Letter: Socialism needed (2009)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism needed

Dear Editors

Re: Starvation in Africa; poverty of many kinds. So very much and sincerely appreciate the NY Times September 8, 2009 front-page photo of the starving and dehydrated Kenyans. In a world wherein over 40,000 humans starve to death in disease and degradation each day, these continuous international crises should be making front page news every day.

 However in a world where state capitalist dictatorships and state ownership and control, proxies for the owning and ruling class, is confused with socialism, which has yet to exist on Earth, real solutions to the problems of war and starvation are endlessly mired in needlessly convoluted problems of opposing interests that simply mean a dimension of pseudo-intellectually evil data structure remains necessary to describe even mere reformist heuristics.

 Socialism, which can only exist the whole world over when the majority of Earth’s population first understand classism and capitalism, and comprehend and desire socialism and vote it peacefully, legally and democratically into existence, means the solution to ending all wars, poverty and starvation takes 10 years instead of 1000…but this does not happen unless you, the vast majority of you, understand, desire and vote for socialism, a system of society based upon common ownership of the means and instruments for production and distribution by and in the interests of society as a whole.

 So for those reformists who may be exposed to neo-McCarthyism and murdering church violation and prejudice with Earth’s trifling little solutions of state-run health care, have no fear. These have nothing to do with socialism or (primitive) communism.

 The failed feudalistic dictatorships of Russia and China had a false dream of installation by undemocratic elitism; fascism had a racist, nationalist and proud illusion – state capitalism by another name; the national post office is only an example of state capitalism – not common ownership; humans would like to pretend they are inclusive and democratic and that the tree of knowledge and life have all their fruit intact…the truth is otherwise.

Samantha Morris (by email)

Letter: All middle class now? (2009)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Eddie Shah was the subject of a Cooking the Books column in the August 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard and, presumably, a copy of the article had fallen into his hands.

All middle class now?

Dear Editors

 

 It must be difficult not to write about stereotypes, but I was never against unions – just the way they operated in a modern democracy. I just felt instead of calling a strike at every opportunity to flex their muscles – which is the headbanger approach – the funds they had should’ve been used for re-training redundant workers, helping other workers set up cooperatives when companies had failed, create savings for workers and their families injured in accidents, etc; and so on. What really pissed me off was that the union bosses during our dispute – and I since discovered in nearly all other disputes – went on paying themselves handsome salaries and driving their big modern ‘I’m not a union official, I’m an executive’ cars whilst they waltzed around between meetings as their members froze on the picket line.

 It’s all bullshit created on the back of the working class’ aspirations. Truth is we are a middle class society now, as we were becoming during my dispute, but it paid the power brokers at the top of the Labour movement and the trades unions to keep the old class war going so that they could retain their power bases and their trappings of success.

 So I object to being told I was an employer who wanted to run my business without trade union interference. In our case, when the trade union tries to control who you can and can’t employ, that’s the day that people stop running businesses and get out – which would be great for a wealth creating nation, I think not.

 The freedom you have to write your periodical without fear of imprisonment, censorship and even death, is something hard fought for by a capitalist society, or by writers in a suppressed state who fight for the freedom of a democratic state. There are times journalists shouldn’t forget that. A free press is the only watchdog of those who would govern us in both a democratic and an authoritarian state.

 The trouble with socialism is that it has its head buried in the satanic mills of a hundred years ago. It needs enlightening. It needs a new vision, not a descent into the madness of a suppressed anarchy that never had a chance of catering to a world of technology and freedom of the mass as well as the individual. There are no new visions, yet the world is crying out for them.

Eddy Shah

PS. I presume your writing your stuff on technology we introduced during the dispute. Or are you clacking over an old Underwood typewriter and cursing every time the keys stick? Just think, you could’ve achieved that if the unions had won in 1982. Welcome to the world of the middle class.

Reply:

We too are critical of the knights of the round table at the TUC’s Congress House but from a working-class point of view. Unions should be run by their members and officials should not have big salaries, big houses and big cars as many do. We say “working class” deliberately as, for us, this is composed of anyone obliged to get a living by going out and trying to sell their mental and physical energies to some employer. This of course applies to most of the so-called “middle class”, as many of them are discovering the hard way as they lose their jobs or see their final salary pension scheme closing. And it is capitalism that forces workers to resist new technologies as a way of trying to protect their livelihoods. If we had socialism nobody would be put in this position. – Editors.

Material World: Why they keep piling up manure: the psychology of wealth accumulation (2009)

The Material World column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Money is like manure.  If you spread it around, it does a lot of good, but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.

I can’t trace the original author, but it seems to be a popular motto among rich “philanthropists”. It has been attributed, in slightly variant wordings, to steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, New York “socialite” Brooke Astor, Clint W. Murchison (chairman of Tecon Corporation) and Kenneth Langone (founder of The Home Depot).

Two questions spring to mind.

First, if these people so hate the smell of manure, why do they keep piling it up? After all, they are free to stop at any time.

Second, what do they want all that money for anyway? Surely a few hundred million should suffice to buy all the luxuries anyone could want? So why chase after the billions?

An addiction to extravagance

One answer is offered by Eric Schoenberg of Columbia Business School (on the site of Forbes magazine). Driving your first Rolls Royce is a fantastic experience, he explains, but as you get used to it you no longer enjoy it so much. So you have to look for new experiences, which for some reason are always more and more expensive.

 Presumably, an obsession with money spoils the enjoyment of anything that does not cost a lot of it. The result is an addiction to extravagance that reinforces the drive to make more money.

Kudos

Besides addiction to extravagance, the most common motive for accumulating wealth appears to be simply the desire to be admired by others. Kudos, however, depends less on absolute wealth than on place in the pecking order, as indicated by lists like the Forbes 400. Only Number One can feel fully confident of his superior status – and even he must beware of rivals overtaking him.

 Astonishing but true: many people honestly think – indeed, assume – that being rich is something worthy of pride and admiration. They consider having more money than anyone else the greatest of all conceivable human achievements. Never mind where the money came from, how it was acquired. To be a “winner” is glorious, to be a “loser” shameful and pitiable. They were brought up to think so, and can hardly imagine that anyone might be sincere in thinking otherwise.

 We might expect there to be an element of subtlety or mystery in the driving impulse at the core of a dynamic that spawns so much evil. Instead, we find something insufferably boring and trivial, the ultimate in banality.

The “philanthropists”

And yet the worship of wealth need not wholly exclude other social values. Many people feel that just being rich is not sufficiently glorious in itself: in addition, one should “do good”. As a result, some wealthy individuals wish also to be “great humanitarians and philanthropists”.

 There is actually a special business that makes money by selling “philanthropic” fame. For a fixed sum you can have a concert hall, museum, hospital, college or whatever named after you (or a relative of yours). For example, Brown University named its Institute of International Studies, where I used to work, in honour of Tom Watson of IBM in exchange for $25 million.

 The publicity given to large “philanthropic” donations suggests that in certain circles kudos may now depend on how much money you give as well as how much you have. It is like the potlatch among the Kwakiutl of western Canada, where the wealthy gain kudos by making generous gifts.

Guilt feelings?

While “philanthropy” is often just a means of cultivating a favourable public image, some wealthy people may be sincere in wanting to “do good”. Some authors even attribute the giving of certain individuals to guilt feelings about how their fortunes were made.

 Thus, it is claimed that Brooke Astor was ashamed of her family’s reputation as New York’s biggest slumlords. Carnegie, we are told, felt guilt over the workers killed in the suppression of the Homestead strike of 1892. Yet he also wanted “Carnegie Steel to come out on top” – and that feeling proved stronger than any sense of guilt.

 Ashamed or not, Astor gave nothing to the victims of her family’s rack-renting. Instead, she gave $200 million to cultural institutions. Similarly, Carnegie endowed the arts and academia, but gave nothing back to the workers who slaved in the heat of his steel mills at poverty line wages – twelve hours a day, every single day of the year except 4 July

 

 The ruthless capitalist precedes, makes possible and is vindicated by the “generous philanthropist”. The capitalist drives the system that causes the misery; the “philanthropist” then does a little to ameliorate that misery. Strangely enough, the capitalist and the “philanthropist” turn out to be one and the same person.

Piling up and spreading out

Why keep piling up manure just to spread it out again? It seems senseless – even if the manure does not end up exactly where it was before.

 Yes, it seems senseless when we focus on outcome. But when we shift our attention to process, it starts to make more sense.

 Piling up brings one sort of kudos, then spreading out brings another. One sort does not cancel out the other.

 Both piling up and spreading out give the satisfaction of exercising power, making decisions that affect millions of lives – on the sole qualification of the possession of wealth.

 So it all makes perfect sense. From a certain point of view.

Stefan

The disease that is capitalism (2009)

Book Review from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s better – treating the symptoms or dealing with the cause?

When a person is ill a competent doctor will attempt to identify all relevant symptoms: high temperature, site of aches and pains, loss of appetite, heart-rate, blood pressure, etc. etc. Following diagnosis, treatment will be offered in the form of dietary advice, physiotherapy, drugs, surgery or some combination of these or other remedies. If the aim is to cure the illness and prevent its return then the causes of the disease will need to be identified and eliminated. Effective treatment can only follow correct diagnosis of the cause. The doctor will seek to understand family history, working conditions, living conditions, e.g. is the patient living in an area threatened by any form of pollution, etc. Regular check-ups and preventive care are the surest way to avoid the onset of serious illness and an appropriate regimen leading to a healthy lifestyle will more likely ensure non-return of the previous disease.

 Political commentary on and diagnosis of society’s ills, however, tend to focus on discussion of how to treat the symptoms with scant regard to eliminating the causes. Reform rather than structural change. There continues to be a plethora of books published both criticising and offering reforms to the capitalist system; so many, in fact, that it points to the fact that there is a large audience of readers dissatisfied with the status quo, knowing the current system doesn’t work for them. An audience aspiring to structural changes?

 One World, Ready or Not – The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism by William Greider (US writer on economics and politics over several decades, contributor to The Nation and former editor of Rolling Stone) is one such book. Greider succeeds brilliantly in proving his contention that the global economy is sowing “creative destruction” everywhere by explaining symptom after symptom of capitalism’s failure of the majority. What are some of the symptoms of the disease that is capitalism? Widening gaps between haves and have-nots; rising poverty nationally and internationally; rising unemployment – ditto; no lasting gains from union activity extending over a century; a ban on unionised work in many countries; more temporary workers replacing former permanent positions; increasing poverty, hunger and homelessness; declining health care for many; serious environmental problems, etc. etc. Greider exposes all these symptoms and more with detailed background evidence and numerous examples from most parts of the globe.

 The book is a fine resource of investigation and enlightening statistics including details of interviews with workers, corporate CEOs, government officials and economists. Common cures (reforms) recommended include regulating finance capital, increasing, decreasing or shifting the weighting ratio of tax from one sector to another, regulating trade differently, implementing and honouring stronger workers’ and human rights, the restructuring of the World Bank, the IMF and central banks. Greider’s recommendations here can be likened to increasing the dose of palliative medicines without treating the cause. Implement radical reforms of the system in an attempt to rein in the most divisive runaway aspects of capitalism (the most invasive aspects of the disease) but leave the system in place and hope it won’t run amok again or get hijacked by more pesky capitalists at a later date.

 Treating only the symptoms, i.e. reforming the system, is ultimately doomed to failure in society as in the patient. Capital has no interest in that which is not in its own interest. Governments are limited in their ability to implement reforms anyway as they are pulled in various directions by the power of capital’s demands and the need to appease their constituents enough to remain in power in the short term. Greider’s proposed reforms are laid out with the caveat that he has no expectations that any of them would be implemented (in his case by the US government) and with the additional observation that much of what the government does is useless or harmful to broadly shared prosperity. In other words it allows or even encourages the disease to spread. Markets, money and money markets don’t play by rules endorsed or understood by consumers.

“Whilst claiming to promote human freedom capitalism profits concretely from the denial of freedom, especially of the workers employed by capitalist enterprise.”

“Consumer boycotts can be an effective way to mobilise the political issue but the true target should be the systems of human repression.” – There – he said it!

 Social consequences are largely ignored by capital. Evidence of this is everywhere from the countries with the richest economies to dirt-poor nations with all populations exploited or deliberately abandoned for economic reasons by local and global capital. More families and individuals are impoverished, hungry and made homeless each successive year in countries from Africa, Asia, Europe to the Americas and the general public are afraid that they, too, may fall victim to the disease as they tighten their belts and try and take precautions; but they have been taught to see capitalism as a system “too big to fail.” They have also been taught to be afraid of considering the alternative of dismantling the system and they continue to shout “reform.” Yes, they willingly keep taking the palliative medicine rather than working together to eradicate the disease for the benefit of themselves and future generations.

 Greider’s final chapter includes some notes on possible surgery and examples of individuals giving out preventive advice; promoting true sustainable development; evidence from environmental technologists which confirms that saving the world is possible at such time that there is steady-state equilibrium with the natural world. This surgery is possible but not on any agenda to be undertaken by the monetary, for-profit, capitalist system.

 What needs to be recognised much more widely is that the whole set-up (capitalism/the free-market economy/monetarism) is one enormous scam against those who produce the wealth, whether globally or locally. Those who produce the wealth are currently all part of a huge lottery; this year, this place, I’m in work; next year, some other place, maybe you’ll be in work. But, just like a game of chance, some manage to stay lucky and others never get a look in. If you are one of the multitude who has needed to work in order to live, you have been duped. The causes of the disease have been identified. It’s time to remove them completely. Only a structural change will do.

Janet Surman

Blogger's Note:

William Greider's book had previously been reviewed in the October 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard. I thought it rang a bell.

Greasy Pole: The Hard Life and Times of Alan Duncan (2009)

The Greasy Pole column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

At this distance the coming general election promises – or should that be threatens – to become a contest between Gordon Brown and David Cameron over who can be trusted to be the more ruthless and speedy as a slasher and sacker. After his expeditious dealing with the crazier expense claims of the more arrogant Tory MPs, Cameron could be seen as a nose ahead – which may explain the manner in which he firmly bumped Alan Duncan down the greasy pole, from Shadow Leader of the House to Shadow Justice Minister. It was all to do with Duncan allowing himself to be recorded, by a man named Heydon Prowse, moaning about the mistreatment and malnourishment of MPs: “No one who has done anything on the outside world, or is capable of doing such a thing, will ever come into this place again, the way we are going. Basically it’s being nationalised. You have to live on rations and are treated like shit”. This raises the question of why there are always so many candidates, in every constituency, fighting each other for a life of rations and abuse  – but never mind. Cameron at first tried to draw a veil over the problem by saying that he had “made  it clear in no uncertain terms that when it comes to the mess of expenses, the words we use, just as the actions we take, have got to demonstrate completely that we share the public’s real fury at what went on in Parliament. Alan made a bad mistake and he has acknowledged that…I think we should leave it at that”. But then Cameron returned from holiday in a slightly different mood, demoting Duncan rather than condemning him to the impoverishment of the back benches. This may have had something to do with Duncan’s erratic background and standing as a Tory MP.

Obscurity

Elected in John Major’s surprise 1992 election win for the rock-solid Conservative seat of Rutland and Melton – a nice reward for the offer of his home in Westminster as headquarters for Major’s leadership campaign after Thatcher’s resignation in 1990 – Duncan spent some time in relative obscurity as a faultlessly handsome, immaculate and fixedly smiling participant in group photographs until in December 1993 he blossomed as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the then Ministry of Health. However any celebration of this promising start was cruelly cut off just a month later after the embarrassing news that he had lent an elderly neighbour the money to buy his council house at a cut price under the right-to-buy scheme so beloved of Thatcher’s Tories.

But three years later Duncan, who described himself as a libertarian member of the Thatcherite Conservative Way Forward, cashed in on the deal by buying the house from the neighbour – again at a very attractive price. His unavoidable resignation was greeted, with typical asperity, by Giles Brandreth: “little Duncan has fallen on his sword…swiftly and with good grace”. Which characteristic probably also featured in another episode when, as the owner of Harcourt Consultants – advising companies, governments and whoever can afford to pay on matters concerning oil and gas supplies – he made over £1 million through involvement in supplying oil to Pakistan after disruption of the flow from Kuwait in the Gulf War. It might be thought that this said more about the reasons for the British involvement in that war than all the inflated nonsense about rooting out terrorists. And “good grace” again last year, when it emerged that while he was Shadow Business Secretary, responsible for Tory policy on energy, Duncan’s private office received donations from the chairman of Vitol – one of the world’s top crude oil traders.

Taliban

To put it moderately Duncan enjoys – and expends a lot of energy in – being the centre of attention. However much this may please him it has also cultivated a significant number of rivals and enemies. After the 2005 general election he declared himself to be a candidate for the Tory leadership in place of the defeated Michael Howard but had to withdraw rapidly after it was clear that there was no support for him – which he put down to the “Tory Taliban”. So it was to be expected, when the MP’s expenses scam was dragged into the open Duncan’s claims would be closely scrutinised – especially in view of the fact that, as Shadow Leader of the House, he oversaw the party’s reform policy on the matter. The Daily Telegraph reported that he had claimed £1400 a month mortgage interest on his Rutland home, recouped over £4000 for gardening expenses during a three year period and claimed £598 for maintenance of a ride-on lawn mower with £41 to repair a puncture in the machine. Some residents in his constituency saw this as nauseating enough to justify inviting passers-by to take a ride on a lawn mower which they had set up in the street – and Heydon Prowse to cut a £ sign in Duncan’s lawn. Last May Have I Got News For You pursued Duncan by showing a passage from a previous appearance when he boasted about his Second Home Allowance (he also owns two properties in Westminster) and described it as “a great system” –  until Cameron went after him, when he agreed to refund the money and called for “the system” to be changed. According to the website ConservativeHome – notable for its combative style – a poll of 1600 grassroot Tories in Duncan’s constituency thought he should be sacked.

Comfort

Members of Parliament come in many shapes, sizes and origins. Duncan’s replacement as Shadow Leader of the House is Sir George Young, an Old Etonian who once complained of having to declare, as an MP, a gift of bottles of champagne and who  revealed the depth of his understanding of the meaning of poverty when he described the homeless as “people you step over when you leave the opera”. Young was chairman of the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges when, in 2003, it gave judgement in the matter of the false expense claims by the Tory MP for Windsor, Michael Trend, amounting to over £90,000. Trend, apologising to the Commons, put it all down to his being “muddled and naive”. Young’s committee were not unsympathetic and just suspended Trend for two weeks. A memory to comfort Alan Duncan in the darkest days of his struggles to survive on his rations. 

Ivan

Market behaviour (2009)

Book Review from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Mind of the Market : How Biology and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives.  By Michael Shermer. Holt Paperback. New York. 2008.

 Some of the chapters in this book are interesting and informative, despite its author being a self-declared follower of the free-market ideologist, Ludwig von Mises and so an apologist for capitalism and a dedicated opponent of anything that seems to be socialism. Shermer is also a leading American ‘skeptic’ and a Scientific American columnist.

 Economics, as now taught, is an odd discipline. It defines itself as the study of the allocation amongst competing ends of resources in short supply. To express this mathematically it has to make the absurd assumption that the ends are infinite, i.e. that people are infinitely greedy. It also assumes that economic actors (corporations, workers, consumers) act entirely rationally. Von Mises in fact regarded economic decision-making as the archetypal form of rational decision-making.

 In recent years, some economists, calling themselves ‘behavioural economists’, have decided to investigate the actual behaviour of consumers, i.e. individual buyers. Not surprisingly they have found that no consumers (not even the writers of economic textbooks) decide what to buy on the basis of some rational calculation about equalising the “marginal utility” of all the things they buy. All sorts of other considerations enter into their decisions as to what to buy (e.g. what other people are buying, status, etc which the advertising business exploits).

 It could be argued that the study of what motivates consumers is outside the scope of economics. Which is the position we Marxists have taken with our criticism of “the final futility of final utility”. We have left the study of the satisfaction users might derive from the use-values they acquire to psychology. Shermer goes along with the behavioural economists who have done some useful work in demolishing the myth of the rationally-calculating, narrowly selfish homo economicus that is one of the basic assumptions of academic economics. He doesn’t seem to realise that in doing so he has abandoned one of the key assumptions of the von Mises school of economics. In fact he goes so far as to concede that if people really did behave in this way, then capitalism could never have survived; even capitalism relies on the social nature of humans and their biological and psychological need to trust and co-operate with each other.

 Shermer accepts the theories of the “evolutionary psychologists” according to which our reactions and decisions – including in economic matters – are influenced by the fact that our brains evolved when we were hunter-gatherers (as opposed to by purely rational calculations). No doubt our brain did evolve under these circumstances but this does not mean that we are therefore unsuited to live by acquiring what we need to live in any other way. The human brain that evolved is a brain that allows us to adapt to a great variety of ways of acquiring what we need.

 We can live just as much under a capitalist system (where Shermer says we are ‘consumer-traders’) as in a socialist society (where we’d become ‘giver-takers’). If, as the evolutionary psychologists claim, our brains predispose us not to like freeloaders and to get satisfaction out of co-operating, and even helping, our fellow humans, these are features that would fully fit in with socialist society. Shermer thinks that they point to capitalism being the best system for humans to produce and share out wealth.

 However, his defence of capitalism is pretty pathetic. On the basis of studies of the behaviour of people who are still hunter-gatherers today involved in face-to-face barter and of the measured effects on the brains of individuals choosing to buy something, he concludes that ‘trade’ and ‘trading’ is good for us. This ignores that ‘trade’ is not the only way of transferring the use of something from one person to another. There is also giving and taking. So, this is not an argument for buying and selling as best suited to our ‘biology and psychology’.

 But the main flaw in Shermer’s argument is that there is an enormous difference between face-to-face barter and shopping and inter-capitalist trade. Inter-capitalist trade is carried on by states and corporations which do act in the ruthlessly calculating way that orthodox economics supposes individuals do. They do aim to maximise monetary profits in the long or short term. They don’t behave as we humans do. In fact some psychologists (as in the film The Corporation) have pointed out that if a human behaved in the same way as capitalist firms do – concentrating obsessively on one single aim (in this case, making profits) to the neglect of all other considerations – they would be classified as psychopaths.

 Shermer shows up here the flaw in the defence of capitalism put up by ideologists such as von Mises – they assume that present-day capitalism is based entirely on freely-negotiated contracts between individuals, as if production and trade were carried on by individual, or at least small-scale, producers and shopkeepers. This might have been the case in Adam Smith’s day (mid-18th century) but is not the case today. Today production is carried on in large-scale productive units by producers contracted to work for wages, but not by other individuals but by capitalist firms which, while in contract law having a fictitious ‘personality’, are not really persons with biological brains. Their behaviour cannot therefore be explained by evolutionary or any other kinds of psychology, but only by a study of the impersonal laws of the market and profit-making which impose themselves on those who make decisions within them irrespective of what these human decision-makers might think or want.

Adam Buick

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Tiny (URL) Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the worst events can bring out the best in people,why can’t that impulse be sustained in everyday life?

As Solnit notes, “the real question is not why this brief paradise of mutual aid and altruism appears but rather why it is ordinarily overwhelmed by another world order.”

[Link.]

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The United States spent $75 billion over the past year to finance worldwide intelligence operations that employ 200,000 people, according to an unprecedented disclosure by the nation’s top intelligence official:

[Link.]

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At the Charter School for Excellence, a school in South Florida inspired by Gothard’s draconian principles that receives $800,000 in state funds each year, children are indoctrinated into a culture of absolute submission to authority almost as soon as they learn to speak. A song that the school’s firstgraders are required to recite goes as follows:

Obedience is listening attentively,

Obedience will take instructions joyfully,

Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,

Obedience will follow orders instantly.

For when I am busy at my work or play,

And someone calls my name, I’ll answer right away!

I’ll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile

As soon as I can say “Yes, sir!” “Yes maam!”

Hup, two, three!

[Dead Link.]

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New research indicates that 80% of Afghanistan now has a permanent Taliban presence and that 97% of the country has “substantial Taliban activity.”

[Link.]

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Are you totally reprehensible and feeling lonely? Or maybe you’re just a struggling business looking for some instant online companionship? The firm Usocial has the answer for you — buy Facebook friends and fans:

[Dead Link.]

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“But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” : Barbara Bush on ABC – Good Morning America,

March 18, 2003….Six years later…. The Obama administration’s freak out… over the …. circulation of a photograph of a dying US soldier in Afghanistan..

[Dead Link.]

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A millionaire in northern China paid four million yuan (600,000 dollars) for a dog and ordered 30 luxury cars to come to the airport to greet her and the animal:

[Dead Link.]

50 Years Ago: The Use of the Vote (2009)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The power you have

In the weeks of electoral excitement before polling day you will have been made to appreciate, at least a little, that you are, for the moment, important people. Between elections you look up to politicians and big business men as important, but during elections it is they who go to endless trouble to influence you and win your support for them and their policies. It is you who can make or mar the career of a politician and you who can place power in the hands of a government which during its term of office can. by taxation and tariff policies or by subsidies, raise some industries to prosperity and bring others to their ruin. It is you who give power to governments in whose hands rest decisions about peace and war.

Power for no use

Since the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed there have been fourteen general elections in this country: this is the fifteenth. Fifteen times the Tory, Liberal and Labour Parties have appealed to you to help them with your votes. Fourteen times you, the workers, have used your votes against your own interests.

 

Although the parties we have mentioned use different names for their programmes and promises of legislation, there is very little of importance dividing them. They are all concerned with trying to administer British capitalism as well as may be in a troubled world of rival capitalist groups. In any big emergency like the crisis of 1931 or in war they come together and form coalition governments

Whichever of them, you, the workers, vote for in an election, it is a defeat for you. a betrayal of your own interests.

(from Editorial, Socialist Standard, October 1959)

Obituary: Vincent Littlemore (2009)

Obituary from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

West London branch are saddened to have to report the death in August of Vincent Littlemore two days before his 80th birthday. He first came across the party at outdoor meetings in Manchester, where he originally came from, joining as a teenager and becoming an outdoor speaker at Platts Fields and Alexandra Park. Later he moved to London where he studied to become a quantity surveyor. While pursuing his profession, getting married and raising a family, his membership lapsed but he remained a steadfast socialist arguing the case for socialism as the occasions arose. On his retirement in 1994 he formally rejoined and became a regular attender at branch meetings in Chiswick until he suffered a stroke in 2002. After that he kept in regular touch by telephone to discuss books about the state of the capitalist economy and how best to publicise the socialist case. The Party was represented at his non-religious funeral in Leatherhead. Our condolences go to his daughter Sue, the BBC  journalist, and to her partner John Denham.

Pieces Together: Food Destroyed (2009)

The Pieces Together column from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Food Destroyed

“Christophe Voivenel is a dairy farmer, and the son of dairy farmers, in one of the finest dairy regions in the world. At some point in the next few days, he will commit an act of sacrilege. He will rise, as usual, at 6am to milk his 60 cows and then throw away the warm, white liquid which is his family’s life’s blood. ‘You have to understand how hard that will be,’ he said. ‘It is like an artist destroying his own painting or a craftsman smashing one of his own creations.’ Mr Voivenel, 43, a farmer near Vire in lower Normandy, is about to go on strike. Tens of thousands of dairy farmers in 14 European countries, including some in Britain, are preparing to join the first ever pan-European ‘milk strike’: an attempt to push up the farm-gate price of milk, which has almost halved in the last 18 months.” (Independent, 29 August)

Food Needed

“Changing weather patterns have decimated crops in several of the world’s poorest countries this year, leaving millions in need of food aid and humanitarian workers warning about the dangerous effects of climate change. Farmers in Nepal have been able to produce only half their usual crop, said an Oxfam International report released last week. Livestock are dying of malnutrition in Yemen, according to the humanitarian news service IRIN. And the Red Cross is bracing for the effects of heavy rains across 16 West and Central African nations. All three are the result of extended atypical weather events – drought, rain, or untimely combinations of both – in places where subsistence farmers have long depended on predictability. In Nepal, more than 3 million people – about 10 percent of the population – will need food aid this year, said Oxfam.” (Yahoo News, 2 September)

The Failure of Charity

“The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world’s pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country’s worst food crisis for decades. Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.” (Independent, 30 August)

Choosing an occupation (2009)

Book Review from the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reports & Reflections on the 2009 UK Ford-Visteon Dispute: a Post-Fordist Struggle. Past Tense, June 2009.

“On 31st of March 2009 Ford/Visteon announced the closure of three factories in the UK and the sacking of 610 workers... No guarantees were given concerning redundancy or pensions payments. The management had made the workers work up to the last minute, knowing that they would not even receive any wages for their final shifts.” In response, workers from the Belfast plant spontaneously occupied the sites and in a few hours were joined by several hundred local supporters. On hearing the news, workers from the Basildon and Enfield plants went into occupation the following day. This pamphlet concentrates mainly on the Enfield occupation, which lasted for 9 days, and is written by a supporter of the workers.

Of particular interest is the author’s analysis of the role of the union during the occupation, particularly their role “as mediators and defenders of capitalist exploitation”. It is true that the unions’ role is one of mediation and as such does nothing to challenge the material basis of the relation between workers and employers. However as the existence of the wages system is only questioned by a tiny minority this can be of no great surprise; the unions do not work to establish socialism because their members are not socialists. To write off unions as defenders of capitalist exploitation is a step too far, as the author of the pamphlet accepts, “to be without a union would usually be even worse under present conditions.”

The real question is one of internal democracy and the extent in which the union is run by and for its membership. Whilst all unions do have a certain amount of democratic framework the amount of member participation is often lacking, perhaps not surprising when “unions are generally run today primarily as financial service brokers – "negotiating deals on insurance, mortgages and pensions, medical cover, holidays and car breakdown services" etc – and investment funds with a sideline in industrial arbitration.” Unions, sometimes under the well entrenched leadership of full time officials, have at times acted against the interests of the working class but such occurrences should not be understood as a fault of the union form per se but as an expression of the contradictions of the position of workers under capitalism.

The assumption – which is not explicitly stated in the pamphlet but hinted at in certain passages – that capitalism can be overcome through industrial action alone and that this occupation was part of such a process, is not one that should go unquestioned. Workers who struggle to maintain and better their conditions should be commended, but until the working class consciously and politically organise to end the wages system the same battles will have to be fought over and over again. It is true that the bitter experience of the Visteon workers may lead some of them to question the basis of capitalist society, but from start to finish all this struggle was attempting was to get the best from a bad situation, not to bring about world socialism.

A myriad of experiences from everyday life can provide enough motivation for the disenchanted to ask themselves ‘why do I have to do this every day?’ To steal a pithy phrase from the Socialist Party of Australia “it is Capitalism itself, unable to solve crisis, unemployment and poverty, engaging in horrifying wars, which digs its own grave. Workers are learning by bitter experience and bloody sacrifice for interests not their own. They are learning very slowly. Our job is to shorten the time, to speed up the process”

The workers at Visteon secured a deal ten times greater than the original offer, their (and our) position as materially dependent sellers of labour-power continues.

Darren Poynton

The Socialist Labor Party of America: a premature obituary? (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

By some accounts the Socialist Labor Party of America has ceased to function. It has lost its premises and its paper, The People, has not appeared for many months. Some of its locals are still meeting and its ideas live on in its offshoots and breakaways but that's all.

Founded in 1876, for the first twenty or so years it was a reformist organisation – at least, it advocated reforms of capitalism as well as its concept of socialism – not unlike the German Social Democratic Party of which many of its founding and later members had been members before emigrating to America. Things began to change with the entry into its ranks of Daniel De Leon and his election as editor of The People in 1892. De Leon campaigned for the SLP to drop its reform programme; which it did in 1900 (which led to a split and the formation of the reformist Socialist Party of America of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas).

The SLP of America, and its translations by De Leon of Marx's writings, was one of the inspirations of the ‘impossibilist revolt’ within the Social Democratic Federation in Britain against the opportunism and undemocratic practices of its leaders, a revolt which led to two breakaways, the first, in 1903, to found the Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain, the second, in 1904, to found us, the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

During this period De Leon's position on the relative importance of political and industrial action changed. At first he insisted that political action – as action aimed at getting control of political power – was paramount, with industrial organisation as supportive, to back up if need be the verdict of the ballot box as well as to take over and run production immediately after the capture of state power. Later, as the agitation built up that eventually led to the foundation of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 (in which he played a prominent part), he changed the emphasis, arguing that it was organisation on the industrial field – to 'take and hold' the means of production – that was the more important, with political action relegated to the role of supporting the take-over of industry by neutralising and disbanding the state.

The SPGB in effect adopted De Leon's original position while the SLPGB embraced his later ‘socialist industrial unionism’. Even though a casual observer might struggle to detect the subtlety of the difference but would see rather the points of similarity between the two parties, ideological battle raged over this issue for decades between us and them until the demise of the SLPGB in the 1970s.

In the meantime other, perhaps more important, differences emerged. Like us the SLP of America recognised that socialism was out of the question in Russia in 1917 (though most of the SLP in Britain went over to the Communist Party when it was formed in 1921, providing some of its early leaders). When, however, it was reported that Lenin had made a passing favourable comment on De Leon's ‘socialist industrial unionism’ blueprint as a way to run industry, the SLP took a more favourable view of Bolshevik Russia. In fact, until the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939, the SLP held that Russia was some sort of ‘proletarian regime’ even if its politics were wrong (a bit like the Trotskyist position). Even after 1939 it didn't recognise Russia as state capitalist, preferring to call it ‘industrial feudalism’ or, later, ‘bureaucratic collectivism’.

Another difference to emerge was over ‘socialism in one country’, especially America. De Leon had always tried to project the SLP as in the American revolutionary tradition (partly to dissipate its early German-American character), for instance praising the founding fathers of the US and criticising schoolchildren who refused to salute the American flag. His successors continued this and in its publications reference to a ‘socialist America’ and a ‘socialist Britain’ could be found. Even so, the SLP continued to publish material for pre-1914 immigrants in non-English languages (Hungarian, Bulgarian, South Slavonian) until the 1960s.

Then there was the question of ‘labour time vouchers’. Marx had mentioned these as one possible way of distributing consumer goods and services in the very early days of socialism had it been established in 1875. De Leon and, after his death in 1914, his successors turned this into a dogma, insisting that these vouchers had to be introduced and maintained for a number of years as the method of distribution, despite the fact that the development of the productive forces since 1875 had made it possible to introduce free access more or less immediately after the establishment of socialism. Believe it or not, this is still a burning issue between us and some DeLeonists on internet discussion forums.

There were similarities too. The SLP had the same definition of working class as us (despite its logo being a working man with bulging muscles wielding a big hammer). It contested elections – every US presidential election between 1892 and 1976 – on a programme offering no reforms of capitalism. It defended Marx's view against the Leninists about the possibility of a peaceful establishment of socialism. Most SLP members eventually came to see Russia as state capitalist and that free access was the socialist method of distribution to be reached as soon as practicable. The SLP also abandoned its policy of setting up rival socialist unions and, like us, joined the existing unions for all their faults.
The SLP has its place in the history of working class ideas and organisation in the English-speaking world. ‘Names’ such as Jack London and James Connolly passed through it. It made some important mistakes, but was not fundamentally anti-working class like Leninism and its offshoots. Unfortunately, they still survive.

Adam Buick

‘Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World’ (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The United States ‘intelligence community’ has recently produced a report giving a strategic overview of current geopolitical and economic trends, and mapping out potential scenarios by the year 2025. The U.S. is militarily and economically pre-eminent in the world, and the aim of the report is to guide strategic thinking and inspire political action on behalf of the U.S. ruling class and its allies.

To make it less incestuous, certain academics, consulting firms and think-tanks were invited to participate. These include the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Wilson Center, RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Texas A&M University, the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House in London.

The report is declassified and available to read online (Link), which means it is considered safe for public consumption. The specific plans for action resulting from it will no doubt be on a strictly ‘need to know’ basis. There is enough material to fill several issues of this magazine, so we will look at one broad theme: increasing authoritarianism and its implications for democracy.

The Chairman’s preamble notes that the study seeks to “identify opportunities for policy intervention … (which) … can decrease the likelihood and severity of negative developments and increase the likelihood of positive ones.” So, what do they consider to be ‘negative’ and ‘positive’? The plans do not prioritise, for example, alleviating world hunger, preventing war or cutting the emissions that cause global warming (even though going over the climatic tipping point is recognised as a possibility). No. The ruling class concern is how they can continue to protect their interests as these disasters that their system is causing unfold. Their predictions are to some extent their intentions, and we can stand warned about what to expect from them.

Nation States
The global financial crisis is seen as accelerating processes already underway and the report calls for “long-term efforts to establish a new international system.” (p.11) As the Cold War era gave way to a unipolar order of American hegemony, in which the U.S. became the self-appointed policeman of the world, this too may have to give way and be replaced by a multipolar international system, with strong regional blocks centred in North America, Europe and Asia. China and India, in particular, are expected to have further economic growth and greater regional and world influence. However, this is also expected to cause (or exacerbate) certain problems. Concerning oil and gas resources, and also food and water (partly due to climate change), “demand is projected to outstrip easily available supplies over the next decade or so.” (p.viii) It is predicted that nation states will therefore be taking greater protectionist measures up to and including war.

Capitalism is based on ownership and control by the minority capitalist class, ruthless exploitation of the majority for profit, and thus competition. In this system, the nation state is a mechanism used by capitalists to protect – and extend – their dominion as owners and rulers, and this has always led to international strife. As resources dwindle, due to pollution, overexploitation and climate change - or easily accessible supplies (those that are profitable) are used up - competition and thus conflict can be expected to intensify.

The report’s authors “remain optimistic about the long-term prospects for greater democratization, but advances are likely to slow and globalization will subject many recently democratized countries to increasing social and economic pressures that could undermine liberal institutions.” (p.87) This is something the rich and powerful know all about. U.S. and U.K. governments have regularly intervened to disrupt and sometimes overthrow democratic institutions and to support the installation of military dictatorships when it has been considered good for making money/establishing strategic positions. Such foreign policy has frequently resulted in pro-democracy campaigners being beaten or shot in the street or hunted down, tortured, and imprisoned. U.S. supported coups (and attempted coups) specifically to remove elected governments include: Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, Nicaragua 1981, Grenada 1983, Panama 1989, Algeria 1992, Haiti 1994-2000, Venezuela 2002, and Bolivia 2008 (for a full list of interventions see here) Interestingly, in Venezuela and Bolivia the elected government has been retained due to popular pressure.

Democracy is used by the ruling class as both shield and sword: as a cover (legitimisation) for the continuing rule of the minority class, and when useful as a justification for aggression against other nation states. Whilst it was suddenly imperative for oil-rich Iraq to be ‘democratised’ by operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’, non-democratic regimes that are ‘friendly’ to U.S. business, such as Saudi Arabia, are not deemed to be a problem.

State capitalism
There is speculation in the report that economic success for China may lead to other countries adopting state capitalist authoritarianism; which means the state taking a more direct and prominent role in economic management. This might be a regional phenomenon, or become more widespread. It is suggested that a trade-off could occur with domestic populations; the promise of more ‘security’ and ‘economic success’ in return for less democracy. In a complex world of economic crisis, environmental catastrophe and war over resources, democracy may come to be (or is already being) regarded as too unpredictable and uncontrollable – and may come to be presented to the populace as such. The report notes a “questioning among elites over the ability of democratic governments to take the bold actions necessary to deal rapidly and effectively with the growing number of transnational challenges.” (p.87)

This “questioning among the elites” has long since gone over into action in the U.S. and elsewhere. The enhanced state powers that have been taken following the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 marked a speeding-up of processes already underway. In the U.S. we have seen the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, and the passing of the USA Patriot Act. The latter has legalised greater surveillance of telephone and internet users, searches of premises without consent or knowledge, access without a court order to financial records, library records etc. and indefinite detention of immigrants. This has been accompanied by an increasingly restrictive appeals process in the U.S. judiciary system.

Other countries have also been expanding their anti-terrorism legislation and law enforcement powers. Two significant trends are 1) the broad application of terrorist legislation and 2) moves that have been taken to exclude people who have been labelled as terrorists from having the protections conferred by national and international law such as the right to an open trial. Of course, a state of war – and the ‘War on Terror’ will do – anyway allows for martial law to be imposed by democratic governments on behalf of the capitalist class whenever they see fit.

The report says that “terrorism is unlikely to disappear by 2025.” (p.iv) Given that terrorism is an inevitable consequence of capitalist competition, this is no surprise. And the possibility as well as the actuality of terrorism is a useful propaganda tool. It serves to justify the diminishing of democratic rights – all in the name of defending democracy – and to keep domestic populations sufficiently supportive of state terrorism being carried out by certain liberal democracies (often the U.S. with the U.K. helping) in various parts of the world. We are also told that "counterterrorism and counterinsurgency missions increasingly will involve urban operations as a result of greater urbanization,” including domestically (p70). This accords with the present trend for an increasing percentage of civilian casualties in war.

The capitalist class (or significant sections of it) certainly seems to be preparing to deal with the kind of threats to their system that would be posed by the unrest and disruption that could result from greater societal dysfunction, and also perhaps from the growth of informed types of rebellion that locate the source of our problems as being the profit system itself. The burgeoning of information sharing through the World Wide Web may be something in particular that worries the capitalist class. For a considerable time in the West, propagating deception and distraction has helped to keep the majority of workers compliant, but we should not doubt that the more overtly violent and oppressive techniques that have been used to pursue ruling class interests elsewhere in the world will also be used to control people in the West if it is deemed necessary by the ruling class, and if they can get away with it.

And, to an extent, they are already getting away with it, including in the U.K. As well as the measures mentioned above – and in some cases in close association with them – trade union rights have been neutered or removed, local government has become even more geared to meeting central government targets than meeting local needs, restrictions have been placed on the right to protest, the incidence of ‘stop and search’ by the police has greatly increased and the length of time which people can be detained without charge has been extended. Generally in the West ever larger numbers of people are being criminalized and imprisoned. Hard-won civil liberties and human rights have been removed or limited by law at an accelerated rate during the last few years, and the process isn’t over yet. There are advanced plans for ID cards, yet more CCTV cameras, and further surveillance of telephone and internet use. For the capitalist class, enemies are not just rival capitalists, capitalist groups or states: the enemy also resides ‘within’ – it is us, the working class majority of wage and salary earners.

Alienation
The report notes that “surveys show growing frustration with the current workings of democratic government …” (p.87), which is not surprising given the current level of democratic deficit. Alienation from existing institutions has profound and diverse effects in society, and changes of popular mood and action may be unpredictable. This presents a potential threat to those in power, but for the moment they have been presented with an opportunity. Lack of democratic involvement has itself resulted in growing apathy and lack of political awareness, which in turn results in the unwitting acceptance of democratic erosions and a grudging acquiescence to authoritarian methods. Unfortunately, in capitalist style democracy, it is democracy that is often blamed for not fulfilling the promise, instead of the capitalist structures that place such severe limits upon its function.

Within capitalist limits, democracy exists in a state of flux; the balance altering according to the relative strength of the contending classes, and to the different forces in the capitalist class. Amongst themselves the capitalist class have found use for democracy in solving disputes. However, concerning wider democracy, the more quiescent we are and the more an alternative to the existing system is deemed to be unrealistic or impossible (the more that capitalist indoctrination is successful), the more we stand to lose that bit of democratic space we do possess. Where it exists, the right to vote has been won through direct pressure, and conceded by members of the ruling class who could see the potential of a more inclusive electoral process conferring legitimacy to minority class rule. Subsequently the use of the concept of democracy in the ideological struggle has helped to establish it around the world. However, since so much propaganda (and hypocrisy) has been expended on extolling its virtues, it might prove difficult to switch off.

Even the better democracies existing in capitalism come nowhere near to fulfilling the potential of what democracy can actually be. What we have presently is a system in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of a minority, who therefore have most of the power – including in the media. ‘Free speech’ in these conditions simply means that the wealthy – the rulers – still get to put their view foremost and have so far convinced the electorate to faithfully return capitalist parties to parliament.

Democratic theory
Democracy comes from Greek: ‘demos’ and ‘kratia’. It essentially means ‘people power’ or ‘rule by the people’, i.e. it is about the majority being able to make decisions and put them into effect. Mainstream political theory and practice tries to separate ‘politics’ from ‘economics’. ‘Political democracy’ is allowed in an approved form, but economic democracy is impossible because of economic inequality; the majority are deprived of ownership and control of the means of life.

As long as capitalism continues the working class will continue to be exploited for profit, and the system will continue to give rise to waste, war, poverty and famine. The capitalist class will continue to claim that the aim of their actions is to relieve us of these dire conditions, whereas in actual fact their profit-making policies only perpetuate them. For all the expected changes indicated in the report, what we see is business as usual. As such, there are tactical decisions to be made, and we can rest assured that other power blocs have similar concerns. What the thieves are bothered about is that other groups of thieves will take their booty – or at least take too great a share – or worse still, that the workers will recognise them for what they are and unite to emancipate themselves.

‘Global Trends 2025’ is the capitalist version of the immediate future, but we do not have to be passive recipients of this. It benefits the workers of the world to organise to defend and extend democratic rights; to widen the democratic space as much as possible. For democracy is the way in which we can unite to free ourselves from the insanity of the profit-system and domination by a minority ruling class. We can replace oppression with equality, waste of resources with production directly for use, and systemic competition with cooperation for the common good. We can create the world that we want, fashioned by the majority, in the interests of the majority.

LB/RW

Big Brother and the Robots (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few weeks ago we held a meeting in London entitled 'Here Come the Robots'. It was a look at the impact and implications of technological advance on society. A lively discussion followed with various opinions and reservations expressed.

Few people would deny that among the changes technology has brought there have been tremendous improvements to our productive capabilities, if not always to our personal circumstances, or that in a socialist society modern technology will be vital in making sure everyone gets adequate food, housing and medical care.

Not everyone is happy with the intrusions and impositions made on our lives by new technology, however, or the fact that many of us seem content to be constantly connected to our computers, mobile phones or iPods. "Don't people read books anymore?" asked one visitor, and he was not entirely reassured when it was pointed out that it is now possible to walk round with a digital bookcase of books in your pocket.

The question that concerns most of us, of course, is who is in control of all this technology? Under capitalism, it's not us. A couple of stories recently in the papers highlighted the question. Ironically, the first one concerned George Orwell's novel, 1984. "Big brother would have approved", said the article. (Guardian, 20 July).

In a mix-up over copyright, Amazon, the online booksellers, have, without warning, used their remote technology to erase customers' digital copies of George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. The cost of the books, which had been bought and paid for, was refunded we are assured. But how reassuring is it to know that someone, at an anonymous desk somewhere has the power to do that? In Orwell's novel a device known as a "memory hole" was used to eradicate unapproved literature. Amazon can do the same, it seems, at the touch of a computer keyboard.

The second story is nothing to do with fiction. It involves the latest must-have military toy being tested by the US army. Unfortunately, this is no high-tech cuddly teddy bear.

Rumours have been coming out about the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR for short) an unstoppable military robot that powers itself by devouring any organic material in its path - trees, grass and even, according to some reports, dead bodies on the battlefield.

Its inventors are horrified that such suggestions have been made. Although the EATR does indeed power itself on organic material, it is not intended to be fuelled by dead soldiers they say. "We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission" they assure us in the Guardian article (21 July).

The machine apparently has a built-in system which helps it determine the nature of the material being ingested. And according to Dr Robert Finkelstein, one of its inventors, "If it's not on the menu, it's not going to eat it".

It's all about good taste, then?

NW

New roots of conflict (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have had two world wars and countless local conflicts over the struggle for raw materials, trade routes and spheres of influence. Capitalism is a competitive society and the logical outcome of the resultant conflict is military violence.

The first world war was based on the struggle for colonies as well as access to the coal, iron and steel of Europe. It led to the collapse of governments, thrones and empires, and the redrawing of national borders. More importantly to the world's working class it led to mass destruction, death and injury. It was depicted in this country as a war against militarism and in defence of freedom. Shortly after the cessation of that war the British working class was to enjoy the freedom of the labour exchange and slum housing. The "war to end all wars" saved the British capitalist class from the encroachment on its markets and empire by its German rivals.

The second world war with its advanced armaments was to bring the horror of war home to the civilian population as never before, with cities wiped out and whole countries razed to the ground. Again this was depicted as a war against the evils of dictatorship and in defence of democracy and freedom. The fact that Britain was united with the dictatorship of Stalin's Russia against the dictatorship of Hitler's Germany was conveniently overlooked. This war like the previous one was fought for economic reasons not ideological ones.

Ever since 1945 the world has experienced local conflicts. Korea, Suez, Vietnam, India/Pakistan – the list is endless. There has not been a day since 1945 when the British army has not been engaged in some sort of conflict, and every one of them has been depicted as something to do with freedom, democracy or some such laudable purpose. The present tensions in the Middle East, however, with its struggles for access to oil so nakedly obvious it has become increasingly difficult for governments to disguise the economic basis of the disputes.

Capitalism is a dynamic system and yesterdays struggle for coal and steel may have been somewhat overshadowed by the conflicts over oil. This in its turn may give way to another source of military dispute – lanthanide metals. "Global supply of the rare-earth metals, which are vital to the mechanisms of hybrid cars, wind turbines, iPods, lasers, super-efficient light bulbs and radar systems is 95 per cent controlled by China. The country's dominance of the market is the result of a deliberate 20-year bid by Beijing to cast itself as the ‘Opec of rare earth metals’." (London Times, 28 August)

One of the countries that has a supply of lanthanide is Australia and they are at present considering an offer from China to buy a 51 per cent share of their source. This has caused real concern to the Japanese capitalist class who have threatened to take up the matter with the World Trade Organisation. "Chinese export quotas of rare earth metals fall below Japan's demands, forcing even the largest consumers there to rely on smuggled materials to meet about a quarter of their annual needs. A draft of the Chinese plan has been seen by senior executives at several of Japan's largest trading houses and has sparked fears that China is aiming to step up dramatically its programme of quota reductions. Beijing has cut exports by about 6 per cent annually over the past decade." (London Times, 28 August)

It is impossible to foretell how capitalist rivalries will develop but the growing monopoly of the rare metals market by China is a potential source of economic conflict that could lead to a future military struggle. Capitalism by its very nature breeds competition between nations over such sources of raw materials. This produces threats and counter-threats which leads to ultimatums, trade boycotts and eventually to military action. The awful truth is that it is members of the working class who own no part of these resources who take part in the resultant conflicts and suffer the resultant tragedies of war.

RD

The rise and fall of the ILP (2009)

From the October 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

With proposals to set up a united leftwing party to challenge Labour, we look at a previous attempt at this.

The Independent Labour Party was born on 13 January 1893 in the Labour Institute, Peckover Street, Bradford. The birth was the culmination of a series of efforts dating back to the creation of the Scottish Labour Party some five years earlier. From the spring of 1891 local ‘Labour Unions’ were formed, with the similar Manchester and Salford Independent Labour Party following in May 1892. The party and its predecessors were primarily the offspring of James Keir Hardie, ILP chairman 1893 to 1900 and long time (1887-1904) editor of The Labour Leader. Hardie had launched his paper (it remained his personal property until 1904 when it was taken over directly by the party) in January 1887 and it would remain the focus of the ILP activity through several renamings (becoming The New Leader in 1922 and The Socialist Leader in 1946) until its termination in the late ‘70s. Essentially the party was a radical split from the Liberal Party and its ideology and outlook were determined by this.

The early ILP’s conception of socialism was a bit of a joke. In 1896 Hardie defined it as “…brotherhood, fraternity, love thy neighbour as thyself, peace on earth, goodwill towards men, and glory to God in the highest” (Justice, 6 June 1896). While, in a 1903 letter to Edward Carpenter (quoted in Stanley Pierson’s British Socialism) John Bruce Glasier, a near-forgotten ILP bigwig, more obscurely referred to socialism as “a power that began with the beginning of the world and permeates infinitude”. I fear he may have been confusing socialism with some form of quantum physics.

Despite its talk of peace and brotherhood, this is what Glasier, then Party Chairman, said at the 1903 Conference:

“Our foreign trade is flagging; our internal freedom and external defence are less secure; our military glory is dimmer; our national character, our literature, our science, our inventions are in less repute; our young and virile population is quitting the country as if it were a sinking ship, and we are getting in pauper aliens and rich predatory aliens instead.”

The ILP was oriented towards parliament from its inception. Hardie had been elected for West Ham South in 1892 but it was not until the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 that the real breakthrough occurred. The LRC, renamed the Labour Party in 1906, was essentially a tactical move of the formerly Liberal-orientated trade unions but until 1918 the political input was very much from the ILP. In 1906 the party scored seven MPs with a further eleven being trade union endorsed members.

The early strongholds of the ILP were as one might expect in the old industrial zones of West Yorkshire and South Lancashire with considerable support in Leicester, Norwich and Merthyr Tydfil. Scotland, later known as the heartland of the ILP, was to develop later during and after the First World War.

First World War
If the ILP ever got anything right it was by accident and this is seen most obviously in its attitude to the First World War. Opposition to the 1914-18 war was clearly the correct policy: it is now generally admitted that it was an imperialist war, fought not for ‘freedom’ but for economic reasons. During the early months of the war Ramsay MacDonald (as might be expected) but also Keir Hardie (as might not be) encouraged young men to enlist. Despite this wobbling the ILP should be acknowledged as the largest organisation in Britain in opposition to the war and both Hardie and MacDonald came out against the war. However its policy originated in a faulty concept of what the war was all about. In a contemporary leaflet the ILP argued that the war was “a diplomatist’s war, made by about half-a-dozen men…we sit down and ask ourselves… ‘Why has this war happened?’ the only answer we can give is, because Sir Edward Grey has guided our foreign policy during the past eight years.” (Fenner Brockway, Inside the Left, p. 45). That Sir Edward, what a bastard.

Such a conspiratorial theory blended well with the wet pacifism endemic in the lower ranks and the antagonism to Tsarist Russia. But the diplomatic cause theory was to cause problems for the ILP, as it attracted a host of golden daffodils in the shape of the Union of Democratic Control. The UDC essentially consisted of Liberals, some high ranking, who wished for a more democratic and open foreign policy. They also viewed the war as caused by secret diplomacy. The bourgeois intellectuals of the UDC, including HN Brailsford, migrated into the ILP diluting the Northern spit and sawdust of the early party and providing the germ of the London based ‘intellectual’ (wobbly) ILP of the 1930s and after.

The First World War saw the ILP gain a Red reputation with its somewhat half-hearted backing of the Russian Revolution and its incidental association with the ‘Red Clydeside’ strikers. The war also saw the death of Hardie in late 1915 and the rise of James Maxton.

Golden Age
Before the First World War the ILP and the Labour Party were pretty much identical. The ILP leaders, notably Ramsay MacDonald (ILP Chairman 1906-9), were also those of the Labour Party. The 1918 constitution, particularly through the introduction of local Labour Parties, redefined the Labour Party not just as a political wing of the trade unions but as a party in itself. As a result the ILP had to redefine itself and in the 1920s its role came to be that of the left wing of the Labour Party. At first such a role was of considerable use to the party. Boosted by the ‘successes’ of the Labour Party, the ILP reached unprecedented heights in 1926 with an all-time high of 60,000 members in 1075 branches and a New Leader circulation of 70-80,000. Three years later the ILP had 37 MPs plus another 123 who were members of the party standing under other endorsement.
In 1924, to mark the new left turn, the ILP issued the report of its Socialist Plan Committee. Also known as “Socialism in our time”, this became the basis of ILP policy. It defined socialism as the establishment of “a minimum living income” and the “nationalisation of the pivots of capitalism” (i.e. “the banking system, land, mining, electrical generation and distribution, and transport.” (Fenner Brockway, Inside the Left, p. 148) In other words a typical confection of Leftist pseudo-socialism. With the exception of nationalisation of land and the minimum wage this was essentially the programme adopted by the Labour Party in the late 30s and carried out by the 1945-51 government. Given this it might well be asked, “what was the point of the continued existence of the ILP?” The answer is not a lot as we shall see.

Disaffiliation
Something very bizarre happened to the ILP in the early 1930s. Ordinarily the left wing acts as the shock troops of the Labour Party, brought out at election time to do donkey work for a small pay off after. Despite grumbling this usually works well. However occasionally the left gets ideas above its station - the Militant case is typical - or revolts at the unpleasant doings of the Parliamentary party. In this case the particular left of the era receives the order of the boot. They never want to go despite the sniping and grumbling and the parting is acrimonious. After the McDonald debacle however the ILP left voluntarily. This turned out to be a ghastly mistake from their point of view.

Officially the issue at stake was over Standing Orders - whether ILP MPs should without fail follow the Labour Party line. The ILP MPs, led by Maxton, essentially wanted freedom of action - to justify their separate existence as much as anything else. The PLP wanted (as well it might) loyalty in exchange for endorsement (which essentially meant actually getting elected). Neither side was willing to give way, leading to an inevitable break. However behind this was the looming shadow of MacDonald. Disaffiliation occurred in the summer of 1932. MacDonald had formed his National Government with his power-hungry toadies and the Tories the previous year. The Labour Party was badly split and in severe disarray. A major realignment seemed certain. To the ILPers it seemed as if their time had come.

After disaffiliation the ILP clearly didn’t know what to do. Archibald Fenner Brockway, darling of the old left and big cheese of the ‘30s ILP, remarked: “Since 1932 the Party has been a crucible of the change from reformism to revolutionism” (Inside the Left, p. 237). ‘Revolutionism’ clearly meant desperately jobbing around for popular leftwing causes. In the course of the seven remaining years of the 30s the ILP:

“experimented in many directions, at one time approaching the Communist International, and at another moving towards the Trotskyist position, at one stage attaching its hope to united fronts and at another reverting to purism, at one period going all out to prepare for Soviets and at another recognising again the value of Parliament.” (Inside the Left, p. 237)

Reflecting this uncertainty of orientation and plagued by internal factions (pro- and anti-CPGB and Trotskyist) membership plummeted. Immediately before disaffiliation the ILP had 16,700 members in 653 branches. By 1935, just three years later this was down to 4,400 members in 284 branches. This was a particularly dramatic decline given the ongoing depression which had boosted almost all other left wing groups and the ILP’s relatively firm handling of Spain (sending a contingent including George Orwell) and fascism (giving important backing during the Battle of Cable Street).

Despite this the ILP retained local predominance in parts of Glasgow with numerous local councillors and a range of MPs. This was partly due to an electoral pact with Big Labour and lasted until around 1950. There were other residual centres of strength including Merthyr, Bradford, Norwich, Derby and rather bizarrely Great Yarmouth (where one LF Bunnewell was ILP councillor from 1937 to after 1975).

Second World War and after
The ILP recognised the Second World War as basically a conflict between rival capitalists. However confusion remained. The ILP’s ‘Peace Terms’ were: 1. Self determination of ‘peoples’, 2. Subordination of nations to ‘international unity’ and 3. “The establishment of an international economic organisation for the distribution of the world’s resources according to the needs of all peoples”. All of which displays the ILP failure to recognise that whilst the world’s resources are still owned and controlled by the capitalist class, conflicts between sections of that class are inevitable.

The 1945 election was rather successful for the ILP with three candidates, James Maxton, George McGovern and the Reverend Campbell Stephen, elected (one more than the Communist Party). Fresh with a new influx the ILP seemed set for revival. The success was not to last

Maxton died little less than a year later. The following year his replacement, James Carmichael joined up with Big Labour. As did McGovern and Campbell. Fenner Brockway also took the jump, in 1947. Maxton had clearly been holding the party together and without him the thing fell apart. Re-affiliation might have saved the day. In 1945 it had knocked on Labour’s door, asking very politely for re-affiliation, but Labour (sensibly) didn’t open it.

Left out in the cold the ILP fished around for other potential alliances including with us. At the 1947 Conference a motion proposed ‘loose links’ and joint campaigns (peace, colonial freedom and other ‘causes’) with the Anarchist Federation, the Commonwealth Party and the SPGB. We said no. Further proposals were made in 1954 (“Need for a United Socialist Party”) and late 1957. We debated representatives of the ILP, including in 1928 Maxton himself, on numerous occasions throughout its career, the last being in Bolton in 1972.

The ILP gradually faded from view. It soldiered on however until someone let it back in. In 1975 it re-entered the Labour Party as Independent Labour Publications. Actually this was a bit of a cheat as individual members joined up and on 31 March 1975 the party as such declared itself terminated (a similar thing happened to the trotskyist Revolutionary Communist Party in 1949).

Despite the fact that the Independent Labour Party does not now exist, its ghost may be found haunting Left wing shindigs and the like. It remains well thought of by Leftists of a historical bent, but clearly not well remembered.

KAZ