Fat Cats: creaming off profits (2003)

From the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of June, the Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, unveiled a discussion document which was spun as dealing with the issue of city “Fat Cats” – that is, directors of firms who receive bloated salaries and immense pay rises.

Her document Rewards of Failure. Directors’ Remuneration – Contracts, Performance and Severance: a consultative document is ostensibly concerned with directors whose pay schemes are disproportionate to the performance of the company under their tenure. However, it was linked by “Old Labour”-sounding concern with directors’ pay.

“Fat Cats” were on the news agenda already – the shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had voted the previous month to not allow a £22 million severance scheme for the director of their company. News items had been filled with images of the little people standing up to the corporate monster – complete with tweedy little old ladies and retired majors venting their frustration at the iniquity of directors remuneration packages growing as the value of their shares dwindled.

Similar resolutions at the general meetings of the HSBC bank and Corus, the steel firm, failed, with large institutional shareholders voting down the myriad small-holders. In the latter instance, the TUC noted in a press release that the workers at that company are under threat of pay freeze or even redundancy.

The trade unions have been banging on for years about “Fat Cat” pay. During long years of wage restraint the TUC and trade unions have complained about “inflation busting” pay rises for top executives. How, they ask, can freezes on the wages of a company’s employees be justified when directors are merrily awarding themselves massive pay packages, at many times the going rate of inflation (which is what most workers’ pay rises are held to)?

Many see condemnation of the “Fat Cats” as an old left, radical position, a useful bit of demagoguery. Clearly, it doesn’t hurt Labour every now and again to voice concerns over “Fat Cats”, especially so long as they hedge it, as the Trade and Industry Secretary did, in terms of supporting the rewards of success. All of this is a gift to the Tories, who are no doubt preparing “politics of envy speeches” at this very moment.

The problem, as can be seen by anyone who takes a moment to examine the way in which capitalism works, is that taking on the “Fat Cats” is emphatically not a radical position. It is, rather, taking sides in a dispute between capitalists and their lackeys on the boardrooms of their corporations. That is, there is no gain to be had from any of this for the workers – were the “Fat Cat” fees to be slashed, the ones to gain would not be the workers, but the shareholders, the capitalists who actually own the companies.

As Marx pointed out in Volume III of Capital, shares are not real capital, but “a share of the stock is merely a title of ownership to a corresponding portion of the surplus-value to be realised by it”. That is, share certificates represent a title to a share in the profits to be derived from capital that has already been invested in the form of the assets of a given company. These shares have no intrinsic value themselves, but can be assigned one based on the amount of income they represent. That is, the dividends – payments due to share holders – amount to a specific return on the magnitude of the share value, and should that income rise or fall, the nominal value of the shares will rise and fall accordingly.

Large companies are in competition with one another to attract new shareholders (through the issuance of new shares), and existing shareholders want to see the value of their initial investment rise. Thus, companies have to ensure that the size of their dividends is competitive compared to the general market. If the returns on the shares in a specific company are higher than in the general market, demand for them will rise, and their putative value will rise accordingly. Thus, the ratio of return will remain roughly the same as that on shares in other companies.

This means that, to stay in business, the board of directors of a firm must pay dividends on a regular basis. A good example of this was the failed Railtrack railway owning company in Britain, which managed to find funds for its shareholders dividends, despite not raising a commercial profit. It managed this largely by selling off assets, mostly land and facilities. The board of directors also has the unfortunate responsibility of setting the pay for its members.

Share in surplus value

As Hewitt’s consultative document shows, this process is regulated by legislation on the pay of directors. The members of boards of directors are chosen by, and normally from amongst, the shareholders to administer their affairs for them and in their interest. That is, they act of behalf of the absentee owners, who have now become utterly redundant to the supervision and reproduction of their own capital accumulation let alone to the actual process of production. Someone does not become a capitalist purely by dint of being the managing director of a capitalist firm. However, the possibility exists – through the position of being in practical control of the companies – for the directors to arrange affairs so that they may cream off some of the profits that would otherwise go to the absentee shareholders.

In the case of most directors it is not a free market that sets their “pay”, i.e., their share of surplus value in return for managing the affairs of the other shareholders. They apply networks of association to restrict access to the jobs, and then set one another’s pay. They have a number of means by which they can supplement the appearance of receiving a set salary. They pay each other bonuses for performance, which they get automatically, no matter how they have performed. They get share options, the right to buy shares at a future date at a set price, which will usually be less than the going market price (giving them an instant windfall). They get, as they tried to get at GSK, severance packages that ensure massive payments on departure.

These directors use control over the process of exploitation to secure a share in the surplus value produced. The source, ultimately, of capitalist profits is the difference between the price of product of labour, and the cost of hiring the specific types of labour involved in realising it. That is, between the value of the work we do, and the cost of maintaining and reproducing our capacity to do that work. That is, the profit falling to capital is set by the conditions in the labour market which regulate how hard they can make employees work, and how much they can pay them. Once that profit has been realised, there is no essential mechanism determining how that profit is divided among the various members of the capitalist class.

This becomes a matter for legal and contractual relations between capitalists, as they use a variety of rights to secure their share of the profit, with landowners securing rent, financiers securing interest, etc. Each takes a profit from the total of surplus value extracted. In the case of stock held companies, the shareholders take their share in the form of dividends. The board of directors are able, in this circumstance, to use their position, to secure whatever profit remains after the dividends have been paid out.

In effect, the directors are swindling the shareholders, taking a share in their profits, based on the fact that they aren’t in a position to control the directors effectively. Hence why it is shareholders who are leading the attack against “Fat Cats” – they understand that it is their money that is paying those salaries, it is their profit that is supporting the half million pounds or more a year for a top corporate director. It is, for all its apparent radicalism, a spat over who gets the booty, who gets what share of the unpaid labour of the working class.

These facts are reflected in the craven pro-shareholder outpourings from the TUC on this subject. In their press release “TUC join with Dutch and German unions against excessive executive pay”, they maintain that “business legitimacy is being eroded as Europe’s citizens are shocked by further examples of this new creed of greed” and that “too often in recent years it has seemed that executives regard companies as vehicles for self-enrichment rather than for the creation of wealth for all stakeholders” which they interpret by asking “are these excessive executive pay arrangements in the interests of shareholders, and likely to lead to wealth creation?”

Socialists look at this trend and stand by their contention that it is the workers who produce the wealth, and the capitalists who make their profits from our unpaid labour. Further, we look upon this squabbling between the capitalists and their agents, and see how redundant the capitalist has become to the whole economic process. The “Fat Cats” question is a matter of a spat among parasites. Rather than seeking to hold down the pay of the directors, we should be seeking to take control of the productive process for ourselves, so that the immense riches it produces can be directed toward our benefit not theirs.

Pik Smeet

Diabolical liberty (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is the individual right to go to work during a strike equal to the collective right to strike? This is the issue at the centre of a row within the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) which resulted in the resignation of Larry Gostin, the General Secretary, four members of its Executive Committee and an Independent Inquiry team appointed to look at the civil liberties implications of the policing of the coal strike. It has also led to reports in the Press that NCCL has been hijacked by the Left, and claims from some NCCL members that, on the contrary, they have stopped the organisation from being dragged off its libertarian course by preventing an unholy alliance with such dubious elements as the uncivil and illiberal right. The latter was the policy that they claimed was advocated by Larry Gostin and his supporters.

NCCL was set up in 1934 as a result of concern about police brutality towards hunger marchers. Its objective as stated in its founding constitution was:

to assist in the maintenance of hard-won rights, especially freedom of speech, the press and assembly, from all infringements by executive or judicial authority contrary to the due process of law, or infringement by the tendency of governmental or other agencies to use their powers at the expense of the precarious liberties for which citizens of this country have fought

and to:

aid in advancing measures for the recovery or enlargement of these liberties (cited in Patricia Hewitt. The NCCL Fifty Years On in Peter Wellington (ed), Civil Liberties 1984. p.15).

Over the years NCCL's activities have included monitoring police behaviour at marches and demonstrations; preparing legal test cases where it is believed that an individual's rights have been abused; setting up enquiries into incidents such as the demonstration in Southall in 1979 which resulted in the death of Blair Peach; campaigns for withdrawal of, or amendments to, legislation which has extended state power such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

NCCL has consistently claimed to be an organisation concerned with civil liberties issues rather than with social justice (a point reiterated by Larry Gostin on his resignation). Patricia Hewitt, a former NCCL General Secretary, wrote:

From the outset. NCCL saw its activities as belonging to a specific tradition of civil liberties — the defence of civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech and association, rather than economic and social rights, such as the right to education or a minimum standard of living (Patricia Hewitt, op. cit., p. 16).

It was hoped that by adopting such a position NCCL would be able to cut across party political divisions. But this stance has not. over the years, always proved successful. In 1946 such eminent members as George Orwell and E.M. Forster resigned from NCCL because they believed it was being used as a front organisation for the Communist Party. NCCL's traditional links with the trade union movement have also led to accusations that NCCL is too closely associated with the Labour Party — a view that has gained increasing currency as a result of the recent developments.

The recent controversy, which came to a head at NCCL's AGM, arises from a resolution taken by the 1984 AGM to set up an independent inquiry into the policing of the coal strike. The inquiry's terms of reference were as follows:

To inquire into and thereby establish the fullest possible account and the civil liberties implications of the role of the police, the police authorities and the criminal courts in the events arising from and relating to the NUM dispute, which began in March 1984 (Preface to Civil Liberties and the Miners ' Dispute, First Report of the Independent Inquiry).

In December 1984 the Inquiry team published an interim report which immediately sparked off angry debate within NCCL. While the report was largely critical of the conduct of the police towards striking miners, it also contained the following paragraph:

We accept that the freedom not to take part in a strike is as much a fundamental right as the right to strike. Going to work during a strike is in any case a lawful activity, and like any other lawful activity ought not to be impeded by violence, threats or physical obstruction. We have identified the freedom to travel unhindered for any lawful purpose as a fundamental liberty; this is equally so whether the purpose is peaceful picketing, taking part in a demonstration, or simply going to work (First Report of the Independent Inquiry, p.6.)

It was this equation of the "right to strike" with the "right not to take part in a strike" and the report's comments about the behaviour of both striking and working miners which led to its being condemned as a "Scab's Charter".

At the end of February, NCCL's executive committee passed a number of motions which censured the inquiry team. Firstly, they "regretted" that the independent inquiry "exceeded its terms of reference in commenting on the conduct of striking and working miners and in setting out civil liberty principles which did not directly relate to the role of the police, police authorities and criminal courts". This resolution was upheld by the AGM. Secondly, the executive committee "regretted" that the presentation of the report, and especially its plea that all sides "refrain from violence, intimidation or other actions likely to cause injury or public disorder or provoke unnecessary ill-feeling", was "unnecessarily damaging to the miners' cause". Again this was upheld by the AGM. Thirdly, the executive committee stated that "the right to strike is a fundamental civil liberty and entirely rejects the proposition that those who break strikes are exercising an equally fundamental right". The AGM passed a similarly worded resolution.

Larry Gostin resigned as General Secretary a few days later because, as he wrote in his letter of resignation:

I, of course, respect the democracy of NCCL, but feel I could not publicly defend the full range of NCCL policies in good conscience, and with conviction and credibility. (The Times. 3 May 1985)

What should be made of this controversy? Is it just an internal political battle between different factions within NCCL? While this may be the case, it raises serious questions which are worth examining in greater detail, particularly that of the right to strike versus the right not to strike.

In the context of the coal strike this issue was made more complicated because the NUM did not hold a strike ballot. The miners who continued to work could therefore claim, with some justification, that since they had not been given the opportunity to express their views democratically through a ballot, the only way they could exercise their freedom of "thought, conscience and belief' (a ''right" contained in NCCL's own Charter of Civil Rights and Liberties) was by continuing to work during the strike.

But suppose that a strike ballot had been called and a majority of NUM members had democratically decided to take strike action. What then would be the position of the minority of NUM members who. for whatever reason, disagreed with the strike? One option open to them would be to obey the strike call but not to take part in strike activities. such as picketing, on the grounds that while the individuals concerned did not support this strike they did support their trade union, recognised the importance of trade union solidarity and felt that more damage would be done to the Union as a whole through continuing to work than they would gain as individuals by exercising the "right" to act on conscience.

An alternative, if the "dissenter" within the union felt strongly enough against the strike would be to continue to work, but at the same time to accept both the "right" of strikers to try to persuade him not to cross the picket line during a strike, and also the "right" of the union to decide that such actions were incompatible with union membership.

Both of these positions are equally tenable for a civil libertarian. A majority of delegates at NCCL's AGM decided however that the collective "right" to strike took precedence over the "right" of the individual to carry on working during a strike. Their argument was that the strike weapon — the most effective weapon that workers have against their employers — is undermined if the majority of union members do not support the strike and so their "collective right" can be rendered useless by individuals exercising their "right" to dissent.

One can't avoid the feeling that those who support this position have taken a number of ingredients (as contained in NCCL's Charter) which they like the sound of, mixed them up and have then become disappointed when they can't stomach the resulting cake — that is, that civil liberties, according to their recipe, also apply to people whose actions they find unacceptable. At the AGM they tried to change the recipe by saying that there should be a little more "collective rights" and a little less "individual rights". Several of the cooks of the original cake took offence and resigned.

However, it has not occurred to any of the protagonists as yet that maybe they need a completely new recipe. An organisation like NCCL whose intention is to defend civil liberties (however they are defined) is only necessary in a society in which the "liberties" of citizens can be curtailed by "governmental or other agencies". In most cases this means incursions by the state — the police, courts, army, government — or by those who hold economic power, the capitalist class, against those who are powerless in society. These two institutions, the state and the capitalist class, are not independent of each other. On the contrary, they live in a symbiotic relationship: the capitalist class, the minority who own and control the means of producing wealth in society, require the state to defend and administer their interests and the state would be unable to function without the resources that the capitalist class grants it. NCCL seeks to defend people from what they regard as the unjustifiable use of state power but to do that within the very system — capitalism — which itself creates the need for the state.

The coal strike exposed the diametrically opposed class interests of workers and the capitalist class. Both sides in the dispute expressed these interests in terms of "rights the right of the Coal Board to manage (to close pits that didn't produce enough profit) and the right of NUM members to express their opposition to pit closures by taking strike action. Some miners did not see the dispute in these terms and mistakenly thought that their interests were better served by continuing to work and claimed the "right" to do so.

While organisations like NCCL and the trade union movement can fight to preserve rights we should never forget what the "right to work" and the "right to strike" really mean. The right to work amounts to little more than the right to sell our labour power for a wage or salary so that we and our families can live. It means spending a considerable amount of time engaged in work that we may not enjoy and from which we, as workers, never derive any benefit. The right to strike is one of the few weapons that the working class has at its disposal to use against capital to prevent working conditions and living standards from being driven down still further. It should be used cautiously since it is the weapon of last resort and entails considerable hardship and suffering for workers engaged in strike action.

Where then does this leave NCCL? If it is to be a consistently civil libertarian organisation that applies the principles set out in its constitution and Charter, and works within capitalism without concerning itself with social justice, then it must accept all the contradictions that that will entail and also the possibility of upholding the "rights" of individuals whose views or actions it finds abhorrent.

Perhaps at least some workers among NCCL's members will have been led by this argument to look more closely at the whole issue of civil liberties and to question the value of trying to defend such rights and liberty in the context of a system of society which itself constantly acts as a fetter on the freedom of all workers — that is the freedom to democratically control the society in which we live and the wealth we produce.

Janie Percy-Smith

Civil Liberties (1984)

Book Review from the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civil Liberties 1984 Ed. Peter Wallington (Martin Robertson 1984)

Civil Liberties 1984 is a compilation of articles by different authors which taken together form a review of the work of the National Council of Civil Liberties (NCCL) in its 50th anniversary year and provide an assessment of the current state of civil liberties in the UK. The articles could in many ways be reviewed separately as the subjects range from gay rights to the threats to liberty in government decisions on weapons and economic energy systems. It is also perhaps not a book to be read from cover to cover but to select short, well written articles from and to use as a handy reference book, particularly on test cases, although the index is occasionally dubious.

As is stressed in Patricia Hewitt's chapter on the NCCL and its history, the council was founded to advocate the defence of civil and political rights rather than economic and social rights; it is here that its problem lies. The NCCL is continuously beset by a lack of funds and is often unable to defeat vested interests; for example national newspaper magnates considerably restrict the information and opinions available to the public.

The chapter by Polly Pattullo on women's rights well illustrates the limitations of reforming organisations like the NCCL. She criticises, for example, the way in which the Sex Discrimination Act fails to go far enough to protect a woman's ‘‘right" to work for a wage but she fails to realise that even if women did have equal pay for equivalent jobs they would still not be at liberty since both working men and women, and those they support, would experience inequality in access to goods and alienating work would still be compulsory for survival. It is a hollow freedom to fight for the right of everyone to dine at the Ritz without realising that few people are wealthy enough to be able to afford this.

Many articles provide information on the limited extent of our “freedom". As one would expect the book is punctured with Orwellian references to the uses of surveillance and the secrecy of state operations ostensibly for and in the name of the people. As James Michael points out. although not knowing exactly what surveillance is carried out on individuals, people can be inhibited from protesting about society and without the knowledge of information on government decisions and technology the democratic process is seriously fettered. John Griffith in his chapter on The Democratic Process summarises the position well:

This society is pluralist in that power is distributed among many institutions . . . but, at the highest levels of the state, power becomes concentrated in the hands of a few. The oligarchy then spreads its influence widely and deeply over subordinate institutions. private as well as public. Being based on class, it is able to engage the self interest also of that great number who depend on the preservation and continuance of its considerable power. It becomes highly manipulative and can rely not only on persuasion and propaganda but also on that self interest. Its hegemony is all the easier to manipulate because its dependants cannot see any alternative structure that will obviously give them more of the better things in life, (p.85)

In Peter Wallington’s chapter on Freedom of Speech he argues that

We have significantly less freedom of expression either in law or in practice than is generally believed. that on balance freedom is declining and that threats to its preservation are real and imminent. (p.55)

Wallington points to the possibilities opened up by new communication technology but at the same time warns of the dangers of government censorship and control; for example, the government's indirect control on the BBC and IBA and the emergency powers that the government has for a complete takeover of broadcasting if the need arises, (a move considered during the Suez crisis). Wallington also makes the distinction between impartiality in reporting information and news from a so-called middle position which favours the existing consensus and which fails to report and consider the diversity of opinions outside the centre of political thought.

The same criticism could, in fact, to a certain extent be levied at Civil Liberties 1984. The chapters on the police and criminal processes deal with the situation which one would expect under the present system where wealth and consequently power are concentrated in the hands of a few; and so the police and censorship are necessary to keep the majority in subordination. The authors as a whole consider more humane methods of policing while ignoring the reasons policing is a necessity in the present society. They fail to give due consideration to an alternative where people as a whole will own the means of production and distribution; thus privilege and its corollary, money would be rendered archaic. As John Alderson says:

In an ideal world there would be no need for the police . . . But human experience indicates that noble sentiments alone are too weak to control those whose ambitions, greed and anger, give way to threatening and damaging activity on either a small or a grand scale. From rebellion to simple theft there are requirements for laws and for some form of enforcement of those laws. (pp. 170-171)

In a socialist world there will be no need for the police since theft and greed will be unknown in a society which produces in abundance and no one's access to goods is restricted. Freedom of discussion and new ideas for the improvement of living conditions will be welcomed. Alderson reminds us, however, noble sentiments alone are not enough — even for the NCCL. A system designed to preserve a privileged minority is not going to allow reforms to usurp its position. A democratic revolution by the world's people is necessary to produce a society in which all people, regardless of race or sex, can fulfil themselves.

Fiona Douglas

Greasy Pole: Liz and Her Life and Loves (2015)

The Greasy Pole Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Is This Thing Called Love? was Cole Porter’s epic contribution to musical morale in the slump of the 1930s. A more recent example of the misuse of the word was when Prime Minister David Cameron assured us that ‘I love the NHS’, provoking a rage of response from the doctors, nurses, technicians, carers about how and why this thing Cameron calls ‘love’ could actually mean government policies so designedly restrictive and damaging to their work and to the patients who rely on their skills and application. And then, from the opposite Benches, there was another politician who, looking to impress us, declared that that ‘Labour is the party I love’. This was Liz Kendall, as she announced that she was a candidate in the Labour Party’s recent leadership election. Mysteriously, she was at first presented as the favourite until reality in the form of the membership vote put her at the bottom, in fourth place. Which was when it was revealed that her ‘love’ for Labour was not so strong as to persuade her to accept that result as the democratic will of the party and to support Jeremy Corbyn as the party leader.

Cambridge

Kendall came of a political family; her father was a Labour councillor before joining the Lib Dems and then re-joining Labour. As a child she enjoyed an outing with the two parents on their local canvassing so that, if the time ran out, she might throw a childish tantrum when there were no more doors for her to knock on. After grammar (non-selective) school she went to Cambridge and, in shock after the result of the 1992 general election under the calamitous leadership of Neil Kinnock she decided to ‘join the party and help fight to make sure it never happens again’. Whatever she meant by ‘it’ did eventually happen again, with Tony Blair and his government’s predictable failure to maintain their support in the miserable swamp of capitalism. After achieving a double first and being captain of the university women’s football team Kendall held a succession of spin-doctor jobs including a period as Special Adviser to Harriet Harman, who in the chaos of Labour in 1998 was sacked from the government. Kendall was rejected as the Labour candidate in Tony Benn’s old seat at Chesterfield and worked for Patricia Hewitt who judged her to have ‘a core of steel’ which was just as well as in 2010 Hewitt herself was suspended after allegations of corruption over political lobbying for cash, which did not prevent her subsequent appointment to such rewarding posts as Special Consultant to the massive pharmacological combine Alliance Boots and to a private equity company with links to BUPA hospitals. This was not, from Kendall’s point of view, all disaster because it led to her being chosen as Hewitt’s successor as the Labour candidate for the rock-solid seat of Leicester West, which she won in 2010 with a majority of 4017 despite a decline of 7.6 percent in the Labour vote.

Malnutrition

In her maiden speech in the Commons Kendall made a point of the stark problems in Leicester West particularly of the children there; more than a third of them growing up in what she called workless families, with life prospects wrecked by their poverty. In some parts of the city they are more likely to die before they are five, to do badly at school and then struggle to survive on low paid employment. Perhaps there were some Members there that day who assumed that she would be among the more restless and challenging wing of her party. But it did not happen like that; her core of steel operated in support of the measures calculated to intensify the poverty in her constituency. She supported the £23.00 benefits cap and the proposals to enforce a contributory system of benefits on the grounds that the present one had allowed too many people to exist without any pressure, such as lack of food and housing, to get paid employment. For the NHS she is in favour of what she called ‘patient choice’ which is actually a proposal to encourage more private investment with its prospects of massive profits for some dominant companies -- such as Alliance Boots and BUPA -which have what she describes as ‘a role for the private and voluntary sectors where they can add extra capacity to the NHS or challenges to the system’. Pertinent comments on Kendall’s attitude on this were from the Health and Social Care Information Centre that the number of admissions to hospitals from malnutrition rose during the past year, from 5469 to 6520; and there was the estimate from the European Nutrition for Health Alliance, that as many as 40 percent of hospital patients in the UK are malnourished on admission, causing many to be undiagnosed through inadequate screening. In fact the Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester now encourage the staff of their A and E department discreetly to offer food boxes to any patients who on discharge are malnourished. There are similar arrangements at hospitals in Birmingham and Newcastle.

Thieving

A continuing review of Kendall’s record finds that she supports limiting immigration through a points-based system, and the abolition of the right for immigrants to claim tax credits and benefits. She stands for the continuation of the universally destructive nuclear Trident submarine programme (which she obediently calls a ‘deterrent’) with expenditure on it exempt from cuts such as those imposed on essential services. Among her many fundamental euphemisms is one which applies to the entire system of class ownership and production for profit when she announces that she is ‘firmly on the side of wealth creation’, ignoring the harsh reality that it is that very system which all too often reduces wealth production when it is not profitable enough. Some time ago Kendall was angry when she found that another Member had stolen a tuna sandwich which she had left in a fridge at Portcullis House, used by the MPs as their offices. She attached an angry note to the fridge door: ‘I do not appreciate this and warn other people…’ to which the reply, in another note, was: ‘I took it… and I’d do it again’ . In spite of all she had been through, Kendall seems to be unaware that stealing will come most readily where many are occupied with managing the entire system of theft.

Ivan