Obituary: Oliver Bond (2022)

Obituary from the September 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oliver Bond, one of our most active members, died suddenly at the beginning of August as a result of an unsuccessful emergency operation. He was 66 and had not yet got round to claiming his state pension. Oliver was born in Canada but was brought up in Scotland. He joined the old Islington branch in 1984 during its very active period. He worked as a programmer on mainframe computers but was made redundant in his 50s and was never employed again. Some of his work colleagues could only find jobs working in a call centre, such was the reduced demand for workers with their particular skills. In the Party he was involved in a whole range of activities, street selling, pub selling, writing (his last contribution was the editorial in the June issue), even speaking occasionally, and also as an election candidate and agent. At the time of his death he was on the ballot committee, the member responsible for subscriptions to the Socialist Standard, and Treasurer of the South & West London branch. Outside the Party he was a keen member of CAMRA. He was a quiet, thoughtful and diligent man, generous to a fault and who could never say ‘no’. He will be sorely missed by his friends and comrades. Our particular condolences go to his brother and sister in Canada.

Have the Tories gone socialist? (2021)

From the October 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Events and circumstances occur that undermine and trash the accepted narratives and certainties of capitalist society and highlight capitalism’s shortcomings in providing for human needs. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc economies at the end of the 1980s, it was the received wisdom that the free market with its competition between private businesses was the only viable way to run society; economies with substantial state intervention stifled private investment and in their wake brought economic stagnation and decline. This orthodoxy was accepted by all mainstream political parties until capitalism entered another of its periodic crises with the financial crash of 2008. Governments of all hues were then forced, against their political instincts, to intervene to bail out the banks. However, with the large government debts and budget deficits that were built up as a result, capitalism’s supporters were able to draw attention away from the real cause of the crisis, capitalism, and pinpoint the blame on the state sector, in particular the welfare state.

In the UK, David Cameron pursued this line of attack by accusing the previous Labour government of profligate spending, which left the state coffers empty, thus necessitating the build-up of government debt to combat the economic downturn. This narrative allowed Cameron to re-position the Tories as the responsible low-tax and small-state Party that helped him secure the election victories of 2010 and 2015.

In the 2019 General Election, Boris Johnson employed the same narrative to contrast his party with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party which, it was alleged, would put the economy at risk with its spendthrift proposals. Along with his pledges to get Brexit done and ‘level up’ the country, he was able to coast to victory. However, almost as soon as he had his feet under the desk at Number 10 Downing Street, the coronavirus pandemic crisis came along and knocked his government sideways. The government was forced to take direct control of the economy by ordering the closure of retail and hospitality businesses during lockdowns, and had to fork out cash to subsidise them and pay 80 percent of the wages of their furloughed workers. Consequently, huge amounts of government debt were built up.

Having nearly maxed out the credit card, the government had little choice but to break an election pledge and raise taxes to fulfil another election promise to fix the social care system and also to help clear the backlog of NHS cases caused by the pandemic. Johnson chose to raise the National Insurance contributions for both employers and workers by 1.25 percent and taxation on dividends by the same percentage from April 2022. The government hopes to raise £36 billion over three years which will mainly be allocated to the NHS with some of the money going to social care. This raised howls of betrayal from the letter pages and columns of the Conservative press. The front page headline of the Daily Telegraph (8 September) screamed ‘Highest taxes since the War’. In a piece that appeared in the same newspaper the next day, the authors, Camilla Tominey and Tony Diver, apparently with a straight face wrote, ‘Yet the Conservatives’ newfound socialist drift threatens to pose even bigger problems for Sir Keir Starmer’.

Opponents of these measures from all political parties have pointed to the unfairness of the extra burden this extra levy would place on lower-paid workers. At first sight, we should be moved by this newfound concern shown by Tory politicians and media pundits for lower-paid workers, but unfortunately it does not seem to apply to all workers. Not to those who are about to have their Universal Credit benefits cut by £20 nor those who will be coming off furlough at the end of September and are facing unemployment. Labour’s compassionate stance overlooks the fact that the previous Labour government raised National Insurance to fund the NHS in 2002. It is not only for lower-paid workers that crocodile tears have been shed, but also for the low-wage young workers who have to pay for the older workers, who don’t pay National Insurance (aside from working pensioners who will be required to pay National Insurance from April 2023). Capitalism’s supporters never miss a trick, pitting younger workers against older ones.

The pandemic did not create the problems of health and social care, but exacerbated them and brought them into sharp relief. The government plans have been criticised for containing little in the way of reforming the NHS and the social care system. Some suggest that improvements could be made by adding private insurance into the system. This ignores the fact that private companies will only engage if they can squeeze as much profit as they can. All this chatter sidesteps the main problem in that social and health care currently takes place within a society where profit must take priority over human need. In other words, the capitalist state is limited in what finance it can provide without impinging on the profitability and competitiveness of the national state.

Raising taxes and government expenditure have nothing to do with socialism. These are tools employed by the capitalist state to manage the capitalist economy and as we have seen that the government cannot wield them as they please. Socialism is a society of common ownership where everyone has free access to the social product and there is no state, no wages system, and no money system.

Oliver Bond

Refugees: No safe place (2022)

From the January 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

To be a worker in capitalist society is to be deprived of any form of ownership of the means of living and therefore of having any real control of your own life. Being forced to sell your labour-power to an employer can lead to a precarious existence where you may end up becoming unemployed or even homeless. If you are unlucky enough to live in a war zone, you may be forced to flee your home and attempt to seek a new life elsewhere. You would then fall prey to ruthless smuggling gangs and come up against the brutality of state forces ranged against you. Sadly, this was the fate of 27 refugees who drowned while trying to make the treacherous crossing over the Channel on 24 November. This tragedy was not unforeseen, in fact it was one waiting to happen given the heavy traffic in the Channel. These were not the first deaths arising from these crossings nor will they be the last. Like the unemployed and the homeless, refugees and migrants are vilified as scroungers and ne’er-do-wells.

Political pawns

The response of the political leaders to the refugee crisis in Calais reveals the paucity of thinking that characterises modern capitalist politics. The rational course of action would have been for the UK and French governments to co-operate to find a solution to this problem. However, Boris Johnson’s government came to power on the basis of ‘Get Brexit Done’ and ‘to take back control of the UK’s borders’. To keep his more xenophobic supporters on board a little bit of Euro bashing did not go amiss. Emmanuel Macron, with his eye on next April’s presidential election and the need to play the patriotic card to see off his rivals on the far right, Eric Zemmour and Marine Le Pen, was more than eager to pick up the gauntlet. Boris Johnson sent Macron an open letter outlining proposals he knew that he would not accept, such as joint patrols by both British and French forces on the French coast. Macron’s response was to withdraw an invitation for the British Home Secretary to attend a meeting to discuss the movement between people in the sea between France and the UK. The refugees in Calais had become pawns in this game of tit for tat.

The UK government has used demeaning terms such as ‘economic migrants’ to refer to refugees and when they do arrive on British shores they are classified as illegal immigrants. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, had the not too bright idea of the British Border patrol to push back the refugee boats to France. Any ramming by ships of these overloaded dinghies would likely cause them to capsize and their occupants drown. It is unlikely that many skippers would want to stand trial for murder or manslaughter. The forthcoming Nationalities and Borders bill will further tighten restrictions. One clause seeks to deport refugees if it is found that they passed through a ‘safe’ country.

Boris Johnson’s government shed crocodile tears over the drownings and offered their condolences to the victims’ families. Both the French and UK governments diverted attention from their own culpability by blaming the people smugglers, which ignored the fact that closing off the legal routes for refugees to come to the UK had gifted opportunities to the smugglers to make profits out of people’s miseries.

Demonisation

This tragedy has not ended the demonisation of refugees. In this op-ed piece for RT dated 25 November: ‘The four star hotels, the free healthcare and the generous benefits system have, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, made the UK an ‘El Dorado’ for would-be migrants. I hate to say it, but I agree with him’ (‘I predicted a migrant tragedy months ago. Why didn’t the UK and France prevent it?’, former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall).

Kevin Hurley, a retired British police officer, in another op-ed piece about the situation in Calais, seems to suggest that the local people find many of the refugees menacing: ‘Yes, I saw some tragic Kurdish families, but they were few and far between compared to the hordes of young men loitering about or just staring. I found it frightening (‘As an ex-cop, I know how hard it is to stop the flow of illegal migrants into Britain’, RT, 30 November).

If you read the press and listen to the politicians all you will learn is that the refugees want to come here to help themselves to our goodies and what measures can we take to stop them. What you do not hear so much of is what drives them to risk their lives to come to the West.

Forced to migrate

It is no surprise to find that most of the refugees come from these countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Three of them have been embroiled in wars of various kinds. Two of them were occupied by the US and the UK. However, it is not just the military warfare that is driving some of the workers in these countries to seek a better life abroad, but the economic warfare waged mainly by the Western powers. Since the first Gulf war, the US and Britain have imposed economic sanctions on the Iraqi regime. Sanctions were also imposed on Syria and Iran. The economic cost weighed most heavily on the workers, with the political leaders remaining relatively unaffected. Many of the 27 who drowned were Kurds from northern Iraq. That many of the refugees are Kurds from Iraq, Syria and Iran is no accident. They are oppressed minorities in these countries. In Iraq and Syria Kurdish forces fought with western forces against Isis. When they were no longer of use to the West, they were abandoned to their fate (‘The West has played its part in driving migrants from home’, Patrick Cockburn, i weekend, 27/28 November 2021).

The liberal left talk about how refugees should be treated more humanely and that more legal channels should be opened up for them to come to the UK and make their claims. This, they argue, would reduce the risk of deaths. The SWP blames the Tory government for the deaths in the Channel. They claim ‘Anti-racists have to demand open borders and a welcome for refugees’ (Socialist Worker, 24 November). However, even the SWP acknowledges that the Labour Party is also in favour of taking action to stop Channel crossings.

More political pawns

Sadly, it is not just Calais that is a flashpoint in the refugee crisis. We have witnessed violent confrontations between refugees and border guards on the border between Poland and Belarus. Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, cynically encouraged refugees to come into Belarus and attempt to cross the Polish border, where they have met fierce resistance from the Polish border patrols. As we have seen with the situation in Calais, the refugees are being used as pawns in a dispute between two capitalist powers. Lukashenko wishes to put pressure on the EU to remove the sanctions that they imposed on his regime following his rigged election last year. It appears that Russia is backing him and may have their own interests in this game.

This conflict affords an opportunity for the Polish capitalist leaders to gain political kudos from the EU, with which they have been in dispute over their judicial reforms, by appearing to be defending the EU border against outsiders. The EU’s high-minded ideals of freedom of movement and respect for human dignity do not seem to apply to these refugees. They are hell-bent on keeping them out and there was even talk of building a wall (sounds familiar). Erdoğan, the Turkish president, also used the refugees as bargaining chips when he threatened to unleash them on the Greek border. The Moroccan government also made similar threats of doing the same at the Spanish border.

World-wide

As with every crisis in capitalist society – unemployment, homelessness and workers relying on food banks – the refugee crisis has become ‘normalised’, yet there is nothing normal about it.

The refugee crisis spans the globe. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees there are more than 20 million refugees worldwide. As we have seen, war is a major driver for migration, but it is not the only one. Climate change is another which is rendering large parts of the globe, particularly the poorer parts, uninhabitable. And there is large-scale poverty.

The response of the major capitalist powers has been to tighten up their borders. Workers in these countries are encouraged to view immigrants and refugees as the other. Rather than see them as fellow workers with common interests, they regard them as competitors for jobs, welfare and health services. In the US, under Trump, a wall on the border with Mexico was partially built and migrant children were locked in cages. In the UK, a hostile environment towards immigrants was created which led to the Windrush scandal. The worldwide refugee crisis lays bare the utter brutality and cynicism of capitalism.

The leftist demands to create legal processes that treat migrants more humanely and calls for the sacking of right-wing governments can only scratch the surface. The fundamental problem is capitalism itself. In its drive for profits and division of the world into competing nation states, it creates the conditions that give rise to the wars, climate disasters and poverty that compel workers to leave their homes and seek sanctuary in safer places. What the world working class needs to do is combine democratically to obtain political power on a world scale to abolish capitalism and replace it with world socialism. National frontiers will be abolished and there will be one world community where everyone will be able to participate equally. There will be no wars or poverty and no need for people to flee their homes and seek refuge elsewhere.

Oliver Bond

The Right to be A Wage Slave (2021)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over the years we have seen a growth in the number of temporary and part-time workers, many of whom are identified as self-employed. The gig economy forms a significant part of this trend, which covers a wide range of occupations from IT consultants to Uber and Deliveroo drivers. One definition offered is ‘it is a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs’ (‘What is the ‘gig’ economy?’ BBC News, 10 February 2017). What distinguishes the gig economy is that the workers are paid for a particular piece of work, as opposed to those on zero hours contracts who are paid by the hour. The term ‘gig’ was coined by jazz musicians in 1915 who were paid for each live performance. It is a term still used by today’s rock and pop musicians. According to a TUC report, the gig economy has doubled in size since 2016 and with just under 5 million workers (‘Gig economy in Britain doubles, accounting for 4.7 million workers’, Guardian, 28 June 2019).

Insecure, casual working has always been a feature of capitalism. At one time, it was common for building workers to be hired on a day-to-day basis. In the US in the 1930s many farmers had to sell their land because of drought and falling prices and ended up as itinerant workers. After the Great Depression, temp agencies sprang up, which supplied workers to employers on a temporary basis (The History and Future of the Gig Economy, Small Business Trends, 12 November 2019).

Some claim that the gig economy is a product of the new digital technology. It is the case that firms like Uber use smartphone apps to organise jobs for their workers, but there are employers, such as Hermes, who also employ gig workers, but use more traditional methods to run their businesses (‘What is the gig economy and why is it so controversial?’ Wired, 14 September 2018). This explanation of the rise of the gig economy doesn’t give us the full picture. In the last fifty years, Western capitalist countries have experienced a decline in their manufacturing and traditional industries with the concomitant erosion of trade union power and accompanying loss of relatively well-paid jobs. Insecure, casual jobs have, to a large extent, taken their place. In the less developed capitalist countries there is a pool of underemployed workers who are prey to these gig employers. It is probably no coincidence that Uber was founded in San Francisco in 2010 in the aftermath of the 2008-9 financial crash when unemployment was high. Under capitalism, competitive pressures compel businesses to grab a greater share of the market by undercutting their rivals by offering a product or service at a lower cost.

Supporters of the gig economy insist that its workers enjoy the flexibility and independence that come with being one’s own boss. No doubt for some gig workers, such as video producers, working this way can be a relatively lucrative venture. However, for many it is just ruthless capitalist exploitation by another name. Firms like Uber and Deliveroo designate their workers as self-employed so they don’t have to fork out holiday pay and sickness benefits, contribute to their pensions, pay the minimum wage or any redundancy payments, but receive the fruits of their labour like any traditional capitalist. The benefits of flexibility have been illusory as it is their employers that ultimately control the hours they work. Despite the capitalist spin, more and more gig workers are seeing through the con. They know that they are workers, not independent contractors.

They are fighting back. In 2016 two Uber drivers launched legal action to be recognised as workers. The London employment tribunal ruled in their favour, that they should be classed as workers and be entitled to holiday pay, paid rest breaks and the minimum wage. Uber appealed this ruling to the Employment Appeal Tribunal and when they lost in November 2017, they went to the Court of Appeal which also upheld the ruling in December 2018. Uber made their last stand with the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, which, on 19 February, dismissed their appeal and upheld the ruling that Uber drivers are workers and are entitled to employment benefits. Uber responded by claiming that the verdict only applies to the small number of drivers who brought this case. However, thousands of Uber drivers are filing claims for compensation.

On 7 April, Deliveroo drivers went on strike for higher pay and better work conditions. This followed similar strike action in August and September 2019. Some gig workers are even organised in trade unions, one is the App Drivers and Couriers Union and another is the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain.

Despite all the guff written and spoken about living in a postmodern society where the class struggle is a thing of the past and we are now all aspiring individuals, it is evident that workers, even the more precarious ones, are still collectively organising to defend and, if they can, improve their working conditions. We think it is great that some workers are winning their battles. However, we must go on and win the class war.

Oliver Bond

Green New Deal: No Go (2020)

Book Review from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have seen wildfires in California and Australia. Hurricanes have been ripping apart areas from New Orleans to the Caribbean leaving devastation and death in their wake. Severe drought has been inflicted on countries from Bangladesh to South Africa. Closer to home, we have witnessed devastating floods in Cornwall and Yorkshire. The increasing frequency and power of these disasters have shaken the notion that these are merely acts of nature, about which we can do very little. These changed weather patterns are clearly evidence of what the majority of climate scientists have been warning for some time that the global warming crisis is upon us and humanity needs to act now to avoid a global catastrophe. Even some representatives of global capitalism are worried. Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, addressed the most recent international climate change conference (COP25) last December and is pushing for a higher carbon tax (‘Tackling climate risk is just what IMF should be doing,’ Observer, 1 December). You need to be either very delusional or be profiting from the fossil fuel industries or just be Donald Trump to deny there is a climate crisis.

So the launch of Naomi Klein’s latest book On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal (Allen Lane, £20) can be considered as rather timely. Naomi Klein is a writer, journalist and activist and first made her mark as a leading figure of the ‘anti-capitalist’ movement twenty years ago. The book was published on the twentieth anniversary of her first book, No Logo, which explored the rise of global corporations and their effects on the environment and workers, particularly those who live in poor third world countries. In her new book, she recounts her own experiences as a climate activist and how, two years ago, she was arrested at a protest against the Keystone tar sands pipeline in Washington DC. She is co-founder of a Toronto-based climate project group called Leap, which brings together people from different backgrounds to campaign for climate justice and other reforms.

The book is made up of a collection of essays, reports and lectures spanning the last decade. Its central tenet is that the planet is facing a climate emergency and we are running out of time. To back this up, Klein refers to a report published by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October 2018 stating that global emissions of greenhouse gases need to be cut in half within 12 years (11 years from the date of the book’s publication) for us to stand a chance of keeping global warming within the target increase of 1.5C since pre-industrial times.

Capitalism indicted, but what is capitalism?

As in her previous book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, she blames capitalism for the climate crisis, and consequently argues that tinkering around with the existing economic system, with measures such as increasing the carbon tax, is not enough. Changes in individuals’ personal lifestyles, such as eating less meat and using public transport rather than driving cars, will not avert climate catastrophe. What is required is collective political action by grass-roots movements to achieve a radical overhaul of the current economic systems. She draws inspiration from the campaigning groups against climate change. There are the global school strikes, where young people are demanding more action by politicians on the environment. Klein makes the interesting point that these school children didn’t just read about climate change, but many of them have actually experienced it, whether it is the severe droughts in South Africa or the toxic air pollution in Delhi, India. In the same way socialists argue that workers don’t come to socialism by just reading about it, but by their experiences of the social problems they face within capitalism. She says that it is pressure from this activity, along with other movements, such as the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion, that will bring about change. As to be expected, much of the focus is on Greta Thunberg, the 16-year old schoolgirl who is lauded as a leading spokesperson of this youth movement.

Klein rejects the use of technology, also known as geo-engineering, to fix the environment. This can be done in a number of ways. One way is to inject the upper atmosphere with sulphur with the aim of deflecting some of the sun’s rays into space in order to cool the planet, and another is to fertilise the oceans with iron dust to create algal blooms which would soak up more carbon. However, tampering with nature’s ecosystems, she argues, would be likely to have adverse consequences.

The Earth’s temperature has been rising since the industrial revolution, the cause of which has been the burning of fossil fuels, oil and coal, by capitalist industry, releasing more greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and methane, than can be absorbed by the atmosphere, along with deforestation, resulting in fewer trees to soak up the extra carbon. Over the last thirty years or so, when many countries deregulated and privatised their industries, global trade has expanded and at the same time global emissions have escalated. Klein notes that in the same period, often referred to as ‘neoliberalism’, social and economic inequality has also arisen. She recognises that climate change and other social issues, such as social, gender and ethnic inequalities, have the same cause, which is capitalism which accumulates wealth in the hands of a tiny minority, and therefore does not accept the argument sometimes put forward that the climate issue must take precedence over everything else. Any action to resolve climate change must equally tackle other social problems. This is also known as intersectionality, where separate campaign issues come together in one struggle.

She also makes the interesting point that capitalism has only existed for a small period of human history and that humans can adapt to live in different social orders. She criticises those economists who put forward the view that humans are ‘selfish, gratification-seeking units’ and historians who espouse the Great Man theory of history.

Despite these insights, Klein doesn’t advocate the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. To see why, we need to work out what Klein means by capitalism. She doesn’t give a specific definition. However, when discussing how some climate change deniers compare action to combat climate change with so-called communism, Klein remarks that ‘the Soviet-era state socialism was a disaster for the climate’ (p.79). Again, when referring to the Soviet Union, we learn on p. 251 that ‘we have to be honest that autocratic industrial socialism has also been a disaster for the environment’ and when mentioning Venezuela on the same page ‘Venezuela’s petro-populism is a reminder that there is nothing inherently green about self-defined socialism’. She does praise the environmental policies of countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Uruguay that have a ‘democratic-socialist tradition’. From these comments, we can safely infer that when Klein talks about capitalism she is referring to private capitalism, in particular the large corporations and the banks.

We, on the other hand, define capitalism as a global society where the means of production are owned and controlled by a minority class to the exclusion of the majority of humanity, the working class, who have to seek employment by the owning or capitalist class. Production is geared to profit and businesses compete with each other in the marketplace. Concerns about the environment and human welfare must take second place. Nation states have to look after the interests of their respective capitalist classes and this leads to rivalries between them which can end in military conflict. Socialism, which will need to be established by a socialist working class after taking political action to abolish capitalism, is a society of common ownership, where the means of production are owned by everyone and the state has been abolished and there is no need for the use of money.

Green Keynesianism

Klein advocates the New Green Deal instead. It is clearly not based on the principles of socialism, but, as the name suggests, is inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal drawn up during the 1930s Depression and the Marshall Plan enacted after the Second World. It was mooted as a way of pulling capitalism out of recession during the last economic downturn, a form of ‘Green Keynesianism’. Klein holds up the US Congress New Green Deal resolutions as proposed by US Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey as the way forward. They call for ‘huge investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean transportation’ and for the US to reach net-zero emissions in one decade. Workers who transfer from high-carbon industries to green ones have their wages and benefits protected, and everyone who wants to work should have guaranteed employment. No specifics are given, as Klein describes it as a ‘work in progress’ with communities, many of which are indigenous and ethnic minorities, that have borne the brunt of climate change destruction, providing input into the process. They also throw in reforms – free universal care, childcare, and higher education. It is not a politically organised working class that will be the agency of these changes, but the state run by a ‘progressive’ Democrat government headed by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. In the UK it would have been a Labour government headed by Jeremy Corbyn with the British equivalent of the Green Industrial Revolution – that is until the results of the December General Election put paid to this possibility. This progressive state would not abolish the corporations, but bring pressure to bear on them. It may refuse to issue permits for fossil fuel companies to build pipelines and export terminals. Like with the New Deal, the government would be backed and influenced by social movements.

The Green New Deal will not replace the market system, on the contrary, according to Klein ‘Markets play a role in this vision, but markets are not the protagonists of this story – people are’. And as can be seen in the above paragraph, there will be no change to the employer and employee relationship that is a feature of capitalism.

The climate crisis cannot be resolved within a nation state, but requires a global solution. Klein recognises this, and envisages every country will implement their own version of the Green New Deal. When she talks about the rich countries developing their green deal earlier so as to allow for poorer ones to transition more slowly, this implies that there will be global cooperation. This is a tall order in a society where every nation state competes for markets, sources of raw materials and strategic routes. Recent history is not encouraging. The US is in a trade war with China, there is the re-emergence of the cold war between Russia and the West, and the UK is arguing with its European neighbours on how to exit from the European Union. Not to mention that the international climate change conferences over the last thirty years have not exactly been rip-roaring successes.

To curb the pressure on the Earth’s resources, Klein argues we need to end the wasteful consumer lifestyle. To achieve this, she suggests a shorter working week so that workers can enjoy publicly-funded arts and urban parks, rather than spending their wages on cheap disposable consumer goods.

Our vision of socialism is often dismissed as being utopian. There is a lot of informative material and useful analysis in this book, but its contention that the New Green Deal can resolve the climate crisis and social and economic inequalities within the capitalist market system really is utopian. Only the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with socialism can achieve this.

Oliver Bond

Knife Crime : Violence and Youth (2019)

From the November 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why knife crime flourishes

Hardly a day goes by without hearing about someone being stabbed or shot in the UK. More often than not it will be a young person, usually a teenager. According to government sources, in the year ending March 2019, there were 43,516 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, in comparison with 40,215 in the previous year. 32 percent of this violent crime has taken place in the London area (‘Knife crime in England and Wales rises 8 percent over year’, Guardian, 18 July). Although there has been a drop in gun crime during this period, it is still high in comparison to previous years. What is going on here? Why is there is so much bloodletting on the streets of Britain?

There is no shortage of explanations. Street gangs that peddle drugs and the ensuing turf wars between rival gangs. Online squabbles on social media that blow up into deadly disputes. The prestige of handling a weapon. Police claim that young people think it is ‘trendy’ to carry a weapon (Yahoo News UK, 13 April, 2017). Fewer police officers on the beat and the decline in the use of stop and search. The fact that a disproportionate number of workers from an ethnic minority are affected has led some to focus on so-called ‘black on black’ crime.

Others cite cuts in youth services, the closure of Sure Start centres, reduced funding for youth clubs as a consequence of the government’s ‘austerity’ drive, that is in its attempts over the past few years to restore the profitability of British capitalism and improve the latter’s competitiveness in world markets in the wake of the economic downturn of 2008/2009 by reducing the cost of running the state machine.

What all these explanations miss is the root cause. Capitalism is based on minority ownership of the means of living and production for profit. Wealth is accumulated in the hands of the few and the majority is left in various degrees of relative or absolute poverty. In the poorer areas with high levels of social deprivation, young workers face a bleak future with low paid insecure work and high unemployment. As an escape from this drudgery, the allure of gang life is tempting. For these young people, the lucrative drug trade promises the lifestyles that capitalism encourages workers to aspire to, but at the same time denies them. Gangs are seen to provide protection and a sense of belonging in a tough and alienating environment. Some young people feel that the possession of a weapon provides some sort of protection in a threatening world. Poverty is the fertile ground on which crime flourishes.

There is no doubt that the increase in poverty and deprivation in the aftermath of the 2008/2009 economic downturn, exacerbated by cuts in public services, has fuelled higher levels of violent crime. However, knife and gun crime is a problem that predates the 2008/2009 economic crisis. The years of 2006/2008 witnessed a large spate of shootings and stabbings, which included the high-profile murder of Ben Kinsella in an unprovoked knife attack in Islington in June 2008.

There have been calls for more police patrols and the government has authorised an increase in the use of stop and search. There is little evidence that these measures will reduce crime in any meaningful way, and have, in many instances, only served to sow distrust of the authorities and have heightened tensions between young workers and the police. In addition, longer prison sentences, another demand, do not act as deterrents. On the contrary, they are more likely to turn out hardened and more savvy criminals.

In August, the Home Office launched its anti-knife scheme, in which thousands of takeaway boxes are supplied to chicken shops with stories written on them about young people who have given up knives and have gone on to pursue successful careers in sport and music. This is supposed to dissuade young people from carrying knives. As well as being ridiculous, it is racist in that it assumes that knife crime is a black people’s issue and that young black people spend a lot of time visiting chicken shops. As has been shown, crime is a social issue involving poverty and dispossession, not a racial one.

Restoring public expenditure on youth services may ameliorate the problem, but it cannot eradicate it. Expanding the powers of the state over the working class and initiating silly gimmicks will not solve the problem of knife and gun crime either. Only the working class can do this by organising consciously and politically to get rid of capitalism, a social system that generates human poverty and misery, and establish socialism, where the production for the profit for the few gives way to producing for the needs of the many and crime, in all its forms, can become a thing of the past.

Oliver Bond

Huawei: Is it really just cybersecurity? (2019)

From the July 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Competition for markets, sources of raw materials and the control of strategic routes is the lifeblood of capitalism. This competition inevitably translates into rivalry between nation states, which serve the capitalist interests within their borders. Trade wars ensue with all the skulduggery that governments can muster and can lead to bloody conflict. We have seen this in the twentieth century, where rivalry between an expansionary Germany and the established powers, Britain, France and Russia gave rise to two world wars.

After the Second World War, the United States and Russia emerged as the dominant powers and both competed to control global markets. This ‘cold war’ continued until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the nineteen-nineties. As nature abhors a vacuum, so it is with capitalism which cannot survive for long without some kind of international rivalry taking place. We have recently witnessed a resurgent Russia challenging the Western capitalist powers. China is also emerging as a global economic player in world markets. The response of the American state has been to slap increased tariffs on Chinese imports and China has retaliated in kind. Huawei, China’s leading technology company, has become a focal point of this trade dispute.

Founded in 1987, Huawei supplies telecommunication equipment and sells electronic gadgets including smartphones, tablets and laptops. It employs about 188,000 staff worldwide and operates in more than 170 countries. It is a leading provider of 5th generation (5G) technology. This is the next generation of wireless technology which will deliver much faster download speeds for mobile phones, and promises greater connectivity between devices allowing for the emergence of driverless cars, ‘smart’ homes and driverless drones. The company has helped to build IT systems and infrastructure in Africa, Russia and other countries. It claims to be a private company owned by its employees.

However, many, including the United States government, dispute this and insist that the company is controlled by the Chinese government, and that its products contain ‘backdoors’ to allow the Chinese state to carry out surveillance and cyber attacks. That the founder, Ren Zhengfei, was a member of the People’s Liberation Army at the time of the company’s foundation and has links to the Chinese Communist Party is held as proof of this. Others point to the 2017 National Intelligence Law which requires Chinese companies to assist the state in their intelligence investigations and that every Chinese company is required to have a Communist Party Committee. Huawei played down these links and insisted that it is an independent company dedicated to serving the needs of its customers. In January 2018, allegations emerged that, over a period of five years, data was being transferred from the computer systems of the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to servers based in Shanghai. Huawei was the main supplier of their information and communication technology systems. The company denied any culpability. It is also accused of intellectual property theft from other tech companies, including Nortel, Cisco Systems and T-Mobile. In the latter case, a Huawei employee allegedly stole a robotic arm used for stress testing smartphones.

Whatever the truth of these allegations, they were the pretext that the US state need to have Huawei in their crosshairs. On 1 December last year, Meng Wanzhou, the company’s Chief Finance Officer and daughter of the founder, was arrested in Canada in Vancouver at the behest of the US authorities and is facing extradition to the US on charges of defrauding banks and using a subsidiary to break sanctions against Iran. On 15 May Donald Trump signed an executive order barring US companies from employing foreign telecommunication equipment that is deemed to pose national security risks and the US government added Huawei to the list of companies that require a licence to trade with US companies. Google responded by suspending dealings with Huawei, so their smartphones will not be able to receive updates to Google’s Android operating system. The US government has urged other nations not to use Huawei products. In a sense they should be worried, as Edward Snowden has revealed, that both the US and UK states have used internet technology to spy on other countries.

However, this is more than about protecting vital IT infrastructure. John Naughton noted (Guardian, 2 June) that targeting Huawei’s smartphone and laptop businesses has little to do with IT network security. Technology is the key to global commercial success, and the US capitalist class are jealous of safeguarding their dominance in this field. They don’t wish to see their technology corporations such as Microsoft Apple and Google being overtaken by Chinese companies such as Huawei. What the US state also fears is that Huawei’s and other Chinese companies’ successes in the global marketplace will pave the way for Chinese domination of the global capitalist economy. The fact that Donald Trump appears to be using the fates of Meng Wanzhou and Huawei as pawns in trade negotiations with China appear to bear this out.

This dispute is generally seen as the work of Donald Trump playing the tough guy and is trying to impress his electoral base. But the American ruling class have been worried for some time about the rise of Chinese capitalism. It is not just the Republicans, but many Democrats support taking a strong stance against China. However, things are not as straightforward as they seem. US companies that trade with Huawei will be adversely affected. Many US technology companies, such as Apple, have their products, such as their iPhones, assembled in China (so much for their concern for cyber security).

The stance of British capitalism is more ambiguous. Although the British state shares the worries about security issues and are wary about the rise of Chinese capitalism, nevertheless they are interested in developing closer economic ties with the latter. This will be particularly important if the UK leaves the EU. The government is also keen to build its 5G infrastructure as soon as possible, so as not to fall behind British capitalism’s competitors, which could have a negative economic impact. As Huawei has the expertise and can do the job efficiently and relatively cheaply, the UK government is considering engaging it in its 5G infrastructure project. However, not all government members are happy at such co-operation with Huawei, as the recent leaking of a National Security meeting showed. The US government has threatened to withhold sharing intelligence should the UK government so ahead with these proposals. The Chinese government has threatened to pull out some of its UK investments if the UK caves in to US pressure and not approve the deal with Huawei.

As always, workers will be called on to take sides. Patriotism will be invoked on both sides, and in the West this dispute will be portrayed as a struggle between democracy and an authoritarian state. This is nothing of the kind, it is just a squabble between rival groups of capitalists. The working class, both in China and the West, have no interest in this trade war. Their real interest is to establish a global socialist society of common ownership where there will be no nation states and everyone will have free access to the world resources.

On a final note, the Chinese government describes itself as ‘communist’ and ‘Marxist’. It goes without saying that we do not agree with this description. China is a capitalist power like all the others. It is encouraging that nobody apart from the Chinese government suggests otherwise.

Oliver Bond

Boeing: the fatal price of competition (2019)

From the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism’s supporters are always telling us that competition brings out the best in human beings. It is supposed to encourage efficiency and creativity and promote innovation. We are also informed that capitalism’s drive for profit creates high quality goods that most people desire at a competitive price. However, as we have shown time and time again, the reality is rather different, and as in the two recent air crashes, the consequences can be fatal.

On 10 March, an Ethiopians Airline flight bound for Nairobi from Addis Abba crashed shortly after take-off, killing all 157 on board. This was eerily similar to the Lion Air crash that took place five months earlier in Indonesia where 189 passengers lost their lives. In both cases the pilots were unable to prevent their planes from taking a steep nosedive and both planes were of the new Boeing 737 Max 8 design. Preliminary investigations in the Ethiopian Airlines crash absolved the pilots of any blame.

Competitive pressures

Around ten years ago, Airbus developed a new range of aircraft with enhanced fuel efficiency and lower operating costs. They were able to pick up a lot of orders from airlines keen to lower their running costs. Boeing feared that they might lose out on market share to their European rival and were spurred to action when American Airlines, a longstanding customer of Boeing, purchased a large consignment of the new Airbus model. Boeing set to work to design an aircraft to compete with Airbus.

For a plane to fly successfully without stalling, that is avoiding a situation in which the angle of the plane points so far upwards it stops flying and is at risk of falling and crashing, the weight and power of the engines needs to be in balance with the wings, the cargo areas and other component parts of the plane. Therefore, if you are going to build a plane with heavier, more fuel-efficient engines you normally need to design an entirely new aircraft. Indeed, Boeing did investigate this option, but they ruled this out as it was deemed to be too expensive and just as importantly the development timescale of up to ten years was considered to be too long, as Boeing needed to deliver the new planes more quickly in order to maintain its share price. So they made the fateful decision to fit the new heavier engines onto the existing 737 design. The 737 Max 8 aircraft was introduced in 2017. The aerodynamics of the new plane were altered with the heavier engines, in certain flying conditions, potentially forcing the plane to thrust upwards raising the likelihood of stalling. To counteract this, Boeing installed anti-stalling software, known as the ‘Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System’ (MCAS). When the angle of the plane is too high, sensors on the nose would transmit signals to MCAS, which would then force the nose down. An advantage from the point of view of the manufacturer and the airlines was that this automated software obviated the need to retrain the pilots, thus saving Boeing and the airlines money.

This set up depends on the software working correctly at all times. However, It is now generally believed that in both fights incorrect signals were being transmitted from the sensors to MCAS indicating that the angle of the plane was too high when in fact it was flying normally, thus forcing it to point downwards. The only thing that the pilots knew about MCAS is that they could deactivate it and use manual controls. Unfortunately, as the sensors continued to supply incorrect signals, MCAS was reactivated after a few minutes, forcing the planes to nosedive until they crashed. Two safety measures, a so-called ‘angle of attack indicator’ and a ‘disagree light’ indicator which warn that the sensors are malfunctioning, were not installed on the planes as Boeing sold them as optional extras. Evidently, Neither Lion Air nor Ethiopian Airlines had decided to purchase them.

Largely due to budget cuts over the last ten years, the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has found itself short of the qualified staff that is required to oversee the airworthiness of new aircraft and have effectively delegated regulation to airlines and manufacturers. One thousand Boeing employees had been seconded to the FAA.

In the wake of the crashes, the US flight attendants’ trade unions called for the 737 Max 8 planes to be grounded and pledged that they would support any member who refused to fly in them. Airlines around the world grounded their 737 Max 8 planes. The FAA in the United States reluctantly agreed to ground the planes a few days after the crash in Ethiopia. Boeing shares plummeted and their image has been tarnished. They are facing expensive lawsuits from victims’ families. They are desperate to restore their reputation and get their 737 Max 8 planes flying again, and are working on a fix for their MCAS software and have pledged an improved safety manual and training for pilots.

Some do see that the market has played a role in these tragedies, but do not arrive at the conclusion that capitalism should be abolished. They argue that corporate power should be reined in with tougher regulations. Will Hutton, in an article published in the Observer (7 April), says ‘The Boeing scandal is an indictment of Trump’s corporate America’, citing ‘America First nationalism, indulgent free market economics, Republican libertarianism and a political system in hock to corporate lobbying’ as the villains. It is true that Trump’s government pursues a free market capitalist agenda which is hostile to regulation, and Trump is in favour of privatising the FAA. He has representatives from the major banks and corporations in his government. Indeed, former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan is Trump’s acting secretary of defence and it is alleged that he has tried to enhance Boeing’s contracts with the government. Boeing has spent billions on lobbyists to obtain lucrative defence contracts and has given donations to both Republican and Democrat lawmakers

When a government is said to embrace free market ideology, what this really means is that it is committed to pursuing the interests of its capitalist class ruthlessly without the impediments of workers’ rights, human safety and human welfare. This is not just the case with Trump, but also with Republican and Democrat presidents before him. Indeed it is the function of governments within capitalist society to defend and promote the profits of their capitalist class. Over recent years, governments have come under global competitive pressures to cut their costs and therefore implement more ‘free market’ policies of deregulation.

Cheating the regulations

Then there are manufacturers who try to cheat the regulations. In September 2015, the US Environment Protection Agency discovered that Volkswagen installed software in the engines of their diesel cars that was able to detect when they were being tested and give out false emission readings to enable them to pass emission tests. These cars would be pumping out more pollution into the atmosphere compromising people’s health. As with Boeing, Volkswagen shares fell and its reputation was badly damaged.

In the era before Trump and ‘indulgent free market economics’, some companies would dangerously cut corners to maintain their market share. One notable case in the 1970s was the Ford Pinto car, in which the fuel tank was placed dangerously in the rear. This meant that if another car hit it from behind, the tank was in danger of exploding. In fact this happened in one instance and the driver was killed. An investigation by the victim’s lawyers found that Ford cynically calculated that it would be more cost effective to pay out damages than remedy the design flaw. Ford was forced to pay out substantial damages.

The ex-Militant Tendency Trotskyists claim, in an article, ‘Corporate capitalism jeopardises air safety’ (Socialist, 3 April) that ‘public ownership of the aviation industry under democratic workers’ control and management’ is the solution. However, companies under public or state ownership also have to compete in markets and keep their costs down. In 1966, disaster befell a small Welsh mining village called Aberfan when a colliery spoil tip collapsed and engulfed the village, including schools, killing 116 children and 28 adults. A period of heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to slide downhill as a slurry, The National Coal Board, a state-owned company, decided it was cheaper to dump the colliery waste on the mountain slope above the town. In 1987, a fire ravaged Kings Cross station killing 31 people. A shortage of staff and lack of maintenance due to budget cutbacks resulted in more people losing their lives. More recently there has been the tragedy of the Grenfell fire where the local council had the block of flats covered with cheaper but highly flammable cladding.

Not only does capitalism exploit us, it is gambling with our lives. State ownership, tighter regulations and software fixes cannot change this. We need to stop being chips on capitalism’s roulette table and organise to get rid of this pernicious economic system once and for all.

Oliver Bond

French Presidential Elections: Capitalism Wins (2017)

From the May 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

There were eleven candidates standing in the first round of the French Presidential Elections on 23 April, a mishmash of left and right-wing populists and establishment parties, ranging from  the Trotskyist Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle), the nationalist and anti-US Union Populaire Républicaine (Popular Republic Union), the Gaullist Debout La France (Stand Up France) which is anti-EU, the New Anti-Capitalist Party headed by a Ford factory worker, and Jacques Cheminade, a follower of the American conspiracy theorist, Lyndon LaRouche. As no candidate secured more than 50 percent of the votes  (in fact no candidate obtained more than 25 percent) the contest is  going to a second round on 7 May.

What marked this election out from the others is that  the main front runners were outsiders – Marine Le Pen of the Front National, Emmanuel Macron with his new movement En Marche (On the Go) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the so-called hard Left  candidate.  What is also unprecedented is that, due to the deep unpopularity of his government, François Hollande, decided not to stand again.  Working class people are angry that  their living standards are stagnating and what they see as an indifferent and out of touch political elite.  Unemployment is running at 10 percent (about 25 percent among 18 to 25 year-olds) of the workforce  amidst a slow recovery from the 2008/2009 recession. Moreover, many are dissatisfied with the government's response to the recent terrorist incidents and there are concerns about immigration. This is not unique to France. We have seen how working class discontent has played a part in the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency and in the vote for  Brexit in the UK.

Because of the Hollande's failure to resolve the social and economic problems of  French capitalism, 'Socialist' Party members opted for Benoît Hamon, the more radical left winger, to be their party's candidate. His platform included a basic universal income, a tax on robots to pay for the retraining of workers that they replace, a tax on banks' 'super profits', raising the minimum wage. However, he only got a humiliating 6 percent of the vote.

Marine Le Pen worked tirelessly to rebrand the  Front National  as being more of  a patriotic party than a fascistic one, with having the same appeal as UKIP has in the United Kingdom, and even went as far as kicking her father out of the organisation. However, this has not precluded her from putting forward xenophobic proposals, such as giving priority to French nationals over non-nationals over jobs, houses and welfare and placing new restrictions on immigration. She is attempting to court the working class vote by promising to reduce the retirement age from 62 to 60 and reduce income tax for the lowest earners. She is anti-EU and  pledges to renegotiate the terms of EU membership and hold a referendum on whether to leave the EU.  A win for her could jeopardise the future of the EU and thus create instability within world markets.

François Fillon of the Les Républicains party was the favourite until he became embroiled in a financial scandal involving alleged payments to his wife for fake jobs. He was standing on a platform of austerity, pledging to reduce public spending and cut a half million public sector jobs. He wanted to increase the working week for some public sector employees, scrap the wealth tax, reduce corporation tax , raise the retirement age to 65, put a cap on unemployment benefits.

Now the favourite, Emmanuel Macron, who finished  top in the first round, is a former investment banker and economy minister in François Hollande's government. He claims that to be revolutionising French politics, but what he is proposing is pretty standard capitalist fare  – lower corporation tax, extending the working week for younger workers, reduce public spending by cutting 120,000 public sector jobs by 2022.  He is pro-EU and says he is in favour of a more open France which accommodates cultural and ethnic diversity.

Chavez-admirer Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who was backed by the 'Communist' Party, did surprisingly well with nearly a fifth of the votes, catching up in the polls and challenging the other front runners. His programme included reducing the working week to 32 hours, increasing the minimum wage and social security, raising taxes on the highest earners, re-negotiate the EU treaties. Like Le Pen, he pledged to reduce the retirement age to 60. That some of his policies were similar to those of the Front National is no accident. Both he and Le Pen were trying to woo the so-called 'left behinds',  workers who have seen the demand for their skills eroded and their livelihoods disappear with the economic and technological changes of world capitalism.

We predict with confidence that, whatever the outcome in the second round, Macron is the favourite, but Hillary Clinton was  the favourite to win last year's US presidential and the pundits expected the remain side to win last year's EU referendum.  However, we can predict with confidence who the losers will be and that will be the working class. For all their differences and grand promises, none of the candidates, including the two who went through to the second round,  challenged the capitalist system, that is the private and state ownership of the means of production and production for profit,  they seek only to modify it.  Once  Whoever is elected, their priority would have to be to ensure that French capitalism is competitive and profitable, and if, under certain conditions, this requires that social provisions are cut and workers are laid off, then so be it. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 

Oliver Bond

The First World War and its Aftermath (2018)

From the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

At 11 am on 11 November 1918 Germany signed an armistice which ended four years of unremitting carnage. From 28 July 1914 to 11 November, over 9 million soldiers and 6 million civilians perished. The First World War is sometimes seen as an historical accident triggered by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. Yet from the nineteenth century onwards growing rivalries between the major capitalist powers created tensions that were bound to erupt into war.

Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 led to the unification of Germany in 1871. The new German state then entered into an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia, known as the League of the Three Emperors, to contain French power. Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and increasing Russian influence in the Balkans brought this alliance to an end. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy then formed the Triple Alliance. To counteract this France entered into an alliance with Russia. Britain later joined France and Russia to form the Triple Entente.

Germany, since unification, had become a major economic and industrial power. Its rulers sought to compete with other major powers in world markets and seek colonies that would be sources of raw materials. To achieve this, they sought to expand their military capacity and, therefore, they proceeded to build up their navy. This inevitably led to rivalry with Britain in the control of global sea routes. Germany, Russia, France and Italy increased the size of their standing armies.

Instability arose in the Balkans as competing powers vied with each other to grab the spoils from the declining Ottoman Empire. Austria-Hungary earned the enmity of Russia and Serbia when it formally annexed the former Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Germany also had a strategic interest in the region. The route of the proposed Berlin-Constantinople railway would travel through Vienna and Belgrade, and therefore Germany would require some control or influence over Serbia. This would bring conflict with Russia.

Austria-Hungary’s rulers used the occasion of the Archduke’s assassination to bring Serbia, which they suspected of promoting pan Slavic nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to heel. They delivered an ultimatum that they calculated would be rejected. Serbia accepted most of the conditions, but had reservations on others. Thereupon, they declared war on Serbia with the backing of their German ally. The Russian leaders retaliated by mobilising their forces, arguing that it was their duty to protect their fellow Slavs. But their real fear was that an Austrian victory would result in further Austrian and German encroachment of the Balkans, which would threaten to undermine their trade through the Bosphorus Straits.

The German rulers in turn demanded that Russia demobilise its forces, whereupon Russia refused and they declared war on her. A couple of days later Germany declared war on Russia’s ally, France. In order to avoid the highly fortified border with France, the German leaders decided to move their forces through Belgium. When the Belgian government refused free passage, the German military launched an invasion. Ostensibly the United Kingdom was committed by the Treaty of London 1839 to defend Belgium, and this was the reason given for declaring war on Germany. However, the British rulers main concern was the safeguarding of their trade routes to their empire, and followed a policy of ‘splendid isolation’, whereby Britain would intervene only in European affairs when there was a shift in the balance of power between the competing nations to their disadvantage. The German invasion of Belgium was deemed to be such a moment. The British government also drew on workers from the Dominions and Empire – India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — to fight for them.

Bribery was used to entice other countries into the War. Rumania was promised Hungarian territory if they joined the ‘allied powers’ — Britain and France. Bulgaria preferred the offer from Germany, that it could have Macedonia, and so joined them. Italy was promised the Austrian regions of South Tyrol and Trieste and Northern Dalmatia by the allied powers. Italy turned her back on her former allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, and joined the latter. Japan also joined the allied powers in the hope of acquiring Germany’s Chinese possessions.

In 1917, in a bid to end the war quickly, German forces intensified their blockade of Britain’s ports, which had been a source of friction with the United States for some time, and resumed attacks on shipping. Many American ships were sunk with a great loss of life. This, along with a telegram from the German Foreign Minister requesting support from the Mexicans in exchange for assistance in retaking US territory lost in the Mexican-American War, prompted the US government to declare war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Also, US capitalists made money out of providing financial loans to Britain and France and therefore saw it as in their economic interests to support the allied powers.

Workers did the fighting

When the capitalists of different nations fall out and go to war, they don’t normally do the fighting themselves, but get their respective working classes to do it for them. This requires an appeal to patriotism and jingoism, whereby politicians toured the country whipping up enthusiasm for the war. One successful orator was Horatio Bottomley, the so-called People’s Tribune but in fact a discredited bankrupt before the war. For all his efforts in bringing in recruits, he managed to rake in £78,000 which he spent on racehorses, women and champagne. For those young male workers who were of military age and not seduced by the clarion call to arms, young women were employed to stick white feathers on them.

The capitalists and their politicians did not garner support on their own. They had the backing of the so-called ‘workers representatives’, the Labour and Social Democratic parties, which abandoned their proclaimed commitment to the international working class and rallied behind the war efforts of their respective ruling classes. The German Social Democratic representatives in the Reichstag gave a spurious ‘Marxist’ justification for voting for war credits. A victorious Germany, they argued, would overthrow the backward Tsarist regime and capitalism would develop rapidly in Russia. Expansion in industrial production and the growth of the Russian working class would speedily create the conditions for the establishment of socialism. Trade unions showed their support by co-operating with the employers to ensure maximum production and the curtailing of any strike action. The suffragettes suspended their campaign and joined the war effort. However, there was opposition to the war from Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Sylvia Pankhurst and of course, the Socialist Party.

The capitalist class couldn’t rely on jingoist appeals alone, they needed high ideals as well. The British capitalist class claimed to be fighting for ‘the liberty of small nations’. Although this noble ideal seemingly applied to Belgium, curiously it did not apply to Britain’s colonies, certainly not in the case of Ireland, where the Easter rising in 1916 was ruthlessly suppressed. Another great ideal was ‘to make the world safe for democracy’. Oddly, censorship and restriction of war reporting was required for this one. Many would consider the Russian Tsar to be a strange bedfellow.

It would seem that it is not enough for the capitalist class that their workers were facing the bullets and bombs on the battle fronts, for they appeared to be dissatisfied with the workers’ performance on the home front. In the UK, many blamed the munitions workers for the shortages of shells needed for the war effort, that they were too busy boozing in the pubs. Restriction in pub hours were introduced which survived until the 1990s.

Discontent

From 1916, with increasing hardship and seemingly no end in sight to the war, many workers became disillusioned and there were grumblings about this being a businessman’s war. Strikes, protests and riots erupted. The situation in Russia was particularly dire, where peasants were taken off the land to fight on the front line, resulting in acute food shortages in the cities. This was exacerbated by poor communication infrastructure and corruption. Food riots ensued and mass desertions from the army took place. Workers councils emerged in the cities and organised strikes. In March 1917, the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a provisional government headed by Kerensky took his place. However, they attempted to keep Russia in the war, which only increased the discontent and their power was challenged by the Petrograd Workers Council. The German leaders saw an opportunity to take Russia out of the war. They allowed Lenin to travel through Germany in a sealed train to Russia. Once there, Lenin was able to gain support for the Bolsheviks in the Workers Councils. In November 1917, the Kerensky government was overthrown by an uprising led by the Bolsheviks. Not long afterwards, they negotiated a peace treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk.

Now that Russia was out of the war, the German military could reinforce their forces on the Western front. Although this gave Germany an added advantage, they were still unable to deliver the knockout blow to their opponents. However, the working class discontent that brought down the Tsarist regime was also being visited on Germany. On 29 October 1918, a mutiny by sailors sparked a general workers and soldiers uprising which finally forced the German government to seek an armistice which was signed on 11 November 1918. The Kaiser abdicated on 28th November 1918.

Aside from mass human slaughter, what was the legacy of the war? It could be seen as the ultimate triumph of capitalism, as the vestiges of the feudalistic empires were swept away. The Austrian-Hungary Empire collapsed and metamorphosed into separate capitalist nation states. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the French and British ruling classes carved up its territories among themselves. Germany became a modern capitalist state under the rule of the Social Democratic Party. Russia evolved into an authoritarian state capitalist country. The Third International was launched during the Russian civil war in 1919 to support the Bolshevik regime and superseded the Second International which was dissolved in 1916. It became a mouthpiece of the Bolshevik regime and promoted the idea that communism equates with state capitalism and that it can only be brought about by violent revolution led by a vanguard party. This served to confuse workers as to what socialism really is and has played a part in holding back the genuine socialist movement.

With working class men being sent to the front, more women had to be brought into the munitions factories and offices to keep production going. They remained a part of the workforce after the war ended.

The phrase ‘The war to end all wars’ must be one of the sardonic statements of all times. Far from ending wars, the First World War sowed the seeds for further conflicts. The punitive measures of the Versailles Peace Treaty helped foster a sense of grievance, a feeling that Germany had been stabbed in the back. German nationalists, including the Nazis, exploited this for their own ends. Furthermore, the heavy reparations led to economic instability, such as the hyperinflation of 1923, which provided the fertile soil for aggressive nationalists like the Nazis to flourish. The increasing hostility between the Western Powers and the Bolshevik regime presaged the Cold War, which came to dominate the twentieth century. The League of Nations was set up to prevent further wars, but was powerless to do so, as it could not deal with the underlying cause — competition between capitalist powers for world markets and sources for raw materials. Wars are inevitable within capitalism.

Oliver Bond

Capitalism and globalization (2002)

Book Review from the November 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx's Revenge – The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism by Meghnad Desai (Verso Books)

Ever since the collapse of the USSR and the so-called “communist” regimes in Eastern Europe, many column inches have been written and words spoken proclaiming the triumph of capitalism and the demise of socialism. Karl Marx, we are told, has been thoroughly discredited and his theories have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The “End of History” had arrived.

Meghnad Desai, Professor at the London School of Economics and a Labour Peer, however, argues in his latest book Marx's Revenge – The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 358 pages) that, far from discrediting Marx, the events of the last twenty years would have vindicated him. Not only would Marx not have supported the Eastern European regimes, but he would have welcomed their downfall. According to Desai, Marx argued that socialism could only be successfully established when society's productive capacity had been fully developed under capitalism. This was certainly not the case in Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Desai, however, maintains that capitalism is still far from having reached its potential. Although, he entertains the possibility of genuine Marxian Socialism, he relegates it to a distant future.

Desai begins his investigation at the end of the eighteenth century when feudal society was giving way to industrial capitalism. Adam Smith was developing his theories on the historical or “stadial” progress of society, in which Smith considered the newly emerging free market capitalist society as the highest stage. Hegel was propounding his theory of dialectic: the idea that human society would develop greater awareness over time through a process of struggle. This sets the historical context in which Desai discusses Marx's political and economic ideas. He examines Marx's economic theories as set out in Capital and finds that they do not suggest that capitalism will inevitably collapse. On the contrary, capitalism could continue indefinitely. Even the 'Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall' as described in the third volume of Capital only suggests a long-term tendency, with countervailing tendencies against it.

State capitalism

The period from the end of the eighteenth century until the First World War is described as the “first episode of modern globalization”. Here the development of capitalism in Western Europe and America is characterised by free trade and minimal state intervention. Classical economic theory was the prevailing philosophy. The First World War changed all this. The use of central planning by the German state in directing the economy towards the war effort, known at the time as “war socialism”, impressed many including Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who used it as a model for the new regime established in Russia in 1917. This, along with the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, set the scene for the next seventy-five years where the state would take a larger, and in some cases predominant, role in directing the national economy. Desai calls this the period of “deglobalization” or “capitalism in one country”.

Desai remarks that Russia, at the time of the revolution, was mainly an agrarian country where the industrial working class constituted a small part of the population. In these conditions, the Bolsheviks were forced to embark on a course of rapid industrialisation. The Bolsheviks and their supporters look to the earlier works of Marx and Engels, which optimistically predict an immediate revolution as justification for the Russian Revolution being a genuine workers' revolution. They overlook the later and more mature works of Marx that argue that capitalism must be fully developed before a socialist revolution can be successful. Thus Leninist ideas on capturing the state through the vanguard party and organising society on state capitalist lines became the orthodox interpretation of Marxism. Although Desai describes, at least in the early years, the Soviet Union as state capitalist, he also rather inconsistently refers to it as an example of “Socialism outside Capitalism”, the attempt to build a state controlled society, alongside the privately run capitalism of the Western countries.

Desai also discusses what he calls “Socialism beyond Capitalism”, what Marx argued in theCommunist Manifesto would supersede capitalism after it outlived its usefulness. Desai describes this as “a self-conscious society, aware now that capitalism as a system of private property profiting from the social division of labour could not offer any further betterment, that would proceed to take control over the economy – society, mind you, not state.” In chapter 12, entitled “Can Socialism Work?”, Desai briefly discusses the theories of Otto Neurath on the feasibility of establishing a moneyless society. But these appear to apply to a centrally planned economy rather than a democratic socialist society. Desai also appears to not fully understand how a genuine socialist would be able to function, when he asks “how such a society would decide about saving and investment”.

Desai contends that the Great Depression in the 1930s undermined the general belief in the free operation of the markets, and Keynes' arguments that markets failed to perform efficiently and that state intervention was required for the smooth running of the economy gained ground. In the years after the Second World War, Keynesian economic theory clearly emerged as the dominant influence in the Western universities and on Western government policies, particularly in Britain and to a lesser extent the US. It heavily influenced the reformist policies of many Western Labour and Social Democratic parties, to which Desai refers as “Socialism within Capitalism”.

At the same time state capitalism expanded its influence with the coming to power in China of the “communists” in 1949 and the inclusion of most East European countries in the Soviet bloc. Many of the new countries that achieved independence from the former European colonial powers in the post-war years looked to the Soviet system as a model for economic development.

The 1970s saw something of an upheaval: the onset of a long-term economic crisis in leading Western countries, involving “stagflation”, where both inflation and unemployment rose together. Conventional Keynesian demand management policies were found wanting. The advocates of free market economics, such as the monetarists, who began the fightback in the universities in the 1960s, gained more credibility and the Keynesians were in retreat. In the late 70s and early 80s, the tide turned in favour of free market economics, with the coming to power of conservative leaders such as Reagan in America, Thatcher in Britain and Kohl in Germany.

Back to 1914

The USSR and Eastern Europe went into terminal economic decline, culminating in the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. This marked the end of what Desai calls “the short twentieth century” and the beginning of the second period of globalisation, where restrictions in the movement of capital have been removed in the major industrial countries; free trade prevails; the former Soviet countries and many third world countries are integrated into the global capitalist order. The world has returned to where it left off in 1914.

The Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe have fallen. The reformism of the Western Labour and Social Democratic Parties is in retreat. However, Desai will not be joining us in working for world socialism. He declares that “there is no rival mode of production on the horizon as a viable alternative. Capitalism is the only game in town”. He claims that, far from collapsing, capitalism has been rejuvenated. He points to the latest developments in telecommunications and computer technology, and that many third world countries are modernising along capitalist lines. The world is not ready yet ready for real socialism (“Socialism beyond Capitalism”). Desai suggests that Marx would agree with him. He wonders if genuine socialism will ever be achieved.

The main problem with Desai's analysis is that he treats the state capitalist regimes in the USSR, China, Eastern Europe (“Socialism outside Capitalism”) and even the reformist policies of the Social Democratic parties (“Socialism within Capitalism”) as separate modes of production. It is true that the state capitalist regimes attempted to insulate themselves from the world economy in their earlier years. However the economies of these regimes were based on wage labour and production for profit and so were capitalist. The Western Labour and Social Democratic parties introduced policies to regulate capitalism not to replace it. Both were failed attempts to control capitalism. But as Desai well knows, and argues in this book, capitalism is resistant to any attempts to transform it into anything other than a system based on profit.

Looking at capitalism from a global point of view, it has already created the productive capacity world-wide, which would allow a world socialist society to produce abundance for the world's population. All further developments only aid the capacity of capitalist society to further enrich the capitalist minority, while their potential use in enhancing the well-being of the human race is restricted by the profit-seeking structures of capitalist society. What is now required is for the world working class to become class-consciousness and work to replace capitalism with socialism.

The Leninists may have appropriated Marx for the cause of state capitalism. But Desai wishes to appropriate him for free market capitalism. He seems to want to join with other academics and New Labour, in celebrating the triumph of free market capitalism, while at the same staying true to the left-wing idealism of his youth.

Oliver Bond