Letter: Kenya school scam (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kenya school scam

Dear Editors,

I worked as a school manager at Bridge International Academies from  2010 to mid this year. The company’s business is educating the less fortunate in society at an affordable cost. Most of the company’s schools are constructed using iron sheets. And they are located in the slums.

Workers (teachers, school managers) in these schools are poorly paid, work for long hours and are not represented in any trade union. The proprietor of these schools is a top American capitalist. Profit is his main theme, though from time to time high quality education is dangled to parents and in prospectuses to attract them to the schools.

Workers are paid per the pupils who pay that month. Those who pay later on don’t count for this and the money remains the profit of the company (worker’s sweat). Any worker who makes an attempt to complain or show displeasure is shown the door.

Morale has been low and prospects of employees scaling the corporate ladder are slim as there is no upward mobility in the firm. The company pays US nationals handsomely while Kenyans are left to feed on crumbs.

Out of the 210 schools, 75 percent are profitable but this profit doesn’t get to those who make this a reality (teachers and school managers).

If that’s the way capitalism operates, then damn the system. It’s ugly and repugnant. Companies ought to realise that without their workers the wheels of their operations would grind to a halt.

Patrick W. Ndege, 

Nairobi, Kenya.

Letter: Funny Money? (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Funny Money?

Dear Editors

Kaz’s interesting article ‘Propaganda Power… in your pocket’ in September’s Socialist Standard sparked a mischievous thought: How ironic it would be to find bank notes defaced with the briefest of messages: ‘Abolish money – see SPGB’.  I’m not suggesting a thing, mind.

Andy Cox (by email)

Reply:

Maybe that’s why they’re thinking of changing  to plastic notes? – Editors.

Letter: Childish? (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Childish?

Dear Editors

I thought your article Resistanbul in the July Socialist Standard was one of the best, most informative and helpful I have read in a very long time. But did you really have to spoil it on the front cover with a trite and infantile reference to turkeys and stuffing?

Your article was extremely respectful and sensitive to the issues and challenges facing Turkish society and the Turkish people. Your cover was cheap and childish.

Andrew Northall. 

Kettering

Voice From The Back: Nationalist Nonsense (2013)

The Voice From The Back column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalist Nonsense

Nationalism is a horrendous condition that has been used by the owning class to turn worker against worker in wars and has led to millions of death. A particularly stupid manifestation of nationalism  was displayed in Belfast recently. Because the union jack flag was only going to be displayed on designated days at the city hall so-called British patriots rioted in the streets. ‘Eight police officers have been injured and 12 people arrested following clashes between loyalists and riot police in Belfast. Six officers were injured in the Crumlin Road and Ligoneil Road area of north Belfast and two at Shaftesbury Square in the city centre.’ (BBC News, 8 December) If it wasn’t so tragic it might be called comical that workers, many of them  without a job, should take to the streets to support ‘their’ country.

Figures Do Not Lie

Newspapers are fond of depicting a Britain with a steadily improving standard of living, but occasionally even they have to confess about the realities of modern capitalism. ‘The cost of heating a home has rocketed by 63 per cent since the summer of 2008, while essentials such as potatoes and minced beef have surged by 30 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. Over the same period wages have grown by only 6.8 per cent.’ (Times, 1 December) They then go on to report that during this period wages have been corroded by a 14 percent rise in inflation.

Baby It’s Cold Inside

While major stores of High Street Santas ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ in mock joviality the harsh realities of working class life are revealed by a website. ‘The price comparison website uSwitch.com warned that nine in ten Britons are expecting to ration their energy use this winter to save money — a frightening prospect amid warnings of sub-zero temperatures. Three quarters of households went without heating at some point last winter to keep energy costs down and 15 per cent said that this had affected their quality of life or health.’ (Times, 1 December) So, remember when you are wishing your next door neighbour a ‘Happy New Year’ keep on your gloves, scarf and thermal underwear.

Rough Sleeping In The Rough Society

Politicians like to pose as supporters of families but young people and families with children are increasingly facing homelessness, according to a study, which says rising numbers of people are finding themselves without a roof over their heads. ‘The report, by academics from Heriot-Watt University and the University of York, says all forms of homelessness are continuing to rise in England, and argues that “deepening benefit cuts are likely to have a much more dramatic impact on homelessness”. …. The report says national rough sleeper numbers rose by 23% in the year to autumn 2011, from 1,768 to 2,181 –  a more dramatic growth dynamic than anything seen since the 1990s.’ The number of families who end up asking for assistance from local authorities because they are about to lose their homes rose from 40,020 in 2009/10 to 50,290 in 2011/12. (Guardian, 4 December) This is the madness of capitalism in action – houses lying empty while people are forced to sleep in the street.

Conspicuous Consumption

The owning class are flaunting their obscene wealth but even by their excessive behaviour the following Christmas dinner menu takes a bit of beating.  ‘Costing £125,000 for four people, or £31, 250 per person, the menu for what will be the world’s most expensive Christmas dinner menu has been devised by London chef Ben Spalding, who has completed residencies at restaurants including The Fat Duck in Bray, Gordon Ramsay’s Royal Hospital Road and Per Se in New York. Among the ingredients being used are a Yubari King melon costing £2,500, in addition the £2,600 Densuke watermelon; 150-year-old balsamic vinegar costing £1,030; whole white Alba truffle costing £3,500; and gold leaf coming in at £6,000. To drink, a £37,000 bottle of Piper Heidsieck 1907 champagne will be served in diamond-studded flutes; diners who prefer spirits can sip from a £2,000 stock of DIVA vodka, described as a “diamond-sand-filtered vodka” and served in a bottle that is filled with Swarovski crystals.’ (Daily Telegraph, 7 December) All of this excess is taking place in a society where millions are trying to eke out an existence on less than $2 a day.

Material World: The Second Nuclear Age (2013)

The Material World Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Five years ago, we reminded readers of this column that ‘nuclear weapons are still there’ (Socialist Standard, February 2008). True, many fewer of them than at the height of the Cold War. But more than enough to turn the surface of our planet into a radioactive wasteland and still have plenty left over.

In a recent book entitled The Second Nuclear Age (Henry Holt & Co., 2012), the prominent American nuclear strategist Paul Bracken argues that nuclear weapons are now regaining their relevance to statecraft. They are making a comeback. The risk of nuclear war is significantly higher now than it ever was in the past.

This is partly because more states now have nuclear weapons at their disposal. The ‘old’ nuclear powers — the USA, USSR/Russia, China, Britain and France — have been joined by Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran, as we are constantly told, may get hold of nuclear weapons within a few years. If so, other Asian states may not be far behind.

Rogue states?

Coverage of the issue of nuclear proliferation in the Western media is dominated by speculation about the dangers of nuclear weapons getting into the hands of ‘rogue states’ like Iran and North Korea. These countries are selected for special attention not because their rulers are exceptionally irresponsible but because they are at loggerheads with the Western powers.

However, there are equally good reasons to worry about the possible use of nuclear weapons by Israel and Pakistan. Both of these presumed Western allies rely on rapidly growing nuclear arsenals to compensate for the potential vulnerability of their territory and conventional forces.

Recent developments in military technology increase the risk of escalation from conventional to nuclear war. The availability of much more powerful –though still ‘conventional’ in the sense of non-nuclear –weapons blurs the previous distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, especially as both kinds can be carried by the same delivery vehicle. How can anyone tell whether an incoming Cruise missile is armed with a conventional or a tactical nuclear warhead?     

Nevertheless, the main reason why nuclear weapons pose a greater danger now than they did in the second half of the last century is the emergence of a more complicated and less stable interstate system.

A complex equation

The Cold War system was organized primarily around the bilateral US-Soviet axis. There were no territorial disputes between the two superpowers; their spheres of control in Europe were rigidly demarcated; and their rivalry in the Third World was constrained by implicitly understood ‘rules of play’.  

The newly emergent system is multilateral. There are territorial disputes even between nuclear powers, such as the continuing confrontation of India and Pakistan in Kashmir. China is striving to establish a sphere of influence in the Western Pacific, but there is no recognition of such a sphere by Japan or the United States. The result is a clear potential for armed conflict in the South and East China Seas and over Taiwan (on the South China Sea, see MW for April 2009 and June 2012). In the Middle East, Israel seeks to preserve its regional monopoly of nuclear weapons by any means necessary.

A multilateral system makes arms control and conflict management vastly more difficult. Thus, even supposing for a moment that conditions were generally conducive to a long-term relaxation of tensions between India and Pakistan, India would still be unable to reduce its conventional and nuclear forces to a level that posed no threat to Pakistan. That is because Indian strategists have also to take into account the balance of forces between India and China.

Then how about trilateral negotiations between India, Pakistan and China? But Chinese strategists have to factor yet other powers into their calculations — Russia, Japan, the United States. An attempt to settle a conflict between just two countries quickly turns into a complex equation with many variables. So it is not all that surprising that there should be no current global equivalent to the US-Soviet arms control negotiations of the Cold War era.

A world without nuclear weapons

The goal traditionally pursued by campaigners for nuclear disarmament was a world without nuclear weapons –but a world still divided into competing states and blocs, still plagued by conflicts over resources, still armed to the teeth with non-nuclear weapons. The strategy was to separate the issue of nuclear weapons from its broader military and political context and deal with it first. Then, with nuclear weapons out of the way, the next goals would be conventional disarmament, a lasting peace, perhaps a united world.

Arguably this was never a feasible plan. But under the special conditions of the Cold War era it looked as though it might be feasible. Those conditions have now changed — and not for the better. The end of the Cold War did not bring a world without nuclear weapons any closer. On the contrary, the image of that world has receded rapidly and is already well on the way to oblivion.    

This does not mean that a world without nuclear weapons is impossible. It means only that such a world must take the form of a united human community that has no use for weapons of any kind. The efforts of people who want a better world — or simply human survival — must be geared directly toward that goal, for there is no viable halfway house.

Stefan

Occupy ideas (2013)

Pamphlet Review from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Little Book of Ideas. By Occupy London’s Economics Working Group. 

This 60-page booklet has been produced to mark the first anniversary of the Occupy camp outside St Paul’s. It is not a manifesto nor a policy document but ‘a small handbook which explains complex economic terms and theories in simple language’ so that people can understand what’s gone on and take part in discussions about what to do. The terms are dealt with alphabetically from ‘Austerity Measures’ to ‘Tax Havens’. When it comes to proposed reforms, the case for and the case against are presented though it is generally clear which side they are on. For instance:

  ‘Supporters of the banking system say that it has been the means by which industrial development has been so successful. However others contend that reckless lending by the banks is an inevitable consequence of a financial system driven by profit at all costs, and an alternative banking and monetary system is essential to wrest power and wealth away from the banking interests which precipitated the current crisis.’

What ‘others say’ here could be seen as the underlying theme of the whole booklet, i.e., that the current economic downturn was caused by the behaviour of the banks and so offers a purely monetary explanation.

It is true that in a system ‘driven by profit at all costs’, when things are going well and it seems that this will continue, ‘reckless’ behaviour in pursuit of profits will be an inevitable consequence. But this applies to the economic system as a whole and not just to its financial sector. In such a situation banks overlend. Corporations involved in the real economy overproduce. In fact, it is this latter that causes the financial crisis and subsequent general economic downturn.

Surprisingly, in view of the efforts made by currency cranks to influence Occupy, the booklet does not reflect the views of any of these. In fact it gives a not too inaccurate description of how banks work (‘acting as financial intermediaries between sellers and buyers, asset holders and lenders, in order to guarantee payment’) and even of so-called fractional reserve banking (‘banks are forced to keep a fraction of their deposits in case depositors want their money back’).

Their argument — not so different from the conventional view — is that ‘in recent years the system has got out of control’. Which suggests that downturns like the present could be avoided if in future banks are subjected to adequate regulation. The booklet, not being a policy document, only mentions various proposed reforms: separating retail and investment banking, ‘full-reserve banking’, peer-to-peer lending, banning short selling and trading on margins.

But what if (as Marxists contend) the banks did not cause the crisis, but at most only made it worse when it broke? Then, any ‘alternative banking and monetary system’ would be irrelevant as a means of avoiding future slumps. A more radical change away from the whole economic system based on production for profit would be required.

Adam Buick

Anti-Nuclear Movement Unclear On Capitalism (2013)

From the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 2011 Fukushima disaster exposed how energy companies sacrifice safety for profit, but the single issue anti-nuclear movement has little to say about the profit system.

As a Tokyo resident, I had a first-hand view of the anti-nuclear movement taking shape after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011. I work in the district where most of government ministries are located, not far from the Diet building and the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), so I’ve encountered all sorts of protests, large and small.

The protests were a welcome sight to me not just because they expressed the anger felt toward that rotten outfit, TEPCO, and the elite bureaucrats who have done its bidding; but also because Japan has been sunk in a depressing mood of political apathy over the past two decades. To finally witness spirited demonstrations that brought together all sorts of people was invigorating. Particularly impressive were the festive gatherings outside the Prime Minister’s Residence every Friday last summer.

In recent months the protests have quieted down considerably, but anti-nuclear sentiment remains among much of the population, as was clear during the December general election campaign when politicians of all stripes made (usually vague) promises to eventually phase out nuclear energy.

The debate about the future of nuclear energy has taken capitalism quite for granted, however. Much of the discussion has revolved around whether it is “economically feasible” to dump nuclear power for alternative energy sources. Those in favour of the change try to bolster their case with a Keynesian claim that developing solar and wind energy will spur overall economic growth.

No plan is feasible unless it is profitable, which should already give anti-nuclear activists pause if they take the issue of human health and happiness as seriously as they claim. So far, though, the movement has shown little willingness to ponder the role of nuclear energy under capitalism, or how this profit-happy system heightens its inherent dangers.

A ‘manmade disaster’

A basic position among most opponents of nuclear energy is that it is beyond our ability to control; a technology that can never be made safe enough for human beings. The Fukushima disaster was taken as evidence of this failed technology—not the latest manifestation of a disastrous social system.

The myth that nuclear energy is safe had been propagated in Japan for decades by the energy conglomerates and their network of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, and journalists. This myth crumbled before people’s eyes as the Fukushima disaster spun out of control. We saw the experts trotted out to insist that the accident was not as bad as it looked, or that radiation was not such a terrible thing. Scientists, government officials, and TEPCO spokesmen were still peddling the safety myth but the public wasn’t buying it.

But, in a peculiar way, turning the safety myth on its head has helped let TEPCO off the hook. That is to say, if nuclear energy is a force that defies human control, the question of the company’s responsibility becomes a secondary issue. Rather than being guilty of criminal negligence for the disaster, TEPCO could only be more generally blamed for promoting an unmanageable technology.

The underlying logic of many anti-nuclear activists is not so different from the way TEPCO tried to dodge its own responsibility by blaming the disaster solely on the ‘unimaginable’ scale of the tsunami. In either case, the emphasis is on a natural force beyond human control.

But TEPCO’s ‘who’da thunk it’ excuse did not stand up to scrutiny. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, a parliamentary panel that carried out a six-month investigation of the disaster, stated in its report that ‘The direct causes of the accident were all foreseeable prior to March 11, 2011’; and that ‘The operator (TEPCO), the regulatory bodies (NISA and NSC) and the government body promoting the nuclear power industry (METI), all failed to correctly develop the most basic safety requirements.’

More specifically, the report points to how TEPCO overlooked various warnings over the years that had pointed to the ‘high possibility of tsunami levels reaching beyond the assumptions made at the time of [the plant’s] construction.’ Another fatal screw-up was the placement of diesel generators and other internal power equipment ‘within or nearby the plant,’ where they were soon inundated by the tsunami.

Based on its investigation, the panel concluded that the disaster must be categorized as a preventable, ‘manmade’ disaster—rather than an unavoidable result of the natural disaster. Of course, the level of safety needed to actually prevent the disaster was well above what existed at the Fukushima plant, or what exists now at many nuclear plants across this quake-prone land.

Preventable yet inevitable?

The crucial question, however, is not the technical issue of what TEPCO might have done to prevent the disaster but why it in fact did so little. This is a question that the government panel claims to answer but only arrives at a half-truth.

The panel’s report clearly states that the ‘accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators, and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties’ adding that: ‘The root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual.’

Remove the word ‘root’ and there is little to object to as a description of the corruption at the heart of Japan’s nuclear industry. But blaming the ‘organizational and regulatory systems’ does not account for why the systems were so defective in the first place.

Reading the report, one has the impression that TEPCO is simply an organization that society happened to entrust with the purely technical matter of running nuclear power plants, and that it fell short in that responsibility because of its organizational defects and the shortcomings of regulators. All that is needed, therefore, are fundamental internal reforms and stricter oversight.

But let’s not forget that power plants exist not just to generate electricity but to generate profits for their operators as well. Couldn’t that simple fact have had something do to with the lax safety measures and ‘collusion’ with regulators?

TEPCO executives may have acted stupidly in the eyes of the company’s own scientists in neglecting safety, but at the time their decisions seemed shrewd enough to shareholders. (Although it all backfired spectacularly in the end!) What terrified the executives more than an earthquake or tsunami was the prospect of business losses.

In 2007, the company posted its first annual loss in nearly 30 years following the shut down Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant as a result of the fire and radiation leak caused by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake that same year. The plant was closed for two years, meaning huge losses for the company.

The irony is that this disaster (and earlier accidents at the Tokaimura plant), which should have alerted TEPCO to catastrophic risks, only drove it to pursue profit more relentlessly, cutting corners to make up for its losses. Clearly, even though the disaster was “preventable,” technically speaking, under the profit system accidents of some scale are a near inevitability.

The anti-nuclear movement itself has concentrated on the technical side of the issue, and only aimed to remove the ‘evil’ of nuclear power without placing any blame on capitalism. Whatever their disagreements over nuclear energy, both sides of the debate support the continuation of a profit-based system.

Out of control system

If the nuclear energy sector and its regulators were a monstrous exception to the norms of behaviour in other industries, the anti-nuclear movement’s case might be compelling. But let’s be serious. Recall that just a year before Fukushima the lax safety measures of British Petroleum and its subcontractors resulted in a three-month-long (!) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Or what about the deadly coal-mine accidents that occur every year like clockwork. Or take whatever industrial accident you like.

If the Fukushima disaster proves that nuclear power is ‘out of human’ control, as anti-nuclear activists argue, couldn’t the same argument be made regarding those and other industries? Not only for the deaths of the workers in those industries, but because of the long-term health impact from coal-burning thermal plants and the like.

This is not to argue that ‘nuclear energy isn’t so bad.’ The point is rather that an acceptable level of safety for nuclear power (if that is indeed possible) is incompatible with capitalism—just as safety is sacrificed in so many other industries in the same pursuit of profit.

What is ‘out of human control’ is not this or that technology, but the social system of production under which we live. That system is quite literally out of our hands as workers, and even the capitalists who administer it must act in accordance with the needs of Capital.

People in Japan and elsewhere are right to be deeply suspicious of the nuclear industry. But that suspicion must be extended to other industries and to the capitalist system as a whole if fundamental social change is ever to occur to bring society under conscious human control.

Much of the power of the anti-nuclear movement seems to stem from the widespread sense of powerlessness people naturally have under capitalism. Nuclear energy is almost a symbol for Capital itself: something created by human beings but with a power that eludes our control.

Capitalism is the issue

The way the Japanese leftist have rallied behind the single issue of abolishing nuclear energy, without having much if anything to say about capitalism, is characteristic of their overall approach. The politics of the Left comes down to the assortment of positions taken on the burning social problems of the day, without stopping to consider the deeper causes; this is why an air of unreality hangs about the ‘solutions’ leftists propose.

Leftists vehemently oppose nuclear energy in moralistic terms, viewing it as a social evil, but pay little attention to the role of nuclear energy within capitalism. They seem to forget what sort of world we are living in; a world in which each nation’s energy policy is ultimately dictated by the needs of Capital.

Japan rapidly developed nuclear energy in the 1970s to fuel its rapid growth amid rising oil prices. The issue of whether the technology was safe enough for human beings was not the primary concern. How can the Left bemoan this outcome without calling for an end to such an inhuman system? Don’t they recognize that the insatiable thirst for energy is linked to the thirst for profit? This economic reality is precisely why China, India, and other countries are going ahead with nuclear expansion despite the Fukushima disaster.

That is not to say that without the profit motive nuclear energy—or coal or oil for that matter—would suddenly become ‘safe.’ But human beings under socialism would finally be in a position to discuss the risks and benefits of each energy source, and rationally decide on the best choices to make.

Michael Schauerte

Greasy Pole: How Not to Spoil Your Vote. And Why (2013)

The Greasy Pole column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The General Election of 1992. A reminiscence. Going to the local polling station after all the experts had used their surveys and samples and focus groups to let us know that our one and only choice had to be between the hysterical bluster of Neil Kinnock and the plaintive reticence of John Major. Planning to use my voting paper to state the socialist reasons to reject all of them and set out the real alternative. My six-year old son Tom agreed to come with me, probably after his own expert analyses had led him to hope for a consequent happy visit to the local Game Boy stockist; he had not then read any Upton Sinclair or George Orwell or The Communist Manifesto. The polling station was pretty busy with so many people hunched over their voting paper. Not long after I had begun my contribution, when I had barely had time to deal with the negatives of Kinnock and Major, Tom became impatient and embarrassed by my being immobile while so many others were so quickly in and out. When his muttering and sleeve tugging became too intrusive I cut short my mini-manifesto and we headed off for the Game Boy. I blamed the politicians.

This was brought to mind by the low voter turn-out in some of the recent by-elections – Corby, Manchester Central, Cardiff South – and the reasons suggested by the political pundits, who so often claim to be The Voice Of The People, that the voters were suffering from a compound of habitual apathy and election weariness. Which did not take enough account of the reports that an interesting number of those who did go to the polls completed their ballot paper not by a cross but a statement of their reasoned opposition to all the candidates and in some cases their disgust with the entire media-obsessed game of politics and its players. This was not apathy but an active statement of choice. Truly, it could have been better – more effective and encouraging – had it been driven by a conscious intention to point towards the valid alternative but it was enough to allow a tremble of optimism that as a habit it might catch on.

Corby

Meanwhile in Corby there was a notable turn-out of 42 percent to hint that the one-time steel town had shaken off its flirtation with the undeviatingly self-promoting Tory Louise Mensch. It says enough about David Cameron’s vaunted “A” List of candidates that it should throw up somebody like Mensch and it was to widespread relief that she announced her intention to resign the seat as soon as possible to spend more time with her trans-Atlantic family and her heavily prosperous pop-star manager husband. Which aroused some rumours about the reasons for Cameron failing to make himself aware of her glittering talents. And – perhaps crucially – about the evidence that had she clung on she would have been crushed in the next general election. None of this prevented her, during the by-election, praising her aspiring successor Tory Christine Emmett as “… a true local girl … she’d be a wonderful MP”, apparently unaware that this might have lost Emmett a bunch of votes.

Manchester Central

In Manchester Central, had she dared to show her face, Louise Mensch would not have received a warm welcome. This constituency’s turn-out of 18.16 percent was the lowest since the by-election in Poplar during the unusual circumstances of 1942; it is a place which has never before had a woman Labour MP. In a constituency where, according to one voter, the party could “put a rosette on a dustbin and it would win” Labour offered one Lucy Powell who, although undoubtedly a woman, was considered to be steeped enough in Labour politics – Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign manager and then Deputy Chief of Staff – to be welcomed as a “Labour Party apparatchik”. There was however one niggling doubt about her; in the neighbouring Manchester Withington in 2010 she surprised a lot of people by failing to unseat the LibDem MP John Leech. So that in the recent by-election her candidacy needed to be nourished enough for her to trot out banalities like “We have to think in terms of empowering communities to make decisions for themselves and get people involved so they feel they can aspire”. Well in the end it all went according to plan; the dustbin came out on top and Manchester Central has a new woman MP.

Rotherham

As the polling stations closed their doors and Louise Mensch faded away across the Atlantic attention switched to three other by-elections: Croydon North, (turn-out 26.5 percent) Middlesbrough (25.91 percent) and Rotherham (33.63 percent). The last of these contests was unusually piquant because of its similarity to Corby in the voters’ assumed anger over its MP’s behaviour. Denis MacShane was forced to resign over a succession of matters including some typically extravagant expense claims which brought his integrity into question. One example was a clutch of 19 false invoices which he submitted, described by a Parliamentary Committee as “plainly intended to deceive”. Little wonder that the Respect candidate ran a poster van publicising “Denis MacShame”. Rotherham’s reputation is as a tough town where once they dug coal and smelted steel; it has not elected a Conservative since Labour’s disaster days of 1931. And it has never before had a woman MP. Which raised some searching questions (and a walk-out of members) when the locally prominent Maroof Hussain was beaten to the nomination by a national party favourite Sarah Champion, who went on to win with a delighted UKIP in second place.

None of these elections would have caused any abstinent electors or polling booth essayists to doubt that, at the least, they had appropriate consistency on their side. If capitalism’s current crises have done nothing else they expose the impotent panic among the self-appointed experts – the economists, politicians, analysts and the like – as each of their preferred remedies is exposed as a discredited sham. It is in contrast to that feeble confusion that those who stand aside to put forward the case for a different, cohesively humane system can truly be described as the radicals.

Ivan

Proper Gander: Pandering and Pampering (2013)

The Proper Gander Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Next time you stay in a cheap B&B or one of those dreary chain hotels, try asking for a brand-new jacuzzi to be fitted in your room. Or why not specify how you would like the walls redecorated before you arrive? You’d expect baffled looks or swear words in reply, but not if you were staying at Claridge’s hotel. There, your requests would be met with just a slightly forced smile. Paying up to £7,000 a night might make you feel entitled to make demands like those, or something more modest like having a piano in the room. 83,000 guests a year can apparently afford to do this. And humble plebs like us can vicariously book in too, thanks to Inside Claridge’s (BBC2). The hotel’s polished doors have been opened to the cameras, which follow round its servile staff and bloated guests. Claridge’s is a ‘five star luxury hotel favoured by royalty and celebrities, known by some as the annexe to Buckingham Palace’. Its waiters and managers scurry round like worker ants to maintain the top-price service.

There’s something admirable about the staff’s attention to detail, even if it is used in such ludicrous ways as forming a committee of four to choose and test new alarm clocks. Or making sure that the handle of a fork is an inch away from the edge of the dinner table. It’s a shame that their energy is wasted on pandering to the whims of the elite. To satisfy the conservative tastes of the ageing clientele, there is a deliberate emphasis on following traditions, especially deference from staff. The only aspect of the hotel which isn’t old-fashioned is the price. And it’s this reassurance which the guests are paying for, as much as the extravagance and the pampering. Claridge’s represents a step back to a bourgeois golden age, where the wealthy can hide themselves away from the world’s problems. The four-poster beds and million-pound chandeliers help insulate the elite from the rest of us. The excesses shown on Inside Claridge’s shouldn’t make us feel jealous, they should make us feel angry.

Mike Foster

Letter: BBC reply on Marx (2013)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

We wrote to Stephanie Flanders about her programme about Marx but received no reply. A Socialist Party member did, however, receive this reply to an individual letter

Dear Mr Maratty

Thank you for contacting us about Masters of Money and please accept our apologies for the delay in responding. I discussed your letter with the production team and the Executive Producer has requested that I forward you his response [below]. 

As you say, exploring Marx’s ideas within an hour is a huge challenge for television aimed at the uninitiated. This is especially the case when the programme is made with reference to the recent financial crisis, itself a very complex issue. I am very sorry that you didn’t enjoy this particular compression of the relevance of Marx’s thinking, and hope this letter explains some of the thinking behind the programme to your satisfaction.

The reason why we concentrated so heavily on the ‘can’t buy back’ idea is that the programme and series was framed around explaining the recent global financial crisis. The thinkers featured in the programme who spoke in support of Marx in some shape or form –Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, George Magnus, Raghuram Rajan, Tariq Ali, David Harvey and Martin Jacques –all highlighted this particular reading of Marx’s ideas as being the one most pertinent today, as did our academic advisors at the Open University. I am aware that there are many other Marxist or Marxian readings of our current situation, but given the constraints, this seemed the best one to focus on.

You object to our description of Marx having ‘next to no alternative laid out’. We believe this description to be fair and it is supported by a number of commentators and academics. As you say, not having a ‘blueprint’ and not having an ‘alternative’ are not one and the same, but if one asserts the existence of an alternative without describing in any great detail what that alternative might be and how it might work, it seems reasonable to say there is ‘next to no alternative laid out.’ We also explained in commentary and through interviews with Tariq Ali and Slavoj Zizek, why logically Marx might not have felt able to give a very detailed description of an alternative.

You write that there was no critical examination of ‘Marx and the so-called ‘Communist’ countries, the link between the two being taken pretty much for granted, with a couple of very minor caveats.’ We did make clear that Marx’s lack of a detailed blueprint should lead us to question his association with 20th century Communism, and we asserted that the ‘Communist countries…left Marx far behind’. That said, it was necessary to mention them as they were real world attempts to find an alternative to capitalism constructed by people who claimed to be following Marx’s thinking, and – as a result – audiences would expect any discussion of Marx, and any discussion of alternatives to capitalism, to mention them. We felt the overall direction of the programme – advancing Marx’s theories as being useful today and exploring some surprising aspects of his writings about capitalism –would have helped uninitiated audiences learn that there is far more to Marx than his association with 20th century Communism. Indeed this was a major thrust of the opening sequence.

You take issue with the use of the word ‘collapse’ to describe Marx’s descriptions of the end of capitalism. I hope I understand what you mean here. I think you are suggesting that capitalism does not end because it is inherently unworkable, but because through its development it inevitably creates the political and social conditions that lead to its overthrow, and that by using the word ‘collapse’ we underplay the importance and role of the proletariat. We did explain also the end of capitalism by saying: ‘He thought it would all get so bad that the workers would overthrow the system’, also in the opening titles we say ‘Karl Marx had the most radical advice of all: get rid of [capitalism]’, and we do discuss Marx’s thinking on the revolution that ends capitalism. Either way, Marx certainly did envisage a time when capitalism would no longer be and ‘collapse’ is a reasonable shorthand for Marx’s best known description of the end of the system in Capital.

Finally, you ask us why we didn’t consult your organisation. We contacted a wide range of commentators – both pro and anti-Marx but because of the constraints of time, we are not always able to contact everyone. We believe the people we spoke to enabled us to produce a good overview of the issues surrounding Marxian economics. 

Thank you again for taking the time to write and I hope you would agree that while not offering anywhere near a complete appraisal of Marx’s ideas, it might have served as an engaging introduction.

I hope this addresses the points you raised and explains the production’s view. We’re grateful to you for watching and for taking the time to contact us. 

Yours sincerely, 

Paul Kettle, 

BBC Audience Services

Reply: 

We can only speculate why Ms Flanders feels unable to respond to a direct invitation to discuss the statements made in her programme, while the Executive Producer on the contrary has supplied an interesting and considered response to one individual’s letter. Paul Kettle argues quite reasonably that one can’t really do justice to Marx in an hour, and it is true that one can find Marxist academics who still argue for underconsumptionist theory, even though it doesn’t make much sense. Nevertheless we have to object that the defence of the word ‘collapse’ borders on sophistry. The meaning of the word ‘collapse’ is pretty straightforward, and if one claims that Marx believed that capitalism would ‘collapse’ one is saying that Marx did not really believe that revolution was necessary to end it. Which is the precise opposite of the truth.– Editors.

Halo Halo!: Fitting God into the 21st Century (2013)

The Halo Halo! column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s not for us to advise the Pope, or the outgoing Archbishop of Cant and his successor on their image or on how to run their religions, but you do have to wonder, on what planet and in which century, do they think they are living? If they enjoy dressing up in ridiculous hats and robes to contact an invisible man in the sky and inflicting his unwanted views on us, fair enough. But expecting us to accept that their hallucinatory communications have a beneficial effect on our lives is pushing it a bit too far.

To be fair having a figment of your imagination as your boss who, by his own admission, moves in mysterious ways must make the job difficult. And having to take his ‘holy word’ seriously can only add to the confusion.

As for God, one of the problems he has as someone who doesn’t actually exist is that he was unable to write his biblical horror stories himself. He had to rely on his early followers, St Paul for example, to do it for him. And Paul by all accounts was a bit of a lad, a persecutor of Christians before his own conversion to Christianity, and probably not best known for his pro-feminist views afterwards. And this, unfortunately, has been causing problems for some believers.

‘Let your women keep silence in the churches.’ said Paul. ‘For it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.’

And while these views of Paul’s in his letter to the Corinthians have apparently been quite acceptable until recently, the trendy wing of the Church who hope to drag it out of the dark ages find them a bit inconvenient – especially now that those who take them as gospel have voted against the ordination of women bishops.

Meanwhile the Pope, who doesn’t seem to have problems with women not knowing their place in the Catholic Church, is also trying to update his image. As from 12 December he will be on Twitter to keep us updated with all the latest titbits about God.

And in November he published his new book about Jesus – The Infancy Narratives. He is now able to inform us that the stuff we had previously been told about the nativity was nonsense. Well, some of it was. The bit about the virgin birth was true of course. And about there being no room at the inn, and the three wise men, and the star that hovered above the stable was all true. But now he informs us that there were no singing angels, and probably no ox and ass in the stable either.

Some believers were disappointed at these revelations. A review of the book appeared on http://catholicism.about.com and comments posted below included

  ‘What purpose does Pope Benedict want to accomplish by taking the angels and the animals in the manger out of the story? After all he wasn’t there when Christ was born. I believe angels are always all around us’.

and

  ‘I was told that the pope was revealing secrets not revealed to the public before. Things like there was really not a crib when Jesus was born, the fact that space aliens are also children of God, and the treasures the Vatican has that the world will never see’.

Maybe getting God into the 21st century is being a bit ambitious. Try getting him into the Middle Ages first and see how it goes from there.

NW

Religious Observations (2013)

From the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

SOME DOOMSDAY groups are capitalizing on the fear by spreading the Dec. 21 myth online. A Belgian amateur astronomer named Patrick Geryl has set up an online community for people who follow him and believe the world will end in three weeks. He tells followers to stockpile 15 to 20 pairs of shoes and to be in good physical shape. Geryl declined an interview request, saying over email, “No time for interviews. … Want to enjoy last weeks of our civilization.” (Link)

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A MOTHER who beat her son to death for failing to learn the Koran by heart, murdered him and burned his body to hide the evidence, a jury has found. Sara Ege, 33, treated son Yaseen, 7, like a “dog,” brutally beating him with a stick for failing to memorise religious texts. (Link)

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INMATES IN a women’s prison near the Chinese border are said to have experienced a “collective mass psychosis” so intense that their wardens summoned a priest to calm them. In a factory town east of Moscow, panicked citizens stripped shelves of matches, kerosene, sugar and candles. A huge Mayan-style archway is being built — out of ice — on Karl Marx Street in Chelyabinsk in the south. For those not schooled in New Age prophecy, there are rumours the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayan calendar supposedly comes to a close. Russia, a nation with a penchant for mystical thinking, has taken notice. (Link)

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THE REIGNING scientific consensus on sexual orientation is that it’s an inherited, biological trait, but that’s just because scientists don’t know how to party. A far sexier explanation has been offered up by Christian magazine Charisma, which conducted its own investigation into the origins of homosexuality to reveal the real culprit: sex with demons. “Can demons engage in sexual behaviors with humans?” the magazine asks. Why yes, they can! At least according to the article’s primary source, a former stripper-turned-ministry leader named Contessa Adams. (Link)

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WHEN WATER started trickling down a statue of Jesus Christ at a Catholic church in Mumbai earlier this year, locals were quick to declare a miracle. Some began collecting the holy water and the Church of Our Lady of Velankanni began to promote it as a site of pilgrimage. So when Sanal Edamaruku arrived and established that this was not holy water so much as holey plumbing, the backlash was severe. The renowned rationalist was accused of blasphemy, charged with offences that carry a three-year prison sentence and eventually, after receiving death threats, had to seek exile in Finland. (Link)

Mixed Media: ‘Albanian Art’ (2013)

Vojo Kushi by Shijaku

The Mixed Media Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Socialist Realism’ was the official art of the People’s Republic of Albania between 1944 and 1990. Socialist Realism originated in the state capitalist USSR and was adopted throughout Eastern Europe. When Soviet leader Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, state-capitalist Albania alone opposed this ‘revisionism’ and continued to revere ‘Uncle Joe’ right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Partisan War against the Germans and the Liberation of Albania in 1943-44 is a source for Socialist Realist paintings in the National Gallery in Tirane. The Victor by Haxhiu depicts a heroic partisan amidst ruins with German POWs trudging into captivity in the background, while Vojo Kushi by Shijaku heroically romanticises a partisan in a red shirt atop a Wehrmacht tank throwing a hand grenade inside.

Workers in Albanian industry are portrayed, notably in the steel works depicted in 30 July 1978 by Ceka which recalls Iron Rolling Mill (Modern Cyclopes) by Menzel. The Assembler by Kokushta is an inspiring painting of a worker on a girder with red flag flying above an industrial landscape of the building of Albania’s hydro-electric scheme in the 1970s.

Female Nude (1961) by Shijaku is beautiful and definitely not ‘socialist realism’ but it is ‘realism’ in the style of Courbet.

The enhanced status of women in Albanian society is captured by Socialist Realism in a painting of male and female engineers by Hysa in 1969, Milk Woman by Sulovari, Factory Worker by Blido, Bricklayer by Dule, and as athletes in The Relay Race by Nalbani. In the 1970s art in a Formalist style of Modernism (mainly Expressionism and Fauvism) developed operating within the official parameters of Socialist Realism.

Socialist Realism was formulated by Stalin in his 1932 On the Reconstruction of Literary and Art Organisations which decreed that art had to be unambiguous and elevate labour to heroic status. In 1934 the Soviet state instructed that art had to be ‘proletarian’, of everyday life, realistic in the representational sense, and support the aims of the Party. This effectively discouraged the avant-garde and any form of experimentation.

Socialist Realist rigidity was not encouraged by Lenin. He did not believe in a ‘year zero’ for Art: ‘proletarian culture must be the logical development of the store of knowledge mankind has accumulated’. In the years after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution experimental ‘revolutionary’ art was encouraged in the shape of Constructivism, and in the cinematic art of Vertov and Eisenstein.

Marx in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts identified the role of labour in man’s ability to reproduce ‘in accordance with the laws of beauty’. Engels wrote in The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man that ‘labour has given the human hand the high degree of perfection required to conjure into being the pictures of a Raphael’, and in Dialectics of Nature he wrote ‘Italy rose to an undreamt-of flowering of art, which seemed like a reflection of classical antiquity’.

Marx and Engels would be uncomfortable with the rigidity of ‘Socialist Realism’.

Steve Clayton

Action Replay: News Fit to Print (2013)

Andy Murray in happier times.

The Action Replay column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sport is news of course, and the news media need sport. Showing live football matches is often credited with being the main factor behind the rise of Sky, for instance. But the media don’t just pay attention to what happens on the pitch or track or in the pool. What happens outside actual competition is also given a great deal of time and space.

This includes personal remarks, such as why tennis-player Andy Murray is so miserable-looking. And of course who’s been sleeping with who, or what ‘Brand Beckham’ (aka David) will do now his football career is winding down.

Masses of football coverage is devoted to speculation about transfer targets and managerial changes, with endless-seeming dissections of what managers or players should do. If you don’t believe us, just listen to some of the phone-ins and discussions on talkSPORT: 24 hours a day is a lot of airtime to fill.

There is plenty of reporting of such essential topics as what players say on Twitter, or whether particular players would shake hands before a match. Or what does a ‘legend’ who once played for a particular club have to say about some mundane topic? Not to mention the mind games played by certain managers.

In boxing, pre-fight publicity is used to stimulate interest in what will happen. The fight between David Haye and Dereck Chisora in July last year was widely seen as a grudge match after a brawl at a press conference where Chisora threatened to shoot Haye. Tyson Fury and Kevin Johnson exchanged insults before their fight in Belfast at the start of December: Johnson was ‘a fat pudding’, according to Tyson.

Sport would hardly make such an impact without media coverage, but the media use sport and all that surrounds it to attract readers, advertisers and hence profits.

Paul Bennett

Obituary: Robin Reid (2013)

Obituary from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Robin Reid 1925 – 2012

It is with regret that Glasgow branch announce the death of one of its longest serving members Comrade Robin Reid. Robin joined the Socialist Party in 1944 as a very young man. He served his apprenticeship as a marine engineer in the Glasgow shipyards and worked all his life at that trade until his retirement. Although never a speaker or writer for the Party he was without a doubt one of the best attenders of Party activities. He could always be relied on to be at all our branch, public meetings and study classes and would always make worthwhile contributions to the discussions. It is members such as Robin that are the backbone of the Socialist Party. He will be greatly missed.

Cooking the Books: Who Gains From ‘Tax Justice’? (2013)

The Cooking the Books Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Tax Justice Network lobbies and petitions. UK Uncut takes direct action. Both to try to get tax-dodging companies to pay more taxes to the British government. Surely this can only be good? If they pay more taxes we can pay less. Or the government could use the extra money to provide better services or at least not to cut them so much.

You have to be naïve to think that. If you believe the media, ‘we’, ‘the taxpayers’ and ‘the government’ are one and the same. Because the government has a majority shareholding in RBS and Lloyds we are told that these banks belong to us, the taxpayers. This is as silly as saying in the past that the railways and the coal mines belonged to us because they were nationalised.

Most people do pay some taxes directly or indirectly but, insofar as taxes enter into the cost of reproducing people’s working skills, they are passed on to employers, who have to pay wages that cover this cost. But even if taxes on workers were not passed on to employers it would not follow that we as taxpayers would have the same interest as the government. You could equally argue, as some do, that the government was robbing us through taxes of the fruits of our labour and is therefore our enemy.

The government is in fact our enemy but not for that reason. It is our enemy because it looks after the interest of the capitalist class whose interest is opposed to ours.

As the burden of taxations ultimately falls on the employing class and other property-owners, ending tax havens and closing tax loopholes would benefit only them while making no difference to us.

Some capitalist firms want tax loopholes closed for another reason –because these put companies that are in a position to take advantage of them in a stronger competitive position vis-à-vis those that aren’t.

The Times (15 November) reported that ‘John Lewis says it could be put out of business if foreign multinationals such as Amazon are allowed to continue paying tiny amounts of tax in Britain.’ John Lewis’s managing director, Andy Street, had told Sky News:

‘If you actually improve your business by investing, what that means is you have got less money to invest if you’re giving 27 per cent of your profits to the Exchequer than … if you’re domiciled in a tax haven and you’ve got much more. So they will out-invest and ultimately out-trade us …’

There is some substance to this argument. Capitalist firms provide a privileged, unearned income for their owners, but to be able to continue doing this they must stay in business and for this, as Street pointed out, they have to invest a part of their profits (the larger part in fact) in cost-cutting innovations to beat or keep up with their competitors. If a competitor pays less tax that means it has more profits and so can invest more in cost-cutting innovations. It has a competitive advantage over home-based firms which can’t get out of paying taxes.

No wonder home-based firms like John Lewis are complaining about there not being a level playing field and are calling for something to be done about it. The sad thing is that the no doubt sincere activists in the Tax Justice Network and UK Uncut are in effect, albeit unwittingly, campaigning on behalf of one section of the capitalist class (home-based ones) against another section (multinational ones).

50 Years Ago: ‘‘We Want Work’ (2013)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The sight of a demonstration marching through London demanding work is enough to shake anyone out of his complacency. For some years since the end of the Second World War, workers have regarded relatively full employment as a right, something that was here to stay. How wrong they were! Unemployment in November last topped the half million mark and was the worst figure in that month for over 20 years. And now we witness workless Merseysiders shouting slogans and waving banners. A spectre is haunting us—the spectre of the 1930s, the lean and hungry depression years.

How pathetic it is that an old problem has evoked only the same old stale and worthless ideas for its solution. If we pause for a moment and listen to the spokesmen for the marchers, we shall hear them demanding government action to stop the flow of industry southwards and to force more factories to the depressed areas. At best this will only remove the sting from the hopelessness of the unemployed Merseysider. Like most convenient cut and dried theories, it conveniently ignores the basic cause of the problem and, as we might expect, it is a stock line of the average Labour Party supporter.

In our capitalist society, industry goes where there is profit to be found. Nearness to raw materials, short lines of communication, plentiful supplies of suitable labour, easy access to markets, availability of cheap fuel and power—these are some of the main factors which decide the location of a factory and cause it perhaps to be moved elsewhere later on.

It is true, of course, that governments have also tried to move industry to fulfil political or strategic requirements, and since the end of the war firms have been encouraged to take their factories to the ‘development areas.’ During a period of boom when markets are buoyant and expanding, many companies are quite willing to operate from the more remote areas such as South Wales, Scotland and the North. They have a sellers’ market and good profit margins. But what happens when the markets are tightening, goods are no longer easy to sell, and profit margins are shrinking? Why, production is curtailed, of course, and redundancy threatens.

(from article by Jack Law, Socialist Standard, January 1963)

Voice From The Back: Owners And Non-Owners (2013)

The Voice From The Back Column from the February 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owners And Non-Owners

The development of the oil industry in the Middle East has led to immense wealth for the ruling class there. ‘In just seven decades as a nation, Saudi Arabia has grown from an impoverished backwater of desert nomads to an economic powerhouse with an oil industry that brought in $300bn last year. Forbes magazine estimates King Abdullah’s personal fortune at $18bn, making him the world’s third-richest royal, behind the rulers of Thailand and Brunei’ (Guardian, 1 January). The report goes on to record that the Saudi government discloses little official data about its poorest citizens. But press reports and private estimates suggest that between 2 million and 4 million of the country’s native Saudis live on less than about $530 a month – about $17 a day – considered the poverty line in Saudi Arabia. So we have up to a quarter of the population living in poverty and hunger while the owning clique luxuriates in obscene wealth. This is capitalism in action.

Recession? Who’s Recessing?

We are at present living through an economic recession and we are told by the mass media that we all must share the hardships of these straitened times, but it seems that some are faring better than the rest of us. ‘The richest people on the planet got richer in 2012, adding $241 billion to their collective net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 100 wealthiest individuals… Amancio Ortega, the Spaniard who founded retailer Inditex SA, was the year’s biggest gainer. The 76-year-old tycoon’s fortune increased $22.2 billion to $57.5 billion, according to the index, as shares of Inditex, operator of the Zara clothing chain, rose 66.7 per cent’ (Chicago Tribune, 2 January).

Desperation In Spain

In recent years Spain has been struggling with a dramatic economic crisis, leading to an unemployment rate of 25 per cent and massive evictions. ‘Spain’s housing market collapsed in 2008 after a housing bubble, hurting the economy and causing a homelessness epidemic. As a result, more than 50,000 delinquent Spanish homeowners were evicted in the first half of 2012 alone, and 1 million homes lie empty in Spain, according to Reuters‘ (Huffington Post, 3 January). These evictions have led to locksmiths in Pamplona refusing to carry out evictions. This move they think could essentially stop evictions in Pamplona because even if the police kick a family out of their home, the evicted can still get back in if no one has changed the locks. But it’s unlikely to work.

The Dignity Of Labour

Desperate for work, many Mexicans come to the USA and Canada and work on the farms there. Concerned about migrants settling permanently, the Canadian government has very strict rules to deal with this. Only married men are eligible for the Canadian program, preferably those with young children, and their families must remain in Mexico. Another incentive to return home: a cut of the migrants’ wages is placed in a Canadian pension fund, receivable only if they return to Mexico. ‘Once in Canada, the workers live like monks, sleeping in trailers or barracks, under contractual agreements that forbid them from drinking alcohol and having female visitors, or even socializing with other Mexican workers from different farms. Most of their time in Canada is limited to sleeping, eating and working long days that can stretch to 15 hours, without overtime pay’ (Washington Post, 5 January).

Happy Families?

Aspiring politicians like to be seen as supporting families, but the reality is far different. ‘Soaring energy bills are forcing one in four mothers to turn off their heating in the depths of winter in order to afford food for their children. Fuel poverty is resulting in thousands of families resorting to wearing extra clothes and using blankets in their homes. More than half of families turn off the heating in their houses when the children are out, while 45 per cent of adults keep warm using blankets or duvets during the day, according to a survey. ….. A shocking 23 per cent of families are already having to choose between buying food or using heating, according to a survey by the Energy Bill Revolution campaign’ (Daily Mail, 6 January). Warm shows of affection by politicians won’t heat up your kid’s bedroom.

Chinese Capitalism

It is always touching to see a father being generous to his daughter, but this takes a bit of beating. ‘Bringing new meaning to the phrase ‘happy couple,’ Chinese businessman Wu Duanbiao gave his daughter and her husband a dowry worth nearly $150 million in celebration of their wedding on Sunday, according to the South China Morning Post‘ (Shine from Yahoo!, 2 January). This generosity is all the more remarkable as China pretends to be a communist country.

The Falklands Again (2013)

From the February 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

They are back in the news following the recent disclosure, in documents released at the end of December under the thirty year rule, that Thatcher was taken by surprise, but this changes nothing and vindicates nobody. Opponents of Britain are encouraged by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s renewed call on 3 January for the Falklands to become part of Argentina.

The Falklands (in Spanish, Islas Malvinas) are a group of small islands in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. The present population can be traced back to European settlement in the nineteenth century, primarily the British approval in 1840 to form a colony there. Britain aside, many other countries have claimed them over time, but Argentina has the longest standing claim to these islands as their own territory.

In 1982, the Socialist Standard at the time described the country ‘in the grip of a severe recession. At the end of March a trade union demonstration against the effects of unemployment and rising prices brought some of the worst civil disorder … But the move against the Falklands brought a miraculous change; patriotic frenzy swamped the reality of the workers’ parlous condition’ (Doing the Bulldog Thing, May 1982). This was a description of Argentina, but one that in many respects might have equally applied to Britain at the time.

Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, then, just short of a thousand workers dead, over two thousand wounded and two months later the islands were retaken by British forces. A few days later the Argentine junta collapsed. American support was absent, the President, Ronald Reagan, had been advised the military junta led by the dictator General Galtieri was a bulwark against ‘communism’. We asked of Britain, ‘If the government was so disgusted by the Argentine junta’s record of repressively anti-working class dictatorship, why was it a major arms supplier to the Junta up until the invasion of the Falklands?’ (The War in the South Atlantic, July 1982.)  The famous left-winger Michael Foot, then Leader of the Labour Party, made a powerful speech in favour of the taskforce sent to retake the islands.

If you want to see how sincerely Britain or any ruling class protects the wishes of the islanders, look at what Britain did to the similarly populated Chagos islanders in Diego Garcia some years earlier.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

DJW

Pathfinders: Caring and Sharing (2013)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

You have a pie, and you have to share part of it with someone else. The question is, how much should you offer? Logically, not much, and logically, the recipient should be happy to accept any amount, no matter how small, since it’s better than nothing. But here’s the rub. If that someone thinks you’re being stingy they might refuse your offer, in which case neither of you gets anything.

In the human version of this ‘ultimatum game’, where the pie is replaced with money, the players tend  to make roughly equal or ‘fair’ offers, showing that human concepts of fairness can override the logic of economics. Exactly why this happens is uncertain. It may be that the donor is motivated by some internalised moral framework, or it may be that the donor feels nothing of the sort but is simply responding to the fear that the recipient is fundamentally irrational and will ruin everything by throwing their proverbial toys out of the pram in response to a perceived injustice.

In studies with chimpanzees involving food, the same does not apply. The recipient is happy to get whatever they can, and the donor shows no tendency towards generosity. However a new study with chimpanzees, using tokens instead of food, has found the same tendency towards ‘fairness’ that is found in human adults and young children (‘Sharing: Chimp study reveals origins of human fair play’, BBC Online, 15 January).

One of the awkward questions in evolutionary theory is the rationale for altruism, which on the face of it contradicts the principle of selfish interest, at least outside close kinship groups. But since we know it does exist in humans there is considerable interest in establishing whether something akin to it is present in our nearest relatives, in other words whether it  is ancient and innate behaviour or modern and socially acquired.

Unfortunately the chimp test is not entirely conclusive. It only used a small number of chimps, and critics argue that with limited abstract capability the animals may not have understood the test all that well, or just had less interest in tokens than in food, hence skewing the result. One would be tempted to dismiss the study altogether were it not for the fact that other studies have suggested suites of behaviour that might be summed up as ‘ethical’ in wolves and coyotes (‘The Ethical Dog’, Scientific American, 19 March 2010). Vampire bats are known for reciprocal meal-sharing, and a type of awareness which among humans would be called empathy has been observed in many other mammals, from elephants to rats and mice.

In game theory, the tendency to cooperate or defect (cheat) depends on how many times the game is played. In one single iteration or turn the logical strategy is to defect, because there is no opportunity for the other player to ‘retaliate’ tit for tat. The same is true if there are a finite number of iterations, because the end point logically dictates a defection,  which strategy then cascades in reverse all the way back to the beginning. But where the number of iterations is infinite, that is when there is no fixed end-point, the most stable strategy is tit for tat cooperation, where defection is punished and cooperation rewarded.

Professor Martin Nowak of Harvard describes how this direct reciprocity can evolve in a number of ways, most interestingly towards indirect reciprocity, where the individual ‘pays it forward’ without immediate expectation of return (Scientific American, January 2013). This behaviour is most developed in humans, possibly because of language and the evolution of gossip and the consequent emergence of ‘reputation’. However, defection still exists. In Garrett Hardin’s classic 1968 study ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, a group of livestock owners who share common land each allow their animals to overgraze, ultimately leading to disaster for all. This ‘Tragedy’ has been offered up as a reason why socialism, based on sharing, won’t work, and real world examples of the Tragedy of the Commons abound, in particular with regard to natural resources and climate change, where humans share the world but are separately and collectively ruining it.

Nowak goes on to discuss game studies where players had to donate a portion of their money into a pool which was used to ‘save the world’. They didn’t always succeed, but cooperation was more likely to occur where the players felt properly informed, and where their acts of reciprocity were public, rather than private (the reputation factor again).

What these studies overlook is the question of private property, and how this motivates behaviour. The players failed to ‘save the world’ because their common interest in doing so was at odds with their personal interest in preserving their ‘private property’.  Here there was a clear temptation to cheat, hoping that other people would make up for the shortfall. Nowak does not describe any version of the game in which the players have no private money but only a common pool, yet it seems likely that behaviour would be quite different where no interests were in conflict.

Similarly, Hardin’s scenario is not a demonstration of why socialism won’t work because it involves livestock owners, whose interests are separate and conflicting, so even though the land is shared the animals are not, and this private ownership leads to conflicting interests resulting in the destruction of the Commons. Were they socialist farmers who shared ownership of the animals as well as the land, their interests would not be in conflict and therefore overgrazing would be a nonsensical strategy that would help none of them.

On a not unrelated note, and demonstrating that charities do fulfil a useful purpose in promoting awareness even if they don’t ultimately solve problems, Oxfam recently produced a report which pointed out in no uncertain terms what the consequences of private ownership are – massive and destructive inequality (The Cost Of Inequality: How Wealth And Income Extremes Hurt Us All, Oxfam, 2013). As they point out, the 100 richest people could abolish poverty for the world’s poorest four times over, and that during this global recession there has been ‘an explosion in extreme wealth’ (BBC Online, 19 January). As their Chief Executive states, ‘We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often the reverse is true’. Quite so, and whether the human response to this is intellectual or animal, scientific or ethical, it would do well to look past Oxfam’s feeble and pious demands for tax reforms towards the one thing that really would be a game-changer – socialist revolution and the abolition of private property.

PJS