Labour’s turn next time. (…)

The nationalists have shown they are fast learners when it comes to political cynicism. They pretend to the workers that should independence come then all the oil revenues will automatically go into the Scottish exchequer and be used mainly for the benefit of the workers. They must know that the United Kingdom would get some of the revenue as part of any deal made over the granting of independence, and that the capitalist class in Scotland would insist that oil revenues be used to reduce the burden of taxation which rests on them.

Will the Labour government’s proposed Scottish Assembly, but still under Westminster, outflank the SNP? This is possible since it is doubtful if the electorate in Scotland want complete independence as various opinion polls have shown. However, as the Assembly will have no more success in abolishing capitalism’s problems than the SNP’s claim that only full independence can succeed, it will probably gain more support.

Should self-government eventually be established the SNP will discover that they cannot will or legislate away those problems of capitalism. No country in the world, no matter how independent or rich in resources, has yet succeeded in eliminating poverty, unemployment, insecurity, etc. For the working class there will be wages while they are working and pensions when they are too old or disabled.

[From the article 'Scots Nationalism - Part 2', from the Socialist Standard, April 1975.]

News in Review: The Pope and peace (1965)

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

The Pope and peace

Of course it made some nice headlines for the newspapers; but the one thing the Pope's visit to New York last month was not concerned with was peace.

It is difficult to imagine anyone being taken in by the Pope’s speech, so numerous and familiar are the appeals and declarations which are constantly being made on the subject—often by politicians who are up to their necks in war.

None of the world leaders who make these appeals ever has the slightest difficulty in excusing the wars in which he gets involved. None of them ever has any difficulty in excusing the most horrible of atrocities; all of them are concerned with the national interests of their ruling class before any considerations of humanity.

In one way, it was fitting that the Pope should make his appeal at the United Nations, for that more than anything highlighted its ineffectuality. UNO has a function when the smaller nations are involved in a comparatively trivial dispute, which the bigger powers want to see cleared up. But when the stakes are higher, it is a different matter.

UNO was helpless in Korea. It could do nothing over the Berlin crisis. The vague noises it made over Cuba were not allowed to divert Russia and America from their stern purpose. It stands helplessly by now, as the war rages in Vietnam.

Just as the great powers of capitalism do not allow UNO to affect the way in which they protect their interests, so they do not tolerate interference from religious leaders. The Pope has his uses to capitalism, but international politics cannot be settled in the Vatican.

In any case, what are any appeals for peace worth? War in the modern world does not happen by accident, or because the leaders of world religion have omitted to make a speech about peace. War is a direct result of the nature of capitalism and there is no more ardent supporter of that system than the Catholic Church.

That is why Catholics are in no two minds, when a war breaks out. With the blessing of their Church, they take arms—often killing their fellow Catholics on the other side.

The time for a religious leader to speak out is when the shooting starts. But to do so would be to challenge the capitalist social system; it would be to expose religious hypocrisy, with which the churches constantly divert working class energies from the essential task of building a world of peace and brotherhood.

It is only necessary to state this proposition, to see how ridiculous it is.

New York had quite a time during the Pope’s flying visit. And when he was gone they went back to the business of running capitalism; in factories and offices the American workers were still exploited, the Stock Exchange went on with its dealings, in the South the Negro was still persecuted. And the Pentagon was still running the show in Vietnam.

Indonesia

“PALACE COLONEL OUSTS SOEKARNO.'’ 

“JAKARTA CLAIMS COUP CRUSHED.”

Conflicting headlines—always a sign that nobody is quite sure what is going on, but everybody’s doing their best—brought Indonesia once again onto the front pages. Not that Indonesia is out of the news for very long. This “Republic of Islands”, as one newspaper aptly described it, is the largest country in South East Asia.

Like so many new States that were once colonies of a European power, Indonesia is a rather ramshackle affair, with great difficulty in holding its scattered parts together. The boundaries of these colonies were largely fixed by what the colonisers could grab, and hold against the attacks of their greedy rivals.

They are not always particularly easy to administer as an independent state. In addition Indonesia has terribly poverty. This has not however prevented their new ruling class from embarking on a continual policy of Imperialist expansion, aimed at making Indonesian the dominant power in South East Asia.

One’s mind goes back to 1945, when the “Dutch East Indies” proclaimed their' Independence, and began a fight against Holland. It was one of the first to do so, and great hopes were held by the “Left” as to their prospects.

“Australian Unions” organised strikes to hold up shipments of arms, and “Hands off Indonesia” placards were carried on May Day in London. Independence was gained, and their followed the usual process of exploitation by the new ruling class that had replaced the old.

The main conclusion was that this revolt, which appears to have been “Communist” inspired, would weaken Indonesia’s ties with China. This may be the case, but should anybody happen to be worrying, if it suits the interests of the ruling classes in these two countries, the ties will soon tighten up again.

Gas strike

Towards the end of last September British Petroleum announced that they had struck natural gas beneath the North Sea, although they were not sure that they had found enough to make it a paying proposition.

This was the first strike of any importance in the search which eight groups are carrying on in the North Sea, at a cost somewhere near £100 million. At that price, they obviously hope to find something worthwhile and the news from BP gave them the first glimmering of hope that they will do so.

Of course, the press rhapsodised upon the benefits which the gas strike is supposed to be bringing the people of this country. But a couple of weeks later another piece of news put the matter in a different perspective.

On 6th October the Dutch and British governments signed an agreement which fixed the exact line dividing the areas over which each of them has the right to grant licences to drill for gas and oil. The British government already had applications for licences from the big oil firms in their pending trays.

What this means is that, in the search for valuable raw materials and fuels, the British and Dutch ruling classes have simply annexed the North Sea, giving themselves the legal powers to do so in the process.

This is something like what happened when the newborn capitalist powers were opening up the world to their manufacturers and commerce. They simply moved in and stole vast areas of the world, suppressed the inhabitants, fixed the borders, signed agreements with other international robbers and gave licences and concessions to their own companies to exploit the place. 

There is, of course, no need to suppress the fish in the North Sea. But the carve-up of the area could be as much a source of dispute in the future as was the division of Africa and the Far East.

We are being told that nothing but joy and plenty will result from the discovery of gas and oil under the North Sea. Yet there are no grounds to believe this.

How much happiness did the Congo’s rubber bring? What contribution to the peace of the world has the oil in the Middle East made? What were the effects on the war in Algeria, when the French discovered- oil and gas under the Sahara?

Capitalism is a competitive system, in which rival powers fight ruthlessly for advantage. In this set-up, the discovery of sources of natural wealth often turn out to be anything but a blessing for mankind.

If the North Sea is the El Dorado which some of the experts think, it may well become another sore spot. The agreements which now divide the area will be challenged by those powers which arrived too late to get a share. Legal arguments—and perhaps worse—will be used in the dispute; there will be the customary declamations about “right” and “heritage”. And who dare say what the end of it will be?

Indian A-Bomb

The plain fact about the Indian government’s much publicised decision, several years ago, not to produce an atomic bomb is that it is too good to be true.

And so it is turning out.

India's renunciation meant that some people thought of her as a country where human interests were put above those of narrow nationalism. India was held up as an example for the rest of the sabre-rattling world to follow.

This has never been consistent with the way India acted over, say Goa and Kashmir—incidents which made Delhi’s attitude to atomic weapons look suspiciously like one inspired by anything but humanitarianism.

In any case, the Indian government always made it clear that, if the international situation demanded it, they would make the Bomb. For a long time they have been working on the basics of a nuclear weapon—their separation plant near Bombay, which produces plutonium, has been working for over a year.

And now comes the news from New Delhi that the pressure from Indian military and political circles to make the Bomb is growing, and that (according to The Guardian of 27th September last) the first one may be exploded sometime next year.

The campaign in favour of an Indian Bomb, to go with the rest in the world, has gathered strength from recent events. Indian military men complain that Pakistan had the advantage of advanced American weapons in the fighting in Kashmir, and that the threat from China looms ever larger.

They also claim that the old argument, that the Bomb was too expensive, has been disproved. The estimated cost is now around £20 million. There is no record yet of anyone in India protesting at this sort of money being spent on weapons by a country which has such a chronic problem of hunger and disease.

Such considerations are irrelevant. The reasons for making the Bomb are always the same; one senior Indian officer summed them up: " . . if national interests are at stake . . . we have no alternative but to go ahead.”

Everyone is familiar now with the argument of “national interests”. It is used to excuse any suffering, any atrocity, any betrayal. It is an argument which will be used by many nations if and when a global nuclear war ever starts.

It is only appropriate that we should be hearing the same argument now that India may be getting ready to go back on her word over atomic weapons. It is also appropriate that India, who has done so much to foster the idea that there are such things as oases of nobility among the murderous desert of capitalism. should herself expose the fallacy.

So They Say: Same the Whole World Over (1974)

The So They Say Column from the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Same the Whole World Over

The Paris paper Le Monde on 27th December published tables of French workers’ earnings in 1973. The information comes from employers’ official returns, and covers a working population of 13 millions.

The headline tells the story: 60% of earnings are less than 1750 francs a month. 1750 francs is in fact the approximate upper limit of the largest group of wage earners, 34.2 per cent., who receive between 1165f. and 1745f. On 27th December the exchange rate was 10.85f. to the £, giving an English equivalent for this group of about £27.10 to about £40.60 a week.

13.9 per cent. of French workers receive between 935f. a month, or £21.35 a week, and 1165f., and 14.2 per cent. less than 935f. When these figures are seen in relation to substantially higher costs for food and clothing, the position in France is the same as that of workers in Britain and other countries. To round off the similarity, a lucky 1.5 per cent, receive above 7000f. a month. Work it out for yourself.

An Incomes Policy at Last? 

A country where working-class living standards are lower than elsewhere is Russia. A report by Edmund Stevens in The Times on 2nd January described the satisfaction of the Russian press at “comparing the conditions in the Soviet Union with the turmoil and violence in much of the world”, and went on:

Nor is there a threat of petrol shortage, or an energy crisis, or runaway inflation.

However, the article went on to say that petrol prices are expected shortly to go up by 60 per cent., and that many prices have risen recently: sturgeon and other choice fish by nearly 300 per cent., while the cost of caviar doubled in December. How then does the Soviet government avoid monetary and petrol troubles? The answer is supplied:

None of this affected the vast majority of people, who have no need for petrol and could not afford such delicacies as caviar and sturgeon at previous prices, which were raised repeatedly during the past decade.

What a good way of avoiding problems — simply by not letting people have enough money to buy things ! Heath must be envious. But it should be noted that only “runaway” inflation is absent from Russia. The report tells us:

A kind of selective creeping inflation has been going on ever since 1961, when the old roubles were converted to new ones at a 10-1 rate.

So they seem to have problems after all.

Gold Mine Turns Out to be Mirage

A favourite argument of those who tell us the capitalist system is different now is to point to the number of small investors who allegedly represent the working class getting a stake in the ownership of the means of production. Under the heading “Relying on a little help from friends” a Guardian investment writer on 5th January gave a different picture (and, incidentally, showed the futility of much of the advice given by investment writers). He said:

The small investor must beware of tips in newspapers, because when he reads of them a few hundred thousand others will have read them also . . . Stockbrokers don’t want the small man. Indeed anyone with funds of less than £10,000, unless he has investment knowledge, should, if he wants equities, buy investment trusts or unit trusts.

Realistic words. They mean the capitalist class do not mind letting you have interest on small savings, but will not encourage big ideas of sharing with them. And which of us has not got “funds of less than £10,000”?

Trouble in Blue Heaven

The Socialist Party has always opposed every form of censorship. We often meet well-meaning advocates of it who say they agree generally, but believe there is some special evil to which its application will be justified. Part of the answer to them is that once censorship is instituted its use is not limited, and becomes an additional instrument for the suppression of opinion.

An interesting demonstration was given in two letters to The Guardian on 10th January. Both were concerned with the Cinematograph and Indecent Displays Bill now going through Parliament; one was from the chairman of a group of Greater London Young Conservatives, the other from the secretary of an Arts Co-operative. The first fears that the Bill will allow pornography still to be sold under the counter while restricting the availability of Men Only, Mayfair and Penthouse. The second fears that it will be used to suppress Picasso nudes.

Their juxtaposition makes our point, handsomely.

Oiling the Works

Commentators have been getting good mileage out of North Sea oil. Not only will it, in a few years, be replenishing the petrol-pumps and generators of Britain. It will bring “prosperity”. The suggestion is of a good time coming, when the working class will be more than compensated for the hardships of the three-day week and wage restraint.

Whoever believes this should read the financial pages. The good time is being had already — but not by the workers. On 4th January the Guardian's “City Comment” reported the “windfall” which has come to the merchant bank group Edward Bates.

The principal part of the $12 millions deals announced by Bates for the acquisition of working interests and royalties, was negotiated when oil was selling at $4.20 a barrel in the U.S. It is currently being sold at $8.30. As a result, the Bates projection of oil and gas income for 1974 jumps from $2.6 millions to $4.8 millions, not to mention the substantial capital gains which will result in property values.

The next day the Technology Correspondent told of the prosperity resulting from the latest North Sea find: “£180 millions added to the values of BP and Burmah Oil”. The Guardian writer calls the Bates acquisition “an example of the pickings to be had in the American market” over North Sea oil. Incorrect. The "pickings” are had out of the exploitation of the workers — for whom windfalls from capitalism remain elusive.

Where We Came In

Can you place this quotation?

You can’t conceive what existence is like without trains or tubes . . . and probably no electric light tomorrow. We in Richmond can still get to Waterloo; but Hampstead is entirely cut off . . . Then the experts say that the working classes have behaved with such incredible stupidity that the Government will beat them; and this strike is only the beginning of others far worse to follow. They say we are in for such a year as has never been known.

It comes in fact from a letter written by Virginia Woolf in 1919, quoted in her biography. What should be noted, apart from its contemporary ring, is that Mrs. Woolf was associated with groups who were going to end the inefficiency and inequity of capitalism. And fifty-five years later it is still the same.

Robert Barltrop

50 Years Ago: Oiling the works (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Commentators have been getting good mileage out of North Sea oil. Not only will it, in a few years, be replenishing the petrol-pumps and generators of Britain. It will bring “prosperity”. The suggestion is of a good time coming, when the working class will be more than compensated for the hardships of the three-day week and wage restraint.

Whoever believes this should read the financial pages. The good time is being had already — but not by the workers. On 4th January the Guardian’s “City Comment” reported the “windfall” which has come to the merchant bank group Edward Bates.

“The principal part of the $12 million deals announced by Bates for the acquisition of working interests and royalties, was negotiated when oil was selling at $4.20 a barrel in the U.S. It is currently being sold at $8.30. As a result, the Bates projection of oil and gas income for 1974 jumps from $2.6 millions to $4.8 millions, not to mention the substantial capital gains which will result in property values.”

The next day the Technology Correspondent told of the prosperity resulting from the latest North Sea find: “£180 millions added to the values of BP and Burmah Oil”. The Guardian writer calls the Bates acquisition “an example of the pickings to be had in the American market” over North Sea oil. Incorrect. The “pickings” are had out of the exploitation of the workers — for whom windfalls from capitalism remain elusive.

[From the So They Say column, Socialist Standard, February 1974]

After the Election (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

A favourite story of the First World War concerns two high born young officers in the thick of a desperate battle. All around them the shells scream and roar, the soldiers claw their way through the lethal mud. One of the officers turns to the other: "I say, Fanshawe, won't you be awfully glad when this horrid war is over and we can get back to some proper soldiering?"

Now that the election battle has subsided, now that the politicians's roars have been stilled, now that the smokescreens of promises have cleared, a certain fact can be discerned. All the while, capitalism has been waiting for the nonsense to stop. Now it can get back to some proper soldiering.

What does that mean? Even while the battle was raging, calm voices could be heard indicating that capitalism would be largely unaffected by the result. Here, for example, is the City Editor of the Evening Standard, writing on September 24th about the similarities of both Labour and Conservative policy on the capital gains tax:

It now seems certain that a new Capital gains tax will be introduced next year—whoever wins the Election. . . .

The Stock Exchange, the Institute of Directors, and the top brass of the Labour Party have all said that they want changes. . . . 

From what 1 hear . . . a re-elected Tory Government would tackle the subject pretty soon.

Other voices could also be heard, some of them not so calm. Mr. Khrushchev forgot that elections are times when everybody should be studying how good capitalist society is for us, and announced that Russia had a "monstrous new terrible weapon” which could destroy humanity. Of course, the Russian Ex Premier said afterwards that he had not meant that, that he had never said it and even if he had he had been misreported. Everyone had misunderstood him. Russia has only a "terrible weapon”—non nuclear.

The shock waves from this announcement duly arrived at Washington, where the military have for some time been worried about the offensive potential of bomb carrying space-satellites. President Johnson felt it part of his duty as President—and perhaps part of his election campaign—to claim that the United States has new defensive installations, in place, operational and on the alert, which could destroy hostile satellites. These installations—if they exist—are there because the other side has developed the means of penetrating the old defences. Presumably, the latest defence installations will cause the other side to work out new, more penetrative, more powerful weapons. This is a two-way process—the Americans are also working on missiles to get through the latest Russian defences. This all goes under the name of the policy of the deterrent and it is supposed to make us happy and secure.

It is reasonable to suppose that the up-bidding by Johnson and Khrushchev in the game of international nuclear poker did not influence many voters in the British election. How many voters were appalled at the fact that capitalist society spends so much of its time and talents on trying to blow itself up? How many asked themselves why the richest nations in the world are so anxious to have the world’s most fearsome weapons?

The answer to that question is easy enough to come by. Consider this example, so normal to capitalism that it passed almost unnoticed.

Not very long ago, nobody bothered very much about the North Sea. You could sail across it, fly over it, you could fish in it. And then a funny thing happened. The Dutch discovered a rich field of natural gas, which is now thought to be the second largest of its kind in the world, and capable of supplying Europe's needs for many years. It did not take a lot of elaborate detective work to connect this discovery with the small British oilfields in the Midlands and to surmise' that oil and gas bearing rocks might stretch right under the North Sea.

Then everyone became interested in ending the arrangement which allowed the North Sea to be a free area. Ah international conference parcelled out the seabed between the interested powers. By this solemnly legal method the British government stoic 100,000 square miles of seabed and they shared this out, in the shape of licences to drill for oil and gas, to firms like Shell, Esso, British Petroleum and the Gas Council. All the capitalist parties were agreed that this was a fit and proper way of settling the affair:

Mr. Erroll said the Bill under which the licences were issued had been thoroughly discussed in the House of Commons this year and nobody had suggested matters should be handled differently. (The Guardian, 18/9/64.)

It is obvious that there will be some changes, now, in the North Sea. A rich supply of oil or gas, or both, will be especially interesting to British industry, which at present is so precariously dependent upon oil from abroad. But there could be other effects, equally interesting. The British interest in the oilfields of the Middle East has been responsible for many clashes of arms there. The Suez invasion, the refusal to get out of Cyprus, were only two recent examples of this. In the same way, the French hung on in Algeria, and prolonged the bloodshed there, because of the discovery of oil and gas in the Sahara.

It is obvious that British capitalism would be equally determined to protect its investments in the North Sea. At the moment the area is all allocated. But what if some other capitalist group, which was not in on the original carve-up, decides that it also needs to get hold of some of the North Sea resources?

This is not a fanciful question. At the end of the last century the expanding capitalism of Germany was faced with a similar situation. They had arrived too late to get their share of the colonial and commercial loot from the ruthless scramble of a little earlier. They tried to catch up by diplomatic and trading bargains. They tried threats and military adventures. But the end was inevitable and we saw what it was in 1914 and 1939.

If the same sort of dispute arises over the North Sea, the capitalist powers will probably try to bargain it out of existence. They may even succeed, for a time. But in the end, if the conferences fail, the good old final solution of a head on, armed clash will follow. No holds will be barred and the side with the biggest bangers will win.

And that, to return to our original point, is why the Russian ruling class have their monstrous weapons, why the Americans have theirs and why both sides—indeed all sides—are in the arms race. Capitalism is a world divided by conflicting economic interests, which are asserted by the armed forces of the rival nations. These forces must always be ready, must always have the most up-to-date weapons—even if this means that they have the means of destroying the human race.

This is all quite normal to capitalism. It goes on during elections, and when the dust of battle has cleared it is still there. Proper soldiering, in fact.

On the home front it is the same story. Both Labour and Conservative parties were clear that a major preoccupation of the next government would be their “incomes policy"—more accurately known as their method of controlling wages. "Labour," said The Guardian, "would demand from the unions cooperation in an incomes policy.” The Tory manifesto put it: "an effective and fair incomes policy is crucial to the achievement of sustained growth without inflation."

What this means is that the struggle between the employers and the workers, over wages and working conditions, will continue. The working class will continue to depend upon their wages for their life. They will continue trying to improve those wages and conditions and the government will continue trying to hold the improvements in some sort of check.

The working class freely voted for capitalism in the election and in doing that they freely voted for the system which compels them to struggle and which so often reduces any temporary advantage they may gain.

These sombre facts do not prevent the politicians promising that some day, in some mysterious way, things are going to get better. The politicians’ airy promise is an established part of proper soldiering. Some have been foolish enough to have passed into political history, to stand as monumental warnings against verbal extravagance. (One old time Labour minister was so famous for the generosity of his promises that be was called “the greatest blatherer alive.”)

Consider these two statements:

. . . the long, dark night is over and . . . a better day is dawning for Great Britain and the world. The wonderful recovery of trade and finance in the last seven years is the most marvellous miracle in the history of the world.

And the other:

It is a time for action, for decision, for exciting changes It is a time for opportunity, opportunity for all our people, all our children, to break through man-made barriers of privilege and snobbery, and be free to give their talents and energies in service to their country.

The authors of those two statements were Phillip Snowden, in 1926, and Harold Wilson in 1964 (neither of whom were ever called "the greatest blatherer alive"). There is no reason to reveal who said which, because both statements are equally meaningless. The point is that the blathering of capitalism is an enduring as the system itself.

Proper soldiering. Massively destructive machines, the deadly rivalry between opposing capitalist blocs, poverty and strife, all covered by an enormous blanket of politicians’ nonsense. The working class may vote for all of this, although they are the people who suffer most acutely under it. But a few of us will have no part of the soldiering. We have our eyes and thoughts on the better world and you will not find us on parade in the morning.

Ivan.

The Myth of Scotland's Oil (1973)

From the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the victory of the Dundee by-election was regarded as a triumph by the Labour Party, the Scottish National Party must also have been elated by the large number of votes secured by their candidate who ran a close second. This would suggest that the Nats are making a comeback after a period in the doldrums following the party’s zenith in 1968, after Winifred Ewing’s election at Hamilton, when membership was claimed to be in excess of 90,000 with some 500 branches. At present members total some 60,000, with branches around 440.

Why the revival? Undoubtedly the rejuvenating shot in the arm came in the form of North Sea oil. The recent successes of the oil consortiums couldn’t have happened at a better time for the SNP, for two reasons. First—and this is the kernel of the Nationalist argument — the SNP have always asserted that the problems confronting Scotland resulted from the channelling of Scottish revenue directly into the coffers of the “English government’’ thereby preventing the Scottish worker from deriving any benefit from it (despite the obvious fact that his English counterpart doesn’t do too well either!). The advent of the Nats’ new sacred cow, oil, greatly strengthens this argument and has the added bonus of promising such offshoot titbits as rig-building, construction and service industries.

Second, the Nats had previously conceded (surprisingly) that in the early days of home-rule the standard of living would actually be lowered. The wealth they claim oil would bring to an independent Scotland allows them to discard this vote-loser, and the result is that many workers who were previously sceptical of home-rule are now expressing concern over “Scottish Oil” which goes, according to the SNP poster, “To London with Love”.

Who owns North Sea Oil ?

The territorial control of the world’s continental shelf areas was settled by the United Nations Continental Shelf Convention of 1958 when, by an agreement binding after 1969, countries bordering any particular section of continental shelf were given sovereign rights to explore and exploit the natural resources of the shelf. The North Sea continental shelf has since been divided up between Norway, Germany, Denmark, Holland and Britain. The first British round of licences for oil exploration was granted in 1964, several more having been made since, the latest in March 1972. By the end of 1972 at least six commercial-sized oil fields had been discovered in the Scottish sector together with other recent strikes (whose potential is still being assessed). They are:

• Forties Field which was the first and one of the biggest. Discovered by British Petroleum about a hundred miles east of Aberdeen. Eventual peak production will be in excess of 400,000 barrels per day (20 million tons per year).
• Montrose Field discovered about 30 miles south-east of the Forties Field by Amoco and thought to be capable of producing 100,000 barrels per day.
• Auk Field being brought by Shell into production at a rate of 40,000 barrels/day.
• Argyll Field is reckoned by Hamilton’s to be possibly in the 200,000 barrels/day range.
• Brent Field has Shell/Esso anticipating an eventual rate of over 300,000 barrels/day.
• Beryl Field Mobil are looking for a possible 300,000 barrels/day here.

The Face of Prosperity

Under London rule, argue the Nationalists in a new pamphlet The Reality of Scotland’s Oil by Nicholas Dekker, only 9 per cent of the taxes and royalties from this oil will go to Scotland. Under home-rule, however, the Nats claim that by 1980 (assuming that it will take five years to develop an oilfield in the North Sea) new fields discovered during 1973, 1974 and 1975 could bring production up to 150 million tons per year with an estimated gross value of £2,250 million, of which something like £1,400 million or over per annum could tumble into a Scottish exchequer. Coupled with an assumed 50 per cent of “Scottish participation” (investment of capital) in production and of 40 per cent or 60 per cent in ancillary costs (based on above figures), total potential worth to a Scottish economy would be 85 per cent or 90 per cent of gross value—£1,900 million to £2,000 [million] per annum.

This money can, insist the SNP, “be used to secure for all time, prosperity, security, and a satisfying life style for all the people of Scotland”. Among the many promises (play it again, Sam!) would be vastly improved provision for the old, the sick and needy, and the wiping out of the chronic housing problem. Thus armed, the SNP are preparing to contest every Scottish scat at the next General Election.

. . . and its Reverse

Socialists constantly expose the fallacy of home-rule, pointing as examples to other self-governed countries such as Libya, Venezuela, Russia, and even America, where workers derive little if any benefit from oil produced locally. Indeed the opposite can result as is the case in Aberdeen where the oil boom has resulted in a property price-spiral far surpassing anything in Scotland (in fact reaching parity with English property prices) with such bizarre examples as the two-apartment tenement flat which fetched a price of over £4,000!

Equally unsound is the argument that the oil industry must inevitably produce an increase in the number of jobs available. For it could also mean a drop in the demand for other fuels, notably coal, with redundancies in those industries and their offshoots. Not only that, but many of the “new” jobs will, if the SNP have their way, simply have been taken from workers already doing them in England, so it’s a case of robbing Peter to pay Jock, a situation which in no way benefits the workers as a class.

Who Benefits ?

Perhaps the biggest fallacy of all is the Nats’ vision of the anticipated wealth from oil being used exclusively to provide a heaven on earth for Scottish workers. Of course, as the Nats themselves admit, the oil companies will have to have it made worth their while if they are to put up the “vast sums of risk capital to finance search and exploration” and so will the “private and semi-private Scottish capital” they talk about. Also, the cost of government, including the armies of civil servants which any modern capitalist nation must have to administer its affairs, will have to be paid for, and obviously no government can afford to neglect to defend such a valuable property as its oil fields so it will have to provide for defence either independently or through NATO. So, one way and another, there can be little left with which to fulfil the grandiose promises being made. We can confidently assert that the benefit of oil in Scotland will go, as elsewhere in the world, to the owners and the most that Scottish workers can expect from the oil boom is . . . work and wages!

Finally, it’s worth considering that if the North Sea does produce a supply of oil of any significance in relation to world fuel supplies, and bearing in mind the recent panic measures taken by President Nixon, the scramble for oil could become intensified (rapidly expanding Japan, already using 50,000 million gallons a year, estimates treble consumption by the 1980’s). And as trade war sometimes develops into armed war, the tragic result could be that workers living in Scotland could well find themselves, like those in Iceland, being called upon to take up arms to defend “their” oil.

A. McNeill

Voice From The Back: The Price Of Oil (2006)

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

The Price Of Oil

Away back in September 2003 two workers were suffocated to death in a huge gas leak on Shell’s Brent Bravo oil platform in the North Sea. “Bill Campbell, a former senior manager with the oil giants, says vital maintenance work was ignored and lies told to allow platforms to carry on producing oil at all times” (Daily Record, 14 June). The company were fined £900,000 for safety breaches. An amount that is completely derisory when compared with their billions in profits every year. Bill Campbell who worked in the North Sea for 25 years went on BBC Scotland TV to denounce the company, but they did not send a spokesperson to deny the charges. They were probably too busy counting their profits to consider the deaths of two expendable workers.

Lazy Workers?

“Avoiding work is a full-time job and seems to be getting harder, at least in America where Workaholics Anonymous now has self-help branches in 35 cities. New figures suggest that employees are working three hours a week more than their parents did, the equivalent to nearly four extra weeks a year” (Times, 21 June). Socialists used to be told that socialism was impractical because the working class were too lazy. That argument certainly doesn’t apply here.

A Tale Of Three Virgins

Three sisters in Inverness featured in a bizarre insurance policy. They insured themselves against having a virgin birth. The insurance company only cancelled the policy because of religious pressure. “The Catholic Church was not happy about what we have been doing” (The Herald, 23 June). What was their objection we wonder? They don’t believe in virgin births? They could not accept the notion that the next Jesus might be a Jock? A second coming could lead to mass unemployment in the Vatican?.

Science And Profits

Sir Ian Chalmers writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine states that the scientific record of clinical trials is being distorted by drug companies in order to protect sales. “Patients’ lives are being put at risk because drug companies cannot be trusted to publish unbiased clinical research, according to a leading scientist” (Times, 29 June). We are dealing with capitalism, we are dealing with a multibillion dollar industry, why shouldn’t we have distortion? After all that is how capitalism operates.

Not Newsworthy?

Every evening editors of The Sun, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail have to make a decision about what to splash on their front pages the next day. Shall it be Pop Star Sniffs Cocaine, Soap Star Visits Brothel or maybe Politician’s Gay Secret? The senior policy officer for Water Aid, Henry Northover is hardly likely to make the tabloid’s headlines with the following. “Imagine 20 Jumbo jets filled with children – that’s the number who die every day owing to lack of clean water and sanitation” (Observer, 2 July). We are trying to imagine 20 Jumbo jets full of children crashing every day, and frankly it makes us ill, but of course it is not newsworthy in this mad society.

For The Good Times

The end of the World Cup has left many social observers scratching their heads in disbelief. No violence, no hooliganism and no mindless madness? Can this be the working class that the Daily Mail are always warning us about? Tens of thousands of working men and women from all over the world, enjoying each others’ company, laughing, joking, dancing and who knows what else. It would almost makes you believe that world socialism is possible, unless you read the Daily Mail of course.

And The Bad Times

Because of the proliferation of TV channels advertisers are concerned about their “lack of penetration”into profit-making areas. Even worse is the advent of VCR recorders, where people watch shows and delete the ads. The answers for these hucksters is to sponsor sports events. Unlike soaps, that workers can look at later, sports events are watched. While they occur. This explains why the TV rights for NFL (American football) is $3.7 billion, the World Cup $1.1 billion and why you had to watch those silly Budwieser ads. Worse is to follow. “Images like a giant Coca-Cola bottle emerging from the centre circle, can be projected onto the pitch” (Observer, 9 July). Perhaps they could arrange a penalty shoot between Pepsi and Coca Cola? Capitalism distorts everything, even our leisure time . . .

So They Say: Bigger Crumbs (1975)

The So They Say Column from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bigger Crumbs

Sir Andrew Gilchrist, chairman of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, has recently been pouring cold water on the idea that Scottish workers were all about to share in the much publicized “Oil Bonanza”. Writing in his Board’s journal (North 7) on 5th March he announced:

There were large areas (in Scotland) which would not secure a direct share of the massive investment needed to get oil out of the seabed and which would have no part in the well paid employment prospects.

(The Times, 6th March ’75)

“Areas” of course are not employed, it is workers who are employed; nor can any of them hope to “secure a direct share of the massive investment”, they are paid wages. Bearing in mind that Sir Andrew’s chief function is to act as a form of capitalist missionary in the north, even those workers who will be concerned in oil and affiliated industries would do well to remember that “well paid employment prospects” simply means that bigger crumbs will fall from the capitalist’s table.

For the others, Sir Andrew has been busily at work seeking out ways to make them useful:

We must look beyond oil and its present benefits. These are reasons enough for continuing and sharpening our effort to strengthen existing industry and to encourage new types of enterprise. If we are to have any hope of a balanced growth these things are essential . . . In the past nine years nearly 3,000 prospects of different kinds and different sizes have been brought to locations in the Highlands and islands. With them they have brought nearly 10,000 jobs. That is what Highlands development is about.

The interests of the "we” and the “our” refer to the capitalist class. That is what Highlands development is about.

War on Want

In a letter to The Times on 10th March, Mr. Peter Burns, General Secretary of “War on Want”, put forward the following view on the “world food crisis”:

The problem is essentially one of insufficient demand not insufficient supply. There is food available that the poor do not have the means to buy. Only poor people starve.

Considering its source, this is a most peculiar form of argument. If people are starving is there not a demand? The simple answer is that there is, but the capitalist answer — which Mr. Burns has clearly accepted — is that if men and women cannot afford to buy food there is no demand. He goes on to argue that supplies of food in the form of foreign aid merely “stifles incentive to invest in rural development” and the answer must be on a local basis to

increase food production and its availability to those in need within the Third World, there must be land reform, guaranteed food markets and prices for the Third World, and aid and development programmes directed toward the landless and the poor peasant farmer. These are the policies to tackle poverty, which is the real enemy that tightening one’s own belts will do nothing to combat.

Look again, Mr. Burns, at the world around you. Why imagine that such projects as your “guaranteed food markets and prices” will prove any more satisfactory than those already existing? The basis will remain unaltered, those who can make a profit from selling food will produce it. Those who cannot afford it will starve.

To make “War on Want” you will have to "make war” on the system of society which gives rise to such lunacy as starvation while food is both available, and is even deliberately destroyed for the "benefit” of its "markets.”

On the Bandwagon

The Church of England is always scouting around for some current events on which they can make meaningless remarks in an attempt to bring us all back into the fold. In this respect they have regarded the economic phenomenon of inflation with what could be described as a jealous reverence for some time. Now however a report has been published (6th March) “on behalf of the industrial committee of the board for social responsibility” which feeds out the C. of E. line to its followers. Among other things we note they recommend:

A more rational and institutional way of determining levels of income was needed to re-inforce the social contract, for unless wages and salaries were held to reasonable limits a situation would arise in which a statutory incomes policy would become a moral incentive.

(The Times 7th March ’75)

That word “reasonable” has been slipped in again, and when the Church talks of “reasonable limits” they mean just what the capitalist means — as low as possible. However the report does not apply the same criterion to the rate of inflation. It produces instead a dynamic new theory which will surely have even the confused capitalist economists rocking in the aisles:

Inflation, the report argues, is a sign of a society that has lost its way. 'In some ways it can be seen as the climactic by-product of a relaxed society’.

We fail to observe much that is “relaxed” about capitalist society, except perhaps the benign ignorance of the Church of England, but we would be interested to learn if successive governments since the war have realized that by increasing the supply of inconvertible paper money they failed to recognize “the sign of a society that has lost its way” and can now see this contemporary burning bush as clearly as the C. of E. does.

An Out-of-Date Creature

As various strange bedfellows begin to join together for or against Britain’s continued membership of the European Economic Community, Mr. Len Murray, General Secretary of the TUC, has given notice that his organization is opposed to membership. His reasons appear to be that the EEC as at present constituted is in some way harmful to “the social welfare” of the “British People.”

Unions in every EEC country were less than satisfied with the operation of the Community: many thought that it had started off with too much competitive purpose and too little community purpose: too much of economics and too little of social welfare: too much about fair business practices and too little about fair social practices. ‘I am afraid that your Market is rather out of date, a creature of its times, and its times were some time ago.’

(The Times, 8th March ’75)

Not that Mr. Murray has any basic objection to capitalism or the exploitation of the working class here or abroad,

We shall need to be satisfied that decisions are taken in ways which give due and balanced weight to common interests and to what the member countries themselves see as their essential and proper national interests.

We can reassure Mr. Murray that the capitalist class will most certainly take steps to realise their “essential” interests: in or out of the EEC. And they will continue to do so while men like Mr. Murray misleads his members into believing that “fair social practices” can have any relevance or application to capitalist society.

The Other Side of the Same Coin

To balance the issue, the Times report of Mr. Murray’s Utopian mouthings was adjoined by a report of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher’s “opening salvo” for her Keep-Britain-in-the-EEC campaign. That Mrs. Thatcher is capable of making any kind of “salvo” is open to conjecture; she did however make a realistic comment on the Government attempts to revise the terms of membership. Having wished Mr. Wilson success in this field, she said:

No doubt, she said, Mr. Wilson would return claiming that his renegotiated terms were vastly better than anything the last Conservative Government had been able to achieve. ‘In fact of course, they will be but the latest stage in a continuing process of adjustment between the members of what is essentially an evolving partnership.'

The evolving partnership she refers to is that between the various capitalists, and she is quite right in assuming that they will be constantly competing against one another for more favourable terms. The honour among these thieves will no doubt be sorely tested after Mr. Wilson announces the new rules of capitalist competition in Europe.

During the course of her remarks, Mrs. Thatcher expressed her willingness to “fight alongside all men and women of good will, from all parties and from none, who wanted to put the future of Britain above partisan quarrels.”

While noting this almost libertarian gusto, we can’t help remembering that Len Murray also wanted to put the future of Britain first; only he suggested doing so by leaving the EEC. How on earth then are we, “all men and women of good will”, to decide upon this momentous issue? It is all very puzzling and a report (“The Grudging Europeans”) published by Social and Community Planning Research on 5th March confirms this bewilderment. There is throughout Britain

a grudging acceptance of our need to rely on Europe, an almost petulant acknowledgement of the benefits to be derived from partnership, there is precious little enthusiasm either for the idea or the reality.

(The Times, 6th March ’75)

The answer is that with Britain in or out of the EEC, the international working class will remain shackled to a system of private property ownership. To believe that this relationship can be altered by leaving (or remaining in) the EEC is time-wasting nonsense and only further delays the job which all workers should be undertaking to establish Socialism.

Alan D'Arcy

Scots Nationalism - Part 2 (1975)

From the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Last month we traced the development of modern nationalism in Scotland up till the founding of the National Party of Scotland in 1928.

The incredible hotchpotch of ideas contained in the new organisation soon became a cause for alarm among the more sensible members and drove one, Lewis Spence, to complain that the party was

“… a maelstrom boiling and bubbling with the cross-currents of rival and frequently fantastic theories, schemes and. notions we have people who wanted all Scotland to speak the Gaelic…. some hark back to the hope of a sixteenth-century Scotland regained … still others a Jacobite restoration. A certain group sees in the expulsion of all the English and Irish in Scotland the country’s only chance of survival . All is hubbub, outcry, chaos. There is no plan,. Nothing approaching a serious, practical Scotsman-like policy in -either art or politics. (H. J. Hanham, Scottish Nationalism. p. 154)

Poor Spence, but he should have known. With the loss of interest in Home Rule of the Scottish ruling class and their political sidekicks, the nationalist cause had fallen into the hands of all sorts of cranks, literary and otherwise, who were more concerned with “culture” than economics or social matters. Certainly they had little idea of the history of the toilers’ conditions as could be seen by their constant harking back to a mythical time when “our people were prosperous and contented” before the Union.

Anyway, the party was established and membership was open to all. Tories and Liberals as well as Labourites flocked in and even Lord Beaverbrook showed interest. Inevitably, some of the more opportunist leaders wished to “broaden the base of the party” and after an internal battle the party merged with a Tory splinter group to become the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1934. From then until the 1950s the party endured the usual Right versus Left squabbling and several splits occurred, the largest of which was the setting up of a rival organisation, the Scottish Convention, in the 1940s.

Today the SNP seems to have left the lunatic fringe behind and appears as a modern, mass political party using the techniques of public relations and advertising industries to give it a new slick image, and the Executive Suit has replaced the kilt as standard dress for the party candidates. Not only does the party have a large and youthful membership of 120,000 but they carry out their propaganda with a style and enthusiasm which leaves the older reformist parties gasping. At the October general election they all but demolished the Liberals, hammered the Tories, and promise it will be Labour’s turn next time.

So the SNP may be poised for victory within the foreseeable future. How have they produced this rags-to-riches transformation? Obviously, their case is an economic one. They have taken advantage of working class discontent over insecurity, unemployment, low living standards, low expectations, and all the other problems which capitalism brings to workers the world over in one degree or another. They were also helped by widespread disillusion with the two major parties and Labour and Tory supporters have deserted to the nationalists in their tens of thousands.

Basically, the SNP is just another reformist party angling for support on a programme of reforms and even styles itself on the Scandinavian social democrats. After their first breakthrough in l968 the party went into a serious decline which lasted until 1970. Then came the discovery of vast quantities of North Sea oil. Now they can outbid all the others by proposing that the wealth from this oil be divided among five million people only, instead of fifty million, and paint a picture of how, given self-government, oil revenues will provide a paradise in Scotland.

Predictably the nationalists claim that their first priority is to launch a “war on poverty” and the party’s manifesto, Scotland’s Future, gives some idea of how they intend to do this.

For example, pensionable couples are told their combined pension will amount to the national minimum wage which, at today’s level, will be £25, with a single pensioner getting £15. So after a lifetime of producing fortunes for the parasite class worn-out wage slaves are to be “rewarded” with this ! Other dramatic SNP proposals include spending an extra 10 per cent on education and on health services, and just what significant difference this will make to working class life is a mystery to us. The important thing to note is that these are merely promises, and politicians have always found these far easier to make than fulfil.

The writings and utterances of SNP spokesmen present a bewildering display of confusion and contradiction and it is difficult to say whether they are more naïve than dishonest. William Wolfe, the party Chairman, claims the class-struggle can be avoided by passing legislation which outlaws “undue concentration of wealth in a few hands”. We wonder if they mentioned this to the capitalist Sir Hugh Fraser when he joined their ranks last year?

The party repeats the hoary old lie “that it is a lack of communications between management and workers that causes industrial strife”. It could not, of course, have anything to do with a fundamental clash of interests like, for example, the workers wanting better wages and conditions and the management, on behalf of the owners, not willing to grant these.

Despite the SNP’s indignant denials the idea somehow persists in some minds that the party is “socialist”. William Wolfe in his book, Scotland Lives, writes that he wants to give

“….the Scottish people opportunities for their own enterprise and capital to be used in giving their fellow Scots employment.” (p. 43)

Obviously, by “the Scottish people” he means owners of capital like Sir Hugh Fraser. Perhaps the latter joined the SNP on reading this passage in Wolfe’s book?

Another leading member, Mrs. Margo MacDonald, was asked in an interview how she reacted to the suggestion that there’s no advantage in replacing English or American capitalists with Scottish capitalists. She replied

“Well there is, actually. In the strict material sense there is. The Scottish capitalists, while still making lots of money, will be creating jobs in Scotland. They will realise that there is a quicker return to be made by, for instance, refining all of the oil in Scotland. So we would be slightly better off. Of course I agree exploitation by Scots is just as immoral in the long run. (Glasgow News, 12th March 1974)

So there it is. For the Scottish capitalist, “lots of money” and a “quicker return”. For the worker, the promise that he will be “slightly better off”.

The nationalists have shown they are fast learners when it comes to political cynicism. They pretend to the workers that should independence come then all the oil revenues will automatically go into the Scottish exchequer and be used mainly for the benefit of the workers. They must know that the United Kingdom would get some of the revenue as part of any deal made over the granting of independence, and that the capitalist class in Scotland would insist that oil revenues be used to reduce the burden of taxation which rests on them.

Will the Labour government’s proposed Scottish Assembly, but still under Westminster, outflank the SNP? This is possible since it is doubtful if the electorate in Scotland want complete independence as various opinion polls have shown. However, as the Assembly will have no more success in abolishing capitalism’s problems than the SNP’s claim that only full independence can succeed, it will probably gain more support.

Should self-government eventually be established the SNP will discover that they cannot will or legislate away those problems of capitalism. No country in the world, no matter how independent or rich in resources, has yet succeeded in eliminating poverty, unemployment, insecurity, etc. For the working class there will be wages while they are working and pensions when they are too old or disabled. An ominous glimpse of what leading SNP members regard as “prosperity” can be gained from their repeated claim that “Scotland was the wealthiest nation in the world” (Wolfe p. 12) up till the end of the 1914-18 war. How the working class lived in those days does not seem to have even occurred to them.

The SNP see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and as outmoded as the clan system it replaced. It is the Socialist Party of Great Britain who are the true men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society’s resources, and uncluttered with the frontiers and class divisions which go hand-in-hand with “the nation”.

Vic Vanni

Four wheel oil crisis (1979)

From the July 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

So is there another oil crisis or not? The government, and the motoring organisations, insist that there is not — yet. During the recent Spring bank holiday garages were shut, and those that did open were charging up to £1.50 a gallon for petrol.

So is the motor car doomed? What of alternative energy? Questions like these seem to be commonplace these days, but really, what is the situation?

Demand for petrol is rising at a time when oil companies are saying they can only meet last year’s delivery levels. With Iran going ‘off stream’ and exporting no oil at all for some months, and the oil-producing countries (OPEC) seizing their chance to increase prices by varying amounts (dependent on how ‘moderate’ their governments are), the hopes of British capitalism turn again to the North Sea.

The situation became such that a meeting of energy ministers was called in Paris in May to decide the appropriate action to be taken. This meeting only served to emphasise the problems of trying to get agreement between capitalist countries on something so vital as their access to sources of oil. Its result was a relatively ineffectual statement that a cutback of five per cent would be attempted.

America, which consumes twice as much oil as others, is a prime victim for expected cutbacks. But American workers regard their cars as almost sacrosanct. And politicians rely on motorists’ votes, just as the motor industry relies on a market. So much of the American economy relies on the motor industry that a cutback in oil consumption, at this time, is highly unlikely.

Transition to obsolescence
So where does the problem lie? The capitalist world relies on its oil supplies. Industry and the domestic scene is almost as dependent on oil as we are on the air we breathe and oil is running out! In fact, the oil-powered car was doomed at its outset and has long been living on borrowed time. The internal combustion engine was developed at a time of seemingly unlimited supplies of fuel. It is uneconomic, inefficient, and is now making the hard transition to obsolescence.

The internal combustion engine and its petroleum fuel (with additives) is a major source of modern-day pollution. Lead from exhausts, hydrochloric acid, carbon monoxide, noise, accidents, and so on, are direct sources of pollution. Add to this the indirect sources in associated industries like rubber, steel and chemicals, and some measure of the problem can be imagined. This observation also gives some indication of the capital investment involved. And here is the crux of the matter.

Alternative Fuels
So what is to happen to the motor car? It has become such a necessity to so many people that its withdrawal would cause a major upheaval in society. It has undermined the profitability of so-called public transport, with the result that services have been cut and geared to their profitability rather than usefulness. So, returning to the matter of the motor car, are there alternative fuels and propulsion units?

Hydrogen, electricity, even nuclear fuel, are suggestions. No doubt the motor industry will become even more cut-throat as the oil situation worsens. Some industries will fold up, others will emerge. New technologies will probably result, and slowly and painfully the motor industry will change to a new fuel/propulsion system or transport concept.

This is the standard day to day, year to year running of capitalism. Crisis to crisis. And it is the workers, the majority of people in this world, who suffer. As capitalism survives it will continue to cause hardship, anxiety and stress to the working class. Fuel/propulsion systems, the oil crisis, other industrial/domestic problems, will all come and go, but always as dictated by capitalism’s drive for profit. And this crazy, inefficient, polluting system will last until those workers act to abolish it. Something to think about in the traffic jam — or the queue for the petrol pump.

MJSP

Oil: the greasy politics (1983)

From the June 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil has been used for a very long time. More than 5000 years ago, Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians took advantage of large seepages at Hit on the Euphrates. In the early centuries AD Arabs and Persians developed an interest in crude petroleum and its distillation into illuminants and it may be that this technique was carried to Western Europe from the 12th century onwards through the Arab influence in Spain. In North America the Indians used oil as a medicine and the early explorers found seepages in what are now the states of New York and Pennsylvania. Up to the start of the 19th century illumination in the United States and other industrially advanced countries was little better than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The increasing development of capitalist industry brought new needs for additional sources of oil. By the middle of the century kerosene or coal oil. derived by distillation of coal, was in common use and the need for yet cheaper and more convenient sources of lubricants and light grew more pressing. In 1859 in western Pennsylvania the first well specifically for oil was drilled. Before 1900 oil field discoveries in the United States covered 14 states and there were finds also in Europe and the Middle and Far East.

At the outset of the 20th century the use of refined petroleum and lubricants ceased to be of primary importance and the industry became a major supplier of energy. In 1980 oil and natural gas together supplied two-thirds of the world demand, with the use of approximately 80 million barrels a day. This does not mean that oil is a satisfactory fuel from an ecological viewpoint: it is a heavy pollutant and when it is burned many valuable chemicals are wasted. Such bad effects have to be really serious to figure in capitalist calculations, when cheapness, availability to the consumer and profitability to the producing interests are always the main considerations.

Reliable estimates about oil reserves and new resources are difficult to obtain because the relevant information is in the hands of the oil companies themselves. Where these firms are government owned, as is the general rule in so-called communist countries, such estimates can be state secrets. OAPEC have stated [1] that about half the known reserves in the Arab states have now been extracted. However, excluding unavailable figures for China, it was estimated in 1974 [2] that about 850,000 million barrels of oil remain to be found, 40 per cent behind the Iron Curtain. In the Soviet Union, Middle East, Canadian Arctic Islands as well as the unknown Chinese contribution these discoveries can be expected mainly on land; elsewhere the great majority will be offshore. There is still a lot of oil over which to fight.

It is because oil is such a vital source of energy that it poses considerable problems for capitalist administrators. The interests of those who profit from its production are clearly to obtain as high a price as possible, just as those who are users of petroleum products strive to keep their costs as low as they can. In such circumstances the state usually has to intervene to regulate the conflict in the interests of the ruling class as a whole, as happens with other important industries. In general, capitalist governments have found oil interests very hard to handle. The industry is vastly profitable, it very soon took on a multinational character, and its products can now be carried quite easily all over the globe. To try and straightjacket the industry might lead to an interruption of supplies which, even temporarily, could have serious repercussions. Also in many states, particularly in the Middle East, it is the producers who are the dominant, indeed virtually the only, capitalist interest.

This apparent lack of interest has led observers such as Anthony Sampson to state [3] that capitalist governments have evaded the problem of the control of the oil companies. It is true, and not particularly surprising, that at certain times oil lobbies have by corrupt means gained undue influence over capitalist governments. Such was the case in the United States in the 1920s when the Teapot Dome Scandal rocked Washington and probably contributed to President Harding's death in office. However, capitalist politicians all over the world are nowadays at their wits end to find a way to regulate the situation. To take a cricketing analogy, Sampson's insinuation is rather like accusing bowlers of not trying to get Geoffrey Boycott out because statistics show that he is rarely dismissed. Sampson deserves credit for the diligence of his research, but unfortunately suffers from the reformist delusion that capitalism can be made to work in the interests of the whole population. He does however state that “any agreement over oil implies a first step towards some form of world government". We shall return to this later.

The first big manifestation of oil politics occurred in the United States in the closing years of the last century. Many of its features are still to be seen today world wide. John D. Rockefeller, using mainly borrowed money, established himself in the refinery business and by 1870 had brought Standard Oil into being. He then combined with some of his competitors to fund a Central Association with himself as president. Such a combination of capitalist concerns to pursue a joint interest is known as a cartel. This provoked the producing interests to try to form a cartel of their own. Rockefeller's cartel was boycotted, and an agreement was reached to stop new drilling and sell as a fixed price. However the temptation to undercut each other proved too much, the bottom fell out of the market and Rockefeller had won. He was contemptuous of the efforts of the producers, explaining [4]: "The dear people, if they had produced less oil, they would have got their full price”. This success led to a number of refiners selling out to Rockefeller, giving his trust a monopoly. His success and that of other trust barons, however, alarmed other capitalist interests and eventually led Theodore Roosevelt's administration to use anti-trust legislation against him. Standard took the fight to the Supreme Court who ruled in May 1911 that it must divest itself of all its subsidiaries.

This exposed the difficulties cartels have in sticking together in face of competition between individual members. If these capitalist interests cannot maintain such limited agreements, how can we expect joint action on a global scale to take steps towards world government? Yet Sampson sees this as a necessary condition to control the oil industry. The Rockefeller example shows the cartels and trusts in turn provoking counter attacks by the state in the interests of the majority of the ruling class, although this took longer to come about than would probably be the case today. The crushing defeat suffered by the producers at Rockefeller's hands is less typical.

The United States were fortunate at that time in having their own native oil supply. Underwater exploration had yet to materialise. Britain and other West European countries had no supply of oil and, as World War I approached, were only too well aware of their vulnerability. Where, for example, was the Royal Navy to obtain oil? Attention was directed towards the underdeveloped parts of the world where the vital fluid was to be found. Burmah Oil, formed to exploit discoveries in Burma, produced an offshoot, Anglo-Persian, based on newly acquired concessions in Iran (then called Persia). Only three months before war broke out the British government, prompted by Winston Churchill, acquired a 51 per cent stake in this company, later renamed British Petroleum (BP). Eventually the American firms, unable to meet increasing demand from home supplies, were also forced to look overseas. Saudi Arabia was to become an American sphere of influence with an organisation called Aramco, jointly owned by four oil companies, to run the concessions. These new relationships, so similar to those between imperialist nations and their colonies, contained the seeds of future trouble. As native ruling classes developed in these territories, leading eventually to the formation of their own governments, so complaints began about the profits which the oil companies were making at "their expense”. These nationalists looked for ways to obtain a larger slice of the cake. Attempts by Mexico in 1938 and by Iran under Dr. Mossadeq in 1951 to nationalise “their” oil industries were eventually defeated because competing customers were able to combine and enforce boycotts. However, nationalist feeling in the oil producing countries continued to gather momentum and the stage was set for the formation in 1960 of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

OPEC would probably have formed itself in any case, but the act was triggered by price cutting by Exxon (ESSO), one of the giant companies popularly known as the “seven sisters". They reduced their posted price by 10 cents a barrel in August 1960. The other six “sisters", although none too happy, eventually felt compelled to follow suit. There was an oil glut at the time and, as happens periodically, Russia was threatening to flood the market at discount prices. This cut helped to unite the producing nations. One month later, on September 9, representatives of five of them, who were at that time collectively responsible for 80 per cent of the world’s oil exports, met in Baghdad and OPEC was formed. Eventually membership grew' to 13 — Algeria, Ecuador. Gabon, Indonesia. Iran, Iraq. Kuwait. Libya. Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. From the start OPEC made it clear that they were, in the words of one delegate, "a cartel to confront a cartel”. [3] Their main object was to raise their revenues. The reaction of the oil companies was to encourage production outside OPEC, a situation which accelerated the coming of North Sea Oil.

OPEC's fortunes have fluctuated with the current state of the oil market, contrary to ideas that the industry is a "special case" somehow exempt from the normal operation of the forces of supply and demand. The oil glut persisted during the 1960s and OPEC was relatively ineffective. After an attempt by the Arab nations to impose an embargo following the Arab-Israel six-day war in 1967 had failed because the non-Arabs did not give their support, the Organisation of Arabian Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) was formed by the Arab states who nevertheless remained within OPEC. By the 1970s however things had changed. Demand for oil was running considerably ahead of previous forecasts, and the glut was subsiding. The Libyan crisis of 1970 was the first sign of this. Following the deposition of King Idris, Colonel Gadaffi's regime threatened 21 companies which held Libyan concessions that unless they raised the price paid to Libya he would sell oil to Moscow. There were now so many competitors in the field that the oilmen could no longer enforce the type of boycott which had toppled Mossadeq in 1951, and eventually they had to agree to a price increase of 76 cents a barrel.

In this situation many OPEC members negotiated “participation" agreements allowing them part ownership of the companies' concessions. By September 1973 the price of oil on the spot market rose above the posted price for the first time since the formation of OPEC. The following month the Yom Kippur war broke out between Israel and the Arab nations. In Kuwait later that month OPEC decided to raise prices by 70 per cent and simultaneously OAPEC announced an oil embargo involving a 5 per cent cut in production each month until Israel withdrew from the territories it had occupied in June 1967. By the time the dust had settled the price had quadrupled in just over two months. The general political uncertainty in the Middle East helped to keep prices up and during 1979-1980 the Khomeini take-over in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war caused some panic among the oil companies; prices nearly trebled during this period. In an attempt to form an effective counter cartel to confront OPEC, members of 21 oil importing nations agreed to form the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The current slump has meant that such price rises could not he maintained. Demand for oil inevitably fell off. Sales of smaller cars picked up appreciably in the United States. The development of sources outside OPEC meant that the latter’s share of the market was declining. OPEC’s combined oil revenues [5], which were $275 billion in 1980, had declined to an estimated $205 billion in 1982. In April 1980 Japanese oil industry executives refused to pay the National Iranian Oil Company $35 a barrel. Iran was now only exporting 1.5 million barrels a day as opposed to 4 million under the Shah. Differences which had always existed within OPEC came to the fore. The main one was between those nations led by Iran, which have large populations and need money quickly, and smaller nations who can take a more relaxed, long term view. The latter are led by Saudi Arabia, with estimated reserves twice those of Iran. The Saudi oil minister and spokesman — Sheik Yamani, suave and Harvard educated — became a world figure in the 1970s and for many typifies OPEC.

The Saudi group need to retain trade into the next century. They were moderates on price in 1979-80 for fear that by going too high they might stimulate alternative energy projects which could drastically reduce their business. Now, while sharing the OPEC desire to avoid a price slump, they are restless about the restrictions on production required to underpin the price. In contrast the Iran-led group have claimed that the high price is good medicine for the importers because it forces them to practice conservation and look for other sources of energy [6]. Equally hypocritical is the claim by OAPEC [7] to be acting in the interests of non-oil Third World countries. The lie to this is given by figures showing [5] that OPEC’s current account surplus rose to around $110 billion in 1980. A fraction of this surplus was invested in less developed countries, but a large slice was added to bank deposits. The Saudi led group at OAPEC has always found difficulty in finding profitable investment channels for its massive oil income. Despite the trappings of wealth Saudi Arabia remains a backward area which still punishes petty "theft" by cutting off a hand, in a ceremony largely unchanged since the days of Mahomet.

The term “price war" has been used almost exclusively for periods of price cutting such as the present. The current round started in February, when posted prices in the United States were marked down by about $2.50 a barrel, and non-OPEC Russia and Egypt reduced export prices. The British National Oil Corporation, a government owned body set up to deal with British North Sea Oil. then cut its price by $3 to $30.50 a barrel. An OPEC meeting in January having failed to agree. Nigeria unilaterally reduced its price by $5.50 to $30 a barrel. This was the background to the London meeting of OPEC in March which eventually produced a fragile looking deal under which prices were cut by $5 a barrel and a production ceiling of 17.5 million barrels a day was set. The immediate outlook for OPEC is far from rosy. Its fortunes will clearly continue to follow market fluctuations and serious splits, perhaps withdrawals, are likely.

Many workers foolishly believed that the discoveries in the North Sea heralded a cheap oil bonanza for everyone in Britain. In fact there was no chance of the working class gaining any benefit. Even if prices did go down sharply, this would have effectively reduced the price of labour power and thus led to a corresponding reduction in wages. Only the owning capitalist class can benefit from North Sea Oil, and their reaction has been mixed. British industry’s need for cheap energy remains but the ruling class are now also in the oil exporting business. Rising oil prices were held responsible for an upward surge by sterling on the exchange markets, hitting other British exporters. This prompted the famous comment by British Leyland's Michael Edwardes that if North Sea oil caused such problems it might be better to "leave the bloody stuff where it is". On the other hand there are obvious benefits for the capitalist class in being self supporting in oil, even if only temporarily. At the moment 26 fields are operational in the North Sea [8]. Another 30 are discovered but future developments are uncertain owing to high operational costs and low recoverable resources. The general fall in oil prices is a further disincentive. It is expected that North Sea oil production will tailback after 1986.

Gross exchequer revenue from North Sea oil is about $7 billion. 6.4 per cent of total central government taxes. Capital intensive projects such as oil exploration and the development of alternative energy sources are based on certain assumptions about future prices and a slump can destroy their commercial viability. However, BNOC is under some pressure from customers who have not yet finally accepted their new price, hoping for further reduction. There are renewed reports [9-10] of Russian oil being dumped on the market. It looks as though the downward pressure will continue for a while yet, with an uncertain outlook for British North Sea oil.

E. C. Edge

REFERENCES
[1] Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 7. July 1982.
[2] Encyclopedia Britannica, 1974 Edition.
[3] Anthony Sampson: The Seven Sisters, Hodder and Stoughton 1974.
[4] Ida M Tarbell The History of the Standard Oil Company. New York, 1904. Vol.1.
[5] Unsigned article "The Implications of Cheaper Oil". Petroleum Economist, March 1983.
[6] Remarks by the Shah of Iran in 1973, quoted in Ref. 3. p259.
[7] Editorial in Ref. 1 entitled "Aid to the Developing World in Surplus Oil Market".
[8] Article by Alexander G. Kemp and David Rose (University of Aberdeen) in Petroleum Economist, March 1983.
[9] Rod Chapman (Energy correspondent), The Guardian. 9 March 1983.
[10] Roland Gribben (Business correspondent), The Daily Telegraph. 23 March 1983.