Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 3 (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

The First World War gave the West Indies sugar industry a real fillip, but the slumps which followed caused the sugar owners to amalgamate and look for ways of cutting costs—as always, their first thought was to lower wages. Sugar workers were forced to form trade unions to resist the attempts of the sugar owners to depress their already very low standard of living and in 1935 the sugar workers of Antigua went on strike.

Trade unions had already been formed in other industries, notably the oil industry in Trinidad. Blood was shed during riots in the oilfields in 1937. The Trinidad oilworkers’ union is strong and well-disciplined: a well-planned strike in 1960 forced some notable concessions from the oil companies in the face of a recession in the oil industry.

There were disorders in other islands, and governments soon realised that it was wise to encourage rather than to hinder the formation of trade unions. To meet the challenge, both from their workers and from rival capitalist groups in other parts of the world, West Indian capitalists joined together in strong amalgamations. Thus were formed the various cane-growers associations, the Banana Producers’ Association of Jamaica, the Trinidad and Tobago Co-operative Citrus Growers’ Association, etc.

West Indian leaders on the economic field eventually became political leaders: men like Bradshaw in St. Kitts, Bird in Antigua, Grantley Adams in Barbados, Bustamante and Manley in Jamaica, and Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler (who was behind the 1937 oilfield riots) in Trinidad. Economic struggles, therefore, formed the basis for political struggles, fought mainly on a racial platform with special emphasis on anti-colonialism. These political movements were supported by the utterances of men like Marcus Garvey (a Negro from Jamaica who served his apprenticeship with Booker T. Washington) who eloquently and powerfully advocated during the thirties a Negro “Back to Africa” movement.

Through the energetic action of politicians such as Bustamante, Manley, and Marryshow of Grenada the British Government conceded constitutional reforms, culminating in the formation of the West Indies Federation in 1958. This meant full internal self-government based on universal suffrage in certain islands, the British Government retaining control of defence.

The identification of trade unions with newly emerged governments is fraught with danger for the West Indian working class. During the recent Trinidad elections, for example, one or two quite large trade-unions held demonstration marches in support of Dr. Williams’ Peoples’ National Movement party. It may be. however that West Indian workers are too politically sophisticated to be completely taken in by demagogic politicians to the point of surrendering trade union and political advantages won after so many years of struggle.

The wind of change has blown through the West Indies as it has through the African continent; the eagerness with which the Colonial Office has fanned this wind in the British Caribbean towards the formation of the West Indies Federation indicates that the British ruling class would rather deal with a single West Indian Government than with several. But West Indians have apparently proved to be too nationalistic. In a referendum held towards the end of 1961, Jamaica seceded from the Federation, and thus set off the collapse which quickly followed. Now, a looser federation of eight of the islands, including Barbados and the Leeward and Windward Islands, is in prospect. The present tendency is for unit governments (at least in the British islands and British Guiana) to try to go it alone. Political leaders in the larger islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad, the only really economically viable island in the Federation, are reluctant for sizeable proportions of taxes realised in their islands to be utilised by a Federal Government to assist the poorer, smaller, islands’ economy, when the money could be used in development projects in their own countries.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, whether it be in terms of a host of small units trying to go it alone or of varying degrees of federation, the problems of the West Indian worker wherever he is will be basically the same as those of his fellows in other parts of the world. He is, unfortunately, no more seized with the ideas of Socialism than his counterparts elsewhere, but sooner or later he will find that these ideas are the only ones worth considering in his search for an end to his present poverty and insecurity and for a better and happier future.

Michael La Touche

                                                                               (Concluded)

SPGB Snippets: Today’s take-away (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website

April 15, 2026

Most crude oil (88%) refined in the US comes from fields in the US, Canada and Mexico, all a long way from the chaos currently being wreaked by the latest Middle East war. Yet average retail petrol prices in the US have risen by over 30% since January.

The reason? Along with every other major raw material, crude oil is subject to a world market price, so a major disruption to supplies, be it caused by war or an economic bottleneck, will have a global effect.

The lesson? National governments (however big the country!) have little influence over the world market. In particular, any politician who promises to control prices is lying through their teeth.

America versus the World (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Bush’s State of the Union address at the end of January was a rhetorical declaration of war on the world; an assertion that US interests are now paramount and woe betide anyone foolish enough to think otherwise.

Bush boldly announced that the “war on terror” was “only beginning” and announced an enormous hike in military spending. This year’s military budget is up $36 bn to $379 bn and next year the US war machine will receive an extra $48 bn, with a further $120 bn promised over the next five years, bringing the total spent on the military by 2007 to $ 2 trillion. To get some estimate of this level of spending it is worth noting that this year’s increase alone is higher than the joint military spending of Europe, and larger than China’s existing military budget. Though just how such an awe-inspiring arsenal of state of the arts weaponry is to stop 11 September type attacks on the USA is yet to be explained.

America has at last declared that the “war on terror” has replaced the threat of the “international communist conspiracy” and found in this the pretext to set the agenda for the coming century. The Bush administration has embedded its flag in what it believes is the moral high ground. From now on it is a war of good against evil – evil being anyone standing directly in the way of the US and its aspirations of global domination, with the “war on terrorism” allowing it to intervene anywhere and whenever and to deem who it likes a terrorist. Clearly this new “war” will involve countless military interventions with no regard whatsoever for international sensibilities.

There are now bogeymen under every rock and the world needs protecting from them. Bush identified an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union Address, pointing to the threat the world faced from North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Vice-President Dick Cheney would later remark that the US is considering military action against 50 countries and that this ongoing conflict could last 50 years, without seeming to question whether this would be sustainable.

Bush’s adviser Richard Perle commented: 

“This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there . . . if we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

All of this has naturally left political analysts wondering just who will be next. Somalia (on a key oil export route and with untapped oil deposits off its coast and with whom the US has a score to settle following the botched “Restore Hope” operation of a decade ago, which left thousands of innocents dead), or Yemen, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or Libya? All harbour bogeymen whose existence sullies the notion of American hegemony. Any could be the next target for a war machine drunk with its recent victory in Afghanistan. And what a victory! – Osama bin Laden still not caught (the entire campaign was about catching him), 5 thousand civilians dead and 7 million facing starvation in refugee camps.

A key element in the US game plan for global hegemony is clearly control of the Caspian’s rich oil reserves – estimated to be able to produce 3.3 million gallons of crude oil per day and 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Hence US military manoeuvring in the states surrounding Afghanistan and thus the attaching of the “bogeyman” label to any state perceived as standing in the way of these profits.

Already Kyrgistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are under US military domination and there are US military tent cities in 13 states surrounding Afghanistan, with the map of US bases mirroring the route of a possible oil pipeline which would take oil through Iran to the Indian ocean.

The pretext for the US invasion of Iraq would be Iraq’s refusal to agree to terms laid down by a US-led weapons inspectorate into the country, hence Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union Address that Iraq “continues to flaunt its hostility towards the US” and that “this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world.”

The above may sound like so much scare-mongering, but when it is considered the US now accounts for 40 percent of global military spending, that it spends more on its war machine than the next 19 states, that in the past year it has discarded numerous international treaties, including those pertaining to weapons control, that the space taken up by its military hardware covers an area the size of Sweden, that it has served notice on all countries opposing the notion of US hegemony that their days are numbered, we can’t but conclude that warfare will be as much a part of life in this century as the one we have just emerged from.

We have every reason to be fearful for the future of humanity. War is competition for profits (either via trade routes, mineral wealth, resources or areas of influence) writ large, and to safeguard its future profits, its control of world resources the world’s greatest and largest military power is accumulating an unimaginable array of weaponry, rolling up its sleeves and marching forward to stamp underfoot all it perceives as being a threat to its interests.

John Bissett

Gangster strategy (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Famously, US President Theodore Roosevelt said ‘speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far’. He expanded: ‘If you simply speak softly the other man will bully you. If you leave your stick at home you will find the other man did not. If you carry the stick only and forget to speak softly in nine cases out of ten, the other man will have a bigger stick’. In practice for international relations, this has been interpreted as having credible military capacity, relying on diplomacy and ‘soft power’ first.

In effect, this is the ideology of gangsters. The aim is to get your way by any means, talk backed up by force is the easy way. As the late David Graeber observed, capitalism was founded on an ‘alliance of financiers and warriors’ so this gangsterism cuts to the essence of the worldwide system in which we live. The talking quietly part, though, usually entails telling stories that deny this gangsterism and instead making the narrative about democracy versus autocracy or good versus evil.

The current US President seems willing to dispense with the ‘speak softly’, as evidenced by the recently published National Security Strategy (2025) which with typical modesty envisages a ‘roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history which possesses ‘inherent greatness and decency’. Much of it reads as much of a manifesto as a strategy document, but it is very revealing, especially considering that for years we and others have been arguing that the goals of state foreign policies are to support their access to trade routes and vital resources, and here they are admitting this is the case. Take this piece of nonsensical bombast:

‘President Trump’s foreign policy is pragmatic without being “pragmatist,” realistic without being “realist,” principled without being “idealistic,” muscular without being “hawkish,” and restrained without being “dovish.” It is not grounded in traditional, political ideology. It is motivated above all by what works for America—or, in two words, “America First”’.

This can be summed up as flexible, self-interested and unprincipled. However, the document is clear about the strategic way to achieve that self-interest:

‘We want to recruit, train, equip, and field the world’s most powerful, lethal, and technologically advanced military to protect our interests, deter wars, and—if necessary—win them quickly and decisively, with the lowest possible casualties to our forces’.

They want to do this to keep ‘the Indo-Pacific free and open, preserving freedom of navigation in all crucial sea lanes, and maintaining secure and reliable supply chains and access to critical materials.’ Given this was precisely the background to the wars in Vietnam and Korea, this merely displays Palmerston’s axiom ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow’.

The document recognises, however, that ‘As the United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself, we must prevent the global, and in some cases even regional, domination of others’. Securing these interests means preventing anyone else being able to challenge them. Hence ‘We want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass’. This is at least an honest expression of what has been America’s long-term strategy in the Middle East, except with a determination not to become embroiled in war there.

More broadly: ‘We stand for the sovereign rights of nations, against the sovereignty-sapping incursions of the most intrusive transnational organizations, and for reforming those institutions so that they assist rather than hinder individual sovereignty and further American interests’.

National interests above human or individual rights, a bleak authoritarian doctrine, especially, as the strategy affirms: ‘The outsized influence of larger, richer, and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations.’ Indeed, the aim seems to be precisely to enable such domination by inhibiting transnational bodies.

This can be seen in the section about Europe: ‘We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western identity’. The fetishised ‘Western identity’ politics that sees America as a successor to Rome lives in the minds of many of the current faction in charge of the government there. Hence they also state ‘America is, understandably, sentimentally attached to the European continent— and, of course, to Britain and Ireland’.

The document sees ‘the larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty.’ To that end ‘America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.’ In other words, the strategy document seeks to fragment Europe into nation states, which the US can dominate and use.

An interesting note is that the US seeks to end ‘the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance’ and to ‘reestablish strategic stability with Russia,’ and ‘prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war’ in Ukraine.

The real focus is on the Indo-Pacific part of the globe which ‘is already the source of almost half the world’s GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), and one third based on nominal GDP. That share is certain to grow over the 21st century’. The US there seeks to avoid war ‘by preserving military overmatch’ and to deal with China as a near peer.

Perhaps most unfortunately, the strategy states ‘We reject the disastrous “climate change” and “Net Zero” ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries’. Climate change is a real security threat, that pales all the rest. This document envisages energy dominance and using energy resources to grow the American economy and military power.

This dismal manifesto sees the world continuing to settle disputes, as Shaw put it ‘as dogs settle a dispute over a bone’.

Pik Smeet

The reason why . . . (1991)

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The reason why we will shortly have to go to war with Iraq is not to free Kuwait, though that is to be desired, or to defend Saudi Arabia, though that is important It is because President Saddam is a menace to vital Western interests in the Gulf, above all the free flow of oil at market prices, which is essential to the West's prosperity".

— Sunday Times, 12 August 1990.

". . . Protect oil supplies by force."

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

KUWAIT "ONLY AREA WHERE WE MIGHT WISH TO INTERVENE TO PROTECT OIL SUPPLIES BY FORCE"

Protection of Kuwaiti oil was the United Kingdom's “irreducible interest” in the Gulf—to be defended by force of arms if necessary—according to confidential Whitehall policy papers released after 30-year closure yesterday.

Dick Beaumont, head of the Foreign Office Arabian Department, had written to Sir George Middleton, political resident in the Persian Gulf, on 29 January 1960, saying: “The irreducible interest of the United Kingdom in Kuwait is that ‘Kuwait shall remain an independent state having an oil policy conducted by a government independent of other Middle East producers’. A corollary of this is that Kuwaiti independence will not be preserved unless any government, which might wish to subvert or overthrow it. is convinced of Her Majesty’s Government’s willingness and ability to defend Kuwait by force of arms if necessary".

The previous November, senior defence and foreign policy planners had agreed that: “The only area where we might wish to intervene to protect (oil) supplies by force was Kuwait’’.

—Independent. 2 January 1990.

Common ownership: Our last chance (2006)

From Issue 20 of the World Socialist Review

A recent episode of the PBS program Now, broadcast nationwide in most states on 4/22/2005, announced gravely not only that “scientists are convinced our Earth is warming, and with scary consequences,” but also and even more gravely that “meanwhile industry funds a campaign to do nothing.” The program quoted Dr. Richard Alley, professor at Penn State University, a paleo-climatologist, one who studies the Earth utilizing data from glacier ice and ice sheets. According to Dr. Alley, our planet has on numerous occasions previously experienced a phenomenon known as “abrupt climate change.” His concern, and that of scientists whom the program referred to as “the best minds on the planet,” is that human society is so altering the atmosphere and the climate that it may trigger such an abrupt, indeed possibly catastrophic, transformation of the climate.

A visit to the "Web site of the environmental think-tank EcoBridge lists hefty references suggesting indisputable recent changes in our atmosphere, including increases in carbon dioxide and methane, more frequent extreme weather, disappearing glaciers, melting arctic sea ice, Greenland’s ice sheet melting, tropical diseases spreading, and oceans warming with accompanying coral bleaching and disintegration. Paralleling such dire developments are other examples of human society’s significant transformation of the planet from its condition even a century ago, including enormous deforestation rates (discussed in impressive detail in the article “Destroying the World’s Forests” on the Web site of the World Socialist Movement [WSM]) and the introduction of vast quantities of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that are contributing to ozone layer depletion (also discussed on the WSM Web site in an article entitled “Profit Enhancing Chemicals”). Vast research-based evidence thus appeared to support the hypothesis that the planet is warming and becoming increasingly less hospitable for humans and other animal fife.

Does the future have a future?

What is presumably of greatest concern to those of us who work for a living is the total lack of apparent control that we may exert at present upon the corporations, media and governments whose practices exist to serve the interests of a small percentage of the population. The great historical question is going to be: are we just going to stand around amidst alternating storms of doomsday prophecies and media coverage minimizing the magnitude of the problem, and not take matters into our own hands, even at the risk that our and our children’s future may be horrendously bleak, even non-existent?

For example, according to the above mentioned Now television show, in Congress the House has just approved an energy bill which promises tax breaks and subsidies to coal, oil, and gas companies — the companies most responsible for the mess in the first place! Furthermore, those most opposed to theories of global warming are those such as Senator Inhofe who represent the economic interests of the magnates of his oil-producing Oklahoma. He is ironically the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Committee’s biggest recipient of contributions from oil and gas companies. He says global warming is a hoax.

Ross Gelbspan, a former editor of the Boston Globe, was described in the Now program as having devoted many years to reporting the ways in which the energy industry has attempted to cover up the scientific warnings about global warming. For example, in 1989 the disinformation campaign began when representatives of the petroleum, automotive and other industries formed the Global Climate Coalition, and later the Information Council on the Environment, which was funded by the Western Fuels Association, mostly representing coal interests. The strategy for that campaign, according to Mr. Gelbspan, suggested their drawing on several prominent global warming skeptics, scientists who argue that global warming is mired in unknowns. Mr. Gelbspan found that energy industry leaders had paid those scientists hefty fees and compensations amounting to more than half a million dollars between 1991 and 1995. Some of these scientists, who had engaged the media in interviews to suggest global warming was an unsupported theory rather than a strongly supported hypothesis, reemerged some years later in videos distributed by yet another group, the Greening Earth Society, a group also supported by the coal industry.

In 1997 the Global Climate Coalition appeared in a multimillion dollar campaign to persuade the public that the science behind the international Kyoto agreement to reduce greenhouse gases was shaky. One of those ads stated: “Countries responsible for almost half the world’s emissions won’t have to cut back. Check it out for yourself, it’s not global and it won’t work.” Then President George Bush, former oil man himself, pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Treaty, claiming that “the targets themselves were arbitrary and not based upon science.” According to the Now program, a 2001 memo by Frank Luntz, a well-known Republican consultant, may have played its part in affecting Mr. Bush’s decision, when it advised the White House that the best way to “address the global warming” problem is to “continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”

The May/June 2005 edition of Mother Jones suggested that Exxon Mobil alone contributes to more than 40 policy groups that seek to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

Welcome to Hell

According to a citation in a January 13, 2000 CNN Web site article about scientific experts discussing the overwhelmingly strong evidence for global warming, a conference of the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) comprising over 2,500 scientists, was quoted as having reached a near-unanimous conclusion that global warming was at least partially the result of human activity — primarily the burning of fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide, methane, and others gases into the atmosphere, forming a global “blanket” that traps heat near the Earths surface. The IPCC predicted an increase in global temperatures of between 2 and 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. The panel also predicted the expansion of warming oceans and calculated that the melting of land-based ice formations would combine to add between one and three feet to the existing sea level. The IPCC projected sharp increases in the frequency and intensity of storms and droughts, in the spread of tropical diseases, in coastal flooding and in accelerated waves of extinctions of plant and animal species which fail to adapt to the changing climate.

As suggested earlier in this article, large countries such as the United States may choose to put profits before people in refusing to cooperate with Kyoto Accord limits to greenhouse gas emissions, while other developing nations such as China, a coal-based economy, are likely to vastly surpass the greenhouse emissions of the United States by 2025.

Such is the anarchic nature of the capitalist system. It is comprised in part of vast corporations with vested economic interests to broadcast disinformation to the public and to influence governments to steer policy away from potential threats not to our well-being but to their profit-making. It is also made up of rival nation-states each attempting to care for the economic interests of their own internal capitalist class. Finally, it is characterized by billions of workers whose receipt of information is heavily influenced by the capitalist media over which they have no control.

In other words, even rational decisions by governments, such as those pronounced in the Kyoto Accords, may be thwarted and never realized because of the needs of the few rather than the needs of us many. While some or even many capitalists predictable phenomenon not caused by the negative side effects of industrial society, humans may still need to find a solution to keep themselves and future generations from destruction in droughts, floods, or plagues.

Such complex solutions are not likely to be effectively realized in an intrinsically competitive and undemocratic society, in which the resources we will desperately require are owned by the planets private owners or by rival nation-states. In such a preliminary social order as we presently live under, the economic costs of dollars and cents will likely play a major part of any such grandiose scheme, as there is only so much money to go around. Furthermore, in this hierarchical, class-based society, the major decisions will be made by those with power and privilege, and not by those of us who must work to live and who remain relatively powerless players in the machinations of national or global politics.

Good Decisions Will Require Common Ownership

Or we could decide to take matters into our own hands. By democratically taking over the means of production, to be thereafter considered subject to the common ownership of the whole human species, any drastic solutions that may need to be made by and in the interest of even the entire human race could more readily be achieved, as decision-making over the use of resources will be entirely ours. Whatever we decide, such decisions will be made in harmony with the findings of the scientific community, and we will be able to act upon our decisions immediately, without the endless walls of bureaucracy, finance, politics or power murderously standing in the way of our lives as they are at present with regards to an issue such as global warming that could potentially alter the course of human history.

At what point do humans decide that sustaining the interests of a small gang of owners — whom working-class humans have thus far decided have every right to own the planet and enjoy the fruits and luxuries that workers provide — is not worth the imminent threat of an Earth no longer able to sustain human fife? Scientists are warning us that the point of no return is close by or has already been passed. Do we pretend the problem is not really that bad? Do we passively resign ourselves to a pessimism that announces it is too late to act so why not just embrace a selfish consumerist individualism? Do we continue to trust our politicians to represent our interests even though they have always failed to do so since they are unable to alter and control the laws of the capitalist economy in the interests of us hard working folk?

The barrel of the gun is pointed right now between your eyes. What are you going to do?

— Dr. Who

Venezuela: another failure of reformism (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Venezuela is a petro-state, defined as a country with an economy and government that depend heavily on money from extracting and selling oil and gas. Oil was first extracted there in the 1920s and Venezuela was one of the founding members in 1960 of the oil-producers’ cartel, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), that held the rest of the capitalist world to ransom after the 1973 Yom Kippur War which closed the Suez Canal and led to petrol rationing. The other four founding members were all in the Middle East: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Venezuela in fact has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia.

Ground rent

The main income of a petro-state is ground-rent rather than profit. Ground-rent is an income that accrues to ground owners because they happen to own land that contains some natural resource. In agriculture this would be land that is more fertile. The price of, say, wheat will reflect the cost of growing it on the land which provides the producer with a normal profit. Wheat grown on land that is more fertile than this will sell at the same price, despite the cost of growing it being less. The difference between the price the wheat sells at and the lower cost of production is ground-rent. In other words, those who own land with a lower cost of exploiting its natural resource than at the margin, whether this be wheat or oil, get an extra income above normal profit.

Saudi Arabia, as the country where the cost of extracting oil is lowest, gets the biggest proportional ground-rent. Other oil-producing countries, except those with the highest production costs, also benefit to a greater or less extent. The amount of oil rent a petro-state receives depends on the price of oil, the higher this is the more the rent (which is the economic logic behind the OPEC oil cartel). But OPEC can’t fix the price of oil at will or forever; other factors are involved such as the demand for oil, which fluctuates up or down depending on whether world capitalism is in the boom or the slump phase of its economic cycle.

The Gulf oil-producers are all dynastic states and a large part of the ground-rent they get goes to the ruling dynasty. The rest of the population, mainly immigrant workers from Asia and other Arab states, as non-citizens have no say in how the rent is distributed. Most of them live in poverty while the kings, princes and sheiks and their families live in the lap of luxury.

Politics and the price of oil

Venezuela was different from the other founder members of OPEC in that it was more developed both economically in already having a capitalist economy and politically in that its population were citizens with the right to vote. Because the government was so dependent on oil rents, the course of the political life of the country reflected changes in the price of oil.

From 1948 to 1958 Venezuela was a dictatorship, backed and brutally enforced by the army. During this period oil prices were high but the benefits went to the US oil corporations that had been granted concessions to extract oil, though some was used on infrastructure projects and to enrich the dictator and his political allies.

In 1958 the dictatorship was overthrown and Venezuela became a formal political democracy with competitive elections between rival parties. Successive governments began to take back ownership of the oil as concessions expired. In 1976 all oil in the ground became government property via a state enterprise, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Things were relatively normal until oil prices fell in the 1980s due to the ‘oil glut’ that came about following the post-1973 energy crisis.

The high price engineered by OPEC after the 1973 Yom Kippur War led other capitalist countries to seek and develop other energy sources (coal enjoyed a bit of a revival) and other sources of oil, leading to overproduction. The result in Venezuela was an economic crisis and in 1989 the government imposed an austerity that led to strikes and riots and attempted coups, including one in 1992 led by Hugo Chávez, a young army officer from a poor background. He was jailed but released after two years. On his release, he turned to conventional politics and won the 1998 presidential election, taking office in 1999. He was re-elected under a new constitution in 2000, then, despite a short-lived coup against him in 2002, again in 2006 and 2012.

There is no reason to doubt that Chávez sincerely wanted to improve the lot of the population of Venezuela, particularly the poorest. He was, basically, a populist Venezuelan nationalist. He didn’t claim to be a socialist when first elected president in 1998, just to be anti-elite and for using oil revenue to help the poor majority. It was only in 2005 that he declared himself an advocate of ‘21st century socialism’. In 2007 the name of his party was changed to the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which is still the ruling party there today.

He was lucky in that soon after he first came to power the price of oil rose, providing his government with funds to pay for improved services for the mass of the population:

‘When Chávez took office in early 1999, oil was trading at less than $15 a barrel, but its price started going up almost instantly. By the time he was elected to his third term, in 2006, it was trading at about $60 per barrel; by the time his presidency ended upon his death in 2013, a barrel of oil was worth almost $100’.

With a healthy income from oil rents, the Chávez government was able to improve the living standards of the mass of the population:

‘Chávez’s government focused its efforts on bringing people out of poverty using the surpluses generated by oil revenue, buffered by high market prices. Social spending per person in Venezuela grew, in real terms, 170 percent from 1998 to 2006 and if we included the social spending made directly by Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) the figure reached more than 200 percent per person. In 2008 education spending was more than double what it had been in 1999. The number of people living in poverty dropped from 55 percent in 1998 to 34 percent ten years later. University enrolment has almost tripled since 2000. (… ). All of the redistributive measures undertaken by the government meant that in 2011 Venezuela was, by Gini coefficient, the least unequal country in Latin America …’.

Pretty impressive, which explains why Chávez was re-elected three more times. Some, particularly leftists from Europe, saw this as a successful move from capitalism towards socialism. The prominent Trotskyist Alan Woods (a leftover from the old Militant Tendency) was particularly impressed and met Chávez a number of times, becoming a propagandist for the ‘Bolivarian revolution’. But he wasn’t the only one. Even today some of those demonstrating against the US attack on Venezuela are doing so to defend the regime there because they believe it to be socialist. ‘The Bolivarian Revolution is committed to building socialism and independence’ declares one group (revolutionarycommunist.org). But it wasn’t socialism or a step towards it; it was an attempt to reform capitalism into a less unequal society which appeared to be working due to a period of high oil prices and rents.

Chávez died in 2013 shortly after being re-elected. In a sense he was lucky again, as oil prices eventually fell as a result of the drop in industrial activity that followed the Crash of 2008. He thus avoided being the head of government in Venezuela during a period of falling oil prices. That poisoned chalice was passed to his successor, Nicolás Maduro, and the Chavista military and political bureaucracy that ruled the country.

Maduro’s poisoned chalice

In 2014 oil prices fell from $100 a barrel to $40 and did not rise much again (even today it’s only about $60). The Maduro government was in an impossible position. Unable to maintain spending to benefit the population at its previous level it was forced to cut back. Popular discontent rose and in 2016 opposition parties won a majority in the National Assembly which went on to refuse to recognise that Maduro had won the 2018 presidential election. The ruling bureaucracy was not prepared to give up power and turned to political manipulation and repression to maintain it. The US and Europe, too, refused to recognise that Maduro had been legitimately elected and imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela which continue to this day.

With less income from oil rents the government had to cut the benefits it handed out, with the result that poverty and inequality grew:

‘According to a quality of life study conducted by a group of universities in the country, the Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, reached 56.7 in 2021, surpassing that of Brazil. The research also shows an increase in the income poverty rate, with more than 90% of households living below the poverty line. The most recent data indicate an increase in inequality, with an index of 60.3, and a decrease in income poverty to 80.3% of households, a result of the modest economic recovery of 2022’. (translated from Spanish)

So, while the proportion of people in poverty fell from 55 percent in 1998 to 34 percent in 2008, by 2022 it was up to 80 percent. In 2011 Venezuela had been the least unequal country in Latin America in terms of income. Between 1999 and 2011 the Gini coefficient had fallen from almost 50 to 39. In 2022 it was back up to 60, higher than it had been when Chávez was first elected.

Some of this will have been due to the sanctions imposed in 2019 by the US and Europe but the decline had set in before that. Imposing sanctions is a cruel and cynical policy, arguably worse than military action. Its aim is to make the situation of ordinary people worse in the expectation that they will kick out the sanctioned government. It worked in the sense that it did make people even worse off as the government was forced to cut back yet more on the reforms of the Chávez period, and this did make people more inclined to vote to remove the Maduro government from office. Sanctions do not affect those in charge of the state as they can always ensure that they don’t suffer any personal privations and that adequate resources are attributed in priority to maintaining the state apparatus and its repressive powers.

Capitalist economists say that Chávez should not have distributed so much of the oil rents to improve the position of the poor, but should have instead invested more in developing capitalist industry to provide jobs and incomes to counter what would happen if oil prices and so oil rents fell or oil ran out. This is a lesson that the Gulf sheiks had learned, using their rents not just to lead a personal life of luxury but to convert themselves into capitalists in their own right by investing in industry abroad as well as in their sheikhdoms.

Given capitalism and how it works, there is something in what its economists say, but this is further confirmation that a government cannot continuously redistribute wealth to the poor; this will be unsustainable and lead to economic disaster. To function normally, the capitalist economy requires that even oil rents should be invested in capitalist production, not spent on improving people’s lot.

Living standards in Venezuela fell by 75 percent between 2013 and 2023, driving some 7 million out of a population of 30 million to leave the country to seek a better life elsewhere. Supporters of capitalism gleefully trumpet this as a failure of ‘socialism’. In fact, it was a failure of redistributive reformism that showed both the fragility of reform measures and that no government can keep on redistributing income to the non-owning majority without this eventually ending in economic disaster.

Adam Buick

Venezuela: what has really happened and what may lie ahead (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Venezuela has once again been making headlines around the world. Explosions, military movements, international pressure, mutual accusations and a great deal of confusion. To understand what has happened so far, it is necessary to look beyond the propaganda, both from the Venezuelan government and the US, and from those who defend one gang or the other.

It’s nothing to do with democracy or freedom

The first thing that needs to be made clear is this: the US is not acting out of a desire to defend the Venezuelan people, nor out of love for democracy or human rights. We have seen this many times before in other countries. When a major power intervenes, directly or indirectly, it does so to defend its own economic and strategic interests.

Talk of fighting drug trafficking or restoring democracy serves to justify actions that, at heart, are about political control, natural resources and regional power.

Nor is it about defending ‘sovereignty’

On the other hand, the Venezuelan government and its allies present what has happened as an imperialist attack on national sovereignty. But here is another uncomfortable truth: the Venezuelan state does not represent the interests of the majority of the working class.

For years, millions of people have suffered from inflation, low wages, forced emigration, deteriorating services and repression. All this happened without direct foreign intervention, under a government that claimed to rule on behalf of the people.

Will there be any real change?

There is much talk of ‘regime change’, but in reality what is happening is, at most, a change of administrators within the same system.

As long as there is:

• wage labour,
• production for the market,
• social inequality,
• a state that protects the property and power of a minority,

the lives of the majority will not fundamentally change. Changing a president or a ruling group does not change the system that produces poverty and insecurity.

Will there be more attacks or more pressure?

No one can predict exactly what will happen, but there is a clear logic: as long as Venezuela remains a strategic country because of its oil and geographical position, the pressure will continue, whether military, economic or diplomatic.

This does not depend on whether a government is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but on how states function in a capitalist world in constant competition.

The role of China and other powers

Some believe that China or Russia are a fairer alternative to the United States. But these powers do not act out of solidarity, but out of their own interests. China invests, lends money and negotiates to secure access to resources, economic benefits and international influence.

It is not a struggle between good and evil, but a dispute between great powers, where the workers get caught in the middle.

Internal betrayal?

There is much talk of betrayal, but such language tends to confuse more than it clarifies.

High-ranking officials, the generals and politicians do not betray the people, because they have never governed on their behalf, but rather in accordance with their own interests and privileges. When they switch sides or negotiate, they do so to protect their position, not to improve the lives of the majority.

Who loses out in all this?

The answer is clear: the working class in Venezuela, as well as in the United States and other countries.

Workers do not decide on wars, they do not benefit from sanctions, they do not control resources, and they always pay the price with more insecurity and less of a future.

An uncomfortable but necessary conclusion

What is happening in Venezuela will not be resolved by choosing between Maduro or the US, nor between Washington or Beijing. They all operate within the same system, a system that puts profit and power above human needs. As long as that system remains intact, crises will repeat themselves, with different names and different countries, but with the same losers.

The real solution will not come from leaders, armies or foreign powers, but from the conscious organisation of ordinary people, here and around the world, to build a society where production and wealth are at the service of all and not just a few.

SOCIALISTA MUNDIAL

(Translated from a contribution to a discussion on our Spanish-language Facebook page)

Afghanistan and the new Silk Road (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following testimony by an oil and gas corporation executive (of Union Oil of California) to the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on International Relations on 12 February 1998 throws much light on the strategic importance of Afghanistan to the Western capitalist powers and goes a long way to explain why they have gone to war there.

Mr. Chairman, I am John Maresca, Vice President, International Relations, of Unocal Corporation. Unocal is one of the world’s leading energy resource and project development companies. Our activities are focused on three major regions – Asia, Latin America and the US Gulf of Mexico. In Asia and the US Gulf of Mexico, we are a major oil and gas producer. I appreciate your invitation to speak here today. I believe these hearings are important and timely, and I congratulate you for focusing on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and the role they play in shaping US policy.

Today we would like to focus on three issues concerning this region, its resources and US policy:

• The need for multiple pipeline routes for Central Asian oil and gas.
• The need for US support for international and regional efforts to achieve balanced and lasting political settlements within Russia, other newly independent states and in Afghanistan.
• The need for structured assistance to encourage economic reforms and the development of appropriate investment climates in the region. In this regard, we specifically support repeal or removal of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.

For more than 2,000 years, Central Asia has been a meeting ground between Europe and Asia, the site of ancient east-west trade routes collectively called the Silk Road and, at various points in history, a cradle of scholarship, culture and power. It is also a region of truly enormous natural resources, which are revitalizing cross-border trade, creating positive political interaction and stimulating regional cooperation. These resources have the potential to recharge the economies of neighboring countries and put entire regions on the road to prosperity.

About 100 years ago, the international oil industry was born in the Caspian/Central Asian region with the discovery of oil. In the intervening years, under Soviet rule, the existence of the region’s oil and gas resources was generally known, but only partially or poorly developed.

As we near the end of the 20th century, history brings us full circle. With political barriers falling, Central Asia and the Caspian are once again attracting people from around the globe who are seeking ways to develop and deliver its bountiful energy resources to the markets of the world.

The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region’s total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil – enough to service Europe’s oil needs for 11 years. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day (44 million tons per year [Mt/y]).

By 2010, Western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day (Mb/d) – an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about five percent of the world’s total oil production, and almost 20 percent of oil produced among non-OPEC countries.

One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region’s vast energy resources to the markets where they are needed. There are few, if any, other areas of the world where there can be such a dramatic increase in the supply of oil and gas to the world market. The solution seems simple: build a “new” Silk Road. Implementing this solution, however, is far from simple. The risks are high, but so are the rewards.

Finding and Building Routes to World Markets

One of the main problems is that Central Asia is isolated. The region is bounded on the north by the Arctic Circle, on the east and west by vast land distances, and on the south by a series of natural obstacles – mountains and seas – as well as political obstacles, such as conflict zones or sanctioned countries.

This means that the area’s natural resources are landlocked, both geographically and politically. Each of the countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia faces difficult political challenges. Some have unsettled wars or latent conflicts. Others have evolving systems where the laws – and even the courts – are dynamic and changing. Business commitments can be rescinded without warning, or they can be displaced by new geopolitical realities.

In addition, a chief technical obstacle we face in transporting oil is the region’s existing pipeline infrastructure. Because the region’s pipelines were constructed during the Moscow-centered Soviet period, they tend to head north and west toward Russia. There are no connections to the south and east.

Depending wholly on this infrastructure to export Central Asia oil is not practical. Russia currently is unlikely to absorb large new quantities of “foreign” oil, is unlikely to be a significant market for energy in the next decade, and lacks the capacity to deliver it to other markets.

Certainly there is no easy way out of Central Asia. If there are to be other routes, in other directions, they must be built.

Two major energy infrastructure projects are seeking to meet this challenge. One, under the aegis of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, or CPC, plans to build a pipeline west from the Northern Caspian to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossisk. From Novorossisk, oil from this line would be transported by tanker through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean and world markets.

The other project is sponsored by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), a consortium of 11 foreign oil companies including four American companies – Unocal, Amoco, Exxon and Pennzoil. It will follow one or both of two routes west from Baku. One line will angle north and cross the North Caucasus to Novorossisk. The other route would cross Georgia and extend to a shipping terminal on the Black Sea port of Supsa. This second route may be extended west and south across Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

But even if both pipelines were built, they would not have enough total capacity to transport all the oil expected to flow from the region in the future; nor would they have the capability to move it to the right markets. Other export pipelines must be built.

Unocal believes that the central factor in planning these pipelines should be the location of the future energy markets that are most likely to need these new supplies. Just as Central Asia was the meeting ground between Europe and Asia in centuries past, it is again in a unique position to potentially service markets in both of these regions – if export routes to these markets can be built. Let’s take a look at some of the potential markets.

Western Europe

Western Europe is a tough market. It is characterized by high prices for oil products, an aging population, and increasing competition from natural gas. Between 1995 and 2010, we estimate that demand for oil will increase from 14.1 Mb/d (705 Mt/y) to 15.0 Mb/d (750 Mt/y), an average growth rate of only 0.5 percent annually. Furthermore, the region is already amply supplied from fields in the Middle East, North Sea, Scandinavia and Russia. Although there is perhaps room for some of Central Asia’s oil, the Western European market is unlikely to be able to absorb all of the production from the Caspian region.

Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe markets do not look any better. Although there is increased demand for oil in the region’s transport sector, natural gas is gaining strength as a competitor. Between 1995 and 2010, demand for oil is expected to increase by only half a million barrels per day, from 1.3 Mb/d (67 Mt/y) to 1.8 Mb/d (91.5 Mt/y). Like Western Europe, this market is also very competitive. In addition to supplies of oil from the North Sea, Africa and the Middle East, Russia supplies the majority of the oil to this region.

The Domestic NIS Market

The growth in demand for oil also will be weak in the Newly Independent States (NIS). We expect Russian and other NIS markets to increase demand by only 1.2 percent annually between 1997 and 2010.

Asia/Pacific

In stark contrast to the other three markets, the Asia/Pacific region has a rapidly increasing demand for oil and an expected significant increase in population. Prior to the recent turbulence in the various Asian/Pacific economies, we anticipated that this region’s demand for oil would almost double by 2010. Although the short-term increase in demand will probably not meet these expectations, Unocal stands behind its long-term estimates.

Energy demand growth will remain strong for one key reason: the region’s population is expected to grow by 700 million people by 2010.

It is in everyone’s interests that there be adequate supplies for Asia’s increasing energy requirements. If Asia’s energy needs are not satisfied, they will simply put pressure on all world markets, driving prices upwards everywhere.

The key question is how the energy resources of Central Asia can be made available to satisfy the energy needs of nearby Asian markets. There are two possible solutions – with several variations.

Export Routes

East to China: Prohibitively Long?

One option is to go east across China. But this would mean constructing a pipeline of more than 3,000 kilometers to central China – as well as a 2,000-kilometer connection to reach the main population centers along the coast. Even with these formidable challenges, China National Petroleum Corporation is considering building a pipeline east from Kazakhstan to Chinese markets.

Unocal had a team in Beijing just last week for consultations with the Chinese. Given China’s long-range outlook and its ability to concentrate resources to meet its own needs, China is almost certain to build such a line. The question is what will the costs of transporting oil through this pipeline be and what netback will the producers receive.

South to the Indian Ocean: A Shorter Distance to Growing Markets

A second option is to build a pipeline south from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean.

One obvious potential route south would be across Iran. However, this option is foreclosed for American companies because of US sanctions legislation. The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan, which has its own unique challenges.

The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company.

In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is the shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil.

Unocal envisions the creation of a Central Asian Oil Pipeline Consortium. The pipeline would become an integral part of a regional oil pipeline system that will utilize and gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.

The 1,040-mile-long oil pipeline would begin near the town of Chardzhou, in northern Turkmenistan, and extend southeasterly through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast on the Arabian Sea. Only about 440 miles of the pipeline would be in Afghanistan.

This 42-inch-diameter pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day. Estimated cost of the project – which is similar in scope to the Trans Alaska Pipeline – is about US$2.5 billion.

There is considerable international and regional political interest in this pipeline. Asian crude oil importers, particularly from Japan, are looking to Central Asia and the Caspian as a new strategic source of supply to satisfy their desire for resource diversity. The pipeline benefits Central Asian countries because it would allow them to sell their oil in expanding and highly prospective hard currency markets. The pipeline would benefit Afghanistan, which would receive revenues from transport tariffs, and would promote stability and encourage trade and economic development. Although Unocal has not negotiated with any one group, and does not favor any group, we have had contacts with and briefings for all of them. We know that the different factions in Afghanistan understand the importance of the pipeline project for their country, and have expressed their support of it.

A recent study for the World Bank states that the proposed pipeline from Central Asia across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea would provide more favorable netbacks to oil producers through access to higher value markets than those currently being accessed through the traditional Baltic and Black Sea export routes.

This is evidenced by the netback values producers will receive as determined by the World Bank study. For West Siberian crude, the netback value will increase by nearly $2.00 per barrel by going south to Asia. For a producer in western Kazakhstan, the netback value will increase by more than $1 per barrel by going south to Asia as compared to west to the Mediterranean via the Black Sea.

Natural Gas Export

Given the plentiful natural gas supplies of Central Asia, our aim is to link a specific natural resource with the nearest viable market. This is basic for the commercial viability of any gas project. As with all projects being considered in this region, the following projects face geo-political challenges, as well as market issues.

Unocal and the Turkish company, Koc Holding A.S., are interested in bringing competitive gas supplies to the Turkey market. The proposed Eurasia Natural Gas Pipeline would transport gas from Turkmenistan directly across the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey. Sixty percent of this proposed gas pipeline would follow the same route as the oil pipeline proposed to run from Baku to Ceyhan. Of course, the demarcation of the Caspian remains an issue.

Last October, the Central Asia Pipeline, Ltd. (CentGas) consortium, in which Unocal holds an interest, was formed to develop a gas pipeline that will link Turkmenistan’s vast natural gas reserves in the Dauletabad Field with markets in Pakistan and possibly India. An independent evaluation shows that the field’s resources are adequate for the project’s needs, assuming production rates rising over time to 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day for 30 years or more.

In production since 1983, the Dauletabad Field’s natural gas has been delivered north via Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia to markets in the Caspian and Black Sea areas. The proposed 790-mile pipeline will open up new markets for this gas, travelling from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Multan, Pakistan. A proposed extension would link with the existing Sui pipeline system, moving gas to near New Delhi, where it would connect with the existing HBJ pipeline. By serving these additional volumes, the extension would enhance the economics of the project, leading to overall reductions in delivered natural gas costs for all users and better margins. As currently planned, the CentGas pipeline would cost approximately $2 billion. A 400-mile extension into India could add $600 million to the overall project cost.

As with the proposed Central Asia Oil Pipeline, CentGas cannot begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place. For the project to advance, it must have international financing, government-to-government agreements and government-to-consortium agreements.

Conclusion

The Central Asia and Caspian region is blessed with abundant oil and gas that can enhance the lives of the region’s residents and provide energy for growth for Europe and Asia.

The impact of these resources on US commercial interests and US foreign policy is also significant and intertwined. Without peaceful settlement of conflicts within the region, cross-border oil and gas pipelines are not likely to be built. We urge the Administration and the Congress to give strong support to the United Nations-led peace process in Afghanistan.

US assistance in developing these new economies will be crucial to business’ success. We encourage strong technical assistance programs throughout the region. We also urge repeal or removal of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. This section unfairly restricts US government assistance to the government of Azerbaijan and limits US influence in the region.

Developing cost-effective, profitable and efficient export routes for Central Asia resources is a formidable, but not impossible, task. It has been accomplished before. A commercial corridor, a “new” Silk Road, can link the Central Asia supply with the demand – once again making Central Asia the crossroads between Europe and Asia.

Thank you.

(Was to be found at: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/105th/ap/wsap212982.htm. Now not operational)

The Passing Show: The Eternal Triangle (1952)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eternal Triangle

The attitude of the United States over the Anglo-Persian oil dispute is instructive in view of the protestations of everlasting friendship and alliance which regularly emanate from leading politicians and businessmen in both Britain and America. The British capitalist case is simple. Persia, says the British Government, has stolen the plant and machinery and oil belonging to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and has gone back on the Concession of 1933, by which Persia gave permission to the Company to work its oil. If you believe in the sanctity of private property, this case is unassailable.

Pandering to the Natives

But in spite of the natural attraction of such an attitude to a great capitalist power like America, and in spite of the “ties of blood” which are supposed to connect the two “Anglo-Saxon Powers,” Britain and America are far from being in agreement about the problem. If blood is thicker than water, then oil is thicker than blood. For America wants to secure for itself the valuable Persian supply of oil, and at all costs it wants to prevent it falling into Russian hands; and in order to attain these objectives, it is prepared to disregard the feelings of British capitalists, and even the prized theory of the inviolability of private property. However, America does not want to be too open about its aims. After all, Britain has an important place in American plans for the next war as an unsinkable aircraft-carrier, and so far the natives have been remarkably friendly. There are 30,000 American airmen in Britain, plus anti-aircraft forces and army engineers—easily the largest foreign force ever stationed in Britain in peacetime. Yet Britain has been most deferential in her treatment of these foreign armed troops. For example, members of the American armed forces accused of any crime in Britain are prosecuted in American courts; a concession which Britain herself has not been able to obtain for her own troops in Japan, as the case of the sailors at Kobe emphasised. 

In these circumstances, the Americans do not want to be too blatant in their coercion of the British over Persian oil.

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Iron Hand

But although for these reasons the Americans are wearing the velvet glove, the iron hand is still there beneath. Her oilmen have been beating a path to the door of Dr. Mossadeq, the sworn enemy of the British. Mr. Alton Jones, director of the U.S. Cities Service Oil Corporation, has been touring Abadan and other oil centres, from which the British were expelled, accompanied by representatives of the National Iranian Oil Company and the Persian Government, which expelled them. On September 4th he was said to have “submitted a report to the Prime Minister discussing the possibility of a resumption of oil flow from Persia.” Four days later the American oil buyers Mr. Richard Nelson and Mr. Gerald Waldron, who earlier this year signed a contract agreeing to buy three million tons of Persian oil every year for five years, arrived in Teheran; it was reported that they handed over £70,000 as a first instalment. And it seems unlikely that American businessmen would part with that much money unless they were pretty sure that the American Government would support them against British capitalism which is at present maintaining a virtual embargo on the export of oil from Persia.

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Truman first, Churchill second

In order to put a better appearance on things, America joined with Britain at the end of August to submit new proposals to Persia. The Note was signed by Harry S. Truman and Winston S. Churchill in that order, and this is symbolic of the order in which the interests of British and American capitalism are consulted in the proposals. Seldom has British capitalism lost so much prestige in the course of a single short statement. For in the Note;

1. Britain accepts the fact of nationalisation, that is of the “theft” by Persia of British capitalist property.
2. It is suggested that the question of compensation be submitted to the International Court of Justice, which has already, in July, refused the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company’s appeal that it should decide the question of the ownership of the oil, saying that the matter lay outside its jurisdiction.
3. It is agreed that the International Court shall also take into consideration the Persian claims in respect of the revenue it has lost as a result of its action in nationalising its oil.
4. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company offers to buy the oil which was produced under its management, by its technicians, and is now stored in what were formerly its own tanks in Abadan.
5. The British Government promises (if Persia accepts these terms) to relax restrictions on exports to Persia and on Persia’s use of sterling; and the American Government promises an immediate gift of ten million dollars to Persia.

But Dr. Mossadeq, evidently believing that if America could force Britain to make such sweeping concessions, he will be able to get anything he asks for, has replied making even more demands.

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Jackals

What can be said of the undignified role played by the British Conservative Government in this affair ? The Tories came to power after an election in which all of them, but particularly their leader Mr. Churchill, made grandiloquent and bombastic speeches promising to lift British capitalism again to a position of power and leadership in world affairs; and in the event, the realities of power have forced Mr. Churchill to play the jackal to the Americans just as much as Mr. Attlee ever did. There is now no apter phrase to describe the leader of the British Tories than that which he himself once used to jibe at Mussolini—“this sawdust Caesar.”

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Cause and effect

So many people have been trying their hands recently at suggesting new reasons for war that it seems to have become almost a new kind of parlour game. The main suggestions are fairly well known. Wars break out, it is said, because the other side have always been aggressive. Others say the last peace treaty was too strong, or was not strong enough. Or perhaps you prefer the view which sees the Russians, or the Americans, as inspired by the Devil, and thinks of Moscow, or Washington, as merely branch offices of Hell. There are even those who think we have a lot of wars nowadays because it was forecast in the Bible (this being the view so far as the writer understands it, of the Jehovah's Witnesses). Again, there are the sporting reasons—wars break out because Hitler, or Stalin, never learnt to play cricket in his youth, or because the rival statesmen have never shot grouse together in Scotland (see last month’s Socialist Standard for an elucidation of this interesting new theory).

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He said Hello, but it sounded aggressive

One of the most remarkable of recent suggestions was made to a hall-full of sober scientists at the Belfast meeting of the British Association. The Dally Herald (5-9-52) reported it like this;

“Dr. P. L. Richardson, a Scottish research worker, has spent twelve years studying the relationship between language and war. And, he said, he found there was ‘something bellicose' associated with the Spanish language, and that those who spoke Chinese were likely to be more pacific."

We must certainly give the learned doctor credit for disinterestedness. That is to say. he has made no attempt to square his conclusions with known facts before presenting them to the public. His examples were unfortunate. Spain, for all its bellicose language, is one of the few European countries which managed to keep out of both World Wars. As for the "more pacific" China, it has scarcely known a year's peace since the Revolution of 1911. The internal quarrel between the Communists and the Kuomintang was only patched up in order that both factions could fight the Japanese. Hardly had they been defeated than the Chinese were at each other's throats again. And no sooner had the Communists thrown Chiang Kai-Shek off the mainland than they were in Korea fighting the Americans.

It surely doesn't need twelve years' research in order to perceive that wars are fought because the rulers of one state want something the rulers of another state already have, and want it so much that they are prepared to make war about it. The question of whether the rulers speak Sanscrit or Patagonian has no effect on this issue.

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Quiz

Who made these remarks ?

1. "The people are faced with the choice of consuming less or producing more. 'We' have to sell 'our' goods abroad at competitive prices. If 'we’ price ourselves out of world markets ‘we’ will be creating unemployment."

Was it (A) a wealthy businessman speaking to the council of the Federation of British Industries ? or (B) a "working-class leader" speaking to the Trades Union Congress ?

2. “Wage-demands designed merely to cause unrest in trade unionists' minds, and often 'unrelated to reality' but intended only to buttress extreme political views, could be regarded only as a betrayal of union members. Without an increase in productivity, substantial wage-increases were bound to raise costs. The country's economic difficulties will not be lessened if trade unions pursue a policy which inevitably increases production costs and ‘compels' exporters to ask higher prices for their goods."

Was this (A) a Tory M.P. speaking to an audience of shareholders? or (B) another "working-class leader" speaking at the Trades Union Congress ?

3. "We will be betraying British lads at the front if we do not support rearmament."

Was this (A) General Sir Cuthbert Blimp speaking in 1901 ? or (B) a criminal lunatic on the run from Broadmoor ? or (C) yet another “working-class leader" at the T.U.C.?

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Answers

You were right every time—or you would have been if you had known anything about the present day leaders of the trade unions. For the record, the proud speechmakers were:

1. Mr. Lincoln Evans, member of the General Council of the T.U.C.

2. Mr. Arthur Deakin, president of the T.U.C.

3. Mr. J. F. McDermott, delegate to the T.U.C. from the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers.

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Humanity and Reason

On August 17th the following news item was reported from Hamburg by Reuters:

“Dr. Hermann Ehlers, President of the West German Lower House, speaking yesterday during the unveiling ceremony to Hamburg's 50,000 men, women and children who were killed during air raids in the 1939-45 war, said that nobody in Germany and few people in Britain had raised their voices against total warfare.

Therefore we must think of the one man who publicly protested against this kind of warfare—the Lord Bishop of Chichester, he said. 

Today our special respect is due to the lone caller for humanity and reason."

This will be news to members of the Socialist Party. Socialist speakers and writers protested many times during the war both against the war itself and against the inhumanity with which it was being conducted. It seems hard now to see the credit going to a member of the Bench of Bishops, who, as a body, were among the most bloodthirsty supporters of the war. Socialists agreed that the Germans suffered under the Nazi regime but we never saw the argument that we should help to kill them off in their thousands just to prove our sympathy for them. Socialists refused to help in the murder of the German and Japanese workers, and, for that refusal, some of them spent the war years being hunted by the police. Still, we may take this opportunity of telling Dr. Ehlers that we shall be publicly protesting against total war in any third world war too. We shall be calling for humanity and reason, that is to say, for Socialism, at every opportunity we have. And we shall be opposing the slaughter of the Russians, or of any other "enemy” our rulers may select for us.

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Everything in its place

Mr. Harold Wilson again underlines the difference in the attitude of the Labour and Socialist Parties to war in his latest pamphlet, "The arms programme," he says, “will have to fall into its proper place in our national priorities." So the arms programme has a proper place in our national priorities, Mr. Wilson ? Like the would-be conscientious objector, who to the question "Are you against all wars ?" replied, "Oh no—just this one," the Bevanites are not against all armaments—they just want a few less. One thousand atom bombs, say, instead of one thousand one hundred.

The proper place of the arms programme, Mr. Wilson, is in the policy of capitalist political parties, and that is where it is found. It has no place whatever in Socialist policy.

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Leave it to the Boss

One man out of step at the T.U.C. was Mr. Walter Stevens, of the Electrical Trades Union, who amidst the calls for moderation and restraint in wage-claims, remarked "We shall all find when we make our wage-claims that the employers themselves will inject a sufficient modicum of restraint and we shall not have to bother."

Mr. Stevens, however, might also pass this on to the workers in Russia who suffer the same injections from his friends there.

Alwyn Edgar

Oil and the Arab World (1946)

From the September 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The appearance of the Atomic Bomb has not eliminated oil from the field of production and destruction. The modern nations are controlled by men who have an eye on the main chance. . Everything, no matter how ancient, “holy” or beautiful, is ruthlessly sacrificed to the God of Profit. The system has worked out in such a way that it has brought to the surface all that is vile in human nature : the worst man has the best opportunity: As the Americans say, it is not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the slickest: the cunning and treacherous are able to take advantage of those who are straight: the latter are looked upon as simpletons, fish to be hooked by the anglers of the market: one by one they are kicked into the gutter: the religious world bemoans the fact that their dope no longer works and look around everywhere for more enticing bait, Christianity has so little confidence in its adherents that the keys of the Holy Sepulchre can only be trusted to the hands of the Moslems. The Methodists report a decline of 83,000 in their membership in 10 years. They don’t know why, but we do.

In the early days of Capitalism they preached Hell and Damnation to the children working 16 hours a day in the factories. The fear of hell no longer exists; the wage slave has too much experience of the reality. Religion is a fantastic reflection of the real world; a product of the imagination; it dies in proportion as the real world is understood. Material conditions, and not religious illusions, determine the course of history. Man will be better morally when the economic foundation of the society in which he lives is such that the bias is on the right side. Professor Jenks hit the nail on the head when he said “Morality is the result, not the cause, of social amelioration.”

The countries where civilisation first made its appearance are being brought under capitalist influence as a result of oil, etc., being discovered in these regions. As they are adjacent to what Jews, Christians and Moslems describe as the holy land, it is interesting to ponder over the fact that we shall soon see greater miracles performed there than the followers of Christ ever imagined possible.

A writer in the Sunday Times (July 13th, 1946) quotes from Arabia Phoenix, by Gerald de Gaury, a passage which gives us a vivid picture of the changing scene:

“The transforming properties of magical petrol transcend the most powerful incantations of the Arabian nights; yet its common result is not to make the desert blossom as the rose, but to change an oasis or what not into concrete and tarmac. This comes about through the logic of necessity, though other names have been found for it. Where we landed from a sailing ship on the edge of the virgin dunes of the east coast is now an American industrial town; the centre of the oilfield of the American Oil Company . . .”

“The Wahhabis are going to learn something not in the Koran, evidently. Not date palms, goats, camels, mosques and the smell of herbs and charcoal fires, but quays, derricks, rigs, sheds, pipe lines, power plants, automobiles rushing about and hurrying gangs of workmen. Not the salutation ‘ Peace be with you,’ but ‘ O-kay, boy.’ Irrigation experts from America are busy; the towns of Arabia are linked by wireless stations; the royal camp of hundreds of tents is mechanised; six-wheel lorries rumble through the Wadis. ‘The vast wilds of wild Arabia are as thoroughfares now.’ ”

In the World Review of July, Gerald de Gaury gives us a little more information.

“The main industrial development in Saudi Arabia is at the oilfield at the extreme eastern province of Al Hasa, on the Persian Gulf coast. The Arabian American Oil Company (formerly known as the California Arabian Standard Oil Company), of Delaware, U.S.A., was granted a concession for sixty years in May, 1933, for an area of 300,000 square miles. When oil was struck in 1941 the Company began to make payments on account of royalties, which are paid at the rate of 4s. ‘gold’ per ton of oil produced. The area conceded has since been extended to both the North and South, the whole area now forming a crescent shape along the northern frontier down the Eastern Coast and southwards towards the empty quarters. A refinery with a capacity of 2,500,000 tons a year is nearing completion at the small town of Tannra, on the Eastern Coast. There has been a tentative exploration for oil elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, and for a time a concession was held by Petroleum Development (Western Arabia), Limited, an associated company of the Iraq Petroleum Company, but this was abandoned during the war, when the obligation undertaken could not be fulfilled. There has been a project for a pipeline across Arabia from the oilfield to the Mediterranean, but it is unlikely to hold any economic advantage unless the oil output reaches some 6,000,000 tons per annum. The company has had as many as 8,000 Arab workmen on its books at one time, and it is already having a marked effect on the social life of the people of Eastern Arabia.”

We have recently read of British warships being in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. The great Powers are unable to agree about anything anywhere for long. As capitalism concentrates, the causes of conflict are forced to the surface. Read carefully from La France Libre in the periodical quoted above : —

“Russia has always been considered as being one of the largest oil reservoirs in the world. Her known reserves, according to Professor Gubkine, amounted to 1,000 million tons. But the imperfect exploitation of Russia’s sub-soil lends weight to Gubkine’s further assertion that the certain, and probable reserves amount to 4,600 million tons, thus exceeding those of the United States by 50 per cent. On the other hand consumption has risen to not more than 25 million tons a year; even if it were to rise to the same level as in England it would not appreciably exceed 60 million tons. Of all the great powers Russia was the only one that had no oil problem. But recently her attitude has completely changed. The new orientation shows itself not only in the tracing of new frontiers (the annexation of the oil deposits of Poland and Sakhalin), but also in the strenuous efforts which Russia is now making to obtain a predominant position in the oil industry of Roumania, in Hungary and, above all, in Northern Persia.

Here, according to the recent agreement, half of the production will belong by right to Russia; the other half Persia will have to sell to the highest bidder, which will, no doubt, be Russia, since she offers the natural and most easily accessible market. It should be noted that the concession zone does not touch the frontiers of Turkey or Irak or of Afghanistan—an arrangement intended to allay suspicion as to Russia’s intention in these regions. Given the tension caused by the Russo-Persian dispute in international relations, the new treaty may appear satisfactory, but the crisis serves to remind us that, oil has lost nothing of its powers to engender political conflicts even though that power is to-day confined to the Near East. It is its oil as much as its geography that is making this region the nerve centre of the world.”

The Poets of Persia, sang hundreds of years ago of the tinkling of the camel bells, the song of the nightingale, the beauty of the crescent moon, and the fragrance of the rose.

Then had they time to sit and ponder over the mysteries of the desert. Gone now for ever is the romanticism of this region; the Arab steed is now outpaced by the jeep, the caravan gives place to the railway, the free wild men of the plains are caught in the net of wage slavery.

They will shortly be as bewitched and bewildered by close contact with the mechanism of Capitalism as their forefathers were by the conjuring tricks of the ancient seers.

But they will learn quickly and repeat as they are trying to comprehend the words of our old friend Omar : —

“Could thou and I with fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire.

Would we not shatter it to bits

And then remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”

Charles Lestor