Voice From The Back: Carpet sales (2004)

The Voice From The Back Column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Carpet sales  

The designer and poet William Morris was a committed socialist who had to live with the irony that, although he wanted the abolition of the wages system, the only people who could afford his carpets, tapestries and furniture were the very rich. The following item in the Independent (6 October) illustrates this. “A William Morris carpet that cost £113 new in 1883 was bought for £193,760 in an auction at Sotheby’s in London yesterday. The flowered design, a synthesis of medieval and eastern motifs, was one of only two examples known with a cream and apricot background. It was made for a house in Holland Park, West London, measuring 17ft 5ins by 13ft 6ins.” £193,000 for a carpet – something to bear in mind when you are looking for a bargain at the January sales!

Embarrassed, moi?

“A giant oil company once headed by Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, used its British subsidiaries to flout American sanctions against Iran . . . Their exports – estimated to be worth more than £30m a year – have continued despite sanctions introduced by the US government nine years ago barring Americans from trading or ‘facilitating business’ with the Islamic state. The new findings will embarrass Cheney, President George W Bush’s running mate in next month’s elections. Cheney has described Iran as ‘one of the world’s most dangerous regimes’” (Times, 17 October). He “earned” $44m during his tenure at Haliburton, continues to collect deferred compensation of $150,000 a year and owns $18m in share options. The gap between political rhetoric and economic reality has never embarrassed hypocrites like Cheney.

Dying for work

A TV programme entitled ‘Britain’s Secret Shame’ (BBC, 3 November) illustrated the extent of corporate manslaughter in this country. It reported that about 250 workers die at work every year due to the negligence of their employers. Prosecutions rarely take place, convictions are even rarer, and then it is usually only smaller firms. Attempts to introduce legislation have all failed because the owning class warn the government that more stringent legislation would be too costly. Just another example of how inside capitalism profits are more important than the workers who produce them.

Dying for profit

“Britain’s largest drug company drew up a secret plan to double sales of the controversial anti-depressant Seroxat by marketing it as a cure for a raft of less serious mental conditions, the Observer can reveal today. The contents of the 250-page document have alarmed health campaigners who accuse the firm, GlaxoSmithKLine (GSK) of putting profits before therapeutic needs by attempting to broaden the market for the drug which has been linked to a series of suicides . . . Concerns about the addictive properties of Seroxat saw the government ban its prescription to people under the age of 18 last year. This followed a review which found children taking it were more likely to self-harm or commit suicide” (Observer, 7 November). It seems the company were attempting to move sales from $1 billion to $2billion by pushing it to people who were not clinically depressed. When there is money like this to be made even the “respectable” shareholders become murderous drug pushers.

Dying with poverty

Under the headline ‘Desperate plight of cancer sufferers living in poverty’ (Times, 9 November) reported as follows: “At least three quarters of the million Britons with cancer suffer from financial hardship brought on by the disease, including enforced job losses, discrimination and poor benefit allowances, according to research. A report by Macmillan Cancer Relief suggests that the disease costs patients hundreds of millions of pounds, for which they have little or no financial cover.” Needless to say this poverty only applies to the working class, as those capitalists unfortunate enough to suffer from the disease have at least the consolation that they will receive the best of care and that their families will not suffer financially.

Who cares?

Twenty years ago an explosion at the chemical factory in Bhopal in central India killed more than 15,000 people, and survivors are still trying to cope with the effects of this horrendous disaster. “Yesterday, half a million people who were in the path of the lethal cloud that spewed out of the chemical plant received a second compensation payment of £300 to £1,200” (Times, 13 November). This is in addition to a first payment of £500 per person from the company responsible Union Carbide. Dow Chemicals, who now own Union Carbide, refuse to clean up the site which still holds 25,000 tons of toxic waste. Another example of capitalism’s priorities. Make a couple of bucks, kill 15,000 and leave an area full of children who have difficulty breathing and are painfully dying, who cares? Socialists do.

Editorial: A missed opportunity (2004)

Editorial from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American workers have spoken. They have made their choice. Unlike many on the left, the Socialist Party has always stood by the simple principle of assuming that when voters vote for a party, they do actually support – however grudgingly or partially – its policies. We accept that millions upon millions of American voters voted for the wrong choice – the incredible, unbelievable choice, of another four years of being ruled by a bluffing, blundering buffoon in the White House. Almost 110 million Americans voted for one or other multi-millionaire to be their elected Monarch.

Our comrades in America did their best to dissuade them – members in the United Kingdom here wrote letter to American workers asking them not to vote for the billionaires. But the result was a resounding vote for capitalism, for war and its continuation, for despoliation of the environment. It is, frankly, patronising and ignorant to assume that millions of American voters, after months and months of debate and discussion voted the way they did because they are stupid.

We have to credit them with wanting what they voted for, with supporting the policies of the capitalist class. In a more or less free election, when they had the opportunity to raise their voice they failed to do so, and so must bear the responsibility for their choice. It is the sons and daughters of American voters who will be sent to fight in a boiling desert, and live the rest of their lives with the scars of battle. It is the sons and daughters of American voters who will have to rise at dawn and walk miles to work. It is the sons and daughters of American voters who will have to watch their partners suffer poverty heaped upon bereavement because they have voted to allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Obviously, it is difficult to make a change. It requires patience, organisation, effort – but millions of Americans were able to put all that effort into electing one of the millionaires. The existing politicians may throw hurdles in the way, may have more money to spend, but all those advantages rest on the essential acceptance of the current system of society by the vast majority

We must not, though, imagine this support for capitalism is confined only to American workers. Billions of workers across the globe keep voting for capitalism because they continue to believe its illusions and aspirations. It remains the job of socialists to continue to try and shatter those illusions, while the leftists weep into their beers because their millionaire lost.

Although we are – to be utterly blunt – a pathetic minority now, that does not mean we must give up hope. That so many millions of workers support capitalism today, does not mean they will do so tomorrow. America itself has changed out of all recognition in its two hundred years of growth, and will change again. Across the world there are countless examples of sweeping changing to political landscapes from one election to the next. Until then, all we can do, is turn to our fellows and say “There is a better way”.

Political freedom offers the best means to make that change, and the tools are to hand were the workers to take them up. George Bush and John Kerry are irrelevances, because no politician can be better than the system they administer, and socialists need to draw the discussion back to the things that really matter.

Greasy Pole: Who are you calling a cheat? (2004)

The Greasy Pole column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prince Harry is third in the line of royal succession so it would take only a couple of unforeseen events for this country to have a king better known for a fondness for partying on certain substances than for a monastic devotion to his studies. Perhaps that is why the general response to him being accused of cheating in an ‘A’ Level exam at Eton was some way below outraged disbelief that a member of the royal family could stoop so low. Luckily there was an independent enquiry available at short notice to decide in private that the prince had not cheated, so all that remained was independently to undermine the reputation of the teacher making the accusation and the matter could independently be closed. As usual there were a few stubborn curmudgeons wondering what all the fuss was about. After all, isn’t the monarchy as an institution a cheat, based on the assumption that a few people should unquestioningly have access to such excessive luxury simply because of a lucky accident in the wildly random process of their conception? 

   

There is a wider issue here, wider than a rather dim but heavily privileged royal taking advantage of his position. If Prince Harry did cheat he acted outside the rules. But he was able to do this only because we live in a society of privilege for a minority and of denial for the majority. Appropriately, this is called capitalism, which is not a naughty word or a figment of someone’s imagination but an actual, material and social phase in human history. Capitalism ensures that one class are in possession of the means of wealth production and distribution, which allows them to live off the labour of the other class, who are thereby cheated out of access to the wealth they have produced. It is a system fertile in human problems, to the extent that it is unable to satisfy the needs of most of its people, who suffer its wars, impoverishment, unnecessary diseases . . . And is it also fertile in defenders of the system, who advise us to have faith in illusions about their ability to construct a properly humane society. Are these people cheats?

Cran

James Cran, recently described by the Daily Telegraph as “a flinty Aberdonian law and order traditionalist”, is the Tory MP for Beverley and Holderness in Yorkshire (at least he is for the present – he will not be defending his 781 majority at the next election). He thinks highly enough of himself to announce that although he is standing down “. . . that does not stop him serving the people of the constituency with all the characteristic enthusiasm for which he is known”. However Mr Cran is rarely seen in the Commons, he has not spoken there for three years and last asked a (written) question on 4 November 2002. In 2003 he voted in only 36 percent of the divisions. For this unstinting labour on behalf of the voters of Bevereley and Holderness Mr. Cran is paid a wage of £57,485, supplemented by £88,524 in “expenses”.  Not surprisingly, he did not claim anything for stationery, postage or computer support but he did get £15,959 for accommodation and £10,558 for travel. A law and order traditionalist would have something to say on the matter of workers who did a below average amount of work for so generous a wage.

   

This flinty Aberdonian is uncharacteristically coy over any  discussion of his income from parliament and what he does to get it. He rebuffed a reporter from the Yorkshire Post with “I’m not interested: I really don’t care what’s in your newspaper”. It was not, of course,  a good time to approach MPs about their “expenses”, which had just been detailed in the press, provoking a tectonic shudder up and down the country as the voters learned of how much MPs can claim, and what they can claim for, in the job of legislating for British capitalism.  Honourable Members of the world’s most exclusive club can, unlike the workers they so often denounce as greedy and irresponsible, award themselves increases in pay and expenses. For example they recently voted for a rise of £8,000 a year in their “staff allowance” and some of them were reported to be enquiring about whether they could claim for the cost of a wreath for the Remembrance Day ceremonies. These are the people, let us remember, who are keen to hound down Social Security “scroungers”, who rant about “welfare dependency” and who feel an urgent need to legislate against “unnecessary” sick notes.

Moffatt

One who is not a flinty Aberdonian and who takes the job of being an MP rather more seriously is Laura Moffatt, who sits on a Labour majority of almost 7000 at Crawley in Sussex. Before getting into Parliament she was a staff nurse, avoiding promotion because it would have removed her from the hands-on work with patients which she adored. Moffatt has been active in the Commons, attending 81 percent of the votes there, speaking regularly, asking questions. In spite of her natural interest in health care she was given the job of Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, where she is not of a high profile. Moffatt is not one of the Labour rebels, preferring to help out the government with convenient interventions in the House. For example on 12 June, when Jack Straw was in difficulties over justifying the war in Iraq, she piped up that one of her constituents, a local doctor, had told her that his family in Iraq were “constantly telling him that life is much better for them, that they now enjoy a sense of freedom and a decent future at last . . . I believe that we need to listen to those quiet voices”. A relieved Straw responded “I absolutely agree with my Hon. Friend”. In July Moffat was asking a minister “What measures he has taken to eradicate pensioner poverty” – which implies that poverty can be eradicated and that Blair’s government have realistic plans which will reach even into the very depths of poverty such as pensioners endure.

   

So could it be that Moffatt, for all her apparently immaculate intentions, is a bit of a cheat?  An authentic motivation to improve human welfare cannot be reconciled with supporting a government which manages the capitalist system as best it can in the interests of the owning class in society – which must mean putting profits before people. Moffatt must be aware that in the Health Service where she was once so proud to be working, patient care too often comes a poor second to economy. This was the background to a dispute in her constituency over the closure (it went by the name of a “configuration”) of the Accident and Emergency Department at Crawley hospital. On 27 October she asked a question in the House which began by praising the “modernisation” of the A & E Services for “real improvements to patient experience and safety”. This sounded like another of those “questions” which ministers often plant with grovellingly ambitious MPs to suffocate criticism. But Moffatt continued her question with a mention of “local difficulties” in the Surrey and Sussex Trust, “. . . where most services have been transferred to another hospital, and ambulances are having to wait up to two hours”. She asked how the government could be sure this would not “undermine the fantastic work that is going on”. She might have put it another way – the service in this local hospital is breaking down but we must still say it is marvellous.

   

James Cran and Laura Moffatt do their job as MPs in different styles. But on the one issue of real importance – that under all circumstances and in the face of all reality they will insist that the capitalist system is the highest form of the management of human affairs – they agree. On the detail of which party does a more efficient job of running the system in this country they differ; Cran will state his opinions in the more robust manner while Moffatt prefers to wrap up her meaning. But both of them are keen to get away with however much deception the working class will allow. Both of them, and  their parties, are cheats.

Ivan

Against all war, economic and military (2004)

From the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists appreciate that the war over Iraq has drawn many workers into a political arena hitherto seen as boring and as impossible to influence from the outside. Workers once apolitical have been stirred into action by the lies, the tricks to curtail the democratic process, and the acts of violence, murder and destruction from their leaders.  Where before, whether at breakfast, in the workplace, in a café at lunchtime or over dinner in the pub in an evening, we discussed our work, sport, TV, pop music, sex and the weather or our personal pursuits, over and above our everyday troubles in life, lately we’ve seen the war over Iraq come to figure in these discussions.  Not satisfied with these usual outlets for our feelings, many have been attending the numerous anti-war rallies around the world and writing into newspapers, radio and television.  Socialists expressed pleasure in seeing so many of our fellow workers in anti-war mood, and in such numbers. 

   

But socialists are aware that in the workplace workers, anti-war campaigners and not, are soldiers in an economic war on behalf of the generals who own the businesses where we work.  We thought it ironic that workers should be so strongly united in an anti-war outlook on a Saturday, and then, back at work on the Monday, would go to war with each other, united only in an effort to win the battle for production, sales or work over their anti-war friends engaged in a similar process for other generals. A common lament from the weary and dismayed proletarian soldiers in the American Civil War of the 19th century was, We are all Americans! We socialists have a similar cry to workers in both the commercial and military wars of today – We are all fellow workers! If non-socialist anti-war campaigners only knew it, the wars of commerce lie at the root of all the military wars.

   

Sadly not a common view among anti-war campaigners, but all the signs of war are readily available if one cares to look and reflect on our day-to-day activity for just a moment.  Do not most of us work for a business to produce or sell products or provide some type of service in competition with those produced by our fellow workers who work in other businesses in the same field of activity? The products from one worker look almost identical to products from another, are made in similar environments by similar processes by workers who perform similar tasks in similar numbers and using similar tools. These commodities, whether we make them, sell or deliver them as a service, perform the same function, serve the same need, and sell for almost the same price. It is made clear to us, no matter where we work, in a supermarket, in a car or clothing factory, in a bank or a TV station, for example, that the company we work for, and by implication ourselves, are engaged in national (and international) rivalry with similar businesses all across the world. Every one of these businesses would if they could keep the whole market to themselves, and they struggle to get as much of it as they can in a game of competition – war by another name.  And the obvious end result is that the task is overdone and thus a glut is produced. 

   

Commercial conflicts are like military ones, with resources being trashed in a war for survival.  And the ruin of products coincides with the dissipation of the human effort employed in their production as well as the squandering of the quantity of the Earth’s natural resources as ingredients for their production. Perishable commodities which cannot be sold at their intended price are jettisoned into the bargain basement saleroom and then, if necessary, churned back into the soil even before the needy workers, who produced them, are allowed to have them free. The owners of the businesses where we work care not a jot for the workers when their particular war is over and they are no longer needed, due to sickness, injury on the job, the employment of new technologies, improved methodology or bankruptcy, which brings on our redundancy and poverty.

   

War includes struggles between classes, class wars between capitalists and workers.  In 19th-century France, a short civil conflict was fought between the bourgeois French National Assembly, and Parisian workers as republicans, known in socialist annals as the Paris Commune. In Britain, a civil war was waged between a feudal class and the rising bourgeoisie in the 17th century.  A war can also involve rival sections within a particular class who compete for power, as in America, where a civil war was fought between rival members of the American bourgeois class in the 19th century. There is another type of civil war which socialists cite, where in the arena of commerce, battles are waged between corporations, assisted by their (home-based) state authorities, first within national borders then steadily growing in stature to a transnational arena.

   

The now universal culture of ‘market ideology’ is the primary influence on the behaviour of humans everywhere.  The more power or money an individual or group can secure for themselves, the better their quality of life.  To be effective in their pursuit of power and wealth, whether solely by the means of commerce, or upgrading their war to the military stage, they must be indifferent to the needs and plight of their competitors; otherwise, their ability to wage war is diminished.

   

Whether a war in society is within a nation or between nations, the causes of these wars between the protagonists are of a similar nature. While the circumstances surrounding each war may remain peculiar to the time and place (the extent of dictatorship/democracy, class structure, mode of production, laws, parochial cultures or ideas or religions etc), the pattern seems to be repeated all over the world.  The owning class of one nation possesses something which that of another nation, or groups within a nation would like to possess.  These could be land, foreign trade deals, cheap labour, talented labour and property (as businesses or complete/established industries), home markets, and a natural resource as marketable asset – oil, gas, coal, iron ore, gold, diamonds, water, etc.  These are all requirements for success in making money, and with money comes power and influence for businesses and individuals.  As no one country has been endowed with a complete set of resources, there will often be a need to plunder.

   

Wars in human society take place between nations when the dominant men and women within them (the capitalist class) pursue wealth or the means to create wealth in society, using the power of their state and their labour (workers) as battering rams to defeat their enemies, which are themselves comprised of their opponents’ state machinery and workers. And where a conflict occurs within the territory of one nation, outside influences are often brought to bear. If resources are up for grabs, the capitalist grabbing class join the fray to see what they can win.

   

Only socialists can claim to be the true anti-war campaigners. Fellow workers around the world participate in anti-war campaigns, which call for the end of military wars, but none that we know of make that connection, as socialists do, to the wider society and particularly, to its mode of production and guiding ideology which promote competition among all sections of society. In campaigning solely for an end to military wars, which are but a bloody climax to the wider commercial war, there can be no hope of addressing the problems of human society today as a whole.

William Dunn

Worse than thought: In the article on Terror last month we quoted a figure of 35,000 for the number of civilian deaths in Iraq since the Anglo-American invasion. Since then the medical journal, The Lancet, has estimated the number as being more like 100,000.

Behind the label (2004)

Book Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not on the label by Felicity Lawrence, Penguin, £7.99

Most of us are probably aware that our food is not quite what it’s cracked up to be, even if it’s not all junk food. But in this book, the Guardian’s consumer affairs correspondent shows just how unhealthy much of what we eat is and why it gets to be that way.

   

One important point made relates to the dominant position of the supermarkets, especially the large chains. They can squeeze the profits of the companies who produce the food, sometimes asking suppliers to pay to have their products on the shelves or in some prominent position. In addition they effectively dictate what we can buy, or at least what range of goods we can choose from when we shop. With their absurd ideas about the kind of food that is acceptable to consumers – such as specific sizes of green beans or Brussels sprouts – they cause an awful lot of decent food to go to waste.

   

Their enormous distribution centres are not real warehouses, since food is only kept in them for short periods: the idea is that it is delivered and then sent across the country to stores in as rapid a turnover as possible, leading to vast numbers of lorries speeding up and down the motorways. And, according to Lawrence, there is evidence that the more miles fruit and veg travels, the lower its vitamin content. Such constant replenishment of the distribution centres relies heavily on casual labour, often undertaken at rock-bottom rates in appalling conditions by migrant workers, a supply of labour that can be turned on and off like a tap, as the supermarkets constantly change their demands for food. It is a workforce that ranges from Portuguese workers in East Anglia to Moroccans in Spain.

   

A further consequence of the retailers’ power is that the suppliers work on decreasing profit margins, and often cannot even afford to get rid of waste (such as diseased carcasses) properly. Chicken factories are now enormous production lines, where a single infected bird can cause thousands to become contaminated with campylobacter. Unwanted skin is made into chicken nuggets, while chicken for sandwiches and ready meals is commonly adulterated with water (plus various additives to keep the water in, including cow waste).

   

Returning to supermarkets, you may have been impressed by the ‘in-store’ bakeries that a lot of them have. In fact, many of these just finish off bread that has been made and partially baked elsewhere. White sliced bread is often sold at a loss, to get people into the shops. Most of it is made by the thoroughly nasty-sounding Chorley-wood bread process, which involves air and water being added to the dough, plus fats to stop the bread collapsing. Ready meals, which have massively increased in popularity over the last few years, are high in processed fats, sugars and starch. Modified starch also plays a big part in low-fat yoghurts, which are not as healthy as they sound. Did you know that a “strawberry-flavoured” yoghurt has at least some strawberry content, but a “strawberry-flavour” yoghurt does not?

   

The kind of food available to workers has changed dramatically over the last few decades, with curries and pastas that were not previously available now regularly finding their way to our gullets. But that certainly does not mean that people now eat better and more healthily. Lawrence makes it clear that considerations of profit are what drive the way the food industry works. Her suggestion is to shop on three principles: local, seasonal and direct. But a better answer is to establish a system of society where food is produced for need not profit.

Paul Bennett

"Spreading the word . . . " (2004)

Book Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellowship is Life by Denis Pye, Clarion Publishing, £4.95.

This is a very fine history of what was a probably an unnecessary organisation, based on what was a very nasty journal indeed. In this slim, but well illustrated and superbly presented volume, Pye gives an excellent account of the background and development of the Clarion Cycling Club and its one-time companions in the Clarion movement. The book is a very useful addition to the field of Labour history as a history of The Clarion and its associated organisations has never before been written.

   

The Clarion, or ‘The Perisher’ as was colloquially known, was a very popular ‘socialist’ journal, established in 1891 and flourishing prior to the 1914-18 war. Its popularity was mainly a product of its humorous appeal – initially the journal was little more than the equivalent of a modern university ragmag. While there can be no objection to an injection of comedy, such a magazine should have formed no basis for further organisation. Later on The Clarion became something of a forum for the various contemporary brands of ‘socialist’ (the Socialist Party however seems to have been barred – see the Socialist Standard of November and December 1906). So far as it held political opinions of its own, its ‘socialism’ was pretty poor stuff: Blatchford, the magazine’s guru, defined his “new religion” as being “To love one another as brothers and sisters and to love the earth as the mother of all.” The Clarion combined such ILP-ish, wishy-washy sentimentality with a love of militarism (the greeting of the Clarionettes, “Boots”, and its response “Spurs”, was straight from the barrack-room) and nationalism (one of Blatchford’s books being Britain for the British). Given the lack of ideological clarity it is unsurprising that The Clarion was one of the Left’s most vociferous supporters of the First World War. Although this was initially a rather popular stance, the bloody pointlessness of the not-so-Great War cut the magazine’s feet from under it. The Clarion died a natural and not overly premature death in 1932.

   

It was survived, however, by the Clarion Cycling Club. The original aim of this organisation, like the contemporary Clarion vans (described in Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists), was to sell the paper and thus ‘spread the word’. But the main purpose of the CCC came to be a social one. This was true also of the wide range of other Clarion-related groups. And the range was indeed wide including clubhouses, choirs, amateur dramatic societies, camera clubs and even a café. The social focus was probably inevitable given the vague nature of Clarion ‘socialism’. All this became even more important after 1918 when paper-selling activities were downgraded (to give them their due the majority of Clarionettes did not approve of the paper’s attitude to the war and mostly dropped it thereafter). During the interwar period the Clarion groups became working class social clubs, whose political standpoint, so far as one existed, was Left Labour. The Clarion Cycle Club survives today in much the same fashion (although it must be said that nostalgia is also an attractive factor).

   

Traditionally membership of the Clarion Cycle Club was banned to Socialist Party members, because the political content of the CCC, although marginal, was definitely reformist in nature. While our own Party has always had social activities (and these are important – we are human beings not daleks), these are entirely secondary to propagandising for socialism. From a political point of view mixing with non-socialists in non-sectarian clubs brings opportunities to ‘spread the word’ on a personal level (sometimes far more effective than formal propaganda).

   

Fellowship is Life is a reminder of how much time and effort were spent on what was an entirely unworthy journal. But such are the ways of reformism.

Kaz.

Copies of the book (£4.95 inc. P&P) are available from Clarion Publishing, 34 Temple Road, Halliwell, Bolton, BL1 3LT.KS

What is Socialism? (2004)

From the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

What does it take to produce all of the things we need in order to live? Human labour applied to nature given raw materials. Money enters the equation only because the means to life are owned by a privileged minority – the capitalist class.

Socialism will mean everything necessary for human welfare being produced solely for use, instead of sale and profit. For example, food will be grown and processed simply because we need to eat, and homes built to be lived in. Human need will be the only motive for production, and proper care will be taken of the environment. There will be an end to poverty, and the conditions which lead to war will no longer exist.

How will all this be possible?

Because the means of production – land, factories, transport, communications and so on – will be owned and democratically controlled by and in the interest of the whole worldwide community. When the means of production are owned in common, so indeed are the products. Therefore buying and selling will not take place; money and financial institutions will be unnecessary. We will contribute to the community according to our ability, and take according to our self determined need.

The class which now does all of the work of society can achieve this revolutionary change in the way we live, by consciously taking the political action to abolish capitalism, and end class rule. Thus gaining not only working class emancipation, but the emancipation of all humankind; and a world where – as Karl Marx put it – “the free development of each, is the condition for the free development of all”.

Con Lehane: A Correction (2004)

From the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the September Socialist Standard we stated that Con Lehane, who was a founder member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, went on to become in the 1930s and 40s a member of the IRA and a Republican member of the Irish parliament. This was not the case and was due to a confusion with someone else with the same name.

The Con Lehane who was a founder member was born in Cork in 1878 was indeed an Irish Republican but he died in New York in 1919, shortly after being released from prison where he had been detained for his political activities. In 1916 he had published a pamphlet entitled The Irish Republic arguing that the so-called Easter Rising in Dublin that year had been a workers’ revolution.

The other Con Lehane, who was on the Army Council of the IRA in the 1930s and a Clann na Poblachta deputy from 1948 to 1951, was born in Belfast in 1912 and died in 1983 (see Irish Times, 27 September 1983).

The original source of the error was an article which appeared in the anarchist paper Freedom on 8 February 1992. Our apologies for not having first checked this thoroughly enough – Editors.

Socialism Or Your Money Back (2004)

Party News from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

To mark the centenary of both the Socialist Party of Great Britain (June) and the Socialist Standard (September) we have brought out a 300-page book, Socialism Or Your Money Back, made up of articles from the Socialist Standard from 1904 to this year.

The seventy articles provide a running commentary from a socialist perspective on the key events of the last hundred years as they happened. The two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the General Strike and the rise of Hitler are covered, as well as the civil war in Spain, Hiroshima, the politics of pop, democracy and the silicon chip, and much else. The book will not just be of interest to socialists but also to those wanting to study the political, economic and social history of the twentieth century.

The price is £9.95. Copies can be ordered (add £2.00 for postage and packing) from: 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN (cheques payable to 'The Socialist Party of Great Britain").

50 Years Ago: Down Your Way (2004)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s happening down your way? What are you talking about in the office? Football Pools? T.V.? The cost of living? Marilyn Monroe? Probably. Workers are apathetic about most social questions; and the political parties are finding it increasingly difficult to attract audiences to their meetings.

   

But are the workers really satisfied with present-day conditions? Are you satisfied? Surely not. You’re fed-up with hydrogen bombs, the talk of war, the cost of living, the Labour Party – and the Tories. They both promised to solve your housing problems, rising prices. They promised you peace – whilst preparing for war. Is it surprising that you are cynical and apathetic? That you are fed-up with “politics?” Most people think there can be no solution to all these evils that beset us; and that the present order – or “disorder” of society will always be with us.

   

Yes, you are quite right. “Politics,” that is the politics of running this present system, is a “dirty game.” And we, as Socialists are not interested in playing the game. We know that the various political parties that promise to solve your problems for you are incapable of doing so. We know that the present system of society – capitalism – cannot be run in your interest. That is why we propose that you change it. That is why we want to get you interested, not so much in “politics,” but in society as it is; and in society as it could be, as it must be, in the future. We want you to desire and work for an entirely new way of life (. . .)

   

We socialists are ordinary people. We have studied our society and have come to the conclusion that whilst the present profit-making system remains we will never get rid of the evils of war, insecurity and the rest. We think that only by changing the whole structure of society will we get rid of these problems. Only by making the means of life – the factories, offices, railways, etc. – the common possession of all people, and producing the things necessary to satisfy people’s needs and desires solely for use and not for profit will we eradicate these evils.

   

This, briefly, is our alternative to “politics,” football pools, the “dogs” – and apathy.

   

Think it over.

[From an article, Down Your Way, by Peter E. Newell, December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.]

Letter: The Batwa pygmies (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

The Batwa pygmies

Dear Editors

A new tourist attraction has been discovered here in South West Uganda. The tourist attraction is a group of Batwa pygmies living in the bamboo forests around Mount Muhavura and near Lake Bunyonyi.

There is a gentleman who mobilizes and organizes them, gives them a trip in canoes across and into the middle Islands of Lake Bunyonyi’s camping sites. The pygmies are then paraded in front of tourists. The tourists pay a fee for this service. The Batwa, like the mountain gorillas, are referred to as “endangered species”. In turn the pygmies are paid in kind by the proprietor of this enterprise – they are given second-hand clothes, food, especially local porridge residues and other cheap incentives.

Sometime back it was the Ugandan government which did a similar thing to this when it evicted residents of a place called Mpokya in Western Uganda to give room for apes and other wild animals which the government claimed to be a tourist attraction. The displaced people were not provided alternative sites to occupy. Eventually some of them migrated to join their relatives and friends in other parts of the country but most of them were eaten by the same wild animals.

The Ugandan government and some rich individuals claim to be trying to mobilize resources for poverty reduction but some of them at the same time call it “poverty alleviation”. But most of the mobilized funds and the money gathered in forms of taxes from citizens are squandered by those in government and some to their next of kin, relatives and friends. Uganda was recently ranked as the third most corrupt country in the whole world and also ranks below the 10th poorest country in the whole world.

But be it the case anywhere the poor are not poor because of lack of resources to utilize to eradicate poverty but because of the fact that there exists the rich – the poor are poor because the rich are rich. If you want to get rid of the poor; do one thing – get rid of the rich.

Then the question would be how can this be done. The simple answer becomes: The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community. Goods and services would be produced for human good and not for sale and profit. Every member of society (present-day planet earth) would give according to their individual ability and take according to their needs. Then equality in human race would prevail. That’s how we could end dehumanizing acts such as those of parading the Batwa and displacing people for tourist attraction.

J. K. Tukwasibwe, 

Uganda.

Letter: "Three clarifications" (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Three clarifications"

Dear Editors,

The August issue stated in the article ‘Why socialism is still relevant’ that: “Our party was formed to oppose the Labour party.” This raises three clarifications. Firstly, as the writer makes clear earlier in the article,”‘in short, the cause of our Party’s formation, capitalism, continues”, thus, reiterating the point that socialists are opposed to capitalism full stop. Secondly, whereas our opposition to the individual political parties of capitalism is merely incidental to the cause for our formation in 1904 we can only voice this opposition once they are actually formed, or in the process of being formed. Historically, the Labour Party was formed in 1906, two years after the SPGB – though even before its formation socialists were opposed to its reformist predecessor, the Labour Representative Committee. Thirdly, we are opposed to all other political parties regardless of whatever name they happen to go under and not just the Labour Party For they all stink of dishonesty, opportunism and quick-fix solutions and are so steeped in corruption they can only be obliterated by the conscious decision and concerted activity of a majority of the working class.

Brian Johnson, 

Pontypridd.

TV Review: Winner Takes It All (2004)

TV Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Panorama on 7 November dealt with the UK super-rich, under the label of a ‘winner-take-all’ culture. The wealthiest one percent of the population receive 13 percent of the national income (compared to 6 percent in the days before Thatcher) and own almost a quarter of the total personal wealth. They can easily afford to spend upwards of £500 on a haircut, and £2 million on a ‘starter home’. The gap between these millionaires and the rest of the population is getting ever greater:  most workers earn less than £19,000 a year, and personal debt for ordinary people has shown a big rise.

   

The programme had a few dissenting voices, who thought that such vast fortunes were objectionable on various grounds. Not Tony Blair, though, who was seen in an interview saying that there was nothing wrong with people receiving such sums and that he was opposed to a cap on anyone’s income. Mostly, though, it was a celebration of this top one percent, who supposedly create wealth and advance the state of technology. “Everyone has benefited,” said one property millionaire. One individual was said to be ‘building a boat’ – actually a luxury yacht to be rented out to other parasites for £200,000 a week – but of course he was paying workers to do the actual building, and he was just going to rake in the profits.

   

Much was also made of the fact that many of the millionaires had started out as ordinary workers and had made their own way into the elite, originally through their own efforts. But there was no mention of the fact that the vast majority of workers toil throughout their lives for little reward. And it really does not matter if a capitalist came from humble circumstances, for they live off surplus value created by exploited workers. But it’s hardly surprising that Panorama failed to point this out.

Paul Bennett

Theatre Review: Guantanamo (2004)

Theatre Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Guantanamo (New Ambassadors Theatre, London)

 

Political Theatre has the ability to transform crises into drama with impressive speed. Already the so-called War on Terror has become a hot topic in the chilly West End theatres of London. This year has seen at least four productions concerning aspects of the post 9/11 conflicts: David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Alastair Beaton’s Follow My Leader, and Embedded by Tim Robbins. One of the latest is Guantanamo – Honour Bound to Defend Freedom, which explores the detention of over 650 internees at the Cuban base by the US. Picked up in the preliminary stages of the conflict, the internees are unprotected by the Geneva Convention or US justice and are seen as neither criminal suspects nor prisoners of war – simply ‘detainees’.

   

Described as a “shocking and often deeply moving production” by the Daily Telegraph, Guantanamo is written by Gillian Slovo – daughter of Joe – and Victoria Brittain, ex-Associate Foreign Editor of the Guardian. Written is perhaps the wrong word, for the story, such as it is, is a compilation of extracts from statements and interviews with the Camps Delta and X Ray detainees, their families, and friends of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. We also have relevant politicians from the ‘alliance’ putting their oars in, generally to the delight of the audience.

   

Interestingly, the play has no clearly defined beginning or end. As the audience enters the theatre the actors playing the detainees are already on stage, pacing the boards as if wishing the audience to hurry up and sit down so they can get on with it, and remain on stage when the play has apparently ended, presumably to draw attention to the audience’s freedom and the detainees’ lack of it.

   

Lack is something we are confronted with throughout the play, particularly of dramatic intensity. This is highlighted when the orange boiler suits part for the entrances of Jack Straw and Donald Rumsfeld. Passably impersonated, it is as if Rory Bremner has put in a guest appearance to brighten a worthy but rather sunless production. The cast do well with their material but seem constrained by the form of the play. Sitting, lying, standing but rarely moving, their general immobility seems emblematic of the static nature of the play, and the effervescence of dialogue is flattened by the need for single long speeches.

   

In the end there were no performances as such to enjoy, only the words of the inmates. Though their stories may have been moving, they alone were not enough to transpose this hot topic into even lukewarm theatre.

NW

Letter: “Not gradualist” (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Not gradualist”

Dear Editors

Congratulations on an excellent centenary edition. I feel I should point out, however, that there were some errors in the article, “Getting Splinters”, in which reference was made to the 1987 discussion document, “The Road to Socialism”, circulated by Guildford branch and which I co-authored.

This circular did not claim “socialists would use their influence politically (through parliament and local councils) to adjust patterns of state income and expenditure in ‘socialistic’ directions, including the provision of free services”. Something like this appeared in the Spanner magazine long after Guildford Branch ceased to exist, but not in the Road to Socialism document itself – even though this statement seems little different from the Party’s own stated position that socialist MPS while still a minority, would consider reforms on their own merits.

Nor is it true that “Guildford’s vision was a gradualist one in which the materialist conception of history as applied to the coming of socialism was turned on its head: the economic structure of society would be essentially transformed before the socialist capture of political power, rather than afterwards”.  To say capitalism would be “essentially transformed” before the socialist capture of state power implies we are no longer talking about a capitalist society. But this is precisely what was not claimed! Guildford acknowleged the commanding heights of industry will still be in capitalist hands despite the predicted erosion of capitalist economic relationships within society, thus still necessitating  the capture of state power.

Also, far from Guildford’s vision “turning the materialist conception of history on its head”, it affirmed the link between material conditions and the spread of socialist consciousness. The latter is unlikely to happen to any significant extent without being driven to some extent by changes in the material circumstances themselves, viz. the development of non-capitalist economic relationships, prefiguring socialism (e.g. LETS, intentional communities, voluntaristic associations  etc). These will not in themselves automatically lead to socialism; they need to be infused by a socialist consciousness which, in turn, will then be able to harness them synergistically to its advantage.

The problem with the traditional SPGB approach is that it concentrates almost exclusively on the role of “abstract propagandism” (political education) as the means of bringing about socialism. While this is necessary it is unlikely to suffice on its own. This is ironic considering the importance the SPGB attaches to the Materialist Conception of History; its own “exit strategy” from capitalism appears to be an idealist one, relying on the spread of ideas only! In contrast, Guildford argued we need also to develop new material practices to help break the ideological hegemony of capitalism and enable workers to develop the necessary confidence that an alternative to capitalism is materially possible.

Finally your writer claims: “While most members readily acknowledged that the growth of the socialist movement would have profound and perhaps unpredictable impacts, and while it was the already established Party position that socialists would be organised on the economic front as well as the political front to ensure the smooth changeover of production and distribution from capitalism to socialism, this did not equate with seeking to mould capitalism into socialism from within, in a gradual way.”

This is misleading. Firstly, as the Guildford circular pointed out, what the Party meant by organising on the economic front (viz. planning for socialism) prior to the political enactment was not at all the same as envisaging the growth of non-capitalist socialistic relationship within capitalism prior to that enactmnent

Secondly, it is not true that what Guildford was proposing was to “to mould capitalism into socialism from within, in a gradual way”. We were not talking about “moulding” capitalism at all (which smacks of reformism) but, rather, the contraction in the extent and scope of capitalist economic relationships in inverse proportion to the growth of non-capitalist economic relationships within society as a whole.

Thirdly, the Guildford circular went to great lengths to point out that the kind of “socialistic” or non-capitalist relations it envisaged as developing within the interstices of a capitalist society did not constitute “socialism” but only prefigured socialism and then only to the extent that they were infused with socialist consciousness. “Socialistic” in our terms did not equate with “socialism” proper.

Finally and perhaps most disappointingly, no attempt was made to address the key arguments Guildford adduced to demonstrate the implausability of the traditional “Big Bang” theory of revolution held by the Party – dubbed  thus because it assumed capitalism would remain completely unaffected in its scope and extent by the growth of the socialist movement. But if you agree that the “big bang” theory is unsound you are logically bound to accept something rather like the vision that Guildford Branch articulated in its original discussion document.

Robin Cox, 

World in Common

Reply:

The ‘Getting Splinters’ article dealt with six political tendencies which broke away from the Socialist Party during the course of the last 100 years, with a section devoted to each. The particular section entitled the ‘Guildford Road to Socialism’ was – like the others – a brief description of the key events involved and an articulation of the main points of disagreement that lay behind them. It was not intended to refer solely to the initial discussion document called the ‘Road to Socialism’ but to the line of thinking as a whole and its differing conception of the socialist revolution to the Party’s traditional one. The initial Guildford circular was followed by others and its meaning was clarified further in the journal Spanner produced in Guildford by the same elements.

One essential point is that Guildford/Spanner believed – among many other things – that socialists in parliament and in councils should use the state to redistribute wealth and provide services for free. This was most certainly the group’s stated view. Here’s Spanner’s own explanation of (and justification for) the initial Guildford ‘Road to Socialism’ document, published in its very first edition:

“The document went on to argue that the growth of the socialist movement would nevertheless facilitate the development of non-capitalist or ‘socialistic’ relations which prefigured socialism itself. A variety of forms in which these socialistic relations might invade the capitalist economy have been tentatively proposed. These include: “A massive expansion of free (subsidised) services provided by the state in response to the growing number of socialist parliamentary delegates who would be able to wield increasing influence over the patterns of state income and expenditure.” (‘The Road to Socialism’, in Spanner (1), p.39).

While the Socialist Party has always accepted that, faced with a growing revolutionary socialist movement, capitalist governments may well offer all sorts of reforms such as free services in a bid to ward off their complete expropriation, we have never argued – as Spanner did here – that any Socialist MPs should use any influence they might have to actively seek and promote such reforms, still less hail them as “socialistic”.

When we cut through the semantics, the other points you make about the materialist conception of history, etc merely reinforce what we said in the article. Guildford (and then Spanner) believed that socialism was impossible unless capitalism was ‘invaded’ by what they termed ‘socialistic’ relations of production, i.e. co-operatives, LETS schemes and ‘free’ state services. This is based on completely muddled thinking about these types of productive activities within capitalism – as well as about the general relation between productive relations and social structures – and why they should be labelled ‘socialist’ or ‘socialistic’ when they are nothing of the sort.

As for the supposed ‘Big Bang’ theory, this simply does not represent our views accurately. We certainly do not believe that the growth of the socialist movement will leave capitalism completely unchanged until a cataclysmic revolution occurs. But we cannot now predict in any meaningful way the various ways in which capitalism will change as socialist ideas spread, so we do not think it is possible or advisable to incorporate some version of these changes into our political position. And it is certainly not true that rejecting the caricatured ‘Big Bang’ scenario means accepting the gradualist views put forward in ‘The Road to Socialism’.

Editors.

Letter: “Balanced” (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Balanced”

Dear Editors

I appreciated your balanced, if inevitably over-simplified, account of the ‘Libertarian Communism’ activists in the article ‘Getting splinters’ in the June special issue.

There was one actual inaccuracy with reference to the ‘Social Revolution’ Group and ‘Solidarity’. For the record, the ‘Social Revolution’ Group, as a whole, negotiated a merger with the ‘Solidarity’ Group on the basis of some significant changes to the Solidarity texts As we see it and As we don’t see it.

‘Wildcat’ was later formed as a local bulletin by Manchester Solidarity, members of the ICC (World Revolution) and others. Wildcat subsequently set up as a separate political group and involved comrades from Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and London. ‘Subversion’ succeeded ‘Wildcat’ after a short break, but was dissolved a few years back.

Never the less, a consistent political and organisational line can be drawn from ‘Libertarian Communism’ right through to ‘Subversion’ covering a period of some twenty-five years.

M.B. 

Manchester

Voice From The Back: Kids are dying (2004)

The Voice From The Back Column from the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kids are dying

Defenders of capitalism are fond of depicting it as a system that gradually improves the lot of the world’s population, but how do they defend the following? “The number of malnourished people worldwide has grown to 840 million – including 300 million children – even though there are ample supplies to feed them. James Morris, World Food Programme director, said the number of malnourished was growing by about five million a year. ‘There is enough money, enough food and enough goodwill in the world. Everybody simply needs to do a little more,’ he said” Herald (14 September). We intend to do all we can by propagating socialism – the only answer to this problem.

No mean city?

The City Fathers are fond of dreaming up fancy slogans about it – City of Culture, City of Architecture and so on, but there is another side to Glasgow far removed from Art Galleries and Opera Houses. ”A generation of ten to twelve year old Glasgow children will be lost to drugs because their parents do not care enough. According to a study, the city has at least 60 pre-teen heroin addicts, and there could be many more . . . Jim Doherty, of Gallowgate drug prevention and family support group, warned: ‘Tragically, we may have to concentrate on saving the next generation.’ And Professor Neil McKeganey, who led the research, added: ‘If we fail to meet the needs of vulnerable children, we face the prospect of increasing numbers addicted before their voices are broken.’  . . . But it may be too late for some, Mr Doherty added: ‘I have addicted sons. Sometimes I feel the only help I can give them is to ensure they get a decent burial’” Scotsman (24 September). This story could be repeated in many other cities in Britain. Surely you can see that there is something dreadfully wrong with a society that has 12 year old drug addicts.

The uncaring society

Capitalism is a society based on commodity production with the only driving force being the need to create more and more wealth for the tiny handful of privileged parasites who own all the means of production. If you are poor in this society – tough! If you are poor and disabled in this society – tougher still! Here is an example of how the owning class treat the disabled. “Nearly half of families with disabled children receive no support from the NHS or social services, according to research published today. Centre-right think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) found that 48 percent of families with disabled children received no help from outside the family and a further 30 percent received less than two hours support a week” Guardian (1 October). Think about the new socialist society wherein we all look after each other whether we can speak well, read well, see well or hear well. This is why we are socialists.

Poverty in the UK

The thinktank Catalyst in their recently published paper “Why Inequality Matters” has come up with some child poverty figures that illustrate the uselessness of Labour’s tinkering with the system. “The international comparisons are as embarrassing as ever: in purchasing power, the poverty of the poor British child is 11 percent worse than that of their American counterpart and nearly 30 percent worse than in France. It’s a shocking thing to say, but if you are going to be poor you’d be better off in America” Guardian (11 October).

Poverty in the USA

“One in every five US jobs pays less than a poverty-level wage for a family of four, according to a study by the nonpartisan Working Poor Families Project. The result of so many low-paying jobs is that nearly 39 million Americans, including 20 million children are members of ‘low-income working families’ – with barely enough money to cover basic needs like housing, groceries and child care, the study found” Yahoo News (12 October). Socialists don’t go in for comparing different levels of poverty in capitalism. As far as we are concerned capitalism causes poverty amidst plenty throughout the world and should be abolished.

Editorial: An Honest Election Broadcast (2004)

Editorial from the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

If his speech to the Tory Conference last month is anything to go by, Michael Howard has realised that politicians generally are perceived as people who make promises they can’t deliver on just to get elected.

This is indeed the prevalent perception but it needs to be pointed out that, even if every politician were honest and genuinely interested in improving the lives of ordinary people rather than in furthering their careers, this would not make any difference. The problems we face don’t arise from governments being composed of dishonest or self-serving politicians. What a government can do depends, not on the honesty or determination or competence of its members, but on the way the capitalist system works and on what, as a profit-making system, it requires any government – even one composed of selfless saints – to do. Capitalism just cannot be made to work in our interest.

Howard has evidently been advised by his spin-doctors that, by tapping into this perception of politicians as lying self-seekers and presenting his party’s candidates as honest and trust-worthy, he could be on to a vote-winner. We doubt if this ploy will work but we offer below an election address that can be used, without our permission or need to acknowledge its source, by any aspiring politician, of whatever party, who really wants to be honest.

“Dear Electors,

I come before you as a candidate of a party which stands for keeping the present basis of society as the ownership of productive resources by a tiny minority of the population and where goods and services are produced, not to directly satisfy people’s needs, but for sale with a view to profit.

If my party wins a majority of seats we will form a government that will manage the political side of this capitalist system, hopefully more efficiently than one formed by the other parties. Honesty compels me, however, to point out that, despite what my party has claimed in all previous elections, what governments can do within the framework of capitalism is severely limited.

No government, not even one formed by my party, can control the way the profit-driven capitalist economy works. Experience of governments formed by my party and by other parties has demonstrated that capitalism is governed by the economic law of “no profit, no production” and is periodically subject to ups and downs of economic activity which no government can prevent and which all governments have to ride out at best they can.

As capitalism can operate only as a profit-making system in the interests of the tiny profit-taking minority who own and control the means of production, any government formed by my party will be obliged to give priority to the interests of this minority. I am therefore not in a position to make any promises to improve conditions in any field for ordinary men and women like yourselves. I can promise, on the other hand that, whenever making profits comes into conflict with meeting your needs, priority will be given to profit-making. I pledge myself, if elected, to support any such austerity measures in the full knowledge of the misery and distress this will bring to many of you and without trying to pass them off as essential if you are to have jam tomorrow.

My opponents in this election also support the present capitalist system and if their party formed the government it would act in the same way. So, if you want to keep the capitalist system and are prepared to put up with its consequences, it does not matter which one of us you vote for or, for that matter, whether you vote at all.

I would however request that you do vote for me since, unless I am elected an MP, I won’t be able to pursue my chosen career of professional politician.”

Regional Assembly – careerist scam (2004)

From the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

As leaflets promoting the benefits of an Elected Regional Assembly drop through our letter boxes it is time for workers to ponder just what is on offer.

    

Firstly, this constitutional reform is of no real benefit or relevance to us. It leaves our lives and the problems the profit system causes completely unchanged. Exploitation via the wages system continues. Unemployment continues as does every ill that plagues society. As far as solving real problems is concerned constitutional reform is just a useless irrelevancy. Labour only wants to bring in such reforms to maintain their reforming image. They wish to give an illusion of change – and such change they know will not coming into conflict with profits.

    

You may ask, if elected assemblies bring power nearer to the people, how can socialists be against this? Socialists are indeed in favour of democracy and socialism will be a fully democratic society, but full democracy is not possible under capitalism. Supporters of capitalism – Labour, Tories and Liberals included – always mean only political democracy, since economic democracy, where people would democratically run the places in which they work, is out of the question under capitalism, based as it is on the workplace being owned and controlled by and for the benefit of a privileged minority.

    

You can have the most democratic constitution imaginable but this will not make any difference to the fact that profits have to come before meeting needs under capitalism.

    

Secondly, a regional assembly will get almost all of its money from central government and the only “power” it will have will be to rearrange slightly how the limited amount of funds it will be given is to be spent. In other words, it will have no more real power than existing borough or city councils.

    

A local regional assembly will thus be part of the administrative arm of central government and its members no more than elected civil servants spending central government money. All we are being offered is another layer of elected bureaucrats – another trough for the professional politicians to get their snouts into, but of no significance to ordinary people.

    

If our rulers want to reform the machinery of capitalist government, that’s up to them. But spare us the pretence that it is some great extension of democracy.

    

As far as socialists are concerned, we are always grateful for any opportunity to contest control of the apparatus of government, even if that opportunity is handed out by the government as a careerist scam intended for its supporters. We have no preferences over the electoral systems, though we would use whatever access they gave us to these assemblies to provide a platform to shout about the interests of the working class.

    

The clearest message, though, from the government’s plans, is that power remains firmly at the centre, and that the elected bodies are only there to provide information flow in order to allocate resources effectively. The golden rule applies in politics – them as have the gold rule. So long as the purse strings are retained centrally, there is no possibility of the policies of these assemblies being anything other than the pale shadows of central government’s. Socialists look forward, instead, to having, within a socialist society, genuine, democratic freedom of association, where communities govern themselves through their own efforts; forming groupings where they need, rather than being stifled by sham-bureaucratic democracy engineered from above.

– statement put out by North-East branch of the Socialist Party for the 4 November referendum.

Terror: the students ape their masters (2004)

From the November 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a University Challenge for thugs, students confront their teachers, from the world’s top school for terrorism, run by the CIA – the masters of their craft.

American capitalists and their puppet regime in the White House, world satellite states, proxies and missionaries, toadies in the media – all those who go to fill up the ranks of the ‘coalition of the willing’ – conduct a war in Iraq to liberate the country for free expression and sound political activity, for the continuous spreading of the ‘American dream’ with lashings of apple-pie. 

    

Well, that is what they’ve been telling us ever since the first tall story for the war, to clear out Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, blew up in their face. Now other lies are meeting the same fate, with the recent publishing of evidence of systematic programmes of torture meted out by the military and secret agents of the ‘liberating forces’ against their former detractors in Iraq. Not to mention the continuous bombing and murder of innocent Iraqis on a daily basis which could run as high to 35,000 deaths to date, and the kidnapping of thousands of foreign nationals (Arab,  Asian and North African) to be held at Guantanamo Bay and numerous jails throughout the world. This exposes the sham claims that this war is to liberate the country for free political activity.

    

Socialists were never in any doubt that this war more than just being ‘in’ Iraq was ‘over’ Iraq. The business of the war is neither ethical, nor cultural, but based on commerce and the advancement of the American economy in its quest for worldwide dominion, as the conqueror takes the spoils. It is not just the oil that is at stake here. That is a major prize, but also there are the extremely lucrative contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq itself, both civilian ($100 billion says the Economist) and military, Iraqi and regional trade, cultural and social influences across the region, property and cheap labour for American corporations, as well as the theatre testing of weapons of small, medium and mass destruction. We are just as sure of this fact as we are of another: that the  tune to which Bush and Blair and world leaders dance is nothing other than that of capital.

    

The bourgeois media, as they monitor the progress of the war, marked the first day of August with the milestone of one thousand US soldiers being killed since the invasion of Iraq eighteen months or so ago and the news that the situation there has deteriorated sharply in recent months. We are all familiar with the daily news headlines depicting another US campaign in trouble. We hear that there is an average of 87 attacks on coalition forces per day, up from 40 in August; there are 25 car bombs a month on average; we have seen 120 kidnappings of civilian workers; the rate of US personnel now being injured stands at 1000 per month and unofficially at 20,000 in all. Both Bush and Colin Powell now admit that they misjudged the post-war state of Iraq. Powell also admits there are no-go-areas in Iraq for coalition forces (termed: “areas we avoid”).

    

The situation developing in Iraq is similar to that in Afghanistan, where the US now controls less of the country than did the Soviet regime under its client Najibullah. The CIA reports that in Iraq the insurgency forces, which have come from all over the Muslim world could number as much as 50,000 at one time, and total of possible recruits could be unlimited. It is becoming clear that planned elections due for Iraq in January 2005 are being called into question. The funds for the reconstruction of Iraq presently standing at $18 billion dollars have hardly been spent. Indeed, a substantial amount of this money ($4 billion) has been diverted to security budgets as the situation deteriorates. Over in Afghanistan, Taliban forces are now regrouping and gaining in strength. Back in Iraq the US, which shunned the United Nations in its invasion is now, in an attempt to maximize the rewards for American big business, desperate to extricate itself from the worsening conditions there. Body bags of homecoming dead are kept off camera, and official injured lists for soldiers in both Afghanistan and Iraq have still not been published.

    

Now, all this talk of failure, particularly in Iraq, has led to the linking of this looming disaster to that dreaded word, that highly sensitive word, that word that hurts so bad in the US as it portrays one of the biggest foreign policy failures in US history to date – ‘Vietnam’. The word which sounded like a whisper before, is gradually becoming louder and louder as the winter draws in and Iraq spirals out of control.

    

The Vietcong, who saw off the US in the jungles of Asia, were trained and supplied by a highly respected enemy of the time, the Soviet Union. Now in the desert of Iraq, the US is up against Iraqi Sunnis, Al-Qaeda, and Moqtada al Sadar’s Shi’ite Mahdi Army forces. These disparate groups may appear like the colourful mix of the ragtag and bobtail militias of the region, and not the highly disciplined army of the Vietcong, but they have all been to school and have been taught well by the CIA, the masters of the craft of covert terrorism. The US taught and supplied these forces for foreign policy missions thought too dangerous for US professional forces in the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviets against the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.

    

As we said after 9/11 in the article ‘Terrorism versus terrorism’ in the October 2001 Socialist Standard:

“The US is now reaping the bitter harvest of its foreign policy which used Islamic fundamentalism as a puppet in its perennial game of globo-political profit-making. For years it courted some of the most dangerous, conservative and fanatical followers of Islam, but the capitalist globalisation process, which the US has pursued obsessively, has served to make political Islam more reactionary in defence of its own culture and strategic interests.”

One is led into the impression that we are spectators in a University Challenge for thugs, where students confront their teachers from the world’s top American school for terrorism, run by the CIA in a bloody trial to the death with thousands on each side being killed. In addition, as is the way with all wars, innocents who have got in the line of fire are indiscriminately killed.

Similar tactics

The American secret services and their students are using similar tactics in these wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Are the insurgent students’ actions just copycats or is it all in the training? The US has kidnapped Arab, Asian and North African nationals and held them at Guantanamo Bay and numerous jails throughout the world, dressed them in orange suits and abused them, shown them on camera and on occasions have killed them – so too have the students. The US has used a policy of indiscriminate bombing to take out their enemies where innocents are killed – so too have the students. The US hand out leaflets, use video and TV and the Internet to persuade their enemies and supporters to change their mind or to surrender – so too have the students. The Taliban have mass leafleted in the coming Afghanistan elections.

    

Most decent humans, socialists and not, will be sickened by all this death and destruction reported daily on our TVs and in our newspapers. However, as socialists have been reporting to you in the Socialist Standard for 100 years, war and terrorism are simply bloody extensions to the everyday activities in capitalist society, whether for outdated concepts of national and cultural determinations of peoples, or the covert civil war in society – the battle for profits among companies, individuals and states. This brings into play labour, technology, cunning and deceit in a “commercial war” with others in the same business both within and beyond national borders, and may lead on to open military conflict using all the resources of a state. Not on every occasion does commercial war lead to military war, only when a vital interest is at stake (such as oil for the USA). Military war may proceed from a “trade war” where government-activated subsidy (to help their own side compete) and tariffs (to encumber their foreign competition) have failed to impress.

    

The eventual winners of this tussle in Iraq will do nothing for the workers there, or anywhere else. No matter the nationality of both the exploiter and the exploited, the result is the same. Iraqi Sunnis, Al-Qaeda, and the Mahdi Army forces, are capitalists in their world outlook and will just as willingly and as easily, as the US, employ violence against their own “cultural peoples” when profits and the very economic system is threatened by workers erroneously using violence. Workers cannot hope to win anything from war, commercial and military, or terrorism, and should organise themselves to disengage from these injurious capitalist activities. We should answer this university challenge for thugs in Afghanistan and Iraq which is played out daily on our TV, with a democratic and universal challenge to the backers of terrorism and their armies with our demands and campaign for the abolition of the wages system!

William Dunn