Editorial: A King on Socialism. (1908)

Editorial from the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dr. H. M. MacCracken, Chancellor of New York University, has—according to the Harmsworth Press—been interviewed by the Daily Mail’s Own Correspondent.

The professor had just returned from a trip to the Scandinavian countries, undertaken with the object of arranging an interchange of professors. What we are concerned with here, however, is not the object of his holiday, but rather with the delightful example of bourgeois mentality that the Chancellor of New York University introduces to us via the Daily Mail.

The chancellor lunched with King Haakon and conversed for several hours with him on education and politics. “If King Haakon,” he observes, “were not a king he would make an excellent professor of political economy. He understands his subject thoroughly. He knows, too, that Socialism is increasing among his subjects, recognises the fact openly, and is, indeed, much worried about it.”

And then we come to that dreary, hoary old wheeze that Socialism is the Great Divide; that it does not mean a co-operative commonwealth run by associated labour democratically organised, but means that all wealth is to be split up amongst the people !

“Recently, Dr. MacCracken said, the King went among some working men who were known to be Socialists and asked them if they were in favour of a division of wealth. They said they were. “Then let us appoint Friday at noon as the time for the division of wealth,” the King suggested to them. “Very well,” answered the men. “But wait,” said the King, “at five minutes after twelve many babies will be born, and they will be entitled to their share of wealth. Shall we make another division then and another one every five minutes ?”

The King did not get a satisfactory answer to that question, so his opposition to Socialism, he told Dr. MacCracken, was not modified. “Why,” he added, “I could black my own boots if I wanted to. I have done it, and know how. But if I did, what would become of those people who make a living by blacking boots ? The Socialist demand for equality of labour is in fact impracticable. I believe in division of labour.”

After that we are not at all surprised that “King Haakon impressed Dr. MacCracken as a man of unusual intellect.” And when the learned chancellor informs us that the King “would make an excellent professor of political economy,” we can but agree with him.

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The richest 1% of Norwegians held 22% of net wealth in 2022, according to Statistics Norway. That compares with 34% in the US, 30% in Germany and 21% in the UK. 

(MSN)

Senior Chinese leaders… are engaged in corruption and hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth by using relatives to disguise their activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. By 2012, Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth. 

(The Washington Times)

Among the 2,300 sewer cleaners under the employment of the KWSC, to do manual scavenging to unclog the drains, he claims to have taught Adil the dos and don’ts of diving into the slush. ‘You have to be smart to outdo death, which is our companion as we go down,’ he says. It is not the army of cockroaches and the stink that greets you when you open the manhole lid to get in, or the rats swimming in filthy water, but the blades and used syringes floating that are a cause for concern for many as they go down to bring up the rocks and the buckets of filthy silt.

(Inter Press Service)

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to ‘end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza’. ‘What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?’ she asked. ‘Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?’. 

(France24)

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen. ‘We have the Israelis right where we want them,’ Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages… In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as ‘necessary sacrifices’ while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria. 

(CNN)

Graham stressed that helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia could also have strategic economic benefits for the U.S. and Western countries. ‘They’re sitting on $10-12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. We don’t want to give that money and assets to Putin to share with China,’ he told Brennan on Sunday. ‘If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. They’re sitting on a goal mine. To give Putin $10-12 trillion that he will share with China is ridiculous’. 

(MSN)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Pathfinders: Capitalism unplugged (2024)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month Norway announced a huge ocean-floor mining project, doubtless the first of many such endeavours and probably not a huge surprise to Standard readers (Pathfinders, February 2023) or anyone following the halting progress of the green energy transition (GET). Capitalism is not about meeting real needs but about making profits, so when it comes to personal mobility, free mass public transport is not on the table. Instead, the market has fixated on electric vehicle (EV) production, and the bigger the EV the bigger the profit, with what’s been called the ‘EV obesity epidemic’ largely cancelling out the environmental gains of having an EV in the first place. And big cars need big batteries – the battery in a GMC Hummer EV weighs the same as a Honda Civic. Meanwhile, since the cheapest battery materials are in China, by which no manufacturer wants to be held hostage, or Congo with its child-labour practices, it makes good economic sense to dredge up the ocean floor and devastate an unknown virgin ecosystem instead.

The difficulties of obtaining lithium are well known, however there are many competing designs of EV battery which don’t necessarily rely on sensitive and volatile liquid lithium, or on nickel or cobalt. But there are pros and cons with each. Solid-state batteries won’t explode, but production is hard to scale up. Sodium-metal is readily available, but heavy, and subject to electrode corrosion. Hydrogel operates at -20C and is robust enough to be run over by a car, but offers lower performance. Even quantum batteries are being proposed, though theoretical for now. How all this pans out will be instructive. In socialism it would be a matter of picking the overall best. In capitalism it’s the market that will decide, based on a variety of fluctuating economic and political factors that often have little to do with the technology. ‘The GET doesn’t just depend on the right tech, or metal availability, but is also about supply chains, government incentives and business plans – these will determine the market for which batteries can be implemented at scale’ (Economist, 25 October). Currently China is poised to sweep the world with cheap EVs, but major regional markets may respond with tariff-barrier protectionism, as the US is already doing.

In any case there’s a bigger problem. Where is all the clean electricity to come from? There is a paradox here in that decarbonising transport means decarbonising electricity, but rapidly increasing electricity demand will make that decarbonisation more difficult. In countries like Norway, where hydropower is a major part of the energy mix, the break-even point for EVs over combustion vehicles is around 8,400 miles, whereas in coal-dependent Poland and China, it’s around 78,000 miles. Even when the electricity is supposed to be green it sometimes isn’t. The Drax power station in Yorkshire supplies 12 percent of the UK’s supposedly clean energy by chopping down and burning trees.

Globally, electricity generation will have to triple or quadruple if COP28 fossil phase-out pledges are to be honoured. Thus far, the capitalist world is not coping very well. New renewable power stations are not keeping pace with the retirement of old fossil plants. Already the regulatory body overseeing the North American power grid is predicting power outages in most regions of the US and Canada, starting as early as this year. If the world’s richest country is coming unplugged, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of us.

As an aside, one thing driving the recent and unsustainable surge in electricity demand – and this will infuriate socialists if nobody else – is Bitcoin mining, which requires vast amounts of electricity to generate useless virtual currency for greedy investors to speculate over. Bitcoin mining also sends 30,000 tonnes of used hardware to landfill every year, and wastes precious water too, for cooling the server farms, with just one Bitcoin transaction using a swimming pool’s worth.

Apart from such capitalist silliness, there is a massive grid bottleneck, where extra renewable sources can’t come on line because the current grids aren’t designed to support them (December Pathfinders). Existing transformers get hot and need to cool at night, but overnight EV charging, domestic electric heating or A/C on hot nights mean they won’t get the chance, so they will blow, causing outages. Heavier transformers are needed but the poles aren’t designed to carry them, and power lines also need upgrading to allow EVs to feed back into the grid. To meet 2050 climate targets, the US would need a million miles of new lines, but only installed 18,000 miles in the decade 2010-2020, meaning they would have to increase installation rates by a factor of 20. Overall, upgrading all this is estimated to cost tens of billions for the US, and globally around $20 trillion (tinyurl.com/4kbn8s5d). And that’s without considering the slow roll-out of charging infrastructure by governments under intense pressure from other priorities, like health provision, domestic subsidies or arms for Ukraine. And then there’s the fact that many roads, multi-storey car parks and bridges aren’t designed for much heavier EVs.

The word ‘omnishambles’ comes to mind, but for capitalism that’s really just normal business practice. A cooperative socialist society of democratic common ownership would still have to undertake a green energy transition, but it would only have to deal with the technical problems. With no markets, no trade and no money, it wouldn’t have to put up with the GET staggering, pausing or going into reverse every time the oil price went up or down, some country started a war, or looming elections motivated careerist politicians to pander to their pet NIMBY supporters. And with no salaried employment, the highways wouldn’t be crammed with miserable wage slaves forced to commute every day in order to pay for food, housing, and the electric vehicle they’ve had to buy just to get to work. Once we get rid of the obsolete market system, things will become so much simpler.

Paddy Shannon

Troubled waters (1983)

From the October 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

After ten years of intermittent discussion the Law of the Sea Conference finally came to a close last December when a Convention was signed by 117 states at an official ceremony at Montego Bay, Jamaica. Several key states, however — most notably the United States, Britain. West Germany and Japan — have refused to sign on the grounds that the proposed International Seabed Authority limits the freedom of their mining companies to exploit the resources of the seabed. The creation of an international organisation to manage seabed mining threatened the existence of the Conference throughout the last ten years and even now poses a threat to the workings of the new Law of the Sea. In fact the central issues which predominated during the conference were the thorny ones of ownership and control of resources. It could be said, however, that the aim of the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference was to establish the rules of the game for the use and abuse of the oceans. This proved necessary since there was an increase in the recoverable economic value of the seabed combined with a polarisation of interests between the industrialised states of the north and the developing states of the south — a factor promoted by the increase in the number of new sovereign states since the post-1945 de-colonisation. The interests of the south are articulated by the Group of 77, which in 1980 comprised 117 states. This coalition is determined to ensure that there will be no new colonialism in relation to the wealth of the seabed.

The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) started in 1973. UNCLOS was divided into three main committees — for deep sea mining; traditional law of the sea problems such as navigation, continental shelf and fisheries; and marine research and pollution. These issues were not without controversy since disputes exist over national boundaries, rights within national boundaries, those over rights in the ocean beyond national jurisdiction and those arising from non-ocean sources. Around the world there are numerous contested zones, islands, archipelagos, not to mention rights over navigation. There are more than 100 strategically important straits such as the Malacca strait between Malaysia and Indonesia, through which the bulk of Japan’s oil supplies pass. There are disputes over fishing where the interests of the maritime states — the Soviet Union and Japan for example — with large distant water fishing fleets collide with those of the coastal states with large fishing grounds off their shores.

The establishment of an Exclusive Economic Zone — EEZ — would allow states to claim exclusive rights to the seabed out to 200 miles from the shore. There are, however, numerous islands whose ownership is hotly contested, the Falklands for instance. Although islands are defined as naturally formed areas of land surrounded by water at high tide and therefore entitled to an EEZ, this does not prevent states from demanding EEZ rights for rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life on their own. The reason for this is simple: states commanding rocks in resource-rich areas can use them to claim the contiguous resources. In this respect the dispute between Britain. Ireland and Denmark over Rockall, a tiny rock about 400km west of the Hebrides, came into focus since it commands an area of 201,250kms of the continental shelf with potential oil reserves. It is not surprising then that Britain has consistently argued that existing international law makes no distinction between different types of island and that to do so is likely to result in ambiguities. The resolution of this particular squabble — ownership and whether such rocks are entitled to an EEZ — will set an important precedent as there are similar disputed “rocks" in the Pacific and Caribbean.

The Falklands war was not unrelated to the question of EEZs since the continental shelf contains oil reserves and the seas are rich in fish stocks. It is for this reason that seemingly insignificant islands as the Falklands Dependencies, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, assume strategic significance as they can be used to stake claims to the resources in the surrounding seas and on the seabed. Furthermore such islands are useful as a staging post to the Antarctic, another area potentially rich in untapped resources. Shortly after the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands Lord Shakleton was moved to remark:

What is at stake and what undoubtedly is in the minds of the Argentinians is not just the Falkland Islands but their claim to Antarctic territory. (3 April 1982 Hansard (Lords) vol. 448 col. 1585.)

Two supposedly allied NATO states, Greece and Turkey, were at one time more likely to go to war with one another than with the Soviet Union over the resources of the Aegean Sea. According to Barry Buzan, “The conflict of interest between Greece and Turkey arose, like many others, after discovery of oil by an American exploration company” (Adelphi Papers No. 143, A Sea of Troubles? Sources of Dispute in the New Ocean REGIME).

In the Far East. Japan, in addition to the long-running dispute with the Soviet Union over the Kurile Islands, contests the ownership of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea with both China and Taiwan. The significance of potentially large off-shore oil is not lost on states dependent on oil imports such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Moreover, the continental shelf and economic zone boundaries cannot be drawn until this dispute is resolved.

The Barents Sea and the conflict of interests between the Soviet Union and Norway is. perhaps, typical of many of the problems associated with delimitation. The contested area constitutes roughly 153,000 square kilometres of the continental shelf between Novaya Zemlaya and Spitsbergen. For the Norewegians substantial fish and seabed resources, principally oil, depend on how the boundary is drawn. This is particularly important for the Norwegians since oil is vital for their economy. The existence of indigenous oil reserves, as in the North Sea and possibly in the Barents Sea, allows Norway to avoid the vulnerabilities associated with dependence on Middle Eastern oil. It is for this reason that Norway is concerned about the activities of a Russian oil drilling ship, the Valentin Shashin (Guardian, 2 May 1983). Energy supplies, even for resource-rich Russia, may become critical in the next decade since Soviet oil and gas supplies may be insufficient to meet both domestic and growing Eastern European demands. Despite the disputed zone the Norwegians have recently signed a deal with the Russians which will, according to the Guardian (27 April 1983) permit the Norwegian Petroleum Consultants to evaluate exploration costs to decide where to drill and to frame the timetable of the operation. Offshore oil exploration is an area in which the Russians lack the technological expertise of Western states and are, therefore, heavily dependent on Western assistance. In fact, “the Norwegian offshore industry is keen to get in on the act, and the yards have been pressing the Government to be allowed to sell to the Soviets” (Guardian, 17 June 1983). Furthermore, the British and the French are keen to sell the Russians oil-exploration-related technology even though the American government would rather they did not. However, “this is not in the interests of West European industry and commerce” (Guardian, 27 April 1983).

In addition to the availability of oil and gas the Russians have a keen military interest in the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea. The Russian Northern Fleet has bases at Pechanga, Murmansk and Severomorsk, all of which are situated on the Kola Peninsula in the Leningrad Military District. Moreover, one of the two Soviet ballistic missile submarine bases is at Polyarny at the Eastern end of the peninsula. However, as the British and Norwegians discovered, increased commercial traffic and oil exploration do not mix — as they had to transfer their joint manoeuvres from the North Sea to the Shetlands. UNCLOS allows for the concept of “innocent passage” whereby ships are entitled to passage provided it is not prejudicial to the “peace", "good order" or “security" of the coastal states. Warships and submarines, however, pose problems but all attempts to restrain their passage have been opposed by the major maritime states.

Perhaps the greatest controversy facing the Conference relates to deep sea mining. The resources at stake are large deposits of potato-shaped polymetallic nodules — “manganese nodules". They contain traces of vital “strategic metals" such as cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese. On average each nodule contains 30 per cent manganese, 1 per cent nickel and ¼ per cent cobalt. Cobalt, for instance, is an indispensable element in the manufacture of small high-powered magnets necessary for weapons guidance systems. In a uranium enrichment plant employing the gaseous diffusion method nickel plated steel is used since it is able to withstand the highly corrosive uranium hexathoride gas. However,

The nodules themselves have lost glamour to deposits of polymetallic sulphides containing copper and other metals in much higher concentrations, first encountered at volcanic vents in the Pacific rift near the Galapagos Islands and off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Similar deposits are certain to be found elsewhere along the 40,000 mile world-gridling submarine rifted ridge. (“The Law of the Sea. Elisabeth M. Borgese, Scientific American, March 1983, Vol. 248. No. 3. p. 33.)

Hitherto such metals were only available from relatively few states which were either politically unstable or unfriendly to the West. Since the EEC’s import dependence for materials such as manganese is 99 per cent and copper 91 per cent, “The European Community's industrialised countries are keen to see that seabed mining for cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel begins as soon as possible and with as little restraint as possible” (Guardian, 23 November 1982). Japan is 95 per cent dependent on imports of manganese and 98 per cent on nickel. It is, therefore, not too difficult to appreciate the interests of Western states in the possibility of achieving independence in relation to the supply of industrial materials. This chiefly explains their opposition to the deep sea mining provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention. Britain and the US vigorously oppose the insistence of the developing states that an International Seabed Authority should regulate the market, transfer technology and ensure that the benefits accrue to the developing states. In short, the key problem is who will be permitted to exploit seabed nodules?

The Group of 77 argued that since the new resources of minerals threatened the economics of those states in the developing world dependent on the export of one or two minerals such states should be compensated for the loss of export earnings. Moreover, it urged that an ISA should have stronger powers; for example, to regulate production and to carry out mining operations and related activity in the name of the Authority. The United States however, largely at the behest of its multinational mining companies, opposed the treaty on the grounds that such an Authority would limit their commercial freedom, specifically by obliging them to pay taxes on earnings from mining to such an authority as well as to supply it with technology. Although the Group of 77 insisted that the establishment of an ISA is an integral component of a New International Economic Order and sees the ISA as very much a test case for future resource redistribution, the Group has been unable to maintain its unity. It has been dominated by coastal states, especially those with large coastlines and significant offshore resources. This has been achieved at the expense of the “geographically disadvantaged states” — landlocked states and those without large coastlines or significant offshore resources. Even though the industrialised states oppose the content of the ISA proposals, not all are in favour of unhindered access and exploitation since this would work to the unilateral advantage of American mining companies. Britain, West Germany and Italy share the American view, but Ireland, Denmark and Greece “recognise the advantages the treaty could provide for countries lacking the industrial base for seabed mining” (Guardian. 23 November 1982).

At the signing ceremony of the Convention the US representative, Thomas Clingan, stated unequivocally that:

The US has an extreme national interest in having access to strategic metals from the oceans . . . the Treaty just doesn’t meet our interests in terms of deep sea-bed mining provisions. (International Herald Tribune, 8 December 1982.)

And that, in the end, is what the Law of the Sea Conference is concerned with: the pursuit of the “national interest" — the owning minority. The resources of the seabed beyond the 200-mile EEZs are designated “the common heritage of mankind”; nothing could be further from the truth.

John Walker

The Rear View: Same the whole world over (2021)

The Rear View Column from the November 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Same the whole world over

‘The Green Party, the Socialist Left and the Marxist-inspired Reds – all pro-environmental – are all expected to make gains and will seek to influence the next government, as will the rural Centre Party. Climate, wealth gap in focus as Norway go to polls’ (yahoo.com, 9 September). A similar Red-Green Coalition ruled 2005-2013 with Labour Party leader Jens Stoltenburg as Prime Minister. He has since become NATO’s General Secretary. The party’s current leader is the capitalist Jonas Gahr Støre. Once upon a time, Labour was considered ‘radical’: in 1919 it joined the Third International which had its headquarters in Moscow. Similarly, the Green Party was once concerned with alternative economics (who remembers BD Brochmann?), alternatives to military service, alternative energy, partial opposition to whaling (whale meat is still for sale) as well as going some distance towards the decriminalisation of certain drugs. The Socialist Left, formed in 1975, has its origins in a group which left the Labour Party over NATO membership. Interestingly, they were predictably against the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq but the Party leadership favoured NATO air strikes against Serbia over that country’s role in Kosovo (killing thousands and causing as many as 1.5 million people to flee as refugees). The ‘Marxist inspired’ Reds are, as history shows, anything but. The Red Electoral Alliance was formed in 1973 as an electoral front organisation for the Workers’ Communist Party. Much can be said about the WCP, but the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten’s headline from 28 August 2005 probably cannot be bettered: ‘They worshipped Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot’. And one Vidkun Quisling was a Minister in government for the populist Centre Party’s earlier incarnation as the Farmer’s Party. He later led Nazi-occupied Norway. Eugene Debs’ WW1 remark remains apposite: ‘Yes, a change is certainly needed, not merely a change of party but a change of system, a change from slavery to freedom and from despotism to democracy, wide as the world’.

A Better World is Possible

This is the title of an essay by Dr. Cesar Chelala, which concludes: ‘We have the resources. What we need is a new look at life and its wondrous possibilities. I may be called naïve. But those who are not naïve are the ones that have led us into these wars. We can create a better world, if we truly want it’ (counterpunch.org, 3 September). Indeed. This call echoes others made in the past:

1859: ‘There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery…’ (Marx in the New York Daily Tribune, 16 September). He observed that the ‘Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people, but it killed poor devils only. To the wealth of the country it did not the slightest damage’ (Capital, Vol. 1, ch. 25).

1898: ‘Hence it has happened that the development of steam navigation, of railroads and telegraphs, of mechanical and chemical science, and the growth of the population, while enormously increasing productive power and the amount of material products—that is, of real wealth—at least ten times faster than the growth of the population, has given that enormous increase almost wholly to one class, comprising the landlords and capitalists, leaving the actual producers of it—the industrial workers and inventors—little, if any, better off than before’ (Alfred Russel Wallace, The Demon of Greed).

1923: ‘Such a great [socialist] production is already possible, with the knowledge already possessed by mankind’ (Sylvia Pankhurst).

1948: ‘A world of peace and friendship, a world with the plenty which modern science had made possible was a great ideal. But those in power had no patience with such an ideal. They said it was not practical politics’ (John Boyd Orr, former director of the Food and Agriculture Organisation).

1951: ‘It is time for mankind to ensure itself of material abundance by establishing a free, self-managed world society of productive labour, thereby freeing its mental powers for perfecting its knowledge of nature and the universe’ (Anton Pannekoek, A History of Astronomy).

All that is missing from achieving this is ‘the conscious will and action of the majority of the proletariat’ (Rosa Luxemburg).

Comrade Speaker?

‘You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that’ (yahoo.com, 17 September). Indeed, but our fellow socialists in the WSP(US) do not expect Nancy Pelosi to join them anytime soon as she makes clear elsewhere that she wishes to reform capitalism, not replace it. Other, sadly long-dead Democrats stated: ‘ All men are brethren. We denounce all political and hereditary inequalities and distinctions of castes… We believe the earth, with all its natural productions, to be the common property of all… We believe that the present state of society, which permits its idlers and schemers to monopolise the fruits of the earth and, the production of industry, and compels the working class to labour for inadequate rewards, and even condemns them to social slavery, destitution, and degradation, to be essentially unjust… We condemn national hatreds which have hitherto divided mankind… Convinced that national prejudices have been, at all ages, taken advantage of by the people’s oppressors to set them tearing the throats of each other when they should have been working together for their common good, this society repudiates the term ‘foreigner.’ We recognise our fellow-men, without regard to country, as members of one family, the human race, and citizens of one commonwealth, the world’ (Manifesto of the Fraternal Democrats, 1845).

May Day: Bedlam Let Loose. (1940)

From the May 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Exactly one year ago the Socialist Standard's annual May-Day Message emphasised the imminent danger of war: to-day this war has been in progress for eight months. Poland, Russia, Finland, and now the Scandinavian lands, have been drawn into its destructive vortex.

The League of Nations, “Collective Security,” the “Peace Front”—all have vanished, and in their place has come the line-up of allies in war, as it has always, down throughout the history of capitalism.

“Armed strength means peace!” “Alliances prevent war!” Does anyone now believe those discarded catch-cries ?

Yet right up to the outbreak of hostilities millions pinned their faith to such spurious arguments. Even now we can hear in some quarters regrets: “If only the Western Powers could have made a pact with Russia … !”

The cause of war to-day is capitalism; the line-up in war is forced on the countries concerned by their interests as capitalist competitors for wealth and trade. The factors that cause wars determine also how the warring governments shall group themselves, these factors are indivisible.

The Berlin-Moscow pact, hailed by the Communists in this country as a “Victory for Peace and Socialism,” gave the signal for the outbreak of war. It left the governors of Britain’s wealth under no further illusions, if illusions they held. Hitler had secured Germany in the East; his next move would be either South-East into the Balkans and ultimately Turkey, or else he would strike directly at the West. In either case it would be a challenge to the Empires of Britain and France. And move Hitler must, the German dictatorship cannot stand still. Its only purpose is to establish Germany as a world Power.

For the present his sleeping partner in Moscow has adopted the role of “belligerent neutral.” The Finnish adventure has tested the Russian military machine, and found it, at least for the time, in some respects wanting; further moves from Moscow have had to be postponed, if not entirely shelved. So the Führer turns to his former ally, Mussolini, hoping to tempt him into a more active role.

In the meantime the battle has already begun in earnest—on the soil of a country, Norway, which has not known the horrors of war for over a century. Towns are bombed, villages entirely destroyed, the civil populations, the aged and the sick, have to drag themselves from their homesteads and flee from the combatants in frantic endeavour to save their lives.

This terror cannot be imagined, it can only be experienced.

What will come next ?

Will total war spread to Sweden—to the low countries—or will a million human bodies be hurled against the walls of steel and concrete on the Western Front ? The decision rests with the class into whose keeping the workers have foolishly given their destiny. Whichever side makes the next move we are certain of one fact: that it will not be decided in the interests of the workers. In the opinion of our rulers, we were born to work and to suffer. It is an opinion which only a growing movement for Socialism can change.

Already the signs of working-class discontent are in evidence. There is not unanimous enthusiasm for war. Even the promise of Hitler’s removal has failed to awaken any jingoism comparable with that in the last war, in this country or in France. We may be sure that millions of Germans are in the same mood, although they have little chance of showing it as yet.

Their time will also come, with or without defeat in war Hitler is doomed.

Hitler claims to be the apostle of a new era— he is wrong. He is the backwash of an old one, the German bourgeois revolution of 1848. His gangster rule can only be a passing phase of German history. The tragic pity is the slaughter that may accompany his downfall.

Hitler and his ideas will not be destroyed by war, rather are they given a temporary new lease of life. Not only in Germany, but in France and Britain, too, forces of suppression are coming to the fore as always in war.

Real progress can only be assured through the growing understanding of working-class people in all lands, an understanding of the world and the social forces that make it what it is to-day.

Socialist propaganda plays a most important part in that mental awakening.

History calls upon the working class to take vhe initiative. We of the Socialist Party of Great Britain accept our share of that responsibility.

Our work will go on. Our ideas are invincible. Neither Hitler’s Germany nor Stalin’s Russia, nor the British Empire, will be able to withstand the march of Socialism.

Sid Rubin

Massacre in Norway (2011)

From the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 22 July, the government offices in Oslo, Norway, were blown up, killing eight people. Shortly afterwards the bomber travelled to a Norwegian Labour Party summer camp mainly attended by children and began shooting them. He killed 68.

To begin with, the news media reported this accurately as a terrorist attack, speculating predictably but wrongly that the attacker was muslim. When it emerged that the attacker was not in fact muslim but a self-declared christian, with political views similar to that held by many mainstream news commentators and politicians, and with links to right-wing political parties throughout Europe, suddenly it was decided that Anders Behring Breivik was not a terrorist after all, merely a deranged madman, acting alone.

Then began the usual debate about how to define terrorism, which is held, as Chomsky has pointed out, to be a “vexing and complex problem” – at least, it’s deemed vexing and complex by those whose job it is to provide apologetic cover for the forms of terrorism that are acceptable to the ruling class.

There is just as much confusion about multiculturalism, or what the Norway terrorist called in his political manifesto “Marxist multiculturalism”. The fact is that human societies, and especially modern ones, are almost always multicultural. As Gary Younge pointed out in the Guardian (14 March): “Cultures are dynamic, and emerge organically from communities. None exist in isolation or remain static. So the presence of a range of cultures in Britain or anywhere else is not novel, but the norm.” There’s nothing wrong with that. A diversity of languages, festivals, music and food is something to be welcomed and enjoyed.

But the other kind of multiculturalism – that which advocates liberal, state-led policies for encouraging and supporting cultural differences at the expense of working class unity – has nothing to do with Marxism. It is something to be opposed as much as the alternative policy pursued by some states of inculcating a single “national identity”. Workers should be encouraged to think of themselves as members of a worldwide class with a common interest, not as members of different “nations” or different “ethnic” or “cultural” groups with their own different, competing interests.

We have never had a problem doing that. That’s because we understand that working class people of all cultures need to come together as equals to fight for issues that unite them as a class. And that’s the only way we’ll ever achieve a society where we can work together for things that unite us all as human beings, regardless of skin colour, religious beliefs, cultural or national origin, or individual difference.

Breivik’s Philosophy of Hate (2012)

From the June 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

We look at mass murderer Anders Breivik’s attempt to imitate Mein Kampf.

On 16 April the trial of the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik started and is scheduled to conclude by the end of June. Breivik has confessed to the bombing in Oslo, killing eight, and the shooting of sixty-nine at the Norwegian Labour Party’s youth camp in Utoya.

Like young, white, male right-wing terrorists before him, such as Timothy McVeigh and David Copeland, Anders Breivik (despite his claims to be part of the Knights Templar) seems to have acted alone. Like McVeigh and Copeland, Breivik became disillusioned with co-operating with anyone in larger far-right organisations preferring a kind of messianic narcissistic individualism.

All grew up under the capitalist system, but with varying provision for welfare. McVeigh became transient after the leaving the army, and ended up in a dead-end job with long hours. Copeland struggled through a series of failed jobs before working on the London Underground. Breivik perhaps enjoyed the best welfare provision growing up, McVeigh quite possibly the most meagre. All were alienated from society and all found familiar scapegoats for their degrees of alienation. McVeigh expressed some of this in writing before the bombing and after in a 1,200 word essay. Only well-educated Breivik, however, seemed well-paid and not precariously employed (traditionally the far right exploit unemployment), and took a language other than his first and wrote a 1,518 page manifesto entitled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence by Andrew Berwick. This somewhat troubles those keen to label anything outside the political mainstream as “extremist” and medicalise his condition as insane. He wrote that his main motive for committing the atrocities on 22 July was to market this manifesto.

The far-right scapegoat which finds the most traction post-9/11 happens to be Islam. It used to be Jewish immigration or Afro-Caribbean immigration. While Copeland talked of a Zionist conspiracy, the far-right, after 9/11, switched support from Palestine to Israel. In any case, like European efforts of the English Defence League, Breivik is more pan-nationalist than nationalist. He writes:

  “One of the reasons why hardcore anti-Semites (David Duke would be a case in point) are unreliable allies is that they hate Jews so much that it shuts down the rational parts of their brain and they end up making common cause with Muslims, based on mutual hatred. The same logic applies to hardcore anti-Europeans, of which there are many even at ‘conservative’ websites such as LGF. They have an irrational hatred, a dark cloud in their minds which prevents them from seeing the world clearly. In a way, some LGF-ers thus have more in common with David Duke than they’d like to admit. If mindless anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism should be considered a problem then so should mindless anti-Europeanism.”

What matters chiefly is that the group persecuted by fascists is in a position of weakness. Breivik implicitly acknowledged this “If I was a bearded jihadist there would be no question of insanity”.

Only about half of the manifesto was written by Breivik and the rest is compiled from other sources. “I’ve spent a total of 9 years of my life working on this project. The first five years were spent studying and creating a financial base, and the last three years was spent working full time with research, compilation and writing.”

The introductory chapter of the manifesto defining “Cultural Marxism” is reprinted from Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology by the right-wing think tank, Free Congress Foundation. Very early on, the fabrications and leaps of logic jump out. “Political Correctness now looms over Western European society like a colossus.” then “Political Correctness is Marxism, with all that implies: loss of freedom of expression, thought control, inversion of the traditional social order, and, ultimately, a totalitarian state.”

By the end of the introduction, Political Correctness and other restrictions of freedom of speech or language are treated as synonymous with Cultural Marxism. The conclusion then is to get rid of both, which somewhat discredits later claims to defend free speech.

It should come as little surprise then that Breivik’s particular bête noire was “Marxists”. He is reported to have repeatedly shouted during the shooting, “You are going to die today, Marxists!” and the badge on the left arm of his diving suit read “Marxist Hunter”.

A lot of what follows is tortuous, wrongly interpreted, one-sided opinion, or just plain invented. Long-term demographic projections, an old favourite of fascists, make an appearance despite being notoriously dubious.

Book 1, entitled “History and Islam” focuses on largely historical disputes about genocides, falsification and apologism.  Islam and its adherents are selectively demonised while religion generally gets a get-out-of-jail free card.  The manifesto states “Negationism in Europe is practised with the most prowess by historians and writers who are under the spell of Marxism. Lenin had wanted to use the Muslims against the French and British colonialists. Modern Leftists with Marxist sympathies see Islam as an ally against Israel and the US.”

Book 2, entitled “Europe Burning” is dull speculation about a conspiracy theory of “Eurabia”, and some reprinted rambling about Feminism. ‘Cultural Marxism’ is also used interchangeably with multiculturalism and becomes a phrase for any bad thing you can think of.

One chapter is entitled “Why the discipline of Sociology must be completely removed from Academia”. As far as Breivik is concerned, the reason for this is that it is Marxist. He suggests replacing it with ideas from The Bible, Machiavelli, George Orwell, Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Ayn Rand and William James. The selective philosophising is tedious and tiresome to read. Perhaps because he knows he is on shaky ground with capitalism and democracy, the chapter on “Globalised Capitalism” gets a mere four pages and in any case is traditionally code on the far-right for anti-Semitism.

In the rest of Book 2 he writes chapters entitled “Discrimination and harassment against cultural conservatives” and “ ANTIFA/Labour Jugend – State sponsored Marxist lynch mobs” where he states, “These brave Leftists or ‘anti-Fascists’ do, for some curious reason, seem to behave pretty much like, well, Fascists, a bit like the Brown Shirts in the 1930s, physically assaulting political opponents to silence them.” Some of this unfortunately can be levelled at SOS Rasisme and Blitz in Norway.

The manifesto concludes in Book 3 with a mixture of practicality and pure fantasy. One of the final chapters oddly reproduces a ‘Marxist’ study course.  Breivik also credits Wikipedia. All in all, the manifesto represents years of wasted time, money and effort and, most important, wasted lives.  It reads as a hotchpotch of prejudices, has little nuance and is full of generalisations, principally about wrong assumptions. As if to remind us where these prejudices come from, U.S. conservative commentator Glenn Beck came out with the most offensive stupid response. He compared the victims to the Hitler Youth before being reminded that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9-12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children.

The trial continues.

DJW

Rear View: Learning from the past (2017)

The Rear View Column from the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Learning from the past 

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Thrane, an early pioneer of working class organisation in Norway. He along with other workers established the Drammen Labour Union in 1848. The union’s call for universal suffrage (granted to men in 1889, women in 1913), better schooling, reduced prices for certain commodities, as well as agricultural subsidies, and the extension of mandatory military service to those with property, were met with a dismissive response from the king. One of the motions at the national conference of 1851 was for revolution. Thrane perhaps fearing the wrath of the ruling class, lobbied against this decision and the motion was not, in the end, carried. The historian Tore Pryser, however, sees Thrane in favour of revolution but not before all other avenues were tried first. The Socialist Party is opposed to reformism but not necessarily individual reforms which may be of benefit to our class. Here are just two of many examples as to why we have been encouraging workers for over a century to take the revolutionary road rather than innumerable well-trodden reformist blind alleys: ‘women will have to wait 217 years before they earn as much as men and are equally represented in the workplace, research finds as gender pay gap worsens’ (dailymail.co.uk, 2 November) and ‘the number of children living in poverty will soar to a record 5.2 million over the next five years’ (theguardian.com, 2 November).

Back to the future 

The Socialist Party is an organisation founded on scientific methodology and as such must constantly re-examine its principles and practices. Our Declaration of Principles is no exception yet has stood the test of time. One principle states in part that ‘ the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.’  Such a statement may seem reserved for a Star Trek future, yet we should remember that capitalism as a system of society with its glaring inequalities, war and want alongside wanton wealth has not always been with us. Socialists argue, however, that it has long outlived its usefulness and scientific research shows that we lived very differently in the past. ‘The Ju/’hoansi people of the Kalahari have always been fiercely egalitarian. They hate inequality or showing off, and shun formal leadership institutions. It’s what made them part of the most successful, sustainable civilisation in human history’ (theguardian.com, 29 October).

Stuck in the present 

Judging by Donald Trump Junior’s recent tweet – I’m going to take half of Chloe’s candy tonight & give it to some kid who sat at home. It’s never to [sic] early to teach her about socialism – he probably thinks Bushmen support the two recent US presidents with that name and primitive communism is found in North Korea. Another member of the 1 percent, who unlike Trump climbed the greasy pole rather than inherited her wealth, tweeted the following reply: ‘fill her bucket with old candy left by her great-grandfather, then explain that she has more because she’s smarter than all the other kids’. This exchange was reported by harpersbazar.com (1 November), who perhaps ought to be thanked for not providing any definition of socialism. We are happy to oblige: a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Reinventing the past 

The mendacious mass media says that China is socialist or communist, yet capitalist hallmarks, such as class society, commodity production, profit motive, exploitation of wage labour, markets, etc., exist there as they do worldwide. Further evidence is supplied by a recent article titled ‘Always Stay Professional’. Inside China’s Booming Butler Schools, Nothing But the Best Will Do’ (time.com, 1 November). Here we learn that some of China’s 1,590,000 millionaires wish to live the life of Riley Downtown Abbey style! ‘Students pay 50,000 rmb ($7,500) for a six-week course on food presentation, how to iron shirts the proper way, and maintaining serene decorum at all times…. Students learn how to choose fine wine but also good Chinese liquor, teach tai chi, perform a tea ceremony and caddy on the golf course. For many, it’s another world.’ Indeed. ‘…15-hour days and endless drilling. How to clean a toilet, iron a tablecloth, use tape-measures and plastic blocks to get table placings perfectly aligned. It’s a regimen of burns, blisters and bottomless cups of coffee’. The Ju/’hoansi people work only 15 hours a week.

Pathfinders: Whale Flukes (2018)

The Pathfinders Column from the October 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

When people ask questions that begin ‘What would socialism do about . . . ?’ we have to be careful how to answer because a) it would be presumptuous of us to make tomorrow’s decisions today on behalf of everyone, b) prevailing circumstances and technology may change unpredictably and c), as a Party wag once put it, socialists don’t have crystal balls.

But you don’t need technical knowledge, or crystal balls, to realise what socialism would most likely do in many cases. Sometimes common sense is enough. But capitalism is far too perverse to be so amenable, as two recent news items illustrate.

The first item is the story that Japan is trying to get its supporters on the International Whaling Commission (mostly small countries with juicy Japanese aid programmes) to vote to lift the long-standing global embargo (‘Japan says it’s time to allow sustainable whaling’, BBC Online, 7 September). The whaling question is bizarre from almost every angle. Japan argues that now that the minke whale population has returned to sustainable levels, the embargo makes no sense. But Japan has famously been hunting minke whales in defiance of the embargo ever since it was established in 1986, with the risible pretence of ‘scientific research’. This oddity seems to be what has drawn so much media attention onto Japan, while to virtual media indifference and without any such ‘scientific’ pretence, Norway and Iceland together hunt even more whales per year than Japan, including the endangered fin whale. Their reason? The IWC embargo was only ever voluntary and so they have both opted to ignore it. One wonders why the Japanese don’t simply do the same.

After all, they would have a point. The IWC was deliberately crowded out by non-whaling countries (over 70) to permanently out-vote the whalers, so the debate was harpooned from the start. The Japanese are also surely correct in pointing out that most opposing countries support large-scale meat farming, often in cramped and inhumane conditions, and are thus being completely hypocritical. Certainly whales are intelligent animals, but then so are pigs. Moreover it’s a strange kind of moral argument to say that we shouldn’t kill things because they are intelligent, when capitalism regularly kills intelligent humans by the tens of millions, by neglect if not active warfare.

But what’s really odd about the whaling industry is that it doesn’t even make money. Whaling in all three countries is heavily subsidised by their governments. Though populations have been gulled into supporting whaling as a mark of nationalist pride, hardly any of them eat whale meat. In Iceland, whale watching is a far more lucrative industry and almost the only people who eat the meat are tourists who think of it as a cultural box to tick (‘Icelanders Don’t Like Whale Meat—So Why the Hunts?’news.nationalgeographic.com, 27 January 2016).

In Norway fewer than 5 percent eat whale steak (Wikipedia). The rest is sold for dog food or shipped to Japan. Even in Japan there is hardly any taste for it, and the market is on the point of collapse. The reason in all cases is the same: whale meat just doesn’t taste very good. Despite its claims to centuries of tradition, Japan only started large-scale whaling after World War 2 when it was unable to afford lamb and beef imports.

Norway’s only remaining whaling company actively propagandises the industry by visiting schools and sponsoring apprenticeship schemes. Iceland echoes a Life of Brian parody by demanding the right to eat whale as a symbol of national independence even though none of them do, while Japanese ‘scientific’ whale meat usually ends up in restaurants served to tourists.

Meanwhile government subsidies keep the leaky ship afloat. The more you look at the industry, the madder it gets, and it serves as an example to anyone tempted to argue that capitalism’s market system is always supremely logical and economically rational. It sometimes isn’t, even in its own terms.

To answer the question ‘Would there be whaling in socialism?’ you only have to ask yourself if you would be prepared to go out on a factory ship and kill whales with grenade harpoons for the sake of something that nobody wants to eat in the first place.

The Green And Pleasant Sahara

The other story is more encouraging, with the suggestion by researchers that planting up to 9m square kilometres of solar panels and wind turbines across the Sahara desert would have the effect of greening it (‘Large-scale wind and solar power ‘could green the Sahara’’, BBC Online, 7 September). It turns out that both solar and wind collection systems have the by-product of increasing local precipitation, quite apart from the energy they produce. The effect on local people could hardly be more positive, in turning arid desert into a Garden of Eden, so unless further climate modelling produces the unhappy report that more rain on terrain A means less rain on terrain B and that such a project would wreck the global climate even more than it’s currently being wrecked, there appears to be no down side. It’s estimated that such a project could generate up to four times the entire world’s annual energy consumption. In a socialist society looking for safe and sustainable ways to produce abundant energy, this could well be the decisive factor in proceeding with such a scheme in all haste.

But in capitalism there is the unpredictable market to take into account. What rich country or corporation is going to front up the money for this, and toward what perceived profit? Local people in the Sahara may well benefit but as they are among the poorest people on Earth they don’t count, economically speaking. What does count is the sale of the energy to other countries, but energy prices can be severely affected by many factors, especially oversupply. Investors are not likely to invest in any system that supplies energy over and above projected demand, because this will lead to lower prices and a loss of profit. So, good as the idea looks, if the numbers don’t add up capitalism won’t build it.

Or maybe they will, if they apply the farcical logic of the whaling industry. No wonder socialists think capitalism is bonkers.

Paddy Shannon

A Norwegian sense of humour? (1996)

Book Review from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, Phoenix, £6.99.

This is a highly readable and innovative book. It tells the story of a young girl’s encounter with the study of philosophy. In telling the story more attention is paid to the simple explication of philosophical ideas than to any great literary flourishes. (Indeed, as a novel it is quite pedestrian.) As an introduction to what various philosophers from antiquity to the present had to say the book can not much be faulted for simplicity and the way that it stimulates further thought. The present writer found the early chapters on the Greek philosophers especially enlightening, often clarifying concepts which had always before been a little misty.

Of interest to readers of the Socialist Standard will be the fifteen-page chapter which tries to explain Marx’s basic ideas. Does it succeed as an introduction? Essentially, yes. In the most simple of terms, from which many contemporary Marxist writers could learn a thing or two. Marx’s three key concepts—the class struggle; historical materialism; and exploitation—are outlined. It is pointed out that Marx's ideas were rooted in humans as producers and the theory of alienation, being rooted in the separation between the producer and what is produced, is made clear. It is also emphasised that Marx would not have supported many of the things that have been carried out in his name, although this does not stop the writer from representing Marx as an advocate of “the dictatorship of the proletariat" as a first, transitional stage of socialism.

Quite ludicrously, Gaarder suggests that while Marx's analysis of capitalism is basically valid, it is inapplicable to contemporary Norway were most of the problems of nineteenth-century capitalism have been eradicated. He suggests that this miracle has been performed by social-democratic reformers (inspired by Marx) who sought to change capitalism gradually. Can this be an example of the well-known Norwegian sense of humour infiltrating the text? Or might we conclude that, though a basically good teacher of philosophy, we must say of Gaarder. in the words of Marx, that "the educators must also be educated"?

Steve Coleman

Norway — luxurious serfdom? (1985)

From the January 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Norway is now among the five wealthiest countries in Europe even though the sky-high expectations of the early years of North Sea oil exploration have not been realised. In the recent past it was seriously believed that when the oil started flowing, all Norwegians would be wealthy and the country could allocate large sums of money to third world aid.

Realism has descended on these would-be Northern sheiks since then; not because the reserves of oil and gas are smaller than expected — on the contrary, new oil and gas strikes are being made all the time — but because this new-found wealth does not penetrate down to the grass-roots:

. . . The petroleum reserves on the Norwegian shelf belong to the country and the profit gained from it is intended for the benefit of the whole community. However, the man in the street doesn't see the riches which are supposed to be flooding the country. He is told repeatedly that the authorities are short of money, that hospitals must be closed for lack of funds, that municipal transport services are being reduced, that dues and charges must increase and that pay increases cannot compensate the increase in cost of living . . .  It is admittedly difficult to understand that seriously sick people have to sleep in hospital corridors in such a rich country and that all services are poor but expensive . . .
("How does Norway spend her oil revenues?”. The Norwegian Journal of Commerce and Shipping, August 1984 )

It is a common belief in Norway, as elsewhere, that the state operates in the interest of the ordinary man and woman: "the state is every one of us". The Norwegian state has certainly been very active in the oil fields of the North Sea, both through its own oil company Statoil and when it comes to extracting tax revenues from the foreign companies operating there. The high taxation and stringent licencing demands of the Norwegian government are resented by the big oil companies; ESSO, for example, reckons that the average tax and royalty burden during the production life of a field is 80 per cent or more. Another grievance is the so-called Sliding Scale which allows the government to take back 60 per cent of a company's licence to operate in a field if a commercial development is made.

It is believed there are vast reserves of oil and gas under the Norwegian continental shelf as yet unexploited, but most of this is not "economically viable” at the moment. Most of these are in deeper water in the harsher weather conditions further north. Because of the higher inputs of technology and know-how necessary to operate these fields, they are unprofitable compared with present fields where extraction is a lot less complicated.

The primary object of the state — in Norway as elsewhere — is not to look after the man in the street but to see that the economy is run in the interest of the capitalist class. How, then, is the Norwegian government planning to spend their gains? It could be used to help Norwegian firms setting up subsidiaries abroad or buying up foreign companies. A debate has also been going on as to whether Norwegian banks abroad should be allowed to use these currency reserves for investment. In other words, the income will be used in the service of capital to yield profit and interest.

The Scandinavian countries have for a long time been considered to have a high standard of living, to be fairly "egalitarian" and to be much more "socialist" (meaning state controlled) than many other Western nations. Certainly a visitor coming to Norway, even before the oil was found, would get an impression of space, cleanliness and relative affluence. Homes are on the average more spacious and of a higher quality than in Britain. Home "ownership" is high (74 per cent, mostly financed through the state operated House Bank) and 19 per cent rent privately. Public places like cinemas and railway stations seem luxurious and clean compared to Britain.

Norway has gone from being a "backward" country in economic terms to an ultra modem society within the last hundred years. Industrialisation did not take off until just before the turn of the century and many parts of the country remained relatively unmodernised until well into this century. For the many landless people scratching a very meagre living working for the big landowners, employment in industry offered a chance to improve their situation a little. A relic of Norway’s not so distant agrarian past can be seen today in the fact that they still have a distinct Farmers' Party.

For people who view social differences in terms of "middle" and "working" class, these appear to be a lot less distinct than in Britain. There are no private and council estates; a manager and a factory worker are likely to live next door, have similar interests and homes. This is not to say that competition and snobbery do not exist; on the contrary, people are very much aware of who has got the slightly better hi-fi or the more up-market car. But in one respect, it is easier to see class relations as they really are in Norway for it is not such a problem explaining that the "middle" and "working" class are really the same, forced to sell their mental and physical energies to an employer in order to live — that is to say, they are all working class.

Only a small percentage of Norway's firms are state owned, but on the other hand, the two largest. Norsk Hydro (oil. petrochemicals. aluminium, fertiliser) and Statoil, belong to the state, as well as two armaments companies with a very large turnover. It is in the interest of the capitalist class to control certain industries and services vital to them all. This is why telecommunications, the postal services, transport, energy sources (coal, oil, electricity) and armaments factories tend to be nationalised in a lot of countries, including Norway.

The standard of living may be much higher in Norway today than a few decades ago. But Norwegians still work their lives away to pay for their homes, their car loans, their educational loans and all the while mental illnesses are on the increase. The before mentioned article puts it as follows:

The standard of living is high in Norway, but most Norwegians are heavily indebted even so. Many live in a kind of luxurious serfdom, depending on a secure income and the benevolence of their banker. Their freedom to move about, to change their life situation, is often renounced for the shallow benefits of keeping abreast with the Joneses.

Torgun Bullen