The Passing Show: Who are the hungry? (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the hungry?

When I was a youngster, my parents had the sort of struggle to clothe and feed their children that was common enough in those days. With the Old Man often out of work, Ma had to turn her hand to any job available—charring mainly—for a few shillings. Like many other working class children, we were badly clothed and housed, and while perhaps we did not actually starve, we were often hungry.

At that time, it would have been ludicrous to suggest that we give to funds aimed at preventing starvation or alleviating poverty in other parts of the world. Ma would have laughed that one bitterly out of court. We were already recipients of charity in one form or another—coal, food parcels and other children’s leftoffs—and it was cold comfort to be told that there were always those worse off than ourselves.

Times have now changed, we are assured. Ma is dead and Pa draws National Assistance to keep him ticking over in his declining days. The overt charity has more or less dried up, although he does get occasional gifts and treats from the old age pensioners’ club. He doesn’t go hungry, although from what I can see of it, a lot of what he eats is starchy filler with not much food value. Ironically, two or three years ago he was frequently an interested reader of The Good Food Guide, a yearly catalogue of recommended eating houses in the British Isles.

Ironic from another angle too. This book is published by The Good Food Club, which recently allowed OXFAM access to its address lists for circularising an invitation to an “austerity supper.” The meal would consist of a bowl of herbs and rice, with cold water. The charge, said the letter, would be two guineas, the balance after meeting costs to go to OXFAM funds. Pa got one of the circulars.

Now no one is suggesting that there was any calculated insult intended. Of course OXFAM could not know that they were writing to an old age pensioner, and anyway, he did not take it amiss—merely laughed. It is the whole basic concept of such bodies as OXFAM that must be challenged. In a world where there are over forty million refugees and around half the population underfed, an organisation like this can barely begin to scratch the surface of the problem, granting their sincerity every inch of the way.

I have before me one or two of OXFAM’s appeal adverts. One tells us that:

“Millions of the world’s families have no great hope for 1965. To them it will be just another year in the endless battle against hunger, disease and the terrible, grinding poverty.”

And another says that OXFAM will be:

“Helping them get enough to eat, buying them medicines, giving them a roof over their heads. But most important, helping them free themselves from a life sentence of poverty—with education, training, new tools.”

So from this you could be forgiven for thinking that these problems are associated perhaps with the “backward” areas. Politicians do anyway lend credence to it by talking about “aid to underdeveloped countries” (e.g. Mr. Wilson at the beginning of January). But it is not so. The foremost capitalist country in the world—USA—has such an appalling poverty problem that writers are often drawing attention to it.

“According to government figures … 56 per cent of low-income farm families were deficient in one or more basic nutrients in the diet. The rural poor were ever worse off. Seventy per cent suffered from this deficiency. Thus there is hunger in the midst of abundance.” (Michael Harrington, The Other America.)

Yet OXFAM would think it ridiculous to spend their funds in the USA. They concentrate exclusively on the extreme poverty and hunger which are rooted in primitive agriculture and inadequate physical means of production, poor land etc. These may of course aggravate a local condition under capitalism, but there is no doubt that the world at large is capable of feeding everyone—if properly organised.

Aye, there’s the rub. Wheat stored away in river backwaters, lettuces and potatoes ploughed back into the soil, and land deliberately taken out of cultivation, all to try and keep up the prices to a profitable level. The fact that people starve in the meantime is a mere incidental. The market is the all powerful god under capitalism. And this not only in Western countries. Only last month we drew attention to the deliberate burning of cocoa in Ghana for precisely the same reason as above. If OXFAM are thinking of spending some of their money in this backward area, we wonder what they think about such news as that.

The tragedy of OXFAM, Freedom from Hunger, War on Want, and other such organisations is not just their failure to make any worthwhile effect on the problem. It is their refusal even to glimpse its causes or to question a world which can destroy food stocks wholesale in one place and let millions starve in another.

Conservative Security

I noticed a giant poster, presumably a leftover from the general election, on a hoarding at the top of our road a week or two ago. “For a safer world, vote Conservative” it screamed at me from the usual bilious red white and blue colour scheme. It was the use of the comparative “safer” I found intriguing. Did it mean safer than right now. Or perhaps safer when the Conservatives were last in power, or just safer in a general sense?

Whichever way you look at it, the underlying theme is that political parties in general and the Conservative Party in particular, can appreciably affect the safety of the world by their policies. The Tories would not of course suggest that their opponents were deliberately pushing the world to the verge of another war. Rather would they be inclined to say that it was their ineptitude which was doing the damage, and that only the return of the Conservatives can restore matters.

Well let’s have a brief look at it. In the past fifty years there have been two world wars, both supported by the Tories. They were in power for quite a large part of that period. Not a particularly peaceful one. In the years of the postwar Labour government, it was remarkable how Tory support could be guaranteed for actions involving armed force or the threat of it, such as Greece, Berlin and Korea.

What of the years which followed? When they returned to power in 1951, the Conservatives had already made the usual vague promises about “our contribution to peace,” but whatever this may have meant to them in theory, what happened in practice was the almost chronic bloodshed in Cyprus, and the crises in Suez, Lebanon and Berlin (again). A safer world?

I would not have called it that, but there’s an amazing flexibility of meaning to such words when spoken by capitalist statesmen. Anyway, they were not discouraged and were busy telling us again later that “Peace is one more reason why Conservative government is good government.” (Guardian advert 17.8.59.). In the five years which followed that little piece of double talk, we have had more bloodletting in Cyprus and the agonising Cuba affair, not to mention smaller incidents in various parts of the world.

The truth is that the Conservative Party is no more a party of peace than of war. Like its Labour counterpart it is committed to running British capitalism and protecting its interests at home and abroad. At times this will mean sending men out to fight and die. That is why, even allowing for differences of opinion and errors of judgment, the views of government and opposition are so close, especially in the field of foreign policy. That is why also, there will always be those on either side who will jeer that the others are stealing their thunder, or protest that their party is becoming contaminated with the other side’s ideas. This was the very gist of one speaker’s complaint at the Young Conservatives’ Conference on February 7th.

But the net result is still the same. It is still a very unsafe world in which to live because the conflicting interests of capitalism make it so. Far from influencing the course of events to any great extent, the Conservative and other capitalist parties must frame their policies to meet the events and then hope for the best.

Propaganda Broadside

Have you noticed a crop of newspaper adverts about South Africa recently? Those I have seen glowingly describe the place as “a developing community of nations” or “rich in resources and rewards” or “the British Motor Industry’s biggest single export market.” The South African government is obviously anxious to build up a favourable picture particularly, it seems, in Britain, and if in the process the truth gets a bit discoloured that’s not likely to worry them overmuch.

Take for example their claim of January 26th:

“The structure of non-white wages has been, and is constantly being, raised to realistic levels of economic and social requirements . . . thousands of African workers . . . seek an opportunity to work and earn better wages on South African farms and in the mines and factories.”

Somewhat vague, but definitely calculated to create a good impression would you think? Now compare it with a United Nations report only two weeks earlier:

“Africans working for foreign companies in S.W. Africa live as though in slavery. . . . The policy of Apartheid . . . offers . . . every opportunity for the exploitation of the indigenous inhabitants. . . . The very low level of African wages, the lack of development of the native reserves, and the evils of the migratory labour system, result in misery and untold sufferings.”

Maybe it’s as well that Socialists have a sort of built-in scepticism which makes them examine everything they are told with a supercritical eye. But as you can see, we don’t always have to make conscious efforts at disproving the falsehoods spread around by one ruling class or the other. South African racial policies have provoked hostility among the new “coloured” states, and some of the older capitalist states are coming out against them too. So it’s not surprising that reports like this one appear from time to time, and South Africa comes under fire from the other paragons of virtue at the U.N.

What we should bear in mind is that there has been evidence of harsh and oppressive conditions there for many years, but it is only recently that outside interests have demanded any fuss be made about it. Quite clearly brotherly love is only a minor consideration in this new-found desire for racial equality. “Exploitation for all workers, regardless of race” is the real battle cry behind the pious slop uttered by the winds-of-change-merchants.

Eddie Critchfield

Letter: Pour milk down the sink? (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pour milk down the sink?

Dear Editors

I write with regard to the suggestion in your August edition that Oxfam wants to pour milk down the sink, further to the publication in the Herald of a letter from myself.

The point I was trying to make was not that the EU should destroy excess agricultural produce, but that it should stop subsidising its farmers for overproduction? and therefore not produce excess agricultural produce in the first place! Through the Common Agricultural Policy the EU (and hence EU taxpayers) pay large subsidies (mainly to the richest farmers) for milk production. This results in overproduction and an excess of milk (amongst other produce) which would not arise if farmers were receiving the going market rate for their produce.

The resulting glut of milk results in very cheap exports from the EU to developing countries, undercutting the produce of local farmers and pushing them further into poverty. Three-quarters of those surviving on less than $1 a day live and work as small farmers. These farmers have to compete with the $1billion each day that rich countries spend protecting their own agriculture.

Oxfam don’t want milk poured down the sink, we want a system where the world’s poorest people are given the opportunity to help pull themselves out of poverty. Readers of the Socialist Standard can find out more about Oxfam’s campaigns for fair trade at www.maketradefair.com

Angela O’Hagan, 

Campaigns and Communications Manager, 

Oxfam in Scotland, Glasgow.

Reply:

It is not so much the reformist policies of politico-charities such as Oxfam that we criticise as the whole market system, under which people can only get access to the things they need if they have money and where most people can only get money by selling either their ability to work or the product of their work (the rest, a tiny minority, get it by owning property that yields them a non-work income in the form rent, interest or profit). Oxfam accepts this system and its logic which rules out giving away market surpluses to the needy as this only makes things worse, by undermining the market for the products in question even further. Hence their proposal, which we commented on in our January issue, to destroy “surplus” coffee. The obvious solution is to institute a system where production is geared to meeting people’s needs, not for sale on a market; that way, people’s needs would be met as a matter of right without needing to pay for them – and without organisations like Oxfam having to devise ways of trying to ensure a adequate monetary income for poor farmers in “developing countries” 

Editors.

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The latest Oxfam report which was released at 4th UN Financing for Development meet in Seville, Spain, shows that since 2015 the top 1% people in the world have amassed US$ 33.9 trillion in new wealth which is enough to end annual poverty 22 times over. 

(Scoop Independent News)

In some cases, health professionals perform FGM [Female Genital Mutilation] secretly in exchange for payment, turning the practice into a commercial enterprise, 

(People Daily)

The island is currently facing its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution. Long and daily power cuts, scarce internet connection, food and medicine shortages, and high prices are the realities of present-day Cuba. Some staple items like beans are nowhere to be found; rice production has declined and much is now imported. Sugar, too, has become an import in Cuba, which, until recently, was the leading sugar exporter in the world. People cannot make ends meet with their meager incomes — a doctor’s monthly salary is approximately $50. Even by conservative World Bank estimates, 72 percent of all Cubans live below the poverty line. Beggars seem to be everywhere, with the African community descendant from slavery being the most economically victimized. 

(Consortium News)

The entire political and intellectual machinery of the French ruling class is now moving in this direction. That includes the miserable little left, led by the Socialist Party, who bark at us from morning to night. They don’t realize that they’re participating in a broader establishment strategy: acting as the left-wing auxiliary of the right. They live in a dreamworld, wanting France to be like Germany, with a grand coalition of the centre: Social Democrats who are indistinguishable from liberals, Greens who are always clamouring for war. These people are doing the work of dividing us every day while pretending to be for unity.

(Portside)

One recent survey discovered that 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives. That figure alone tells us that we have a major economic crisis on our hands. The cost of living has been rising much faster than paychecks have been, and most of the country is just barely scraping by from month to month. Anyone that attempts to deny this is simply not living in reality. 

(Zero Hedge)

Donald Trump styled himself as a populist, ‘anti-establishment’ president. But look at what he has actually done in office, and you see he’s a status-quo politician with nothing to offer working Americans.

(Jacobin)

Will voters finally stop both blaming politicians for their troubles and depending on them to end them? Will voters—and non-voters—transform themselves into people who act for themselves, in their own interests, instead of allowing others to act for them? That would be what social change looks like. The survival of the human race may well depend upon it. 

(The Brooklyn Rail)

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

Material World: Poverty and taxing the rich (2024)

The Material World column from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oxfam regularly publishes reports about global poverty. Its most recent one points to how ‘the richest 1% have more wealth than the bottom 95% of the world’s population put together’. It accuses the ‘ultra wealthy and powerful corporations of tax dodging and exercising monopoly control of important products such as Covid vaccines to increase profitability’. As a result, it goes on, the pandemic has resulted in the emergence of at least 40 new vaccine billionaires. The charity complains that its efforts to reduce world poverty are being undermined by large corporations and the ultra-rich who, with their control over the global economy, are responsible for exacerbating problems like extreme inequality and climate change. In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) radio network, Nabil Ahmed, director of economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, states: ‘The wealth of the world’s five richest men has doubled since the start of this decade. And nearly five billion people have got poorer’.

So what does this report, as well as others produced by Oxfam, advocate to tackle the problems it carefully documents and makes public? As often before, Oxfam puts emphasis on what it calls ‘fair taxes’. To be precise, it calls for ‘fairer taxation of large corporations and the ultra-wealthy’. In his VOA interview, Nabil Ahmed is quoted as saying: ‘We live in a world in which mega-corporations are paying next to or little to no tax’. They are, he says, ‘shaping the rules in their favour … at the expense of ordinary people’ and ‘fuelling inequality within and between countries’. He argues that governments should ‘claw back’ revenues from the rich ‘to be able to invest in their people, to be able to meet their rights’.

Superficially such an approach may seem sensible and desirable, and the Oxfam report praises a campaign proposed by Brazil’s government in favour of a 2 percent minimum tax on the world’s richest billionaires. This, it claims would raise up to $250 billion from around 3,000 individuals and would pay for food, healthcare, education and tackling climate change. However, this fails to consider several crucial factors. First of all, any ‘extra’ taxation money raised by governments from their capitalist class is just as likely to be used to pay off state debt as to help workers or to ease climate change. Then, more importantly, it will always be impossible for governments collectively to agree to universal tax levies, largely because they will all be looking to carry out their duty of encouraging ‘growth’ in their own country at the expense of other states and of supporting their own capitalist class at the expense of others. Nor is the capitalist system as a whole controlled by individual governments or by governments collectively, and disagreements easily break out between them as they seek to defend their own ‘patch’ in the world of competition and profit – something we see happening in many places right now.

It is no surprise, therefore, that, while the Brazil proposal apparently has the support of some countries, for example South Africa, France and Spain, it is opposed by others, including the United States, whose treasury secretary Janet Yellen stated at a G20 meeting last July: ‘Tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally and we don’t see a need or really think it’s desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that’. So a solution along the lines suggested by Oxfam to tax the mega-rich and cancel debt burdens seems in fact little more than a well-meaning pipe dream.

And we can also see that, since the 1980s, when Oxfam changed its approach from being a mere money-collector to putting a lot more effort and resources into trying to offer explanations (if not always well founded) as to the causes of world hunger and deprivation, not a great deal has changed. Oxfam continues to devote considerable time and effort into proposing what it sees as explanations for the ills afflicting society, but, unfortunately, it still can’t come up with viable remedies. This is not for want of trying but because it fails to pinpoint the fundamental cause of those ills, which is that, in the system we live under, profit will in the end always trump need. And governments, no matter what their intentions, can never remedy that, since they are the system’s servants not its masters.

What is needed is a switch in perception, a new consciousness, not by the super-rich or governments but by the majority of those who have to sell our energies for a wage or salary – ie, most of us. This is a switch that will enable humanity as a whole to see the necessity of organising things differently, of using the resources of the whole planet sanely and rationally and in the interests of all its inhabitants – on the basis, that is, of a classless, worldwide society without frontiers which produces goods and services cooperatively and solely for human need not profit.

Howard Moss

From poverty to power (2008)

Book Review from the December 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World by Duncan Green (Oxfam Publishing 2008)

Duncan Green defines an effective state as one that “can guarantee security and the rule of law,” and has an effective strategy “to ensure inclusive economic growth”. Such a state should be accountable to citizens and able to guarantee their rights. Active citizens are linked to the state by a “combination of rights and obligations”: making use of these rights to improve their conditions.

He argues that it is the combination of poor men and women and their national governments that provide the main actors in the fight against poverty and inequality. Case studies are given to illustrate how even the poorest people have by their organised and persistent actions brought about beneficent change in their circumstances. Like the Chiquitanos people of Bolivia who after 12 years of “unremitting and often frustrating struggle” won legal title to the 1m-hectare indigenous territory of Monteverde.

He is aware that the scales are weighted against the poor in all areas. For example, research is dominated by the private sector: in agriculture 5 large multinational corporations spend $7.3bn per year on agricultural research on high value, high profit products while the staple foods of poor communities are “likely to be overlooked.” In biotechnology the picture is the same with GM crops being genetically engineered to meet the needs of large scale farms. There is no serious investment in the five most important semi-arid and tropical crops.

Half of the world’s population lives in the countryside and the majority of people in absolute poverty live in the rural areas. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) sources are given for the claim that over the past 20 years aid donors and governments have effectively withdrawn from the countryside. Mention is made of the well known ‘structural development programmes’ which imposed a ‘radical free market’ on debtor countries.

Agricultural growth, Green argues, reduces poverty but is most effective when small farmers are able to capture a fair share of the benefits. Local farmers, he says, should be helped to improve the quality of their produce so that for example retail giants like McDonalds and Pizza Hut use local produce instead of importing produce from the USA. Here his ‘active’ citizens would be small farmers “organising their ability to negotiate a fair deal”. However when it comes to buying fertilizer or seeds, or selling produce or their labour, small producers are dominated by the large corporations. Small farmers are “de facto employees”.

In Green’s view efficient states should take the environment and the enhancement of the daily lives of the poor as prime considerations. Global governance (the “web of international institutions, laws regulations, and agreements”) could help, and the 8 main ways he lists include managing the global economy, redistributing wealth through aid or international taxation, averting health threats and avoiding war. However global governance fails to live up to its ideals. “The WTO is frozen, regional trade agreements are proliferating and introducing profoundly unfair trade and investment rules, the G8 is failing to keep its promises on aid…”, then there is the threat of climate change and “a looming financial crisis”.

The book is well sourced with a 24-page bibliography and three further pages listing background papers. There is much useful information covering more areas than can be dealt with in a review. However Duncan Green takes a moral stance whereas under capitalism the prime consideration cannot be the welfare of citizens active or otherwise, but sale and profit; this drives development (forget sustainable) – and can also inhibit it. And the state that in his view is supposed to facilitate change will only do so to the extent that the interests of the owning class are served.

Pat Deutz

Voice From The Back: Polluting for profit (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the October 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Polluting for profit

The major problems of pollution are caused by the excessive burning of fossil fuels, everyone except the coal and oil lobby agrees. There are alternatives such as wind and solar power; so why aren’t they being developed at the same rate as fossil fuel usage? Simple really. “At present wind power costs between 1.9 and 3.1p a unit, while solar is more than 20p. Conventional generated power sells for between l.1p and 1.3p.” Observer (25 August). Inside a socialist society we won’t be polluting the earth if we have an alternative, but then we would not be producing wealth to make a handful rich but to satisfy human need.

DIY hanging

Clive Fairweather, the outgoing HM Inspector for prisons in Scotland had some figures on suicides in prison that might cheer the “hang-’em, flog-’em” brigade but should chill any compassionate human being. Think of the despair that lies behind a young man taking his own life. Another indictment of the inhumanity of capitalism. “Mr Fairweather told his audience that in the eight years he had been chief inspector of prisons, 170 prisoners had died, yet between 1900 and 1963, only 35 were executed by hanging. 'Bring back hanging? It’s DIY hanging at eight times the rate these days, for our young in prison', he said.” Herald (4 September).

The close circuit society

In the Guardian of 7 September there was a supplement on surveillance in Britain today. It was pretty scary stuff and shows how capitalism is becoming more and more restrictive . “From the moment a worker logs on in the morning to the moment they shut down at night, corporate information *technology departments can watch each and every action they make — which keys they press, which websites they visit, what emails they receive and send . . . Security procedures such as swipe cards on entrances also allow detailed following of employees — if management wants to — of how much time is spent in which parts of a building and, in some workplaces, with cards required for entry to workplace toilets.”

Exporting destruction

As the US and UK leaders claim an attack on Iraq is justified because that country has stocks of “mass destruction weapons” it is worthwhile noting where Iraq was obtaining these weapons from. Surprise, surprise, from the US and the UK. “Reports by the US Senate’s committee on banking, housing and urban affairs — which oversees American export policy — reveal that the US under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr. sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia . . . Classified US Defence Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxin, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxin can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.” Sunday Herald (8 September).

The Voice of America?

Ann Coulter, an American journalist and broadcaster has written a book “Slander” containing outrageous right wing views. It is subtitled “Liberal Lies About The American Right” In her column in the National Review she put forward her solution to the Middle East problem, quoted in the Sunday Herald Magazine (8 September): “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” Voice of America?, let’s hope not; though her book does currently top the New York [Times]  bestsellers list.

Oxfam’s solution to famine

Have you ever given money to Oxfam for them to help out by distributing food during some famine? If so, you may well be surprised by the following news item: "British charity Oxfam today launched a 'coffee rescue plan' urging political and business leaders to destroy surplus stocks and guarantee a fair price for farmers" (Guardian, 19 September).

Oxfam's original name was the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief but it later branched out into being a reformist campaigning organisation, working within the context of capitalism. We have always argued that those who set out to reform capitalism end up accepting its logic. This latest episode proves this point up to the hilt. Capitalism periodically produces crises where "too much" food\ has been produced, a crisis of plenty amidst poverty. It solves such crises) not by distributing the plenty to the poor (that would be against its logic and undermine profits), but by destroying the plenty. This has been a classic illustration of the socialist case against capitalism: that it is a system of production for profit rather than to satisfy human needs. Now OXFAM, an organisation set up to try to distribute a bit of the plenty to some of the poor, has come round to the capitalist solution: destroy the food! Remember that next time they shake a collection tin under your nose.

Letters: 'Socialist Material will be Dwarfed' (1995)

Letters to the Editors from the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In response to Julian Prior’s letter about the article on the Internet in the August issue of Socialist Standard I’d like to make a few points.

The first one is that the Internet is just like other information disseminators such as newspapers, books and magazines except it’s electronic and generally cheaper. For instance the Socialist Standard is a hard copy form of information distributed to a few thousand around the world and compared to the Sun, a tabloid gossip rag in the UK. which is read by around four million daily it doesn’t compare.

Similarly, on the net socialists distribute their information electronically but once the big corporations move in, again, socialist material will be dwarfed. It's true what he says about groups resisting this encroachment by corporations onto the net, but that's capitalism isn’t it? The past 200 years of capitalism has been about people resisting the commercialisation of life. It's also true what he says about Mexico and the Mayan rebels, indeed the same could be said about the Russian coup attempt in 1991 or Tiananmen Square both of which used fax and computer technology to alert the world. But what’s new about this? In the past, rebellions and wars were brought to public view using newspapers or leaflets. All that has changed is the method not the content. It’s also true that socialists won’t stand aside whilst the corporations move in, but if the Internet is growing at such a rate then socialists will be sidelined. If half the net is commercialised now after only two or three years of real net use then what’s it going to be like in 10 years?

My general view is that we should see the net for what it is, a convenient and valuable information and communication resource and use it as such. In fact that’s what I find exciting about the net, the accessibility of information and its global reach. I certainly don't think it will go away, but I'm sure that this new global reach of the net is going to be used by corporations for their own ends.

As for how people are going to become socialists if information is market-led, people become socialists for various reasons. not exclusively through access to socialist literature. In some ways it could be argued that people have to be socialist or socialistically-inclined to know where to get socialist literature in the first place, in other words most socialist literature preaches to the semi-converted anyway. But, of course this shouldn’t mean that socialist literature has no wider value, as people's life experiences and increasing global outlook encourages them to look for better ways to manage our world then socialism will become an increasingly viable option. 

Jonathan Meakin, 

Leixlip, Co. Kildare,

Ireland (jmeakin@iol.ie)

Band Aids and Aspirin

Dear Editors,

No doubt there is a need for the relief given to the desperate. poor, starving and sick people of the Third World by various charities, including Oxfam (Socialist Standard July). Just as there is no doubt that there is a need for the secondhand clothing sold to the poorest people in this country by Oxfam and other charities.

The fact is, however, that a world in which some depend on charitable schemes for bare subsistence. and others, the admittedly less absolutely poor, depend on the discarded clothing of the more affluent, is a sick world. Charity, I am sure the most fervent Oxfam supporter must admit, is not a solution, but band aid or aspirin at best Socialism is the cure.

Robert Taylor, 

South Shields, Tyne & Wear

In defense of Islam

Dear Editors,

I am writing in response to A. Ditta's letter about "Socialism versus Islam" (Socialist Standard, August). In his letter, Ditta states that "Islam is a very oppressive religion depriving women, gays and other minority groups of fundamental rights". I find this statement very hard to swallow. The goal of Islam is to give rights to all people in order to create a just and tolerant society. In pre-lslamic Arabia, a woman was looked down upon as a source of grief, and baby girls were sometimes buried alive. Henry VIII forbade the women in England to read the Bible, and throughout the middles ages, the Catholic Church treated women as second-class citizens. Before 1850, women were not counted as citizens in England and English women had no personal rights until 1882 (Islam: Beliefs and Teachings, Ghulam Sarwar). Under Islam, women have had all of these rights and more for fourteen hundred years. As for Islam being oppressive towards minority groups. I’m not quite sure to whom A. Ditta is referring. If Ditta is referring to “racial minorities", I will point out that Islam embraces people of all colours. If Ditta is referring to the economic minority, the upper class, s/he can rest assured that they are not deprived of their fundamental rights. I am not clear on whether or not gays are deprived of their fundamental rights, so I must abstain from making any comment at the present moment.

Islam's main goal can be paralleled to one of the goals of socialism. This goal is to create a just, loving and tolerant society. It is compulsory for Muslims to give charity and the richer members of society are advised to spread their wealth throughout the community to try and balance the unequal distribution of wealth. It is true that Muslim countries have a record of abusing human rights, but the religion of Islam cannot be blamed for that. Many people in power abuse human rights on a regular basis and use Islam to justify their actions. They cloak their sins by falsely sighting Islam as the reason for what they do. It is these people who are responsible for denying fundamental rights to other human beings, not Islam. Erum Faruqi, 

London SWI

Reply:

Assuming that Erum Faruqi is correct about the goals of Islam being to create a "just, loving and tolerant society” the fact remains that it has failed to do so in fourteen hundred years. If Islam is such a powerful force of good and tolerance then these abusers of human rights would not have got to the positions they have. It is strange that one cannot cite a single Islamic country that lives up to the ideals that she refers to. or even comes anywhere near—the divisions of wealth in all of them is as great as anywhere else. The answer, of course, is that Muslims put their trust in leaders (both religious and secular) instead of themselves and that is fatal.

Islam accepts the class nature of society though it had some difficulties in embracing the capitalist form but in the end managed to find a way round that. There's an old saying about the rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs and this is precisely what the rich Muslims who "spread their wealth throughout the community” are doing. They still rely on the exploitation of Muslim and other workers to maintain their wealth and privilege and then arc “generous" enough to hand a few coins of conscience money back.

Erum Faruqi says that a goal of Islam is to give rights to all people. Who are these people who are to bestow these rights? Probably the very same people she accuses of abusing human rights. Socialists don’t want to be given anything by the capitalist class, our aim is to get the majority producing class in society to take democratically the resources of the world and use them for the benefit of all. As socialists we aren't concerned whether Islam is or is not better than other religions. As far as we are concerned all religions—Islam, Christianity. Judaism. Hinduism. Buddhism, the lot—are absurd and wrong.

Islam may have started out with good intentions but now workers all over the world should start questioning their religious beliefs and their support of leaders and ask themselves if they can better their situation by organising together democratically to build a socialist movement which won’t be able to be hijacked by power-seekers who use the discontent of workers to get to the top. 

Editors.

Finance and Industry: American Democrats & British Labour (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the September 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

American Democrats & British Labour

In their economic policy and ideas on the way to deal with threats of unemployment there are many resemblances between the American Democrats and the Labour Party, and both have been much influenced by Keynesian theories. The following summary of the Democrats’ policy in the Presidential election, written by a correspondent of the Economist (6/8/60) could almost all of it have been written about the Labour Party and their slight differences from the Conservatives:

The Democrats assert that the past eight years have consisted of “ two recessions . . . .  separated by the most severe peace-time inflation in history,” and they blame the Administration's tight money policy for the present slackness in business. They blame credit restraint also for adding to the cost of servicing the growing public debt. The Democrats offer to end the tight money-policy and to set the economy moving forward at the brisk rate of 5 per cent, each year “without inflation.” How inflation can be avoided is not revealed in detail, although "a variety of remedies” is said to be at hand; since "monetary and credit policies properly applied" are among these, it is not clear how the Democratic policy would differ from the Republican in practice. The Democrats are, however, more willing than are the Republicans to counteract recessionary trends by prompt spending on public works and by temporary tax cuts.

It will be seen thal the Democrats and the Labour Party both favour low interest rates and a policy of cncouraging a greater expansion of production; and both accuse their opponents of having been responsible for inflation and high prices—forgetting how inflation went on when they were in power, up to 1951 in Britain and 1953 in U.S.A. Both parties believe that it is now within the power of a government to rule out for all time the possibility of a severe depression, and if anything approaching a severe depression does occur under Republican or Tory government it will be blamed on their perversity or ineptness.

Of course, experience of Labour and Democrats in office before the last war did not support their confidence about their powers. The British Labour Party came in with a promise to reduce unemployment (then at about 1,100,000) and saw it leap to 2½ million. In U.S.A. Roosevelt was elected in 1933 and seven years later unemployment in U.S.A. was still 14.3 per cent. (16.9 per cent., according to the American trade unions).

Exports

Mr. Macmillan has been exhorting business men to increase their exports and to cultivate what he called “export joy,” but he made it clear that what is wanted is an aggressive selling policy in overseas markets. As all the newspapers backed him up, as also did some trade union spokesmen, we may assume that selling more goods in foreign countries is generally considered "a good thing.”

But, elementary as it may appear to be, there are numberless people who write about trade who have never yet grasped that one country's exports are another's imports. So we read in the Sunday Dispatch (17/7/60) that many of the 400 of Britain's trade chiefs who are being urged by Macmillan to join in the fun of selling more abroad, could see nothing at all funny in the Japs "selling more abroad" in Britain. On the contrary, they ‘‘were seething yesterday as they digested the Jap pact," which "will flood Britain with an extra £3.000,000 worth of cheap Japanese goods." The ground for their anger was said to be the cheapness of the Japanese goods, against which British manufacturers could not compete—but it is certain that every additional ton of British goods sold in a foreign market through the export drive will work up some local manufacturer into seething indignation, too.

One commentator on Macmillan's speech (Daily Herald, 18/7/60) recalled that “this is the biggest ‘export crisis' session since the days when Sir Stafford Cripps went round the country exhorting British industry to make its post-war export drive." He might equally and more usefully have recalled an earlier speech of Sir Stafford Cripps, made during the war, when he said that “If . . . . we were to start once again the vicious circle of international trade competition we should be lost, and in a few years would be confronting another war."

World Food

Early in August a Freedom From Hunger Conference was held at Oxford under the auspices of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. Lord Boyd Orr, former Director-General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization spoke, as he often has before, about the almost boundless possibility of increasing world food production:

If the nations of the world will cooperate, we can wash out the hunger of the world in ten years, and provide enough food for the increasing world population for the next 100 years." (Daily Telegraph, 2/8/60.)

He attacked the profit motive and complained that only in war-time will governments set out to provide food according to human need—at which lime, though he did not say this, they will also organize for destruction of life and property utterly without regard to cost.

The Assistant Director-General of U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Veillet-Lavallee, said that “there is now less to eat in the Far East than there was before the war,” and “in some parts of Africa 80 per cent. of the children are underfed or badly fed." (News Chronicle, 1/8/60.) He also stated that North America’s surplus wheat now amounts to 1,382,000 bushels a year and that it costs £350,000 a day to preserve the surplus which they hold because they cannot sell it.

Boom in land

For weeks the newspapers and politicians have been discussing the rocketing prices of land as more and more keen buyers chase after the shrinking acres available for use as building sites. Nearly ninety years ago Frederick Engels wrote a series of articles on the Housing Question for the Leipzig Social-Democratic paper Volkstaat. In them he had this to say about the situation then:

The growth of the big modern cities gives the land in certain areas, particularly in those which are centrally situated, an artificial and often colossally increasing value; the buildings erected in these areas depress this value, instead of increasing it, because they no longer correspond to the changed circumstances. They are pulled down and replaced by others. This takes place above all with workers’ houses which are situated centrally and where rents, even with the greatest overcrowding, can never, or only very slowly, increase above a certain maximum. They are pulled down and in their stead, shops, warehouses and public buildings are erected. Through its Haussmann in Paris, Bonapartism exploited this tendency tremendously for swindling and private enrichment. But the spirit of Haussmann has also been abroad in London. Manchester and Liverpool, and seems to feel itself just as much at home in Berlin and Vienna. The result is that the workers are forced out of the centre of the towns towards the outskirts: that workers' dwellings, and small dwellings in general, become rare and expensive and often altogether unobtainable, for under those circumstances the building industry, which is offered a much better field for speculation by more expensive houses, builds workers’ dwellings only by way of exception.

But what goes up sometimes comes down equally fast and some land booms end in a crash. There are reports already that much of the recently built office accommodation is not meeting additional demand but squeezing out existing older buildings. The Star (19/7/60) had the following about a land crash in Venezuela:

Just when there is a great to-do about soaring land values in Britain here is some news about a land boom that has gone bust.

Out in Venezuela they have had one of the biggest slumps in land values since the famous Florida crash in the 20’s.

Office blocks, houses and property in Caracas have come tumbling down in price with the growing inability of Venezuela to sell her glut of oil in world markets.

In Caracas landlords, who three or four years ago could demand almost any price for accommodation, are now virtually bankrupt. For most of them have raised huge loans on inflated values, which have disappeared over night.

According to the Star some of the depressed property in Venezuela was backed by British and American insurance companies.

Edgar Hardcastle

Voice From The Back: Down the sink (2003)

The Voice From The Back Column from the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Down the sink

Angela O’Hagen, the campaign and communications manager of Oxfam in Scotland was so incensed by the plight of the poor in Mali and the Dominican Republic that she wrote to the Herald (26 June) about it. “Encouraged by Europe’s Common Agriculture Policy, Europe’s farmers are producing mountains of milk that no-one has the appetite for. Instead of pouring the milk down the sink, we dump our left-overs on the developing world undermining local dairy farmers in the likes of Dominican Republic and Mali who cannot compete against our artificially cheaper milk.” No, your eyes don’t deceive you, here is a spokesperson for Oxfam regretting that milk isn’t poured down the sink! Truly, capitalism is a mad house.

Hobson’s Choice

“Digby Jones, the Director-General of the CBI, yesterday argued for businesses to keep an opt-out on the European Working Time Directive that restricts the working week to an average of 48 hours . . . Mr Jones said, “This is about choice. People should have the right to say ‘no’ to long hours and the directive rightly gives them that protection. But they don’t want unions and politicians telling them when they can work, or for how long.” Times (26 June) Why would anyone want to work more than 48 hours? Could it be because they need the overtime pay? Could it be because they don’t want to be overlooked for promotion or, more likely, to be sacked?

It’s not funny

Bernard Manning is a stand-up comedian who has been accused of being a “foul-mouthed racist bigot”, but, as a report in This Week (28 June) of his trip to India shows, he is not stupid. “It was effin’ awful . . . You’re either wealthy in India or you’ve got eff all. The hotel was absolutely wonderful, and people were living high on the hog, beautiful meals, swimming pools, but you get out the front door and . . . effin’ poverty. There’s no in-between. You’ve got women queuing up for water and they’ve got an atom bomb! The last effin’ thing they need in India is an atom bomb! They want reservoirs and plenty of water coming through the tap. Effin’ upset me I can tell you.”

A voice from America

In the New York Times Magazine (6 July) there is a photograph of a woman wearing a flimsy looking plastic bag on her head. Underneath her photograph are the words of Darline Stephens of Anniston, Alabama. “ I live about 5 or 10 miles from chemical weapons. We’re over there searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but we have them here in our hometown. I didn’t know this stuff was at the Army Depot all these years. I just heard last year. It takes seven years to burn the chemicals to get rid of it all. We didn’t really believe they were going to burn something that could kill us until they told us to get our masks. My family lives payday to payday, so we sure can’t say, ‘Let’s quit our jobs and move.’ I wish we could. The government does some ignorant things – they just give us a plastic mask? If you could send our boys to war with real masks, I don’t understand why we can’t have the same masks. Everyone in the rescue squad and fire department has high-dollar masks. I just don’t understand why they think some people’s lives are worth more than ours. My son and I are Christians, so we’re saved. He knows where he’s going if he dies.”

Mind the gap

“Almost half the world’s population, or three billion people, live on little more than £1 a day and the gap between the world’s poorest 20 percent and its richest 20 percent has more than doubled since 1960, the International Labour organisation said.” Times (7 July) So where does that leave the notion that the market system would lead to prosperity for all?

Worse than Thatcher

The Labour MP Michael Meacher, formerly the environment minister, revealed in the Guardian (15 July) that the gap in income between the bottom 20 percent and the top 20 percent has increased under Labour. “The share of the bottom fifth has slipped back to 6 percent while the share of the top fifth has moved up to 46 percent. Therefore, the rich now have a bigger share of the nation’s post-tax income than at any time under Mrs Thatcher.”

Life and Times: Food Banks Again (2022)

The Life and Times column from the October 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

This column talked some time ago about food banks and the regular request that goes out on my local community Facebook page for contributions to the food bank near to where I live. As rising prices make the struggle to survive even more desperate for many people, the food bank request itself has taken on a more desperate tone. The latest message said:

Many of our neighbours can’t feed their children. They arrive here in tears. So please this week we are requesting in particular:

• Pot Noodles
• Mash Potatoes
• Flavoured Noodles
• Squash
• Small Jars Coffee
• Biscuits

Also if anyone can spare any toiletries.

Thank you lovely people, please try to help this much needed Foodbank

Civilisation

What to do? The anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilisation in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But instead, Mead said that the first sign of civilisation in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery.

And the fact that day after day, week after week, people keep the local food bank stocked up helping others through difficulty is a clear indication of ‘civilisation’ and that we humans will usually help others in a worse situation than ourselves if we can, if only because it makes us feel better about ourselves . Indeed Mead finished her explanation with the words: ‘We are at our best when we serve others.’

Food Billionaires

But if things are getting worse in the UK, the food situation in other parts of the world is far more dramatic. A recent United Nations report revealed that around 1 in 10 people worldwide went hungry last year, while currently 1 in 4 people in Africa do not have enough to eat. Jake Johnson of Oxfam reported that one person is dying of hunger or hunger-related illness ‘every 48 seconds in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia alone’. This isn’t, he went on, because there isn’t enough food available, but because the price of food has risen ‘to skyrocketing levels’ and people don’t have the money to buy it. Johnson mentioned the war in Ukraine as a contributory factor, but added that ‘against this backdrop, 62 new billionaires have been created and food billionaires overall have increased their collective wealth by 382 billion dollars since 2020’.

Oxfam’s suggestion is that the food billionaires should be prevailed on to use their wealth to fund a massive anti-hunger effort. Just two weeks of the wealth gains those billionaires have secured, Oxfam has calculated, would go a long way towards combating hunger in places where soaring prices are ‘intensifying food insecurity and pushing poverty to new extremes’. These are obviously fine sentiments, but unfortunately it’s not the way the world of capitalism works. The Cargill global food corporation, 87 percent owned by the 11th richest family in the world with combined wealth of $42.9 billion, has seen its wealth increase by $14.4 billion since 2020 (and by almost $20 million per day during the Covid pandemic). This is par for the course in terms of the way the world market operates. It isn’t a deliberate process on the part of greedy individuals but rather a function of how potential shortages and the price mechanism operate in the impersonal world of buying and selling. It is the outcome of a process which the individuals caught up in it as either victims or victors can do virtually nothing to alter and over which governments too have only very limited control.

Pipe Dream

The fact is that the capitalist system is not controlled by individual businesses or governments but they have to fall in line with the dictates of the system. And this easily leads to fights breaking out between governments seeking to defend their own ‘patch’, as consistently happens in the world of competition and profit and is indeed happening in many places right now. So, unfortunately, a solution via adjustments by agribusinesses of the kind proposed by Oxfam is little more than a pipe dream, as are exhortations to governments to cancel debt burdens and tax the mega-rich. The capitalist system is a war of profit against humans and the only thing that will change that is to get rid of capitalism,

So just as, on my own local level, I know that food banks can be little more than a bit of sticking plaster, some temporary relief for those in need, on a planetary level it will take more than charity and goodwill by individuals or even governments for there to be any long-term solution. As the Oxfam food policy director, Hanna Saarinen, says: ‘We need to reimagine a new global food system to really end hunger; one that works for everyone.’ But the trouble – and the truth – is that such a food system is simply not feasible in the framework of the system we live in, where, at the end of the day, profit must always trump need. And this applies regardless of the goodwill of the many who try to help their neighbours via food banks. And it also trumps the truth uttered by Margaret Mead that helping others is what makes us human and that, given half a chance, that’s what we’ll do, since ‘we are at our best when we serve others’.

Howard Moss

Letters: Oxfam — only seeking to alleviate (1995)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oxfam — only seeking to alleviate

Dear Editors,

I was greatly saddened by the attack on the work of Oxfam by your columnist,"Scorpion", in the May Socialist Standard. Oxfam has never claimed, as Scorpion implies, to end hunger, disease, exploitation and poverty, that is endemic to capitalism in the third world; and the first one for that matter, but does set out to alleviate some of the effects of these evils, to the utmost of its abilities. Of course the establishment of Socialism world-wide is the only real answer. but what do we do in the meantime? Sit on our hands and sneer at those who show their concern in a practical way by doing something?

Oxfam goes much further than just raising funds to combat the ravishes of war, famine and floods. A vital part of its work is promoting Fair Trade with groups (mostly co-operatives), of small-scale producers of foodstuffs and craft goods in the third world, that are sold in Oxfam shops. Such Fair Trading has grown over the past thirty years so that there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products, that is a fair reflection of their labour, i.e. one that enables workers and their families to provide enough food and other basic necessities including schooling for their children. Oxfam as trading partners are committed to ensuring producers have health and safety regulations in the workplace and are allowed to organise. This kind of practical Socialism in action, is in stark contrast to the gross exploitation by the multinational companies of workers in the third world; most obvious of coffee, tea and banana growers.

Since the early 1970s Oxfam has been campaigning to increase public, and government awareness that the root causes of third world poverty lay in the unfair trading policies imposed by the industrialised countries of the first world, aided by the IMF and World Bank of course. An indication of the impact this has had can be gained from the fact that our government has been stung into threatening to withdraw Oxfam’s charitable status on more than one occasion for being "too political". But Oxfam is part of a growing international movement of more than 50 organisations that are trading for change in the third world, by means of Fair Trade principles. It's a pity that Scorpion didn’t pay a visit to his nearest Oxfam shop to do a little research into the scope of their work, instead of making a cheap jibe in order to fill his column.

Peter Kentfield, 

Norwich

Reply:

You yourself admit that Oxfam only seeks to alleviate. not abolish, world hunger and poverty. So why isn't it fair comment to point out the ultimate futility of only trying to relieve the symptoms while leaving their cause intact? And if, as you say, you accept that "the establishment of Socialism worldwide is the only real answer" surely you should be devoting at least some of your time and energy to promoting this too? By not doing so you are helping to prolong “the meantime" and its miseries including those Oxfam and all the other charities are trying to relieve.

"Fair Trading" is merely an extension of the principle of charity since it relies on the generosity of people to buy goods they might not really want or of a lower quality than they can get elsewhere just because they have been produced by poor people in the third world. (This no doubt is why the Charity Commissioners allow it.)

In any event, it is not the solution—or even an embryo of a solution—to the problem of world poverty. Like food handouts, it's only ever going to help a comparative handful compared to the millions who suffer from hunger. You proudly announce that "there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products”. Yet. according to the United Nations, "some 550 million go to bed hungry each night. More than 1.5 billion lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation". (Fact Sheet 2 on "Global Poverty", prepared by the UN Department of Public Information. July 1994, for the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, Denmark. 6-12 March 1995.)

Nor is Fair Trading an example of "practical Socialism in action”. Socialism is the common ownership and democratic control of the productive resources of the Earth. In other words, the expropriation of the multinational corporations and ruling classes who currently own and control these resources. It is only once this world framework has been established that we will be able to get down to the urgent task of tackling world hunger and poverty. The world is quite capable of producing enough to decently feed, clothe and house all its inhabitants, only this is held back and distorted by world market forces which only respect paying demand and the profit motivc. Socialism is needed precisely so that we begin to produce directly to satisfy human needs, instead of for sale on a market—trading whether "fair" or “unfair"—or for profit. 

Editors

A Socialist police force?

Dear Editors,

I was surprised to read your brief reply to Terry Liddle's letter in the May Socialist Standard. The statement that "there won't be any cops or prisons in a socialist society" demonstrates an alarming naiveté which occasionally runs through your publication, made all the more worrying by the fact that it is the voice of people who are proposing to create a better society.

While it's obvious that a great many crimes are directly or indirectly caused by capitalism (especially theft and fraud), surely the worst crimes, such as rape and murder happen because of the mental instability of the perpetrator as much as. if not more than, wider sociological factors. Under Socialism, a police force of sorts would still be necessary to deal with such crimes. If a Socialist society was run properly it would promote a healthier state of mind in its population, but it would still take many years for us to evolve out of a capitalist state of mind. For example, the effects of the capitalist media's exploitation of women, which is a root cause of rape, are now so ingrained in the minds of many men, that a conversion to socialism couldn’t instantly reverse this. If a police force became unnecessary under Socialism, I would estimate it to be two or three generations after conversion. Even then, an organisation would still be needed to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape which Socialism hasn't been able to prevent.

Your original statement assumes Socialism to be a magic wand, one wave of which will sprit away all of society’s faults. A Socialist society needs to be constructed through a clear, fair, common sense approach, not by making rushed, naive generalisations.

Clive Hendry, 

Suffolk 

Reply:

Our short reply to Terry Liddle was in a different context to the one you posit. He had raised the question of what would happen if vegetarians employed civil disobedience in a Socialist society to oppose practices of which they disapproved, and asked "will socialist cops kick and baton us and throw us into socialist prisons?"

In other words, he was dealing with the question of decision-making and the carrying-out of decisions in a Socialist society. As Socialism will be a fully democratic society without any vested interests decisions of a political nature could be settled after a full and rational discussion of all the pros and cons, ideally ending in some consensus but, if need be, by a vote. Obviously this implies that the minority will accept the majority decision. We think this a reasonable assumption given the sort of society Socialism will be—a real community with a common interest in which democratic values will be generally accepted.. Hence our reply that there won't be any need for a police force armed with batons to enforce decisions, nor for prisons in which to lock up those who refuse to accept them. If those in a minority on some issue won't accept a decision reached in accordance with the agreed procedures then Socialism couldn't function. Socialism is a non-violent society of voluntary co-operation or it isn’t Socialism.

We never said there won't be any occurrences of anti-social behaviour in Socialism or that these wouldn’t have to be dealt with. It is true, however, that we do think that these, too. could be dealt with without recourse to prisons as "places of punishment” or to a special coercive body, whether armed with batons or with guns, which is what a police "force” is.

Most crime today is. as you yourself point out. property crime (people trying to acquire in some way money, or property they can sell for money). In fact this accounts for some 95 percent of all crimes and will of course disappear in a Socialist society, where people won’t need to acquire money before they can satisfy their needs but will be able to do this directly in accordance with the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".

As to the 5 percent remaining. of “crimes against the person", a large proportion of these result today from the corruption of relationships and general frustration due to lack of money and from the alienation that occurs in a society of rampant individualism which tries to reduce us to social atoms who only come into contact with each other when we are carrying out some monetary transaction.

So we are talking about a hugely-reduced level of anti-social behaviour which, apart from cases of people losing their temper (and then regretting it), will be carried out by disturbed individuals. Some of these may indeed need to be restrained or temporarily isolated from the rest of the community but not in "prisons" or anything like them; rather with all the best facilities in places like converted country mansions.

Agreed, we probably will need "an organisation", composed of trained and competent people "to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape”. But this "organisation" would be more akin to today's rail or air accident inspectors than to the uniformed. hierarchical and baton- wielding police force we know today.

Editors

Reconstituted capitalist party

Dear Editors,

What follows is the text of a letter sent to the Labour Party:

"This is my letter of resignation from the Labour Party. The reason for this is my disillusionment with the leadership. The party has always maintained that it is a reformist party, with an emphasis on social justice, rather than socialism. However. "New Labour" is a reconstituted capitalist party. The modernizers in the Labour Party have a vision of "the enterprise of the market . . . the rigour of competition . . . a thriving private sector". This is a contradiction in its attitude towards social justice. F.A. Hayek, the New Right economist, attacked the left's notion of social justice, in that it is incompatible with a market economy, "in which no single person, or group determines who gets what, and the shares of individuals always depend on many circumstances which nobody could have foreseen. the whole concept of social or distributive justice is empty and meaningless". By accepting the "rigour of competition" in a market economy, the Labour Party compromises all notions of social justice to the extent that it becomes, as Hayek states, "a mirage". It is ironic that Hayek used this argument to attack the left, yet the modernizers in the Labour Party will attempt to attach notions of justice to a competitive economy, and in the process be converts to free market capitalism.

The second, more important, reason is that the Labour Party, in government, will set out to change the capitalist system to one in which there is social cohesion with less inequality. Yet will capitalism have the capacity to change? Reforms are generally accepted as temporary and concessionary solutions to the problems of unemployment, homelessness etc..yet it is merely tampering with a capitalist system which is fundamentally exploitative. It becomes useless reforming the social problems, when capitalism is corrupt, and therefore an increasing number of peoples' basic needs are not met in a class-divided society, in which production and distribution is owned and controlled by the minority capitalist class. The only way in which the exploitative system can be changed is through Socialism. This does not mean piecemeal reforms, but by convincing the majority working class that Socialism is desirable and can be achieved on a global scale. Collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution in the interest of the whole community can be achieved when there are enough Socialists who are willing to take democratic and participatory action against an exploitative capitalist system.

The Labour Party does not stand for Socialism, but has shifted its commitment from state capitalism, to a competitive market capitalism.” 

Robert Smith,

Bristol.

Voice From The Back: We also tell lies (1998)

The Voice From The Back Column from the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

We also tell lies

First we set you free. Now we set new standards. Total freedom. A state rarely achieved and much sought after. For some it’s symbolised by the vastness of the ocean. For others, it’s the call of the open road. At Mazda it’s a guiding philosophy. Which is why we were the only car company . . . After all, nothing should stand between you and total freedom. Advertisement.

Capitalism’s realities

Russia’s foreign debt stood at more than £78 billion in January. Rescheduling delayed repayment until this year, and in 2003 Moscow is due to start paying back the billions borrowed by the Soviet Union. The backlog of unpaid wages has grown inexorably. The private sector owes employees £5.7 billion, while the state sector owes £700 million in wages. The backlog of pensions in both sectors has reached £8.8 billion. Meanwhile, the popular daily newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported yesterday that the presidential administration was secretly spending millions of pounds on an exclusive leisure centre—including indoor tennis courts, weights and a sauna—inside the Kremlin. Guardian, 2 April.

In case you wondered . . .

. . . the latest initiative from [French Prime Minister] Jospin is a true piece of backward-thinking madness—a proposed 35-hour week to be introduced by 2000. Jospin promises it will ease rocketing unemployment, but it is more likely to exacerbate the problem by hurting the competitiveness of French companies. “The notion of reducing unemployment through a shorter week is just farcical,” says Rob Hayward, senior economist at Bank of America in London. Financial Mail on Sunday, 19 April.

Death merchants

A report by Oxfam singles out Britain as a key player in the small-arms market, exporting to more than 100 countries in the past two years. Despite obsessive official secrecy, it has identified at least 120 British companies involved in the trade. The call for tough controls coincides with threats by the United States to block the export to Britain of more than 14,000 handguns which it believes are to be re-exported to war zones or used in organised crime. In the past year the government has sanctioned at least 11 small-arms export licences to Kenya and at least 20 to Turkey, Oxfam says. In 1995, it estimates, about three-quarters of African countries importing small arms from Britain were suffering political violence and other conflicts. Licences for small arms cover a wide category of weapons, including machine guns, mortars, grenades, shoulder-launched rockets and “chemical irritant” weapons. Guardian, 23 April.

Capitalism needs drugs

In Birmingham there are estimated to be around 22,000 men who are depressed, finding it difficult to motivate themselves to carry on with work, or maintain relationship with their family. But a new prescription anti-depressant drug called Edionax which works on replacing a substance in the brain called noradrenaline is offering new hope. Evening Mail, 24 April.

Drugs make profits

The government is attempting to block a Brussels move to cut the price of medicines. Its motive is to protect the multi-billion-pound profits earned by the UK’s drugs industry. Lord Simon, Minister for trade and Competitiveness in Europe, will defend Britain’s drugmakers at a key meeting of trade ministers that he is chairing next month. He fears that relaxing drug price controls in the European Union would unleash a flood of cheap imports into Britain from southern Europe, slashing profits for UK drug companies . . . It would bring down the prices that the National Health Service pays for pharmaceuticals to the cheaper levels of Spain and Italy. Financial Mail on Sunday, 26 April.

Inherently unstable

In the 10 months since the Asian economic crisis first burst on us, Asian governments have so far managed to contain the anger of their peoples. The crisis itself, and the measures which the West and the world’s financial institutions insisted were necessary to deal with it, have brought bankruptcy, unemployment, and privation on a large scale to societies which only a little time ago thought they had joined the ranks of the world’s winners. How, with the first deaths in Indonesian rioting, which had until now kept this side of serious street violence, and with the confrontation between government and labour in South Korea, a period of increased danger has obviously begun. Guardian, 7 May.

Doing time

BBC researchers in London are looking for three Birmingham volunteers to help make a TV programme about time . . . BBC researcher Mick Conefrey said: “We are interested in people who would be willing to try out time management techniques. People often say there isn’t enough time in the day but now there are people who say ‘yes there is’ and they will show you how to use it.” Mr Conefrey said that American companies were “really obsessed” with time management techniques. British firms were now becoming interested, he added. Evening Mail, 8 May.

How succinct!

We’re meant to accept that in this post-communist (or, as I prefer to think of it, pre-communist) world nothing comes for free, and everything has its price. Julie Burchill, Guardian Weekend, 28 February.