South Africa: metals before morals (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

In July of last year at Helsinki there was a meeting of various foreign ministers called to discuss economic sanctions against South Africa. Delivered to the meeting room was a single sheet of paper from the South African government which carried a list of the metals it exports to the rest of the world. The message was crystal clear, and to gentlemen who deal in conniving it needed no explanation: they knew that sanctions against South Africa might provoke the government in Pretoria into cutting vital metal exports and that any pressure contributing to the downfall of the racist government could bring civil disturbances that would disrupt mineral supplies for the Western and other economies.

How desperately do the Western economies need South African metals and what would be the result of a ban in supplies?

Strategic stockpiles

Western Europe and Japan are the most heavily reliant on South African minerals. In most metals, world reliance is not particularly great because other production sources or mineral substitutes are available; but in two metals, chromium and platinum, a disruption of supplies would be grave. The only country to plan for a shortage of metals is the US. Its $38 billion (US) stockpile contains a 3-year supply of "strategic metals" defined as those coming mainly from unstable countries and at the same time being vital to industry and the military. Until recently stockpile planners made no allowance for South African instability, with the result that, in some important metals, stocks are inadequate. The US stockpile, for instance, is badly deficient in platinum.

There are five metals which South Africa produces enough of to seriously matter if output were disrupted: platinum, vanadium, gold, chromium and manganese.

Vandium, normally included in stockpiles, is a strong metal mainly used in steel for pipelines, bridges and high-rise buildings. According to Peter Robbins, director of the International Metal Trade, Unicoal Metals Ltd, a cut in South African vanadium supplies, "would not be an insoluble problem. Other metals such as molybdenum, can be substituted for vanadium. With the decline in pipeline building, there is lots of both metals around at the moment. China is also a big producer. So if there was a disruption of months rather than years in South Africa, it probably wouldn't affect the market at all" (Toronto Globe and Mail, October 1, 1985).

Similarly with manganese which is in glut and available elsewhere. Used in dry-cell batteries and as one of the main ingredients in alloy steel, it is a cheap metal; the quantities added to steel are small. Having to pay higher prices to alternative producers would not be crippling. Neither would there be drastic problems if South African gold production were hit, though gold prices would rise, according to Antony Murray of the Commodities Research Unit, one of the largest international minerals consulting firms:

More than 90 percent of all gold ever mined is still around on the gold markets. Known world gold stocks are more than 20,000 tonnes — equal to more than 30 years of South African production. In uranium, where there is over-supply, it would be a relief if South Africa stopped production. Diamonds are also an embarrassment. Industry need not worry about the diamond supply (Toronto Star, September 30, 1985).

But what about platinum?

The West seems able to cope with any South African disruption except chromium and platinum:

Chrome consumers who use the metal in making high quality steel for aerospace, petroleum and chemical industries, have already persuaded South African producers to store extra supplies abroad, and West German users are turning to the Philippines as an alternative supplier. Even with this added to government stockpiles, disruption would hurt badly, particularly in Western Europe. Though South Africa produces 30 percent of the world's chrome supplies, Britain, for example, depends on it for 60 percent of its consumption. The British government over the years, could, but didn't, find other suppliers such as Albania, which sells its chrome through an agent in Milan (Leslie Plommer, Toronto Globe and Mail, October 1, 1985).

The West could, perhaps, cope with a partial reduction in chromium supplies by substituting other metals where possible. One problem they would have is that the Soviet Union might withhold its chromium from the West, in its attempts to damage their economies. On the other hand, it might sell. During the Vietnam war, Russia sold nickel to the US (when there was a nickel-miners strike), knowing it was being used for production in the war against the North-Vietnamese, who they were backing. Commodities, including raw materials, are made (or mined) for sale at a profit on the market and one market is as good as another.

To what extent a cut-back in chromium supplies would affect Western economies, would be dependant on how long it would last. A one or two-month disruption would be no major problem, though it would force prices up. However, a 6-month break would create major difficulties.

Equally crucial are the expensive platinum group metals (PMG) of which the most important are platinum, palladium and rhodium. Their uses include catalysts for the petro-chemical industry and for reducing toxic-emissions from cars. Platinum is currently in good supply with prices low and palladium is in glut. Rhodium, however, is in short supply as Japanese and US car production has increased. Its price has quadrupled in a year. Demand for the platinum group is soon to increase further as the European community phases in new exhaust regulations for auto-makers starting in 1987. It could be that a disruption in South African supplies might force suspension of laws on auto-emissions in the US and Japan and a delay of the European measures. Rising prices could also induce jewellery owners - who absorb about 10 percent of world production — to sell their bangles for industrial use. At present no country keeps a stockpile of platinum and at the moment there is only a 3-month world supply in stock. Canada, the only significant Western source, produces one-tenth the volume mined by South Africa. With other metals, it may be possible to find ways of getting around shortages, but with platinum it's not possible. There would be a major industrial disruption, causing technology and industry to be redesigned completely.

Fear of losing supplies

Keith Shaw, senior mining analyst for Laing and Cruickshank, one of London's largest stockbrokers, believes Western dependence on South African supplies across a range of minerals is underestimated. "No country is indespensible", he said, "but, if the US gets tucked into Star Wars, there will be a big increase in the importance of South African metals. In an increasingly high-tech world, South Africa is a sensible supplier of these things" (Toronto Globe and Mail, October 2, 1985).

Experts point to another possibility. South Africa has the power to block mineral exports from Zambia, Zaire, and Zimbabwe. These countries, along the African mineral spine, which stretches from the Congo to the Cape, are huge producers of many of the same metals as South Africa and to export them they are dependant on South Africa for locomotives, sea access and port facilities. Any move against them by South Africa would not only ruin their economies, but increase world reliance on South Africa, even more than at present.

Given the profit-oriented nature of capitalism, there are a few basic points we can be sure of. Governments, elected or otherwise, exist primarily to administer the affairs of capitalism. Since capitalism's very death blood is the profit-motive it logically follows that major government decisions, like major business decisions, are with view to profit, both long term as well as short term. To keep business, hence profits, moving smoothly (or as smooth as possible in the anarchy that is capitalism) they must have the necessary raw materials.

No government gives a damn about ethical and moral considerations, not because they are composed of nasty people and not because many of them weren't concerned before they came to power, but because once in power, they quickly find out there is only one thing they can do — run the affairs of capitalism. The dog wags the tail, not the tail the dog. Whatever politicians say and whatever minor steps are taken against South Africa, there will be no major course of action against it for fear of losing needed supplies. Breaking off diplomatic relations can hardly be considered a major course of action if one still buys from them; that's like not having a chat with your butcher when you buy his meat. Nor would economic sanctions solve anything.

History has proven that racial prejudice cannot be eradicated within capitalism, a system which, by its very class divisions and the competitiveness these create, divides worker against worker. Only by recognizing that socialism (as defined below) alone is the answer to the major social problems and that political organization is the way to achieve it, can people really start to remove apartheid, racism and economic sanctions as well as all forms of economic blackmail.

Ray Rawlings

(Canada)

Material World: Pillaged and plundered for green capitalism (2022)

The Material World column from the December 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

COP27 in Egypt is done and dusted, promises doomed to be disappointments much to the dismay of the eternal optimists in the ecology movement. However, there are deeper problems for those who seek a new sustainable future of renewable energy.

Many have yet to come to understand that for new technologies to act as substitutes for fossil fuel, lithium, cobalt and other rare metals and minerals that you have never heard of are required. Transitioning to clean energy will lead to a huge expansion in mining for them. The World Bank estimates an additional 3 billion tons of minerals and metals will be needed for wind, solar and geothermal power generation and energy storage.

White Gold

‘Lithium and rare earths are already replacing gas and oil at the heart of our economy… So we have to avoid falling into the same dependency as with oil and gas’, explained European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (bit.ly/3Ulz1i5).

On 14 September, she announced the European Critical Raw Materials Act, aimed at securing a sustainable supply of critical raw materials for Europe to lessen its dependency on other suppliers

With just five countries controlling 90 percent of world lithium production, the International Energy Agency calls it a ‘quasi-monopoly’ situation.

Since 2015, production volumes of lithium, known as ‘white gold’, have tripled worldwide, reaching 100,000 tonnes per year in 2021, and expected to increase sevenfold by 2030. At the European level, about 35 times more lithium will be needed in 2050 than today. A single electric vehicle battery requires 63 kilograms of lithium carbonate, so 16 vehicles need just over a metric ton.

Olivier Vidal, a geologist and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said ‘This will certainly create tensions in the coming years, with expected increases in costs and, possibly, supply difficulties. So, there is a real strategic and sovereignty issue for states’ (bit.ly/3sSjGtI).

Mining projects often face public protest. Lithium extraction ‘produces considerable volumes of waste that must then be stored. The waste can also lead to water or air pollution,’ explained Vidal. Today, this pollution already exists, but in other countries, far from our eyes.

Dirty Cobalt

Cobalt’s use in electronic semiconductors, circuits and lithium-ion rechargeable batteries makes it critical to the global economy and ‘green’ technology. Besides renewable energy storage, cobalt is used in powerful magnets found in wind turbines and as an additive to improve biogas production.

Whereas a phone contains just thousandths of a gram of cobalt, an electric vehicle battery has pounds of the metal. Tesla’s ambition to produce 20 million electric vehicles a year in 2030 will require two times the present global annual supply.

The Congo is referred to as ‘the Saudi Arabia of cobalt’ as it supplies almost three quarters of the world’s cobalt from often hazardous, and exploitative working conditions akin to modern slavery, involving forced labour, debt bondage, human trafficking and child labour.

Those who promote renewable energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines and electric batteries risk damaging ecosystems and harming local communities in the extraction of raw materials. Hopes of a low-carbon economy may well replicate the destruction of the environment caused by the fossil-fuel industry. The threat of resource wars does not disappear. It has already been suggested that the 2019 coup overthrowing Bolivia’s former president, Evo Morales, was motivated by competition between countries for its lithium supplies.

Do these problems lead to the conclusion that socialism will fail to be sustainable? An alternative, described as ‘green lithium’ exists. Unlike extraction from rocks or salt deserts, which function like traditional mines, ‘green lithium is produced from geothermal sources, with an extraction method similar to that of a well. However, the technique presently remains too expensive to be considered at a commercial level(bbc.in/3SRSAND).

Also, since lithium batteries are a relatively new development, recycling is not keeping pace yet. But by 2035, electric vehicle batteries will be coming to the end of their life and therefore will be recycled. According to the studies, 40 to 75 percent of the EU’s lithium needs could be met through recycling by 2050 reducing environmental damage.

All this means that rivalry between capitalists and countries for control of the source and deposits of those elements will continue unabated. Mining corporations will carry on looting the land, with the customary civil strife and proxy wars taking place. Our message to those aspiring to a new green future is that nothing changes if the system doesn’t change, too.

ALJO

Material World: Africa: from bread-lines to bread-basket? (2022)

The Material World Column from the June 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

North Africa was called the granary of the world during the time of the Roman Empire and it may surprise many that the richest person in recorded history was allegedly not a Rothschild, Rockefeller or even Elon Musk but an African ruler from the 14th Century, Mansa Musa, who possessed wealth of around $400 billion in today’s terms.

The media’s coverage of Africa tends to be a rather negative one of human suffering, accompanied by pessimistic predictions for the continent’s future. Africa’s great potential is ignored and its promising possibilities neglected, leading to a public impression in the developed world that Africa survives only through the humanitarian compassion of outsiders offering foreign aid and philanthropic charity. There needs to be a seismic shift in people’s perception of what Africa can achieve.

The March 2020 Material World described how the Guinea Savannah, a region of arable agricultural land, is not fully utilised but could enable Africa not only to feed its rapidly growing population but, in addition, produce a surplus to supply the rest of the world with food.

Contrary to commonly held belief, new research has determined that the Sub-Sahara is not as lacking in water sources as once was thought. There exists sufficient groundwater located in underground aquifers, much of it untapped, to irrigate and transform agriculture in the region, providing people with sufficient safe water, as long as it was sustainably managed and not unnecessarily polluted.

According to recent research by more than 200 experts sub-Saharan Africa could increase crop production by more than 500 percent in some countries in the region. Malawi’s agricultural production could grow by more than 700 percent while Tanzania has the potential for a 17-fold rise in crop production and is able to double its livestock. Zambia, too, can double its livestock numbers and increase crop production by 564 percent.

Tim Wainwright, the chief executive of WaterAid UK, said:

‘Our findings debunk the myth that Africa is running out of water. But the tragedy is that millions of people on the continent still do not have enough clean water to drink. There are vast reserves of water right under people’s feet, many of which are replenished every year by rainfall and other surface water…’

The study found that every sub-Saharan African country could supply 130 litres a day of drinking water per capita from groundwater without using more than a quarter of what can be renewed, and most using only about ten percent.

The recent UN annual World Water Development Report found that only 3 percent of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa was equipped for irrigation, and only 5 percent of that area used groundwater, even though groundwater is often abundant in the region. It explains that while some groundwater is quickly replenished by rainfall there are aquifers that have been untapped for millennia now within reach of modern pumping methods and risk being drained. This ‘fossil water’ is not replaceable across human time scales.

To add further caution, the Oakland Institute think-tank has published a study warning that transnational corporations see a profitable opportunity:

‘When irrigation infrastructure is established, it benefits private firms for large-scale agriculture, often for export crops, instead of local farmers and communities. People living in arid and semi-arid lands are severely impacted by large-scale irrigation projects that reduce available pastures, and prevent flood recession agriculture, while fences and canals cut through traditional routes of people and livestock.’

Africa holds a rich abundance of minerals and metals, vital for the planet’s future. It holds 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, 40 percent of the world’s gold and up to 90 percent of its chromium and platinum. Cobalt is a key metal used to produce batteries. In 2019, 63 percent of the world’s cobalt production came from the ‘Democratic’ Republic of the Congo. Tantalum capacitors are found in mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. The DRC and Rwanda together mine half of the world’s tantalum.

Africa’s tragedy is capitalism. Robbed of their lands, deprived of all means of independent economic existence, and compelled to work for poverty wages, the conditions of our African brothers and sisters have been tragic.

Certainly, there is corruption by kleptocratic dictators but they cannot function without the complicity of the corporations and the acquiescence of finance institutions. In the capitalist international division of labour, it currently suits most of Wall St, the City of London and Shanghai stock exchanges to keep the continent undeveloped rather than encourage manufacturing. The world’s capitalists prefer to loot and pillage resources from Africa instead of creating a viable economy which would compete with their own.

Our fellow workers in Africa should embrace the socialist concept of the cooperative commonwealth. Africa needs to erase frontiers to create a wider integrated society, based upon the free collaboration of all peoples. Africa cannot resolve its crises by nationalism nor with fraudulent reforms. There needs to be a return to the earlier history of shared communal land that is presently passing out of their hands.

A truly liberated Africa will be built upon associations of mutual aid with all the peoples of the world.

ALJO

The Problem of High Prices. (1912)

From the August 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present is a period of high prices. Workers and merchants alike are grumbling and wondering at this troublesome phenomenon. The workers are in a state of half-conscious rebellion; strikes are frequent; attempts are made to bring wages up to the standard of the new prices of commodities. Merchants are receiving stereotyped letters all telling a like story: “Owing to the high cost of raw materials and fuel, and the increase of wages and salaries, the National Insurance Act, etc., etc., we are reluctantly compelled to raise our prices ten per cent."

Though a wholesale or retail merchant is well aware of the difficulty of getting enhanced prices, yet they jump to the conclusion that the manufacturer is raising prices simply because of his wicked individual craving to do so, in order to meet new expenses, etc. This we know to be absurd ; but what of capitalist combines? what of associations and selling agreements betwixt rings of ambitious exploiters ? Have these associations the power to do what economists say a number of competitors are powerless to do ? Are the admitted effects of supply and demand upon prices cancelled when capitalists form combines and “artificially" attempt to raise prices?

A trust may raise prices so extravagantly that another article is substituted. For instance, in normal times there can be no fancy price for coal: oil and electricity are ever feared by our coal barons.

Mr. Chiozza Money thinks that an important cause of present high prices is the increasing scarcity of tin, copper, and other metals. But even if a metal such as tin is scarce; even if it is scarce and a monopoly, there are obvious limits to prices—even to prices based upon a monopolist’s desires. If tin were to reach a much higher price it is probable that it would be rendered obsolete for domestic and other uses by aluminium ware, for the exploiters of a new article are ever on the watch ready to seize a new market.

But it is probable that laws operating under a regime of competition are cancelled under monopoly. If a coterie of capitalists can control the output in any trade, it would seem as if, within certain limits, they can raise prices. Now especially, when “trade is good," can prices be easily raised in well-organised trades; arrangements to raise prices have even been successful over periods of very slack trade. To the writer’s knowledge, amongst other things, wire fencing and cast iron holloware, articles subject to open competition and which anyone could manufacture, nave been price-maintained for years by a compact between capitalists which covered the whole trade. Better known instances are oil, screws, wallpaper, cotton thread, linoleum, tobacco, etc. The predominance of proprietary articles, price maintenance schemes, capitalist pools, and other such factors, are causing people to ask the question whether the influence on prices of supply and demand is not being modified by that “capitalist will’’ which economists once thought had so little influence. This issue is then raised : That if the profits in any trade rise above the average profit in all trades, then new capital is attracted to the super-profitable trade. Competition thus becomes more keen and profits tend down again to the normal. Is it not possible, however, for a newcomer in a trade that is protected by arranged prices, to be met with overtures and blandishments if he joins in the price scheme, and threatened with “price cutting" if he remains obdurate? Such a line of action would certainly not be novel.

The laws operating under competition are likely to be altered under monopoly, and even if the desires of capitalists have not unfettered scope, yet by plotting and using discretion it would seem as if they can obtain good financial results by arrangements amongst themselves, and can influence prices to a greater extent than was thought possible by economists.

Karl Marx and capitalist economists agreed in seeing a connection between cheap gold and high prices. Mr. McCulloch said: “It has been contended, by Mr. Locke and others, that the value of the precious metals is imaginary, or that it depends on the consent of the nations who have adopted them, to serve as a circulating medium. . . . Gold is not more valuable than iron, or lead, or tin, because of its greater brilliancy, durability, or ductility ; but simply because an infinitely greater outlay of capital and labour is required to produce a given quantity of gold than is required to produce the same quantity of either of these metals. ... It is sufficiently well known that those who employ their capitals in the working of gold or silver mines do not, upon the average, obtain any greater returns than those who are engaged in raising of coals or the manufacture of bricks. The production of the precious metals is not subjected to any species of monopoly or restraint. All individuals at their pleasure may employ capital in the extraction of bullion from the mines; and there is no conceivable limit to the extent to which its supply may be increased." To all this (save the babble of “capital and labour ") a Socialist can subscribe.

Marx, in his monograph on “Wage Labour and Capital," says: “ In the sixteenth century the gold and silver in circulation in Europe was augmented in consequence of the discovery of America. The value of gold and silver fell, therefore, in proportion to other commodities. The labourers received for their labour the same amount of silver coin as before. The money price of their labour remained the same, and yet their wages had fallen, for in exchange for the same sum of silver they obtained a smaller quantity of other commodities.”

According to “Whitaker's Almanack" the production of gold for the whole world since 1901 has taken the following course: In 1901 £54,000,000; in 1904, £69,000,000; in 1907, £85,000,000; in 1910, £95,000,000. And with the increasing quantities there have been discovered improved methods of treating the ore which lower the cost of production and renders the gold cheaper.

The two factors dealt with—cheaper gold and capitalist co-operation —would appear to account for the upward tendency of prices. Anyone hoping to benefit the workers by an attack on these two things is a reformer. They are effects of the capitalist system and only the destruction of capitalism will check such anti-social growths. There are the trade unions, struggling despairingly to keep wages on the track of advancing prices; there are currency cranks with financial fads for social salvation. Well, the progress of the Socialist movement may seem slow to those in the thick of the fight, but our progress is lightning-like compared with the injuries inflicted upon capitalism by such puny fighters. The effects of capitalism upon prices, the commodity quality of price will only cease when capitalism bites the dust.

John A. Dawson.

Siberian capitalism (2004)

From the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the January 2000 issue of this journal, under the title “Sent to Siberia” we described the development of the Norilsk Metallurgical Combine and the emergence of the city of Norilsk. It has been, and is still called, the Frozen Hell. Before 1935, there was nothing there except a few reindeer and reindeer-hunters. But shortly after, nickel and other metal deposits were discovered.

The then Soviet rulers were only able to develop the area by shipping in hundreds of thousands of dispossessed kulaks, and other peasants and workers, as forced labourers in what we described as Russia’s era of the “primitive accumulation of capital”. At that time all such projects, and all the major means of production, were developed and subsequently owned by the state, which was controlled by a minority of “communist” apparatchiks, of whom many ultimately evolved into a privileged and increasingly prosperous nomenklatura or state-capitalist class.

Following the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union many large enterprises and combines were privatised, and the workers were no longer exploited by the state. The Norilsk Metallurgical Combine was one such enterprise. Vladimir Potantin, already a privileged apparatchik, was able like many other former Soviet bosses to take advantage of the new privatisation laws and, as a business partner of George Soros, acquire the Combine in 1995 for a fraction of its actual value. He soon became one of Russia’s richest industrialists. He and not the state then exploited the workers. And the Combine is now called a Mining Company.

But what of the workers who have created his riches? And what kind of place has the city of Norilsk become?

Pollution and poverty

Since November 2001, Norilsk has, as in Soviet times, been largely closed to foreigners. But after considerable trouble, Nick Walsh managed to get permission to visit the city in 2003. He described the situation and the condition of the workers in the Guardian (l8 April 2003). In the winter the temperature dropped to –62oC which, due to global warming, was about 10oC milder than ten years previously. In the summer, the temperature can reach 23oC, but only for two weeks. Every day the soot from the Mining Company turns the snow black, and the mine sends 5,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, which makes the air taste sour.

Indeed, the Norilsk Mining Company produces one seventh of all factory pollution in Russia. Every year, it churns out two million tonnes of waste gas, and 85 million cubic metres of dirty water. Its impact, say ecologists, is felt as far away as Canada and Norway, and it is killing the forests for hundreds of miles.

   

Walsh comments: “In Russia, big business runs much of the country, so few even raised a quizzical eyebrow when, last year, the co-chairman of Norilsk Nickel, Alexander Khloponin, was elected governor of the local Krasnoyask region. Last year, he declared his income to be £1m a month, but reportedly earned £30m in share dividends alone.”

A Norilsk Nickel Company spokeswoman accepted that only four percent of all adults in the city were healthy. The hardest working 12 percent of the Company’s workers may retire at 45, but one worker told Walsh that “you pay all your life towards a pension you don’t live to collect”. Most workers cannot afford to leave Norilsk, as they do not earn enough to buy a house elsewhere. They average between £200 and £500 a month. Says Welsh: “They live, work and reproduce for the Company. The money goes round, and eventually people pass away. The city’s isolation means that they pour their wages into Company-owned shops and facilities.”

A market economy

Krasnoyarsk, a city of 900,000 inhabitants almost 1,000 miles south of Norilsk, is the administrative centre of the Central Siberian area. Like Norilsk, it has been depressed and is probably in terminal decay. But it is the home of the giant Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Company, owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal Group. The smelting plant is the second biggest of its kind in the world, producing more than 930,000 tonnes of aluminium a year.

In Soviet times, says Terry Macalister, writing this year in the Guardian (23 June) from Krasnoyarsk, the plant produced aluminium pots and pans for domestic kitchens, but now produces aluminium ingots, which are shipped all over the world, including to Britain, where Oleg Deripaska has a stake in the Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus. Jobs at the aluminium smelter, which originally employed 10,000 in Soviet times, have been cut in the last twelve months to 6,700. Duncan Hedditch, who is the tough new Australian boss of the plant, says that he hopes to reduce the number of workers to below 5,000 within three to four years. Yet at the same time, Deripaska is expanding productivity and, therefore, increasing the exploitation of the remaining workers, and investing $270m in modernising the plant.

The Krasnoyarsk aluminium plant produces three percent of the world’s aluminium, and consumes half a million tonnes of carbon every year. Some of the workers earn quite high wages by Russian standards: $800 a month, compared with an average of $250. But the going is tough. And, like the miners of Norilsk, the workers of the Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Company generally do not live to old age.

Workers of Norilsk and of Krasnoyarsk, like workers the world over, cannot win under capitalism, state or private. Many of their problems, however, would be solved by establishing socialism, although others such as pollution and the effects of ill-health, would take longer to eliminate. But, at least, a start could be made.

Peter E. Newell

Material World: Rare Earth Metals and the Not-So-Clean Energy Economy (2011)

The Material World Column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The extraction, transport and burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – are directly responsible for widespread environmental devastation. The struggle over control of these resources has also long been a major cause of international conflict.

But let’s look to the future. The shift to a “clean energy economy” based on solar, wind and other renewable power sources has finally begun. True, it is too slow and too late to avert some disasters arising from climate change. All the same, surely there is reason to hope that renewable energy will eventually bring us relief from war and pollution?      

Not necessarily. Sun, wind and tides are hardly in short supply, but there are certain areas where conditions are best for harnessing their power. It is conceivable that conflict will arise over control of these areas.

Rare earths

A more immediate issue concerns some of the material resources required to generate renewable energy and produce machines that run on such energy. In particular, our masters are currently very worried about ensuring adequate and stable supplies of the 17 elements known as “rare earth metals”. Due to their special properties, these metals have numerous crucial uses in high-tech industrial, medical, scientific, military and computer equipment. Their “clean energy” applications include the manufacture of magnets for wind turbines, energy-efficient fluorescent lamps, and batteries for hybrid and electric cars.

The metallic elements themselves are not all that rare in the planet’s crust, but they are highly dispersed. It is the soils (earths) containing concentrated mineral ores that are relatively rare, though they have been found in several parts of the world, such as South Africa, India, Vietnam, Australia and North America. Currently, however, China has a near-monopoly on the extraction of rare earth metals, controlling about 95 percent of global supply – and for certain elements over 99 percent.

Potential for conflict

In September 2010, China suspended exports of rare earth metals to Japan after a Chinese trawler fishing in disputed waters in the East China Sea collided with Japanese Coast Guard vessels and its captain was detained. He was soon released and exports resumed. The incident prompted hack Paul Krugman to castigate China as a dangerous and irresponsible “rogue economic superpower” (New York Times, Oct. 17).

More significant is the long-term trend for China to place increasingly strict limits on exports of rare earth metals to all countries. In 2009 it became known that the Chinese government was planning to ban exports of five especially rare elements altogether. Under strong pressure from Western governments and corporations, the ban was replaced by annual quotas.

Despite the accusations that China is exploiting its near-monopoly to bully other countries, its main reason for restricting exports is probably a desire to give priority to satisfying rapidly rising domestic demand, fuelled by China’s own technological development. The US and other countries have responded to the situation by urgently exploring and developing alternative sources of supply. Nevertheless, there is clearly a growing potential here for international conflict (whether involving China or not), especially as the shift to the “clean energy economy” gathers pace.

Toxic sludge

The mining and processing of rare earths is an extremely dirty process. Refining them to extract pure metals requires the use of toxic acids. Ores are often radioactive due to the presence of uranium and thorium. The disposal of toxic waste is an enormous problem.  

Almost half (45 percent) of the current world output of rare earth metals comes from a mine in the town of Baotou Obo, part of the larger mining district of Baotou in Inner Mongolia. Baotou is right on the Yellow River, on which much of North China depends for water. The Baotou section of the river is already contaminated with copper, lead, zinc and cadmium (Fan Qingyun et al., Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability, June 2008).

The waste from the rare earth metal mine in Baotou Obo – a radioactive sludge laced with toxic compounds – is pumped into a reservoir (10 square kilometers in area) surrounded by an earthen embankment. If (when?) there is an accident similar to what happened in October 2010 in Hungary, where another reservoir of toxic sludge burst its banks, this mass of poisonous goo will engulf local residents and pour into the Yellow River, further enriching its chemical composition.

Not so clean

On close examination, therefore, the “clean energy economy” turns out to be not so clean after all. Renewable energy may still be a big improvement on fossil fuels, but in itself it will solve neither the problem of war nor that of environmental devastation.

What will be the policy of socialist society regarding the use of rare earth metals? What will be done with the waste? Or will people somehow manage without these substances?

Socialism will mitigate the problem in a number of ways. Less material will be required because there will be no built-in obsolescence: equipment will be made to last for very long periods. And, of course, there will be no production of military equipment. Without the imperative to maximise profits, much higher priority can be given to protecting the environment.

Yet mitigating a problem is not the same as solving it. What if the supply of a certain material is essential to the satisfaction of human needs, but no technical means can be found of extracting it without serious harm to the environment? Even the people of socialist society are likely to find themselves facing hard choices.

Stefan

The Law of Value and the Dearness of Commodities. by Paul Lafargue (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Economic materialism, or to be more exact, economic determinism, which allows us to explain human evolution and which provides a scientific basis for history, and the law of value, the key to the secrets of commodity production, dominate the theoretic work of Marx.

The law of value demonstrates that the value of a commodity is constituted by the quantity of human labour therein incorporated. Allow that, says the Belgian economist, Laveleye, and Marx will prove to you, with his iron logic, that capital is unpaid labour, stolen labour.

The law of value, which culminates in such a frightful conclusion, has been the nightmare of the economists; those amongst them who have any scientific pretensions have take the field to overthrow it. All those who have attacked it have proclaimed, with as much exultation as the “socialistic” intellectuals, who for this ten years past announce from time to time “the decomposition of Marxism”, that they have demolished the law of value, although this does not prevent new combatants, judging incomplete and in vain the wrecking work of their forerunners, from going on the warpath to make mincemeat of it.

The law of value, which has victoriously withstood all the assaults of the economists, alone can explain the general rise in the prices of commodities, the cause of  which has been vainly sought. I will try to demonstrate this.

To propagate communism, to organise the workers in a class party and to struggle for the conquest of the public powers — to study the theoretic work of Marx and to use the two powerful intellectual tools, economic determinism and the law of value, that he has put at our disposal for interpreting historical events and economic phenomena, are yet some of the best ways to honour the memory of the militant agitator and communist thinker.

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The rise in the prices of commodities is general in the commodity producing countries of Europe and America; it is felt as far as China, which is scarcely beginning to enter capitalist civilisation. This rise is the more extraordinary as a general fall in prices would rather be expected, since, one after the other, industries are using more and more perfect machinery, which, in multiplying tenfold and a hundredfold human productivity, lower the prices of their products.

The dearness of necessaries weighs heavily upon the workers, who, if they do not buy iron girders, electric machines, silken stuffs and other industrial products, live upon bread which should be cheaper, since the production of wheat, which forty years ago, was in France from 14 to 15 hectolitres to the hectare, is to-day, thanks to agricultural progress, from 19 to 20 hectolitres.

Newspapers and magazines inquire into the causes of this disconcerting economic phenomenon. The recognised defenders of capital, without bothering their heads very much, have unearthed the true cause; they declare unanimously that the workers’ higher wages and expenditure for luxuries and holidays let loose the tide of rising prices in the capitalist world. This cream tart has not quite satisfied the economists, who attribute its loosing to gold.

Some say that the quantity of gold serving commercial transactions is insufficient, although it increases every year by half-a-million of francs. Gold being relatively rare, its price, according to the law of competition, should rise, that is to say that the same quantity of gold should buy more merchandise; and it is precisely the contrary; one must give more gold for the same quantity of merchandise.

Others pretend that gold abounds, that the mines of Africa and America have thrown so much of it upon the market, that its price, still according to the law of competition, is depreciated every day and that it is to stop this decline that the Transvaal mining companies are trying to form a trust.

However, during these last sixty years, whatever has been the quantity of gold produced, it has always been immediately and completely absorbed by the needs of commercial transactions, of which the volume increases yet more rapidly than the amount of gold thrown upon the market. The American crisis precisely began by an insufficiency in the quantity of gold that the banks of New York and other cities had at their disposal; and in order to curb this financial crisis, which, as always, preceded the crisis of over-production, it was necessary to import from Europe all the gold available.

Nevertheless, it is in the variations of the value of gold that we must seek for the cause of the general rise in the prices of commodities.

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Gold and silver, because of their special qualities, have been chosen from all the metals to be monetised and to serve for national and international means of exchange. The capitalist nations thought that once for all their values could be established in the proportion of 1 to 15, that is to say that 1gramme of gold was worth 15 grammes of silver; and it is according to this proportion that they have struck their gold and silver money. For example, a 20 franc gold piece weighs 6.6 grammes, while 20 silver franc pieces weigh 100 grammes. But this legal proportion, guaranteed by the governments of the bourgeois nations, is a lying fiction, as are the institutions and the principles of capitalist society.

Melt down 3 one franc pieces and you will get a little mass of silver weighing 15 grammes; take it to a dealer in precious metals and ask him to exchange it for 1 gramme of gold; he will refuse – he will ask of you 36 grammes of silver for 1 gramme of gold; for at the current rate the kilogram of gold is worth 3,427 francs and the kilogram of silver 95 francs, that is, only one-thirty-sixth as much. And if he knows a little of the history of monetised metals, he will tell you that since 1838 the legal proportion between gold and silver has been real but once: in 1861; and he will add that from 1833 to 1864 the variations of the legal proportion were maintained within narrow limits; but that in 1872 began the fall in the value of silver, and that in 1876 an English commission was appointed to inquire into the depreciation of this metal.

Variations in the Value of Gold and Silver from 1833 to 1908

Years      Gold                           Silver

1833        1 gramme is worth    15gr. 41

1840        1                               15gr. 12  

1852        1                               15gr. 09

1859        1                               14gr. 70

1861        1                               15gr. 00

1872        1                               16gr. 13

1876        1                               18gr. 56

1908        1                               36gr. 07

The values of gold and of silver then, are not fixed quantities, since they have continually varied in the course of three-quarters of a century. Why have they varied?

From 1833 to 1852 the value of silver falls, since one must give 15 grammes and a fraction of silver for one gramme of gold. During the period 1852 to 1859 the mines of Australia and of California had thrown their gold upon the market. An economist said that gold was depreciated by its abundance; however, in 1857 there broke out in the United States a financial crisis, because, as in 1907, there was not enough gold, because there was disproportion between the volume of business and the quantity of money capital necessary for the transactions.

But two years later gold goes up again and one must give 15 grammes of silver for 1 gramme of gold. And from 1872 down to our day the value of silver decreases constantly. During the period from 1872 to 1908, gold and silver have been produced in great quantity: it is then not their scarcity in the market that can have caused their variations in value.

The reasons given by the economists, therefore, cannot explain these variations in value of gold and of silver, which are explainable only by the Marxian law of value.

From 1833 to 1852 only the old gold and silver mines are worked and the methods of extraction remain the same, that is why the values of gold and of silver are about constant. But from 1852 begins the working of the Australian and Californian gold mines, which being very rich, exact less human labour for the extraction of the metal; gold consequently loses value, while silver, which continues to be extracted with the same quantity of human labour, keeps its value. When the Australian and Californian mines become worked out, the extraction of the metal exacts more human labour, the value of gold goes up again and in 1861 gold and silver are at par, that is to say, their values correspond with the legal proportion.

From 1864 on, silver mines of extraordinary richness are worked in the United States and in Mexico and for the same reasons the value of silver falls, while gold keeps its value.

During the course of the last 75 years gold and silver have alternatively lost value, because the metal extracted contained less human labour, as according to Marx’s law, the value of all commodities of capitalist society (wheat, precious metals, boots, cotton stuffs, etc.), is measured by the quantity of human labour that it was necessary to expend in order to produce them.

When in an industry the introduction of a machine reduces the required labour, not only the commodities produced with this machine lose value, but also, the commodities of the same industry that are produced without its aid: for the same reason the quantities of gold extracted in California and in Australia from 1852 to 1859 and the quantities of silver extracted in the United States and in Mexico from 1872 to 1908 have, not alone fallen in value, but have lowered the value of all gold and of all silver circulating in the capitalist world.

The exhaustion of the Australian and Californian gold mines, in rendering mining as costly in human labour as before, caused the value of gold to rise again; the working of the rich gold mines of the Transvaal with the aid of new mechanical and chemical processes, which reduce the necessary labour, together with the employment of Negroes, of Chinese and Hindoos, but very poorly paid, lowers once again the value of gold.

Silver money, which has lost 52.5 per cent. of  its value, since a 1 franc piece is worth but fr 0.475, is no longer employed in international exchange; it is current but in its own country because, like the bank note, it is legal tender and can be exchanged for the gold money, which alone can be employed in international exchange, because gold is the monetary standard of capitalist nations.

But gold also has lost some of its value. The metallurgy of gold has been revolutionised in the Transvaal; it there combines in such a superior manner the resources of mechanics and chemistry that it is profitable even when quartz is treated which contains but a few grammes of gold to the ton. Le Génie Civil (December 28, 1907), describes the great establishment for the working of auriferous quartz in New Kleinfontein which treats 280 tons of quartz per hour, of any grade, with a very reduced staff of “hands”. Steam engines work three dynamos of 500 horse-power, two air-compressors for 75 perforating machines and the extracting machine. The quartz is brought upon an endless transporting band into the “mill-hoppers” of the crushing mill, where 200 stamps weighing each from 620 to 650 kilos crush it at the rate of 5 tons in 24 hours. The mud obtained goes through sieves which contain 400 meshes to the square centimetre; then it is conducted – still mechanically – on to the amalgamating tables. The residue of these tables – again crushed – and the auriferous mercury, are refined. The muddy water in which these mechanical and chemical operations have been conducted, are treated with lime and sodio-potassium cyanide, then filtered upon zinc filings which precipitate the gold. Water plays a preponderating rôle in the new cryosurgical (gold working) industry, which extracts even the largest particles of gold from the quartz that it treats with an extremely reduced staff of hands.

One must, in consequence, give a greater quantity of gold than formerly for the same quantity of other commodities. It is, therefore, not goods that have increased in value, but gold that has fallen in value, because its extraction exacts a less expenditure of human labour.

Translated from Le Socialiste by John H. Halls

Material World: Gold – A Strange Delusion (2011)

The Material World Column from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years, the price of gold has soared, reaching, at the time of writing, a record high of $1,882.33 per oz.   This is something new.  Since the late 1970s and early 80s when gold prices suddenly peaked during an economic crisis the picture, until recently, has been one of slow decline.  Not any more!   The price of gold, adjusted for inflation is now nearly six times what it was a decade ago. Is there anything to which this sharp increase can be attributed . . .?

According to various sources total mined gold mined from known history to the end of 2009 amounted to approximately 165,000 tonnes (5.3 billion ounces).  At $1750 per oz (one of the high prices recorded in 2011) one tonne of gold would now be worth $56.26 million, and the total world tonnage, more than $9.2 trillion.   This figure happens to be less, much less, than the total money in the world – that’s the amount of real money both circulating and ‘in deposit’.  Add to this the fact that for many years there has been no system which ‘promised to pay the bearer on demand’ a sum of gold in return for paper money – no gold standard, in other words – the question has to be raised, what is the point of gold?

Figures provided by the World Gold Council show that in 2008 jewellery accounted for 52 percent of the world’s gold; central bank holdings and investments accounted for 34 percent; and industrial gold, 12 percent. The remaining 2 percent was unaccounted for. India is the major market for jewellery where it is prized for dowries, the bride’s price at her wedding. Being malleable, ductile and one of the least reactive elements, gold also has a wide range of industrial functions. It is found in everything from electric wiring to de-icing agents for cockpit windows.  It turns up in dentistry, photography, electronics and electromagnetic radiation technology.

As with most mining operations, there is plenty of evidence to show that from the earliest times and up to the present, gold extraction has been detrimental to human health and safety and has produced both short- and long-term environmental damage.  Gold mining affects workers, their communities, their land and their water.  Depending on the mine, the creation of one wedding ring, for example, can involve the excavation of 2.8 tonnes of earth and rock. The operation leaves behind it waste contaminated with acid and heavy metals which leach into the ground and the water system. The mining of one tonne of gold can produce 3 million tonnes of toxic waste.

Some estimates say that, in future, 50 percent of gold will come from lands inhabited by indigenous people, and the mining of it will result in the pollution and depletion of their water supply. This land is often leased cheaply to corporations which make huge profits from its exploitation but do nothing to clear up the environmental damage they create, and little or nothing of their investment brings long-term benefits to local people. The effects of gold mining on the ecosystem can be hugely detrimental.  It can kill off local fisheries by poisoning the water courses, for example.  It can cause the loss of habitat and biodiversity through cyanide and mercury contamination of the ground and water systems.  And it can lead to the early death of working people from industrial illnesses.

A study of the Zaamar Goldfield placer mine in a region of Mongolia which is home to traditional reindeer herders has shown that environmental problems could be ‘curtailed at minimum cost by sensible design and operational practices’.  It also showed that the environmental impact of a single ‘placer’ mine, usually in a river system, which employed dredging or draglines is ‘fairly limited’.  Nevertheless, the ‘cumulative impact of 20 active mines on local grazing economy will be negative long after mining has ceased.’  

In Bergama, near Izmir, Turkey, the Ovacik mine has had a turbulent history.   Here villagers have maintained a high level of public protest against the use of cyanide close to their homes and fresh water facilities. This project has passed through the administration of a number of different companies from several countries and has been stopped on various occasions by courts both in Turkey and Europe, only to start up once again. This September tours have been arranged for interested investors. With gold prices so high there is sure to be plenty of interest.

People from all around the world have their stories to tell about the extraction of gold and its effect on their health, their communities and their environment. Rarely are those stories positive – all the positives of gold mining seem to leave an area with the gold.  Capitalism and capital’s protectors use many strategies to achieve their single-minded goal of accumulation: colonialism; neo-colonialism; control of assets and raw materials through all kinds of questionable means; and finally protection of their assets and interests abroad either by proxy war or outright invasion. There has, indeed, been some recent speculation about why NATO is involved in Libya.  The country’s per capita gold stocks are small on a world scale, but it was believed until recently to be planning an African gold dinar for trading in oil and perhaps other commodities in place of the American dollar.  This has naturally worried certain circles in the West.

The point of gold? Accumulation by exploitation and speculation for profit, all fuelled by a manufactured desire for conspicuous consumption. Viewed from the perspective of a post-capitalist world, when speculation for profit will be a thing of the past, wars for acquisition of raw materials have ended and gold is recognised merely as a necessary component in manufacturing – from that perspective world stocks of gold will prove to be amply sufficient to meet the needs of production for decades if not centuries. And if ever the human race transcends its emotional or social need for baubles then the worldwide stock of jewellery can also be put to more beneficial use for humankind generally.  When eventually more gold does need to be mined it can be done with minimum impact on both people and the environment.

Janet Surman

Tin pot madness (1985)

From the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Defenders of the market system claim that the cost/price factors, through which it operates. enable modern production to be organised in a rational manner, that without the market modern production would break down and could not carry on in a practical way. Experience shows that it is precisely the operation of the market which constrains and dislocates modern production. It is only by first abolishing the market system that the useful structure of modern production could become free to be run in a practical way, directly for human needs.

This fact has been demonstrated yet again by chaos in the world tin market leading to a suspension of trading on the London Metal Exchange on October 24 and dislocation in the world distribution of tin. This was certainly not because the social need for tin was over-supplied. Obviously this metal is an important component of equipment and a wide range of finished goods which are needed throughout the world. But needs are not a "rational" concern which determines the operation of the tin market. In fact, the trading crisis centred on a very different question. Far from the market being a practical mechanism allowing for the distribution of tin, trading on the London Metal Exchange broke down because profit-making was thrown into chaos.

Central to the crisis was the work of the International Tin Council, which is fraudulently described as a “producers' and consumers' group". None of the actual producers of tin the miners of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Bolivia, Australia and, among others, 2,000 tin miners in Cornwall - have got anything to do with the Council. Nor have the consumers of tin the wider community, for whose consumer needs tin should be directly produced.

The International Tin Council represents a very different set of interests. These are the owners and traders of tin who buy and sell this commodity with the sole object of profiting from it. It is a world price pact agency whose aim has been to maintain the price of tin on the world market. It has been financed by various governments and from loans, with a view to intervening in world trading with the object of regulating the world price above the recent floor price of £8,500 a tonne.

In trading conditions of over-supply in relation to market capacity, with a corresponding tendency of the price to fall below the floor price, the International Tin Council intervenes as a buyer with a view to increasing the price. It then controls reserve stocks which, theoretically, it is able to market when the price is restored. In addition to this, and by agreement, the Council is able to set export quotas aimed at cutting back on production as an added means of relieving downward pressure on the world price. For example, against the needs of people, production from Indonesia declined from 33,322 tonnes in 1981 to 22.500 tonnes in 1984.

During the early period of the 29 years of the price pact, regulation of the world price was never easy, even when four national capitalist groups - Malaysia, Indonesia. Thailand and Bolivia between them controlled 80 per cent of the world's supply. Also during this early period, sales at a profit were buoyant. But since that time world capitalism has entered the current depression and together with this other large scale sellers of tin, such as Brazil, have entered the world market outside the price pact. As a result, control of world marketing by the International Tin Council has fallen to 60 per cent of current production. This has brought pressure on the members of the price pact to cheat. So there has been a growth of smuggled tin and the movement of illegal tin. Far from the operation of this market being "rational'' - or. as its defenders believe. “the most practical system" the convolutions of its insanities have now resulted in something known as "illegal tin".

Substantially, the dealings on the London Metal Exchange involve the buying and selling of exchange contracts which do not necessarily result in the transfer of the ownership of the metal itself. The absurdities of this marketing saga were highlighted early this year when the stock manager of the International Tin Council insisted that, instead of the mere buying and selling of exchange contracts, which involved selling forward one day and then buying back cheaper the next, the actual tin involved should be physically delivered in line with the sales. This caused even more chaos in the market and so had to be abandoned.

The temptations for the capitalist controlling the supply to go on marketing tin, with the International Tin Council buying to keep the world price above £8,500 a tonne, have proved impossible to resist. In October the stock manager of the Council controlled reserves of 62,000 tonnes, enough to supply current world capitalist use for 5 months. Against an accumulation of 62,000 tonnes which the Council did not know what to do with, bankruptcy of their own funds, debts estimated at £340 million on outside loans with bankers in panic, trading was suspended.

It is important to note that behind this marketing chaos there is in fact a useful structure of world tin production which could be operated directly for human needs. The raw material is mined in various world locations by workers who have all the necessary skills. This raw material is transported to regional centres of industry where it is processed and refined into tin. It might then be processed with other metals as various alloys. These materials are then transported to centres of manufacture where they are prepared as the component parts of machinery, equipment or finished items of consumption goods. With further assembly the finished goods are distributed to the various localities.

This connected network of productive activities through which tin ore becomes finished goods depends on the skills and energies of the workers involved. The network operates as a result of required quantities of the worked-on materials and component parts being communicated throughout the various stages of production and distribution. As this useful structure of production already exists, the future society of socialism would not require an entirely new or different one. What is required is the removal of the present capitalist features which are now imposed on this useful structure. so that its useful features would be free to operate through co-operation directly for human needs.

Thus in socialism, with a system of production solely for use, needs would arise expressed as definite quantities of required goods among the whole community. These would be registered and communicated to regional centres of manufacture. As a result, regional manufacturing units would know the amounts of required production. This would be passed on throughout the entire network of production eventually to the mining and processing of such raw materials as tin. This would be a direct and practical response of social productive activity based on co-operation in line with social needs. But it can only be free to take place once the market system is abolished, which requires that the entire means of production and distribution must be converted into common ownership by the whole community.

Under capitalism the structure of tin production, based on the world mining of the raw material, regional processing and manufacture and assembly of finished products then local distribution, is inevitably loaded with waste. Competing enterprises repeat means of production and the constraints of the market result in these not being used to full capacity. At present the Tin Council alone retains a stockpile of 62,000 tonnes which has no immediate profitable use. Goods manufactured in Japan are sent to America and Europe and vice versa. This anarchic system of distribution results in the same articles criss-crossing each other on the world's trade routes. Moreover, tin production has been reduced as a result of the present depression. Tin miners have become unemployed.

Without the market, this useful structure of production could be operated more productively in direct line with human needs. This could avoid all the present wasteful features. Whereas "oversupply" of the material in relation to the capacity of the market for sales at a profit involves a denial of human needs, in socialism the position of oversupply would not be reached until human needs had been met.

It might well be asked - could the work of the present International Tin Council be adapted for use in socialism? Obviously its present function in the world market would be immediately redundant. Nevertheless, some of its useful features could be taken up. For example, it provides useful information on world tin production, its many uses and the world distribution and availability of the raw material reserves. Perhaps such an organisation could have a useful monitoring role in socialism, providing information which might help with decisions about the use of this material against others for different purposes.

What is certain is that behind the madness of the market, there is a useful structure of production and administrative machinery, which could provide ready-made organisation for the operation of production solely for use.

Pieter Lawrence 

Rio Tinto plunder (1991)

Book Review from the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

“We don’t grow healthy crops anymore, our traditional customs and values have been disrupted and we have become mere spectators as our earth is being dug-up. taken away and sold for millions. Our land was taken away from us by force: we were blind then but we have finally grown to understand what’s going on”.

These words were spoken by Perpetua Serero in Bouganville, Papua New Guinea, after she and her community were driven off the land which they were dependent on for their livelihoods so as to make way for a potentially highly profitable but environmentally and socially disastrous mine operated by one of the world’s largest multinational mining corporations. Rio Tinto Zinc. Her words are echoed all round the world by thousands of people whose lifestyles and communities have been wrecked by the operations of this company.

In its relentless pursuit of profits Rio Tinto Zinc has left a trail of human and environmental devastation of staggering proportions, as detailed in Plunder published by Partizans (218 Liverpool Rd, London N1 1LE, price £6.50 including postage). This is a thoroughly researched account of how RTZ arrived at and continues to maintain its position of world leader in the mining industry. The book deals with the company’s mining operations in every part of the world and in each section are well-documented examples of the devious, competitive practices that are typical of such capitalist organisations. These include a number of dirty tricks such as brow-beating opponents, leaning on governments, price-fixing, breaking the law, and union- busting.

RTZ claims in its glossy annual report to be “bringing out the best in the world". It even goes so far as to state that it aims to “act responsibly as a steward of the essential resources in its care" and “to involve the local communities wherever it operates and to promote their well-being".

Destroyed communities

Plunder tells a very different story. In its mining operations in over forty different countries. RTZ and its subsidiaries have poisoned the air, the rivers and the land, made species of animals and plants extinct, and turned areas of wild scenic beauty into barren wastelands. Far from promoting the well-being of local communities, RTZ has uprooted and displaced indigenous peoples, destroying their livelihoods and communities. It has turned them into an alienated and unskilled population forced into a lifestyle of abject poverty, prostitution, alcohol abuse and crime. In other words, they are forced into a life of wage-slavery at its bottom-most level.

RTZ has disregarded health and safety standards, causing the deaths over the years of hundreds and possibly thousands of workers from dust and radiation related diseases. Many of its workers, as in the case of the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia are expected to live in accommodation described as the worst in the world. RTZ also has a long record of trying to prevent workers organising trade unions. For instance, in 1937 the company Chairman was able to report to the shareholders in London on the tense labour situation at the company’s mines in Spain: “Since the mining region was occupied by General Franco’s forces there have been no further labour problems . . . Miners found guilty of troublemaking are court-martialled and shot".

However, Plunder is more than just an account of the nefarious activities of a mining company. It is also a resource book by and about people fighting for their lives, their communities and their environment against the profit-seeking onslaught of just one of the many multinational giants who constitute the very machinery of the capitalist system. The book represents the cooperative efforts of many individuals, organisations and communities around the world brought together by Partizans (People Against RioTinto Zinc and its Subsidiaries) who published the book at their own expense. The text written by Roger Moody is based on research and contributions by people from indigenous communities. trade unions, organisations concerned with the environment and occupational health, and many others. It has been published with the intention of being a handbook for people confronting multinational mining companies, particularly more isolated communities with little experience of the dirty business of capitalism and perhaps unaware that others are in the same situation as them.

Global solidarity

For Socialists Plunder is a valuable book in the battle of ideas. Firstly, because it represents a wealth of evidence to show that the profit system cannot be run in the interests of working people and their environment. Secondly and more importantly, because it has grown out of a vision that global solidarity is the only way to bring about an end to this exploitative global system.

In Plunder we hear the voices of people who are aware that RTZ has only one driving force behind it, the profit motive. The indigenous communities involved in the battle against RTZ bring to the class struggle a sense of communal responsibility to each other and the world around them as well as a sense of individual self-respect. To some of these communities property and hierarchical social organisations are alien concepts. Their experience of alternative lifestyles based on mutual respect and responsibility for the land on which they depend for their living imbues their resistance with a inner strength the importance of which we should not ignore or deny.

The struggles of these communities serve as a reminder that socialism is about knowing that an alternative to capitalist society is possible and that we can bring it about by understanding the source of our oppression and acting in a spirit of comradeship and solidarity with our fellow workers throughout the world.

Kerima Mohideen

Pathfinders: Capitalism in its Element (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the March 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Remember how boring chemistry lessons were at school? To most kids there is something deeply unsexy about learning the properties of the elements, especially if, as is not uncommon in school, the deeper logic of it all has somehow passed them by. This is a shame, because elements are very curious things, with quite unique ‘personalities’. Some are snooty and aloof, never deigning to notice anyone else. Some are content, rarely getting worked up over anything, little interested in being a team player or going out on dates. Some are looking for that special someone while others can’t stand being alone and will run off with just about anybody. Some of these will fizz and pop in your sink. Some will take out your sink. One or two could take out your kitchen.

Still, you could easily get through the rest of your life successfully without knowing much about the Periodic Table, even after watching Breaking Bad. You probably know that iron is the only metal that rusts, that copper is the best conductor (actually silver is better), that lead and mercury are bad for you, that helium makes your voice squeak, that aluminium is used for saucepans (and might be associated with Alzheimer's Disease). You probably don’t know that arsenic was once known as ‘inheritance powder’ because it was untraceable and therefore the poison of choice for ruthless heirs in a hurry to collect. Or that chemistry students like playing ‘disappearing coffee spoon’ jokes on each other using spoons made of gallium, which melts instantly in your hand or in your coffee. It’s not toxic, but just for laughs it turns your skin brown (The Periodic Table, Paul Parsons & Gail Dixon, Quercus, 2013).

Elements are able to change into other elements, often by natural processes, a fact which fascinated alchemists. When you combine some elements, you don’t just get the sum of their properties added together, you often get completely new and different properties not present in the originals. This oddity lay behind the prehistoric technological revolution of the Bronze Age. Copper and tin are both soft metals. Neither is any good for making edged weapons. But someone must have discovered, by accident presumably, that melting them together creates an alloy – bronze – which is much harder than either, and makes a good sword. It becomes harder still if you throw in some ‘inheritance powder’.

The dull subject of chemistry is of course behind most of the technological revolutions of the past century, as more properties and combinations have been discovered. It’s also behind a lot of the politics of capitalism. Think gold. Think carbon. Think  cobalt, a ‘conflict element’ used in gas turbines and jet engines, and mined in the ‘Democratic’ Republic of Congo. Think phosphorus, used globally in fertilisers, which aside from causing run-off resulting in dead fish and huge and revolting algal blooms, is virtually monopolised by Morocco, which invaded Western Sahara for more of the stuff, causing a war (BBC Online, 8 November 2013).

Not so long ago we were just using the basic, well-known elements, though even these came with interesting properties that are still being developed. Aluminium oxide produces sapphire crystals, industrially grown to the size of buckets and now made into bullet-proof glass for VIP limousines. And that’s nothing compared to the cornucopia of elements that goes into a smart phone. As Andy Ridgway eloquently puts it, ‘like Michelin-starred chefs, we are combining this material menu in increasingly exotic ways’ (New Scientist, 14 February).

The problem is getting reliable supplies in a world of competing economic blocs hell-bent on screwing each other over. In 2011 there was a global panic when China, producer of around 90 percent of rare-earth metals, decided to cut exports by forty percent. Prices, predictably, went through the roof, and doom-merchants everywhere bewailed the imminent collapse of civilisation.

What actually happened was that the crisis went away by itself – solved by capitalism’s adaptive way of working. Rare-earth elements are only rare in relation to abundant elements, but not in absolute terms. China held a monopoly only because they were the cheapest producers and other countries had shut down their mining operations. Once China cut the supply, new mines, or old ones recommissioned, magically opened up in places like California and Greenland as investors saw a profit to be made. In fact over 200 mining companies got in on the act with the result that rare-earth elements are not only not rare anymore, the price is in danger of collapsing just like it did with oil, and the mining companies are now struggling to extract a decent return.

For socialists this is interesting because it demonstrates something we are always pointing out, that capitalism is not likely to collapse of its own accord, because it has a knack of working around problems. It’s not just supply that adapts. Manufacturers needing rare elements and facing high prices for them soon figured out solutions that designed out those particular elements.

A peculiar aspect of the recycling industry, pointed out by Ridgway, is that as recycling increases, these same rare elements may become rare again. Many elements are found together in the same ores, meaning that when demand for the cost-bearing element declines through recycling, the other ‘freebie’ elements don’t get extracted. Worse, they often can’t be recycled because they are used in such tiny amounts that they are not economic to reclaim. Worse still, they are often blended together in alloys like a baked cake from which the ingredients cannot feasibly be re-extracted.

What is more worrying is that rare elements tend to involve more pollution both at the extraction end and the disposal end than other elements. In the West, most electronic devices are not recycled but left to gather dust as new models come out, or they’re dumped. Even when electronic waste is collected as per regulation, that’s not the end of the story. As New Scientist’s editorial points out, ‘Interpol estimates that one in three shipping containers leaving Europe is packed with e-waste destined for illegal dumping in the developing world. This results in major health hazards to people doing the dirty work of recycling’ (14 February).

It’s easy for anti-capitalists, and socialists too, to get into the habit of seeing the worst in every single thing that goes wrong, forgetting that capitalism is quite good at getting itself out of a lot of scrapes. But at what cost to humans, in the long run? Four million people died in Congo’s civil war, which was largely about control of valuable rare elements destined for use in our must-have gadgets. In wider terms, capitalism’s exploitation of the Periodic Table involves a level of human exploitation that leaves nearly all of us impoverished and enslaved, while making just a handful of ‘Nobles’ the only winners. That’s a problem that capitalism, by its very nature, has no solution for. Whatever short-term supply crises it might adapt its way out of, it can’t transform its own nature and magically, in the way elements are able to do, change itself into a different system. For that you need not natural processes but large-scale human intervention.

PJS