Sting in the Tail: An open letter (1996)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

An open letter

To: Colin Tudge,

Centre of Philosophy,

London School of Economics.

Dear Colin,

We enjoyed your recent diatribe in the Independent on Sunday against the effects of the profit motive on agriculture.

You explained how your researches into famine convinced you that food production in “the modern world” is not aimed at feeding people but at making money. Then you condemned the “bad husbandry” which led to BSE and the tortures inflicted on farm animals and provided the reason:

"When profit is the driving force. .. those who do not cut corners go to the wall."

Yes, you certainly put the boot into the profit motive in agriculture, but that doesn’t go nearly far enough, does it? After all, food is only one of society’s necessities: housing, clothing, medicine, in fact all the things we need are produced for profit and not people.

So, Colin, what you call “the modern world” is really the capitalist system and that’s what you should be attacking, not just one aspect of it.

Science and profits

The Observer (28 April) has revealed another piece of capitalist skulduggery in the relentless pursuit of profit:

"Boots, one of Britain's most trusted companies, commissioned research and then suppressed it after the results showed that its most lucrative drug could be replaced by products three times as cheap and just as effective. ”

After paying $250,000 for the survey by the University of California to test their drug Synthroid against cheaper ones produced by their rivals, they threatened legal action against publication. They used a team of private investigators to discredit the report, another example of the waste of human effort and the distortion of science caused by a society based on the profit motive.

Inside a society based on production for use the disinterested pursuit of human knowledge will be essential. Inside that society distortion of scientific research for profit will be impossible.

Learned fools

Below are some examples of “howlers” from last year’s GCSE exams:

Q. If the letter MW appear on a radio, what does it mean? 

A. Don’t play it on top of the microwave.

Q. Name some key figures from the industrial revolution. 

A. Harold Wilson and Arthur Scargill.

Q. Give an example of the use of the word “judicious”. 

A. The hands that judicious can be soft as your face with mild, green Fairy liquid.

Here are some howlers provided by very important public figures:

The core of empire was not profit but governance (Prof Max Beloff).

Iran is a theocracy but it is also a democracy (Louis Farrakhan of the Black Muslims).

Private ownership is the basis of all ethics on which man’s personality is built (Cardinal Józef Glemp, Primate of Poland).

Prescott’s pretensions

John Prescott, deputy leader of the Labour Party, declares that he is middle class, so Barry Hugill writes in an article in the Observer (14 April) entitled “We’re all middle class now”.

"It's a tricky question because there is no right answer. Karl Marx, never the snappiest of writers, dreamed up ‘relationship to the means of production’ as the key factor. So an engineer earning more than £40,000 per year would be working class because he doesn't own the company he his working for—he is just a prole like the rest of us. "

This won’t do for Hugill. After discussing education, vocabulary, occupation, housing, income and snobbery he concludes “So what are you? And does it matter?”

Well, yes it does. Class is determined by none of the categories in Hugill’s 600-word article, but by Karl Marx’s “relationship to the means of production”. Snappy enough for you, Mr Hugill?

Hattersley’s hesitations

Somewhat surprisingly, Prescott’s predecessor as Deputy leader of the Labour Party, Roy Hattersley, has an inkling that this might be so, writing in The Guardian (22 April) that:

"Social groups are determined by their relationship to the means of production. It is just my luck to begin spouting Marxism at the moment when nobody else believes a word that he wrote. ”

Hattersley’s comment on Marxism is wrong, but if by “social groups” he means classes then he is right. People who work for a wage or salary are working class whether they know this or not, and those who think they are “middle class” are only kidding themselves.

Alderson in Wonderland

The left was delighted, the right were enraged, and socialists were amused.

John Alderson, ex-Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, wrote in the left-wing journal Red Pepper claiming that Britain is becoming a police state and anti-road protesters and protesters against the export of veal calves are the hope for the future.

Alderson gave his Humpty Dumpty view of the world in the statement:

"The primary task of policing is to uphold and safeguard human rights, he says, calling for an independent police commission to resolve conflict between police and public ” (Observer, 21 April).

The primary task of policing is to protect private property. The hope for the future is in workers organising for a society based on common ownership.

Alderson, Red Pepper, its left-wing supporters and its right-wing opponents, are united in their opposition to that revolutionary aim. Curiouser and curiouser.

Who needs money? (1995)

From the March 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to Bob Rowthorn, economics professor at Cambridge University, interviewed in Red Pepper (December 1994), "we are stuck with money". He was answering a question from Hilary Wainwright who had correctly pointed out that "Marx argued that under communism money would be abolished".

In attempting to refute Marx's view, Rowthorn (a former member both of the old "International Socialism" group, the precursor of the SWP, and later of the now-defunct Communist Party) could only do so by projecting into a truly communist (or socialist - the same thing) society such as Marx envisaged, the economic needs and organisational requirements of capitalism.

This is most apparent when he argued that money is needed to enable people and communities "to buy and sell". But as the Communist Manifesto pointed out, socialism would dispense with buying and selling itself (and hence with the need for money). People will have free and unrestricted access to the products of industry (which presupposes a relatively high-level of production and a non-consumerist ethos) while contributing to the production process on an entirely voluntarist basis.

Rowthorn argues that "there has to be a basis on which to claim something in return for providing goods and services". But why? Where there is free access to such goods and services then the "need" to secure an economic return on your labour becomes redundant; you would work because you want to or because you would derive social esteem from such work, there being no other way in which you would derive such esteem. Status based on the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be meaningless. Indeed, Rowthorn's approach converges uncomfortably with the conventional apology for capitalism that "human nature" is essentially indolent, thus justifying economic coercion.

Finally, Rowthorn claims that money is indispensable because "you need a common unit of account to provide a standard of value". This argument was long demolished by Otto Neurath (1919) who pointed out that in a "natural economy" (socialism) there would only be "calculation in kind". The need for a "common unit of account" only makes sense as a yardstick of exchange value in the buying and selling system which socialism will abolish.

To assert that money is needed because the economy today is too complex to be "planned in a rational and coherent way" is to be distracted by the red herring of central planning. Central planning may well be a logistical nightmare but a relatively decentralised socialist society, operating without money and largely dependent on a self-regulating system of stock control using calculation in kind, is entirely feasible. And compared to the chaos and waste of capitalism, highly desirable.

Robin Cox

Editorial: The revolution begin . . . again (2010)

Editorial from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1855, riots broke out in London’s Hyde Park in protest over a Sunday Trading Bill. Karl Marx was there and the next day declared that he did not think he was exaggerating in saying that “the English Revolution began yesterday in Hyde Park”. Marx did not begin, but nor did he end, a long history of embarrassingly premature predictions of the demise of the British ruling class.

On Wednesday 10 November, a demonstration, long planned and organised jointly by the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, took place in central London to protest against the government’s cuts in education funding. The demonstration was expected to be the usual poorly attended, tame and boring affair – marching from one spot to another, waving placards, and chanting slogans.

The reality was somewhat different. Around 52,000 university workers and students attended, and the demonstration quickly turned into “something resembling a Mardi Gras carnival”, as a reporter for Red Pepper magazine put it. “The young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet blasting and drum beating, all mix[ed] together to form … a fun-filled, party-like atmosphere.” A breakaway from the march, 200 strong according to a reporter from the Guardian, then broke into and occupied 30 Millbank, the Conservative party's campaign headquarters. Once inside, the demonstrators quietly staged a protest – alongside some minor scuffles with the police and a broken window, ludicrously blown up out of all proportion by the mainstream media – and issued some inspiring propaganda:

"We stand against the cuts, in solidarity with all the poor, elderly, disabled and working people affected. We are against all cuts and the marketisation of education. We are occupying the roof of Tory HQ to show we are against the Tory system of attacking the poor and helping the rich. This is only the beginning.”

Commentators from both the Leninist and anarchist left predicted that the day marked the beginning of a new politics – another Poll Tax-style rebellion, according to some; a mass revolutionary insurrection a week Wednesday, according to others. Did the English revolution begin yesterday at Tory HQ?

We in the Socialist Party are more cautious. We welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But as human animals capable of rational thought and long-term planning, we must also seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. That means that the working class as a whole must understand the issues, and organise and fight for these ends themselves – by organising a political party for the conquest of state power that will convert the means of production into the common property of the whole community.

As Marx’s fellow socialist Engels came to realise, this would have to involve not “surprise attacks” by minorities, but the “long, persistent work” of socialist education and organisation. If he had known just how long this work would have to go on, he might well have despaired. But the task hasn’t gone away. And it won’t as long as capitalism lasts.

The WTO in Seattle (2000)

From the January 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Trade Organisation, trans-national corporations (TNCs) and the governments of advanced industrial countries all agree that free trade is a jolly good thing. Their representatives, such as Stephen Byers, Britain's Trade and Industry Secretary can be regularly heard spouting the usual dogmatic cant such as: "free trade and open commerce are a bringer of opportunity and not a threat".

When the Seattle round of WTO talks stalled in early December, President Bill Clinton announced his intention to "move forward on the path of free trade and economic growth while ensuring a human face is put on the global economy".

No, stop laughing a moment. Clinton really said that. His ilk really believes that global capitalism can have a smiling face and that organisations like the WTO can help bring this about.

The representatives of globo-buck really believe that a levelling of the "playing field" would benefit all, poor country as well as rich. This in spite of the fact that many TNCs have incomes greater than the combined GNP of several of the poorest nations on the planet. This in spite of the protectionism that the USA, Japan and the EU don't like to boast about. And this in spite of the fact that the debt burden and related structural adjustment programmes mean that many a developing country is considerably worse off now than 30 years ago.

The umpire helping oversee this state of play, refusing to cry foul, bending the rules to the advantage of the more skilful and experienced player is the WTO. Its remit is so framed as to allow corporate control over every aspect of our lives, be it patent rules that allow the TNCs to monopolise centuries-old remedies and recipes in the developing world, seeds and human genes, indeed everything from drinking water and health and safety to hospitals and schools. Anything deemed an obstacle to the pursuance of profit can be labelled an illegal barrier to free trade.

The WTO is the supreme court of international commerce, whose constitution reinforces the rule books of the world's corporate elites. It has a Disputes Settlement Committee—a kind of wealthy man's Star Chamber—which has, time after time, considered barriers to fair trade such concerns as the environment, health and labour rights. It allows TNCs to not only control the fate of national currencies—with governments closely tailoring their economic policies to the interests of the giant multi-nationals—but helps ensure little host government opposition when environments are destroyed (witness Shell in Nigeria, Texaco in Ecuador and Union Carbide in India).

Through the establishment of free trade zones between countries, TNCs are enabled to invest where there are tax concessions and exemption from local labour laws, frequently, because of their non-union policies, taking advantage of low-wage economies with poor health and safety standards. At Seattle many commentators sensed that deals could have been struck, but were scuppered for domestic political reasons, not least because Al Gore is anxious for union support in next year's elections. Moreover, while the US argued for concessions in every field, they were unwilling to offer anything in return.

Whereas decisions were supposed to be reached by consensus, and democratically, the powerful countries dominated the talks. With the US desperate to get the deals they wanted, smaller countries were bullied and sidelined, with reports frequently emerging that delegates from the developing world were being physically refused entry to the negotiating tables.

Much has been written as to why the WTO talks in Seattle failed, suffice to say the negotiations crumbled for no other reason than that the myriad representatives of global capitalism failed to reach agreement on how best to proceed with the task of exploiting as many as possible while upsetting as few as possible.

Writing in Red Pepper in November, Katharine Ainger observed that "the only policy objective the two recognises is the expansion of corporate hunting grounds by opening up markets and the universal application of free trade rules. It's rhetoric is that of levelling the playing field in world trade".

Such sentiments are fair criticism and have been echoed much in recent weeks. What is important is to realise that they do not suggest globalisation is a recent trend—it has been gathering momentum since the late 1970s—nor that the global nature of capitalism is relatively new.

Over 150 years ago, in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed to the dominance of the world market over individual countries: "The need of a constantly expanding market chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, establish conditions everywhere."

As then, as now, talk about fairer trade and a more democratic "human face" of capitalism is simply ignoring the true nature of capitalism. Capitalism is a decrepit and ruthless social system whose mode of production cries out for a total overhaul. The most far-reaching reform of its major institutions—including the WTO—won't alter one iota its inherent contradictions. Hunger, poverty, homelessness and a thousand other social ills will prevail until, the last cent has been taken out of circulation and production freed from the artificial constraints of profit.

November 30 saw 50,000 protestors on the streets of Seattle lined up against the police and state troopers, more than equipped to repulse a third world army let alone unarmed campaigners (and indeed serving as a reminder to those who believe the state can be forcibly overthrown of the might that would be thrown against them). Whilst their slogans and placards often echoed the language of the genuine socialist, they failed to go further than demanding "alternative social and economic structures based on co-operation, ecological sustainability and grassroot democracy".

Whilst their demands would be realisable in socialism, demanding the same from institutions whose sole function is to serve the interests of profit is like asking a hungry shark to consider a vegetarian diet.

The protestors who took to the streets on 30 November in over 20 countries are without doubt well-meaning with a genuine hatred of the system that impoverishes the lives of billions of their fellow humans. It can only be hoped that they, and workers the world over, will come to realise that a real alternative is up for grabs. It has nothing to do with fairer trade, nor indeed any sort of trade, but free access to the benefits of civilisation. Socialists are not in the business of protesting for a larger slice of the cake the workers bake, but for control of the whole bakery. We argue that we should only settle for free and equal access to all that we produce and all the services we, the working class, provide, in a world without borders or frontiers, states or governments, force or coercion, buying and selling.

John Bissett