Voice From The Back: Outdated Marxism? (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outdated Marxism?

One of the oppositions to Marxism is that it is so out-dated, it is so 19th century. So let us get up-to-date. “The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) is to ballot its members on industrial action over pay, the first time in its 125-year history that such a move has been made. ..The decision to ballot 23,000 midwives, taken at an RCM council meeting last night, follows the government’s announcement that midwives and nurses would get a 2.5% pay rise in two stages, amounting to 1.9% across the year.” (Guardian, 20 July) It just shows you how outdated Marxism is, after all in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels wrote, “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverend awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourer.” How outdated, they never even mentioned midwives did they?

Loads Of Money

The Wall Street Journal employ Robert Frank to record the comings and goings of the super-rich, so he has decided to publish his findings in his book Richistan; A Journey through the 21st Century Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. This was reviewed by Tim Adams who came up with a couple of statistics that should interest all workers. “There are many statistics that attach themselves to Richistan. These are two telling ones; Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid out $36 billion in bonuses in 2006; and while in the Seventies the average American chief executive typically took home 40 times the wage of his average employee, he now pockets 170 times that of his typical minion.” (Observer, 22 July) As a “typical minion” how do you feel about that?

Worked To Death

We are all familiar with the old saw “hard work never killed anybody”, but it just isn’t true as can be seen from the following report. “The number of people killed at work has risen to its highest level in five year, according to figures released by the Health and Safety Commission, whose strength has been cut by 1,000 over the same period. Of 241 fatalities in the last year compared with 217 the previous year, the greatest number, 77 – up 31% – were on building sites. Sir Bill Callaghan, the HSE chair said the increase was disappointing. The TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, said each death was preventable. ‘Increasing the likelihood of a visit from a safety inspector would make a real difference.’” (Guardian, 27 July) Why increase the expenditure on safety? It cuts profits and capitalism hates that.

Same The World Over

“Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim, who is estimated by some calculations to be wealthier than Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said Thursday he did not care if he was the world’s richest person. …In July, a journalist who tracks the fortunes of wealthy Mexicans said Slim was worth an estimated $67.8 billion and had overtaken Gates as the world’s richest person. Slim hit the No. 1 spot after a recent surge in the share price of his America Movil, Latin America’s largest cell phone company, according to Eduardo Garcia of the online financial publication Sentido Comun.Garcia said that made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, whose estimated worth was $59.2 billion. …In Mexico, a small elite holds most of the country’s wealth and about half the population lives on less than $5 a day.” (Yahoo News, 3 August)

Homeless Heroes

We are all familiar with cheering crowds applauding soldiers as they march to war and the praise of politicians as they fall over each other in adulation of service veterans, but the reality is far different. “One in 10 homeless people in the UK are former members of the armed forces, a charity working with veterans says. A survey in 1997 by the Ex-Service Action Group on Homelessness suggested that 22% of people who were street homeless had a military background. Veterans charity, the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, said that efforts by the government and the voluntary sector had brought that down to about 10%. It fears the numbers may rise because of service in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (BBC News, 7 August) “When Johnnie Comes Marching Home” may have been an old popular song but today there is no home nor house either.

Illusion And Reality

Many people imagine that with retirement comes a pleasant period in a hard-working life. Alas, the reality is far from idyllic for many workers. “Pensioners are burdened with debts of £57 billion from mortgages and credit cards, new figures show. One fifth of retired people are still paying off a mortgage and a third owe an average of £5,900 on credit cards and loans, says Scottish Widows, the insurer. The 11 million pensioners who are still making repayments owe an average of £38,000 on their homes, compared with £35,000 last year. One in eight owe more than £50,000.” (Times, 13 August)

Pathfinders: Earth Version Two (2007)

The Pathfinders Column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earth Version Two 

Possibly the deepest fault-line in the territory of that large and disparate body of people describing or thinking of themselves as ‘socialist’ concerns the question whether people are either smart enough to organise their own revolution or dumb enough to have to be led to it. On one side we have the ‘vanguardists’, a motley collection of would-be leaders convinced, mostly on the basis of historical arguments relating to under-educated rural peasants, that the vast majority of the world’s people have always needed and will always need to be told what to do. Thus, many left-wing organisations feature a top-down hierarchical structure, entirely the same as the capitalist structures they supposedly abhor. On the other side we have another motley collection of would-be revolutionaries, sometimes called ‘libertarians’, who consider this kind of hierarchical thinking to be precisely part of the problem, and do not foresee any realistic prospect of emancipation from capitalism while this sort of oppressive mentality remains a part of the picture.

There are interesting hints that the same ambivalent attitude towards the working class is to be found among scientists too. While pundits often debate the question of what workers think of science, rarely does anyone ask what scientists think of workers. Perhaps it is supposed that the boffins are above such value-judgments, solely concerned with their test-tubes and tunnelling microscopes. But of course, scientists are human too, and it would be nothing less than astonishing if they didn’t share some of society’s prejudices. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, for example, plainly struggles to contain his contempt for weak-minded people who believe in elves, pixies and celestial beings, having convinced himself that religion is the root of all evil despite the abundant evidence that atheists can be evil too. In a recent discussion with the eminent physicist Lawrence M Krauss, the two debate the best way to go about weening the population away from fairy stories and into the sunlit uplands of rational science (Scientific American, July 07). The ‘softly softly’ Krauss seems to persuade the firebrand Dawkins to the conclusion that the working class must be ‘seduced’ out of ignorance rather than beaten over the head with it, a conclusion one can’t imagine Dawkins ever sticking to. But what is uncomfortably apparent in their language is a mental image of the worker as an Alabama redneck with a gun in one hand, a crucifix in the other, and who has only ever read two books, both of them about UFO’s.

Of course, it may be true, as Sam Goldwyn used to say, that nobody ever went broke underestimating the public intelligence, and the resurgence of Christian fundamentalism and anti-evolution in America will certainly lend weight to that particular prejudice. But the last time ‘Intelligent Design’ (creationism) was in the news, it was being publicly humiliated in Pennsylvania as working class parents, some of them Christians, took the battle for rationality to court and forced the entire Dover School board of governors, who advocated teaching creationism in class, to resign in ignominy.

In the past, the views of individual scientists about the mental or intellectual capabilities of workers was a matter merely of private discussion. Now, however, the question has begun to erupt into the foreground, and all because of ‘Web 2.0’.

The World Wide Web is changing fast, and whether we like it or not, it has become interactive. More and more, on every hard news or information site, we are seeing invitations to readers to send in their pictures, their articles, reportage or opinions. This is not simply a crafty way to pad out pages at no expense, it is what is called ‘user-generated content’, the new fully interactive Web – Version Two Point Nought – where every consumer is potentially a producer. And the implications are beginning to expose a fault-line in society which exactly mirrors that found among radical political groups. For some, the ‘democratisation’ of the means of communication marks a thrilling phase-change in the pace of human progress. For others, it is the start of a catastrophic dumbing-down which threatens to drown civilisation in a welter of mediocrity.

Leading the charge against what he sees as a colonisation of genuine expertise by an invasion of insipid, inaccurate and second-rate vanity publishing is the Californian entrepreneur Andrew Keen, who argues in his controversial book The Cult of the Amateur that “what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment” (quoted in New York Times, June 29). And why might this be? Because the crowd is now in charge, and “history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise, embracing unwise ideas like slavery, infanticide, George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, Britney Spears.” This is a curious argument, considering that the same crowd subsequently abolished slavery and infanticide, and will very likely do the same to the war in Iraq and even, with a bit of luck, Britney Spears. Keen is obviously not keen on the politics of Web 2.0, likening it to Marxism or a ‘communist utopia’: “It worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone—even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us—can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves.” This last quotation comes from his entry in Wikipedia, a user-generated phenomenon which Keen has stated he despises, because anyone can write anything they like in it without being a tenured professor, on the basis that the crowd holds more collective wisdom than the individual. To Keen, this is tantamount to pulling down the Library of Congress and replacing it with the Tower of Babel.

Keen and others have made much of Wikipedia’s potential for inaccuracy, while absurdly ignoring the fact that Wikipedia is dynamically self-correcting. One may as justly accuse science of getting things wrong sometimes. Indeed, comparison of Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica articles on science by the magazine Nature revealed a roughly equal number of errors in both (BBC Online, March 24, 06).

Ridiculed by the ‘digerati’ as a mastodon railing against the warming winds of change, Keen is certainly a minority voice, although probably the vocal end of a significantly large silent rearguard. Whereas elitist notions of worker stupidity tend to predominate in left-wing circles, they are definitely infra dig among the online community. And to give credit to Keen, he is honest enough to admit that he may have overstated his case: “I think I idealised mainstream media … I concentrated on the good things. I didn’t write about the Sun newspaper. I didn’t write about Fox” (Guardian, July 20). No, he didn’t. And he didn’t consider the fact either that his historical crowds, wherever they acted stupidly, undoubtedly did so because the ruling elites kept knowledge to themselves in order to maintain their power and prestige. If the advent of Web 2.0 forces this kind of prejudice into the foreground, so much the better. Keen, if he gets lonely, could always go and join the mastodons of the left-wing. Socialists however will feel more at home among the trail-blazing digerati of the interactive revolution. Roll on Earth 2.0.

Paddy Shannon

From each according to their ability (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard 

“I don’t want to take £1 billion pounds to the grave with me.”  (Sir Tom Hunter, Daily Telegraph, 18 July 18).

Andrew Carnegie, Bill Clinton, Bob Geldof et al would no doubt agree that there can be only a small percentage of financial, business, sport or artistic successes in any one generation. There just isn’t space at the top of any profession or vocation for the majority of the population. The system doesn’t work like that. A pyramid requires a very broad, solid base made up of multitudinous blocks rising in successively smaller layers to the apex. The financial structure of the world is the same; the many enabling the few to amass their fortunes. In sport or art, whether through talent or promotion, a similar structure exists.

Whilst the super-rich can afford to give away much of their monetary wealth without hardship or set up trusts, charities, concerts and the like to alleviate some of the world’s worst conditions (and the rest of us can donate much smaller amounts according to our individual situation and whim), the plain facts are that each year, year in, year out, millions more around the world find themselves in abject poverty. Whatever is given in aid, grants or donations is never, and will never be, sufficient to “make poverty history”.

Sir Tom Hunter appears not at all gloomy about the world situation and claims “he gets a bigger buzz from a successful philanthropic venture than from his businesses”. There is an obvious satisfaction to be gained from personally being able to bring positive solutions to problems of those less fortunate than oneself; however, even supposing all the world’s billionaires were to prove as altruistic in ministering to the world’s needy, it would only result in a partial cure of humanity’s sores rather than total elimination of the disease.

The Daily Telegraph article ends with Carnegie’s assertion that “all personal wealth beyond that required to supply the needs of one’s family should be regarded as a trust fund to be administered for the benefit of the community.” Which is not all that different from Karl Marx’s dictum “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. However, the poor of the world don’t need a hand-out. They simply need to be a part of a world system that doesn’t exploit them and with the universal right to nutritious food and clean water, shelter, responsibility for self-determination, all long recognized as prerequisites for a fulfilling life.

With “from each according to ability, to each according to need” applied globally it will not only be possible but achievable in the foreseeable future to eliminate poverty, malnutrition and the other ills inherent in global capitalism.

When doctors, teachers, musicians, scientists, technicians, farmers, entrepreneurs use their expertise solely for the benefit of the (world) community; when the Earth’s rich resources are used for people, not profit; when all citizens of the world are seen to have equal, intrinsic worth regardless of background, intelligence or class; when our collective aims are truly altruistic rather than accumulative then there would be no worries about taking money to the grave. Wealth would be real, not virtual; the Earth’s resources would belong to all, not to be pillaged for profit for the minority; talent, skills and human endeavour would be the wealth to be spent by all for the benefit of all.

How satisfying to go to the grave fully used up with absolutely nothing going to waste.

Janet Surman

Cooking the Books: Turmoil at the Stock Exchange (2007)

The Cooking the Books column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

“FRESH TURMOIL IN EQUITY MARKETS” read the headline of the weekend Financial Times (11/12 August) after a week of dramatic falls in share prices on the world’s stock exchanges. “GROWTH THREATENED BY MARKET TURBULENCE, SAY ECONOMISTS” read the one in the Times the next day, which reported the principal of one hedge fund are saying “Nobody has yet mentioned to me the possibility of a stock market crash and I find that surprising”.

So, what was it all about? Could it really have been a prelude to another 1929 and 1930s slump? Or was it another purely financial crisis hardly affecting the real economy?

Although the turmoil was centred on financial markets, especially stock markets, in most respects its origins lay in the housing sector in the US where financial institutions have been selling “sub-prime” mortgages, i. e. to those with poor credit records and who are therefore more likely to default – and have been. The US housing market bubble – now being paralleled in the UK and elsewhere – has come to an end and mortgage defaults have escalated.

Financial institutions in the US and elsewhere are now coming under pressure because of their exposure in this market but the main issue at present is that no-one knows the extent of the problem, mainly because much of this debt has been packaged together and sold on to financial institutions other than those originally lending the money.

Some hedge funds and other financial instruments that have invested in this debt in the hope of higher than average returns for their investors have got into trouble. In the case of some funds run by BNP Paribas, they have simply been unable to calculate their value because of the current volatility of this sector of the financial markets, leading to even further fear and uncertainty.

The most serious knock-on effect has been a tightening of credit – banks are reluctant to lend money, even to one another. It is this that has been affecting stock markets in particular.

The easy credit that has helped financial merger and acquisition activity the last two or three years (especially by private equity firms) propelled the stock markets of the world upwards. This is because private equity groups, by changing the legal status of the firms they take over from public to private companies, have been taking firms off the stock market and so reducing the supply of shares available as a whole; also, easy credit has helped companies buy back their own shares, to the same effect – reducing the supply of shares and so, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, pushing up share prices.

It is the end of this easy credit and the positive stock market conditions it has promoted that is bothering the financial markets more widely. In truth, after the massive stock market falls of 2000-2003, most stock markets are not over-valued but are being affected by a contagious fear that has spread from the housing sector via the credit markets.

But this is one of the problems with the capitalist market economy – the lack of planning and the instability inherent in the system can have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. Just how far-reaching only time will tell, but given the underlying problems into the UK housing market alone, this period of market fear may have some way to run yet.

One-party rule in Japan at an end? (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politics in Japan has reached a turning point—or a dead end—with the crushing defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party in the upper-house election on 29 July.

The Liberal Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, lost the majority it had held in the upper house (along with its coalition partner the New Komei Party), so that now it is controlled by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Many within the LDP have called for Abe to resign, which is customary after such a major defeat, but as of mid-August he is still holding on to power. Whatever Abe’s destiny, however, the election result seems to herald the beginning of the end of what has essentially been a system of one-party rule since the LDP was formed in 1955.

There is no shortage of reasons for the defeat suffered by the LDP. First and foremost, there was the scandal involving the pension system. It was revealed in May that some 50 million pension records had been lost. This means that people who regularly paid into the system are at risk of being shortchanged on their pension benefits. With a huge percentage of Japan’s population at or nearing retirement age, it is easy to understand why this scandal has alienated so many people from the LDP.

There were also the scandals involving cabinet members, including the illegal funding of political activities and the usual LDP “verbal gaffes.” Two members of Abe’s cabinet resigned and the minister of agriculture, who was under fire for a funding scandal, committed suicide. Incredibly, the new agricultural minister was implicated in a similar funding scandal and resigned immediately after the election defeat.

While these scandals seem to have been the direct cause of the LDP’s defeat, there are long-term political and social changes that have gradually eroded the party’s power and contributed to the unpopularity of Prime Minister Abe. One trend, which has been much commented on in the press, is the increasing “social divide” between the richer rich and poorer poor. Among the have-nots the impression is that the “structural reforms” implemented by the LDP, starting with Abe’s predecessor Koizumi, have only worsened their lives.

The divide between rich and poor corresponds to a growing disparity between the more affluent cities and the economically depressed rural areas. Traditionally the LDP has depended on votes in the rural districts, and repaid this support with the agricultural protectionism and large-scale public works projects that are the two pillars of the local economies. These policies have become difficult to maintain, given the ballooning government debt and need to form free-trade agreements, not to mention the public opposition to wasteful government spending on unnecessary roads and dams. The LDP has tinkered with reform, including the promotion of decentralization of government administration, and this has already eaten away at its base of support. One of the most striking aspects of the election result, for example, is that the DPJ was able to win seats in rural districts that up to now have been impregnable LDP strongholds.

Abe hoped that a revival of nationalism could help to conceal or bridge the divisions between rich and poor, and between urban and rural Japan. He raised the creepy goal of creating what he calls a “beautiful country.” Abe thought this could be achieved through such efforts as revising the Constitution to eliminate its pacifist clause, whitewashing history so students can “take pride” in their country, and advancing a more interventionist foreign policy in tandem with the US.

But even here Abe has had little luck. One problem is that his campaign to turn back the clock to the 1930s began just as the US was demonstrating to the world the limitations of hairy-chested jingoism. Many people in Japan—even capitalists—must have wondered whether it was a good idea to adopt the George W. Bush approach to winning friends and influencing people. The two-headed quagmire in the Middle East has also forced the US to take a less belligerent stance towards North Korea; a move that caught the Abe government off guard and complicated the effort to use the fear of North Korea to bolster the revival of nationalism.

There has also been hostility towards Abe because the public feels as if it has been “sold a bill of goods” by the LDP. Japanese voters provided overwhelming support to Prime Minister Koizumi when he posed as a renegade hell-bent on overturning the status quo within his own party, resulting in the LDP regaining a firm majority in both houses of parliament. But Koizumi’s hand-picked successor, Shinzo Abe, used that power to push through reactionary legislation with little public support, fill his cabinet with political cronies, and even bring back to the LDP some members that Koizumi had expelled for opposing his “structural reforms.” The general feeling among the public is that it was a very bad idea, indeed, to have handed the LDP a blank check.

Finally, there is the problem of Abe himself, who clearly lacks the essential political skill of lying in a convincing manner. The charismatic Koizumi might have been to talk his way out of at least some of the problems listed above, creating a useful distraction or two, but Abe has proved quite incapable of charming the public.

Tweedledum

Probably the least significant factor behind the LDP’s defeat was the opposition Democratic Party. The general consensus is that people were voting against the LDP, not for the DPJ. Given the numerous problems facing Abe’s party just outlined, the DPJ had to do little more than criticize the LDP’s handling of those problems and offer some vague solutions.

Under its new leader Ichiro Ozawa, the election campaign of the DPJ emphasized the growing gap between the “winners” and “losers” in society and made the claim that it could implement policies that would improve the standard of life for common people. In its election manifesto, the DPJ raises the goal of “creating a nation where people can live their lives free of anxiety” and “putting people’s lives first.”

How the DPJ intends to deliver on this promise, under an economic system of production for profit, is a complete mystery.

And even the more concrete “pledges” and “proposals” listed in the DPJ manifesto are unlikely to ever see the full light of day. The party offers three pledges: to resolve the pension problem, increase subsidies for childrearing (to deal with the low birth rate), and providing greater support for farmers. All three require lots and lots of yen, which the government does not have or would prefer to use in more capital-friendly ways.

The DPJ election manifesto includes seven proposals as well: (1) protect jobs and rectify social disparities, (2) solve the shortage of doctors and improve healthcare, (3) eliminate administrative waste, (4) advance the decentralization of government, (5) support small and medium size businesses, (6) take a leading role in environmental protection, (7) adopt a new approach to foreign policy.

The first two require increased spending, while any savings from the third and fourth proposals will mean job losses for government workers and economic hardships for the provinces. The next proposal, to help out the “little guy” (=small capital), would also require increased expenditures and run directly counter to the interests of the big-time capitalists who run the show. The sixth proposal is an empty promise, as long as capitalism, with its anarchical money-chasing, remains firmly in place.

Even the final proposal on foreign policy, which is one of Ozawa’s primary obsessions, will be difficult to achieve because Japan is so closely intertwined militaristically with the US, to which it has outsourced its foreign policy for the past sixty years. Ozawa has stated that the DPJ would use its new power to oppose the extension of the Antiterrorism Law, under which Japan has supported the US wars of aggression in the Middle East. It will be interesting to see if he follows through on this promise, given the heavy pressure already being exerted on the DPJ by the US since the election. The DPJ itself is split over this issue, as reflected in its manifesto, which states that, “a strong and equal Japan-US relationship based on mutual trust” is the “foundation of Japan’s foreign relations,” while in the very next sentence calling for the “immediate end of the dispatch of Self-Defence Forces (=Japanese army) to Iraq.” If the DPJ can stand up to the pressure from the US, they are certain to gain tremendous public support, but unless there is a real alternative to the current foreign policy, Japanese capitalists may decide to stay aboard the USS Hubris.

The promises, pledges, and proposals of the DPJ are not only difficult (and at times impossible) to achieve, they present a false image of that political party. In the election campaign, the DPJ emphasized a liberal, people-friendly image, but a brief look at the history of the party and its members reveals how similar its outlook is to that of the LDP. Many of the big players in the party, including Ozawa, got their start in the LDP prior to the formation of the DPJ in 1998.

Ozawa rose as high as the Secretary General of the LDP, in 1989. But he found himself on the losing end of a factional struggle, and in 1993 decided to strike out on his own, forming the Japan Renewal Party. The next decade saw Ozawa in a number of other small parties. Far from steadfastly opposing the LDP, however, Ozawa’s Liberal Party formed a coalition with the LDP and was even negotiating with Prime Minister Obuchi to return to the fold. When opposition in the LDP blocked this political merger, Ozawa tried his luck with the DPJ, dissolving the Liberal Party within it in 2003. Ozawa is clearly is an opportunistic politician who does not offer a fundamental break with LDP politics, not to mention that he is wholly faithful to the capitalist system.

If the DPJ represents a step forward for politics in Japan, it is only in the sense of contributing to an understanding that capitalist political parties are fundamentally the same, quite unable to deliver on their sweet-sounding campaign promises. Some may still be holding out the hope that the DPJ will set Japan on the right path, but they are sure to be disappointed. It is the role of socialists to prevent their disappointment from resulting in impotent despair, by showing where the real problems lie and offering a solution.

What’s left?

But the “left” in Japan is not offering a critique of capitalism or pointing the way beyond it.

During elections, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) makes its presence felt. Even in the smallest towns JCP posters and politicians can be seen. This might give a tourist the impression that there is great interest in socialism in Japan today. In fact, however, the election campaign of the JCP makes no mention of socialism. The primary issues for the JCP are the defence of the current “pacifist” Constitution and the quixotic goal of achieving something called “capitalism with rules” through Keynesian economic policies. And the same approach characterizes the politics of the Social Democratic Party (Japan), which includes remnants of the now defunct Socialist Party.

To borrow the old comparison, the reformist politics of the JCP and SDP are like treating a patient’s symptoms, without paying much attention to the disease. For example, JCP leader Kazuo Shii, in comments made to the Foreign Correspondent’s Club on 3 July, raised the party’s slogan of ending poverty, proposing the following three measures: (1) Oppose regressive taxes (residential tax, consumption tax); (2) enhance social services; (3) enforce work regulations. Not a word about how poverty is endemic to capitalism itself, as a society where production is for profit and profit arises from the exploitation of labour.

No matter how well intentioned, the politics of the JCP and SDP generate the illusion that capitalism can change its stripes. Perhaps in the short-term this will win them some votes, but neither party is offering a solution to problems people in Japan and throughout the world face. And until a genuine socialist party does emerge, Japanese politics — and society — will be stuck in an impasse.

Michael Schauerte

Too much hot air (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

A week may be a long time in politics, but it seems that ten years is not enough for capitalism to take action against climate change. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol little substantial has been done to address the problem.

It is almost universally agreed that global warming is brought about by an increase in the amount of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere. These gases trap heat and so lead to a rise in the planet’s temperature. The consequences are varied and not fully predictable, but might include water shortages, a fall in crop yields, rise in sea levels and the wiping out of many species.

It’s not yet too late to do something about it. Some degree of further global warming is already guaranteed by existing and near-future amounts of the greenhouse gases, but if a reduction in their emission is achieved then warming can be controlled and its worst effects avoided. George Monbiot’s book Heat is an extended attempt to show that carbon emissions in Britain could be cut by 90 percent. Various methods are described, such as the introduction of a micro-generation system, the use of gas-fired power stations, and an end to flying.

Monbiot argues that the climate change denial industry has managed to delay effective action. This industry is a mixed bag of lobby groups and websites, many of which receive funding from ExxonMobil, a giant corporation which makes most of its profits from oil and therefore stands to lose out if global warming is tackled seriously. Philip Morris, the tobacco company, was among the first to fund the denial industry.

Clearly companies whose business involves the production of greenhouse gases are going to fight tooth and nail against moves to constrain them. Capitalists in general will take a similar line if they feel attempts to combat global warming will reduce their profits. Governments, which — after all — represent capitalist interests will jump in on their side. All talk of global or governmental responses to climate change has to take these harsh realities into account.

In his book The Weather Makers Tim Flannery writes:

“The transition to a carbon-free economy is eminently achievable because we have all the technology we need to do so. It is only a lack of understanding and the pessimism and confusion generated by special interest groups that is stopping us from going forward.”

Flannery claims that international action to prevent damage to the atmosphere is possible and has indeed occurred in the past. In 1987 the Montreal Protocol successfully limited the emission of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). These destroy the ozone layer, which blocks lethal ultra-violet radiation reaching the earth. Once the dangers inherent in CFCs were realised, production of them was phased out, and now the ozone layer is recovering.

The problem is that the parallels between the Montreal Protocol and the Kyoto Protocol, which is intended to reduce carbon emissions, are not close enough. CFCs were used in spraycans, some cleaning agents, and so on, and consequently they were nowhere near as important or central to capitalist production as the generation of power and energy, which are basically where greenhouse gases are output. It’s not just a matter of the ‘special interest groups’ to which Flannery refers, but of the drastic disruption to capitalist industry — and hence to profits — that would be involved. Even though the Kyoto-envisaged reductions are nowhere near what is really needed, even these milk-and-water provisions are unlikely to be adopted.

So it isn’t primarily confusion and lack of understanding that militate against capitalism taking serious steps to limit global warming. It’s the central role of the profit motive. And that’s why it will take a socialist society before these and other environmental problems can be tackled — and humanity live in true harmony with our home planet.

Paul Bennett

Politics of Apathy (2007)

Book Review from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why We Hate Politics. Colin Hay. Polity Press.

Colin Hay is a Professor of Political Analysis and has produced a book typical of the academic genre – tightly argued and well referenced if somewhat dense, and at times, abstract. His main focus is that politics is ‘an increasingly dirty word’ and he sets out to examine why.

In fairness, some of the information he presents is rather good, especially in the earlier chapters where he looks at trends in political participation within the major developed states of the world, identifying and seeking to explain declines in voter turnout, falling membership of political parties and prevalent attitudes towards democracy and participation as sampled in opinion polls. He notes that somewhat paradoxically, just as traditional political participation has declined in recent decades, so have attitudes towards democracy as a form of running society improved, with less anti-democratic sentiment than in earlier times. This seems to be because while parliamentary democracy may not be perfect, any known, established alternatives to it (e.g. dictatorship from the far left or right) have proved to be even less attractive propositions.

While just over three-quarters of people in Britain consider democracy to be the ‘best form of government’ this means – rather worryingly – that nearly a quarter would prefer something else (e.g. dictatorship), but this is one of the highest levels of anti-democratic sentiment still existing in the Western world, in distinction to the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Japan, for instance, where pro-democracy sentiments are almost universal.

Rather like a bourgeois economist, Hay examines contemporary attitudes towards politics and political participation in terms of demand and supply. He argues that most writers examining this problem have focused principally on the demand side of this equation, in that they have been content to analyse the declining ‘demand for political goods’ amongst the electorate as manifested in voter turnout, political party membership and so on. When turnout declines the blame is apportioned to the voters, not the purveyors of political goods and services like the politicians and spin-doctors, who seem content to market themselves as competing branded versions of essentially the same product.

He argues that this issue of political supply – and the problems associated with it – has largely been ignored. The supply side essentially constitutes ‘changes in the content of the appeals that the parties make to potential voters’ and ‘changes in the capacity of national-level governments to deliver genuine political choice to voters’. Interestingly, unwitting support for this ‘supply-side’ view of political decline comes from the politicians themselves, who seem increasingly keen to abdicate responsibility for the running of society and for the political choices involved in this. In this respect, Hay’s piece de resistance is a quote from Blair’s old lieutenant, former Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer:

‘What governs our approach is a clear desire to place power where it should be: increasingly not with politicians, but with those best fitted in different ways to deploy it. Interest rates are not set by politicians in the Treasury, but by the Bank of England. Minimum wages are not determined by the Department of Trade and Industry, but by the Low Pay Commission . . . this depoliticisation of key decision-making is a vital element in bringing power closer to the people.’

While Hay seems to imply that this is a dereliction of duty by politicians that has led to even more cynicism from the public, it is just as much an admission of their practical failure to create worthwhile change or improvement through active intervention. After all, if there’s little or nothing you can do, then why not (under the guise of being ‘democratic’) effectively hand over the supposed ‘powers’ concerned to someone else? Then they can, at least, take any blame that is due from a weary and sceptical public.

Dave Perrin

Life of an anarchist (2007)

Book Review from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Anarchist Geographer: An Introduction to the Life of Peter Kropotkin. Brian Morris (Genge Press, 2007. £8)

This is a short (100 page), readable biography of the anarchist writer Peter Kropotkin. Born a prince in 1842, he became an anti-Tsarist revolutionary for which he was arrested and imprisoned in 1874. Two years later he managed to escape and left Russia, not to return again till the overthrow of the Tsar in March 1917. He died there in 1922.

Before he became a revolutionary he had been involved in original geographical research in Siberia and had been elected a member of the Russian Geological Society. In exile he earned a living as a scientific journalist and writer. Hence the title of Morris’s book. One series of his scientific writings was later published as Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, which became a socialist classic, opposing the Social Darwinists who saw the struggle for existence as the only factor.

In the 1870s when Kropotkin first became active in revolutionary and working class politics in the West – in Switzerland – almost all those involved, including those who were later to describe themselves as “anarchists”, called themselves “socialists”. So did Kropotkin, though he preferred to call himself a “communist” to distinguish himself from those who wanted “from each according to ability, to each according to work done” from those like him who wanted “to each according to needs”.

Kropotkin has been accused of (or credited with, if you prefer) creating a distinct (anti-) political philosophy called “anarchism” which embraced anybody who was against “the State”, even if they weren’t socialists/communists. In fact, this includes vociferous anti-socialists like the followers of Stirner, Thoreau or Tucker (individualist anarchists) or Proudhon (market anarchists).

Quite why Kropotkin felt – and why some modern anarchists still feel – some sort of affinity with these open anti-socialists is difficult to understand. But then anarchists do make the mistake of seeing the state, rather than capitalism, as the cause of workers’ problems, whereas the state is a consequence of economically-divided class societies.

Kropotkin wasn’t consistently anti-state anyway. When WW1 broke out he immediately supported France (and Britain) against Germany, on the grounds that the German state was the greater evil.

Adam Buick

The single issue (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The futility of the ever-increasing single issue campaigns is clear for all to see. Could it be because they are being reactive rather than proactive?

Who can’t relate to the feeling that life, sometimes, bogs you down? Every day many tasks, chores, activities lie waiting to be taken care of, from getting up to going to bed again. Food to be prepared, children to be readied for school, laundry to be organized, the car to be refuelled or put in for service and all before arriving at work for another stimulating day adding to the coffers of the wealthy. Issues there range from the state of the toilet facilities, whether there is flexibility in the flexi-time to who’ll get the next promotion and who the chop. Home alone to an empty flat or home to a house filled with family, stopping to shop on the way, there are still all manner of jobs lined up waiting their turn, defiant in their refusal to just go away. The garden, the grass, the dog, the shower head that keeps falling off the wall; better put the rubbish out, but what rubbish – black bin, green bin, blue box or paper collection? Freshly prepared evening meal, micro-waved dinner or take-away followed by a well-deserved rest – oh, better just sort out that unpaid bill, answer a few emails and return a phone call, help with homework, wash up, maybe get it done before the news starts,—-and so on till bedtime.

Life is full of these single issues; eating, work, health, education, transport, recreation, shopping – for food, clothes, household needs. Single issues, each a part of the big picture, a part of life, the parts constituting a whole. What we choose as the parts and how we put them together probably defines our character in large part. It’s not what’s thrown at you but how you react to what’s thrown at you that reveals your personality. Being proactive rather than reactive will mean being better organized and more in control of one’s time, resources and emotions; however, proactive or reactive, issues are what make up our days, years, whole lives. Most of us will prioritise, knowing that ultimately all will need to be dealt with; some can be passed over lightly or shared or delayed, others, more pressing, will receive our urgent attention.

Our cerebral life would find little to exercise it within the confines of daily life as just described but there is the much wider swathe of issues out there engaging those who are in contact with their conscience. So-called political issues. Single issues.

Poverty: North/South, rich/poor, majority world/minority world, aid, IMF, World Bank, transnationals.

Immigration: problems for asylum seekers and refugees, unequal opportunities for people of different nationalities raising issues of racism, nationalism and xenophobia.

Health: HIV aids, malaria, lack of sufficient potable water and many-tiered systems for access to health treatment.

War: anti-war, anti-nuclear, arms sales and despoliation, depleted uranium and mines.

Women’s Rights: Children’s Rights: Labour Issues: Agro-business and Big Pharma.

Anti-Globalisation: free trade anomalies, farm subsidies, land rights.

Trafficking: involving traffickers, carriers, users, and addicts. Contraband includes drugs, arms, children, women, body parts, animal parts and diamonds.

Natural Resources: oil, coal, aluminium, gold, water, uranium, all with connected environmental problems. Qualified people from Least Developed Countries transferring to richest countries and out-sourcing of jobs to cheapest labour wherever it is, further impoverishing the poor.

Wealth: transferred from poor world to rich world and from rich world to off-shore tax havens.

There are many people who work full time on their chosen most important issue for years. There are many more the world over who volunteer part time endeavouring to make a difference on one or more of these never-ending single issues. These are good people, believing they have something to offer, wanting to make the world a better place, wanting to create a level playing field. So, why is it that there are now more of them than ever before in history, trying to reverse the march of ever-widening divisions? If what they were doing was working there would be need for less of them, there would be positive indications from statistics, not year on year reports of increasing anomalies. The futility of the ever-increasing single issue campaigns is clear for all to see. Could it be because they are being reactive rather than proactive? Could it be that their perceptions of these issues as ‘single’ issues is working against them?

As in life, it isn’t possible to be involved with all these issues separately. As with life’s issues, the single ‘political’ issues add up to the whole. What is required is a philosophy, a way of life that addresses the sum total of all the issues, large and small. Democracy could be the short answer to all these and other issues. Democracy, not of the voting candidates in or out every 4 or 5 years on spurious promises variety, but simply the democracy of supporting delegates who are charged with upholding truly democratic principles to continue strengthening community welfare worldwide.

Socialism is the natural umbrella for humanity, the vast majority of which desires a peaceful world. All the single issues are seen by socialists as effects, the cause of which is capitalism. Effects can be ameliorated but it is better to eliminate the cause and prevent the effects returning. Once the decision is made by the majority to press forward to cooperative life in a peaceful world based upon the common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community people will be in place who have the knowledge, skills and passion to bring reality to their long-held dreams of solutions to each single issue, in full recognition that theirs is just one small but significant part of an entity much greater than the sum of its parts.

Janet Surman

Faith no more (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Competition Rules? (2007)

Editorial from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

It used to be that business news concentrated on the performance of the economy and the pearls of wisdom of business leaders. In recent years however the business pages of newspapers have slowly become filled with allegations and investigations of price-fixing, cartels, insider dealing and corruption.

Last month, in headlines which made front pages round the world, British Airways was fined over £300 million for price-fixing – agreeing with their competitor to fix the price of fuel surcharges at an artificially high level. “The world’s favourite airline”, that old advertising slogan for BA, will perhaps not be making a re-appearance anytime soon.

In the dock alongside them of course should have stood one of the UK’s favourite capitalists, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, except he turned Queens’ evidence and snitched just in time. According to the bizarre rules which usually seem to affect businesses differently from every one else, by blowing the whistle on the dirty dealings of BA (and themselves) they are automatically free from prosecution no matter how dirty their hands.

The very idea that these two bastions of free enterprise should have been colluding to effectively “defraud” their valued customers might have shocked some. After all here is what British Airways customer policy states: “The well being of our customers is extremely important to us”. Virgin’s customer charter is the same although it seems a little prescient “We put customer service and commitment to our passengers at the heart of what we do. We strive to get it right, first time, every time. But occasionally things don’t go as planned”.

Remember of course that Branson and Virgin for many years played the part of the plucky little David complaining against BA’s Goliath abusing its monopoly position with airports to try and keep Virgin out of the Atlantic market.

The news headlines related primarily to the size of the fine rather than any surprise that these business practices actually go on. These are not exceptions, occasional one-off incidents worthy of a news item. Corruption is an inherent part of capitalism. And what is known about is obviously only the tip of the iceberg.

And we maybe should not even pay much attention to those states trying to regulate their own capitalists – they are just as guilty. US Democrats have recently been trying to legislate (“Nopec”) against OPEC, the oil-producing and exporting countries, on the basis that these countries, instead of competing for market share on the basis of price, agree production rates with each other in order to keep the price high for all. In capitalism maintaining production takes second place to maintaining profit.

World socialists aren’t much bothered which activities of capitalists actually comply with its own laws or not, except perhaps to draw attention to the inconsistencies of the system and to show how it doesn’t even live up to its own ideology: the “free” market just doesn’t do what it says on the tin.

World socialists don’t want the “free” market system. But neither do we have any confidence in a supposedly regulated market system. There will never be enough consumer rights ombudsmen, Offices of Fair Trading or anti-trust legislation to police capitalism. The buying and selling system provides just too much reward. Instead a cosmetic pretence is maintained that the market system is dynamic and competitive. A veneer of fairness is maintained to encourage us all to carry on participating in the game, on the basis that there is some sort of level playing field in capitalism. But the real battle has never been one fought between capitalists, but rather, against them and their system.  So which side are you on ?

Letter: Socialist MPs (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist MPs

Dear Editors

I am writing as a sympathiser and one with boundless admiration for Socialist Party. because of its constant refusal to compromise with all that is harmful to socialism. Therefore I was disappointed, when listening to a recent tape of members in discussion, that should a minority of socialist MPs get elected it would be party policy that reforms should be evaluated on their merits and voted for or against accordingly.

Certain reforms can indeed be said to have merit if they have some benefit to the working class, such as medicare, extension of the franchise and safety legislation in the workplace. However, for socialists to vote in favour of such reforms might well attract support from non-socialists who also welcome such measures. Too much of such support would mean you would no longer have a socialist party. I feel a minority of socialist MPs should (as they probably would) point out the class nature of all reforms, and if they did not feel comfortable voting against some of them (such as the above) abstain.

My view is to let the upholders of capitalism work for reforms and for socialists to work for socialism with the same attitude towards reforms as your party was to taking sides in wars, leadership, defence of state capitalism, nationalisation, industrial unionism, elitism (to name a few) which is “no compromise”.

Steve Shannon, 

Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Reply:

Our view is also “to let the upholders of capitalism work for reforms” while we put the revolutionary alternative. Socialist MPs and councillors would be mandated to put the case for socialism and to criticise reform activity from the socialist perspective. However, the long-established socialist position is that socialist delegates in such an environment would be duty-bound to consider voting for measures that could benefit the working class as a whole and/or the socialist movement in particular. These issues would be judged on their merits at the time, and could, for instance, involve socialist delegates voting to stop a war, such as the recent war in Iraq. In such a case abstention would not be justifiable. In taking this position, they would still make clear their opposition to capitalism as a whole and to all parties of capitalism and would at no time seek support from the working class on the basis of a reform programme –Editors.

Greasy Pole: Like father like son (2007)

The Greasy Pole column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no reason to believe that he was asked what he thought about it but Tony Benn has been transmogrified from an unbending leftwing critic, protester and campaigner into a National Treasure. Manacled in this identity he will find that participation in any future marches, petitions or demonstrations will provoke only the kind of fond indulgence normally given to senile dogs. In addition Benn may be disturbed by the fact that no offspring has followed in his stumbling political footsteps, for his son Hilary made his attitude clear from the very beginning of his time as an MP: “I am a Benn but not a Bennite” – which may be translated as “please forget all that daring but embarrassing stuff I once raved on about – my career is more important to me than any principles you may have attributed to me”.

We may ask why there are so few examples of admiring offspring following a parent into a successful career in politics – which is, after all, supposed to be an honourable profession with rewards both material and in public esteem. Is it just a matter of rebellious youth defying parental assumptions? Or is there something about the work and the esteem which discourages?

The Greenwoods

Arthur Greenwood was a leading Labour figure, an MP from 1922 until his death in 1954, who held a number of Cabinet posts. In the chaotic 1929/31 Labour government he was Minister of Health and in 1935 he became Clement Attlee’s deputy leader. In the wartime coalition Churchill made him Minister Without Portfolio and then in 1941 Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee – a grandly titled body with the even grander job of organising post-war reconstruction. This committee was expected to produce practical proposals covering a wide range of spheres of action and to this end Greenwood recruited a number of economists and others who thought highly enough of themselves to believe that, at that time of extreme peril for British capitalism, their opinions would have any effect on governmental policy.

In any case the very fact of Greenwood’s appointment was evidence of the low priority given to post-war “reconstruction” for his serious drink problem made him quite incapable of keeping up with the demands of the job. Mercifully, in 1942 he was sacked (the Committee had met only four times) and the government could get on with the serious business of organising the slaughter.

His dismissal from the Cabinet left Greenwood free to take on the (unpaid) unofficial leadership of the opposition. The style of his “opposition” may be judged by his contribution to a debate, in February 1943, on the Beveridge Report, heartily welcomed by so many war-weary people under the impression that the type of reforms Beveridge was proposing would be the reward for all their suffering during the war. The coalition, however, was not to be rushed into any such extravagance and Greenwood, by pre-arrangement with the government, introduced an analgesic motion greeting the Report with the meaningless hope that it would – sometime, somehow, somewhere – be implemented.

Anthony Greenwood

In the post war Labour government Greenwood held a couple of minor jobs but his health steadily declined; in 1950, virtually immobile, he was brought to the Commons in a wheelchair by his son Anthony. “He looked dying” recorded Tory MP Henry Channon, “…Anthony, also a Member, has a Surbiton accent but a pleasant, well-soaped appearance”. That was alright then, everything well set for another, eminently acceptable, Greenwood to take his place in the most exclusive club in the world where they do the business of managing British capitalism.

Greenwood Junior was among those who conform to whatever the priorities of capitalism demand while protesting that their principles as left wingers would prevent them behaving in that way. A member of the anti-nuclear movement from its early days as the Hydrogen Bomb National Campaign Committee, he stood for the party leadership against Hugh “Fight And Fight Again” Gaitskell, who won with almost three quarters of the votes cast. Gaitskell’s death in 1963 brought Wilson into the leadership and Greenwood was plucked from the back benches to become Secretary of State for the Colonies. This was either a mistake by Wilson or an example of labyrinthine subtlety for he had grumbled to Barbara Castle that “Tony has no brains. I soon realised that all he is good at is public relations” – a breathtaking sneer from one who was himself a keen student of the shadowy art of public relations.

Anthony Greenwood had responsibility for a number of decisions which would have outraged any self-respecting left winger. In 1964 there was concern, in London and Washington, that a general election in British Guiana would bring into power a government led by Cheddi Jagan, who was likely to pursue policies unfavourable to American interests in the area. Stifling his earlier reservations for such subversive, undemocratic activity, Greenwood co-operated with the Americans in an intelligence campaign successfully aimed at undermining Jagan’s chances in the election. In 1965 the Americans had designs on building a nuclear base on Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean. The problem was that the islanders did not want to leave so they were removed forcibly, through deportation or attrition; for example Britain bought the only employer on the island and then closed it down. By 1975 the job was finished and the base was there, where once the islanders fished, farmed and harvested the copra.

Hilary Benn

There is nothing in the family antecedents for any existent Greenwood to take pride in. But the tradition, or whatever it is, lives on; the grandson of Anthony Greenwood, Leo Murray, is a co-founder of Plane Stupid, an organisation which in its own way tries to defy the realities of capitalism by campaigning against airport expansion. Watch out for Leo Murray; there is time for him also to get into Parliament, become a minister and forget the days when he was devoted to trying to make capitalism behave out of character.

Such has been the story of so many politicians, among them Hilary Benn, a fourth generation MP who began as a local councillor at Ealing in London. That was in 1979, when Ealing surprised itself by electing a council which, with policies which were presented as eradicating discrimination but which on balance probably had the opposite effect, made them contenders with others such as Camden and Hackney for the title of loony lefties. At the same time Ealing council significantly upped the local rate which, to voters who are under the delusion that such things are important to them, was little short of electoral suicide. In 1983 and 1987 it almost certainly helped to increase the majority for the sitting Tory MP for Ealing North, where Benn was making his first attempt to get into Parliament. Avoiding another failure at that constituency, in 1999 Benn was returned at a by-election for Leeds Central. He has been the most compliant of Labour MPs, voting for ID cards, university top-up fees, the war in Iraq, replacing Trident…and he has moved smoothly up the greasy pole, to his present Cabinet job in charge of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Enough has been said and written about Hilary Benn’s father Tony Benn, left wing irritant turned National Treasure. It is however useful to remember that he was a minister in as succession of Labour governments during the 1960s and1970s, beginning with Postmaster General for Harold Wilson in 1964 and including the misery and chaos of the infamous Winter of Discontent. Among his notable achievements was his very own carbon footprinting when he oversaw development of the Concorde airliner which, apart from what it did to the ozone layer, was the rich person’s exclusive mode of air travel.

If the history of family politicians tells us that successive generations learn little or nothing from experience – well the same, even more so, must be said about the people who, in obdurate masochism, vote to keep them in power.

Ivan

50 Years Ago: You and The Rent Act (2007)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

October 6th is a significant date in landlord’s diaries, for on that day the first instalment of rent increases under the new Rent Act becomes payable. Even if the reader of this article has not the dubious advantage of living in a rent-controlled property, it is highly probably that he or she has already faced a substantial rise in the cost-of-living due to rate-increases or to the withdrawal of housing subsidies.(…)

From all this, one hopes that workers will realise (in case they hadn’t realised it before) just how hollow was Mr. Butler’s assertion that the standard of living would be doubled in twenty-five years, and just how empty were the election promises to solve the housing problem. Of one thing workers can be sure—that this Act will not get more houses built, and will not in the slightest degree solve the problem of overcrowding and bad housing. One might add also that the Labour Party’s proposals to nationalise rent-controlled property and put up the rents will do just as little to solve them. The solution to the problem is fairly obvious—that is, for building workers to build decent homes for the people to live in, without landlords, without investment, and without rent-control or rents. The trouble is that Capitalism does not permit of simple solutions of this kind, and so we go on, eternally arguing about what are not more than the effects of an irrational, crazy social system, instead of doing the obvious thing—to replace that system by a sane and reasonable one.

(From front page article by A.W.I., Socialist Standard, September 1957)

The Scramble for the Arctic (2007)

From the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

On August 3, the oceanographer and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov descended 14,000 feet in a mini-submarine and dropped a titanium capsule containing a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. “The Arctic is Russian,” he declared.

In fact, the Russian government is laying claim not to the whole Arctic, but “only” to the Lomonosov Ridge, a wedge about half the size of Western Europe that it considers an extension of Siberia’s continental shelf. According to the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea, the five states with coastlines on the Arctic Ocean – Russia, Norway, Denmark (through ownership of Greenland), Canada and the United States (Alaska) – are entitled to 200 miles of territorial waters, but can claim more distant chunks of Arctic seabed by demonstrating links to their continental shelves.

This, of course, is a game that not only Russia can play. All the other Arctic states have advanced counterclaims or are preparing to do so, all on the basis of the same vague legal provision.

Why now?

Why is this carve-up happening now? Apart from people concerned with the deployment of nuclear submarine forces, the native Inuit (Eskimos), and a few scientists and explorers, no one used to care much about the Arctic. Vast quantities of oil, gas and other minerals might lie under the frozen wastes (up to 10 billion barrels of oil under the Lomonosov Ridge, for instance), but extracting them was not a practical proposition. So it did not matter if borders and exploitation rights were not very clearly defined.

Now, however, it is starting to matter. In part this is due to advances in extraction technology, but the main reason is the rapid melting of the icecap under the impact of global warming. The extraction of all those underwater resources is no longer a pipedream, and the big oil and gas companies and the governments that back them are jockeying for position in the new arena.

Survival versus profit

From the perspective of survival of the planetary ecosystem, the rush to grab Arctic oil and gas is grotesque in the extreme. After all, it is largely the burning of oil and gas that is melting the ice, thereby opening up the prospect of extracting and burning yet more oil and gas and further accelerating global warming.

The capitalists, however, have a quite different perspective. For them the overriding imperative is to be sure of making every last cent, penny and kopeck of profit from selling hydrocarbons before finally proceeding to exploit the next source of profit – solar energy and other “alternative” energy sources. By then, unfortunately, it may well be too late to prevent runaway global warming from turning Earth into a second Venus. But that is something the capitalists do not want to know.

The melting of the ice will also have a huge impact on shipping. Over the next few years, expanding areas of the Arctic — and within a few decades all of it — will be navigable to commercial shipping throughout the year. The Northeast Passage through the Russian Arctic and the Bering Strait is expected to be open within eight years, greatly reducing the distance and cost of sea transport between Europe and the Far East. The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic will provide another link between the Atlantic and the Pacific, competing with the Panama Canal. New deepwater ports are planned to support trans-Arctic trade. Finally, a continuing rapid growth in Arctic tourism is anticipated.

Not a new Cold War

The alarm with which the media have reacted to the Russian claim on the Lomonosov Ridge is reminiscent of the Cold War, especially in the context of other recent tensions between Russia and “the West.” Nevertheless, it is misleading to talk about a new Cold War or, indeed, about “the West.” We no longer live in a world of bipolar confrontation between “East” and “West.” We now live in a multipolar world of fluid alliances among a fairly large number of powers, some of them rising (e.g., China) and others in decline (e.g., the US). In certain ways the early 21st century resembles the first half of the 20th century much more closely than it does the second.

Nothing illustrates the new-old pattern of multipolarity more clearly than territorial disputes in the Arctic. Several important disputes do not involve Russia at all. They are between the other Arctic states, all of which are still formally allies, fellow members of NATO.

The potentially most serious disputes are, perhaps, those between Canada and the United States. One concerns the offshore Canada/Alaska boundary, which traverses an area thought to be rich in oil and gas. The other dispute is over the straits that separate Canada’s Arctic islands from one another and from the mainland. Last year the Canadian government declared that it regarded these straits, which together make up the Northwest Passage, as Canadian Internal Waters. The US government has made clear that it still regards the straits as international waters by sending its navy to patrol them.

Lord Palmerston is famous for his remark that “Britain has no permanent allies, only permanent interests.” Evidently the same is true of any capitalist state.

Canada flexes its muscles

The behaviour of the Arctic states also debunks the widely held idea that some states are inherently peace-loving and others inherently militaristic. Many people think of Canada as being in the first category. They might be perturbed to come across the following Guardian headline: “Canada flexes its muscles in scramble for the Arctic” (LINK).

As Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper observed in this connection, “the world is changing.” It is changing in ways that on the surface seem quite dramatic. But there is a deeper level at which, as the French saying has it, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” The 21st-century scramble for the Arctic is a phenomenon of the same general kind as the 19th-century scramble for Africa. Both are cases of commercial and military rivalry between the capitalist classes of different countries to open up for plunder and exploitation a region that was previously closed to them.

True, these scrambles now entail dangers that were unknown in the past. The 19th century knew nothing of either nuclear weapons or global warming. It is high time to move on.

Stefan

Double-Header: August and September Socialist Standards

Apologies. Been a bit slack lately with posting details of the Socialist Standard on the blog. Details of the August and September issues are listed below. That brings me up to date just in time for me being late posting details of the October issue.

Cheers.

September 2007 Socialist Standard
Editorial

Competition Rules?

Regular Columns

Pathfinders Earth Version Two

Cooking the Books 1 Turmoil At The Stock Exchange

Cooking the Books 2 How To Undermine Socialism

Greasy Pole Like Father, Like Son

50 Years Ago You and the Rent Act

Main Articles

Who Controls the World: the Illuminati or the Market? Why do some people think the world is run by a shadowy group called the Illuminati? Who were they?

Can Capitalism ever be Green? Yes, say a new school of green economists. No, say socialists.

One-party rule in Japan at an end? Politics in Japan has reached a turning point—or a dead end—with the crushing defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party in the upper-house election on 9 July

The Scramble for the Arctic On August 3, the oceanographer and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov declared that "The Arctic is Russian."

Too Much Hot air Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol little substantial has been done to address the the problem of climate change.

The Single Issue The futility of the ever-increasing single issue campaigns is clear for all to see. Could it be because they are being reactive rather than proactive?

Letters & Book Reviews

Letters to the Editors 'Socialist MPs'

Book Reviews: 'Why We Hate Politics' by Colin Hay; 'Pirates of the Caribbean – Axis of Hope' by Tariq Ali; 'The Anarchist Geographer: An Introduction to the Life of Peter Kropotkin' by Brian Morris

Voice From The Back

Outdated Marxism?; Loads of Money; USA: Worked To Death; Same The World Over ; Homeless Heroes; Illusion and Reality

August 2007 Socialist Standard
Editorial

World Without Borders

Regular Columns

Pathfinders Conspiracy of Dunces

Cooking the Books 1 Brown Means Business

Cooking the Books 2 Strictly For The Birds

Greasy Pole Goldsmith Gives Up

50 Years Ago Mr Hutchinson Investigates

Main Articles

Borders Crossed Does immigration cause working-class problems, or is it rather that capitalism needs immigration?

"Old McDonald's had a brand..." The world's biggest fast-food chain trains customers in its own image – but we don't have to be part of its assembly line.

The Perils of Moralism Pharmaceutical companies' promotion of baby formula in the Philippines.

The right to be homeless "A homeless man who argued that begging is a form of free speech has won his case" (Scotsman, 1 June).

Free Access To Services Apart from material things, socialism will bring many intangible benefits that capitalism denies us.

Smile, smile smile! But why?

It's the system! To many the socialist criticism of the capitalist system may seem like a crude act of oversimplification, if not a type of scapegoating.

Letters & Book Reviews

Letters to the Editors 'Some Defining Features of Socialism'

Book Reviews What's In Your Shopping Trolley? by Andrew Simms; Six Degrees. Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas; We won't pay! by Gary Mulcahy

Voice From The Back

The Filthy Rich; Wealthy Get Wealthier; Biblical Weather Forecasting; The Failure of Reformism ; The Church Goes Commercial; Big Brother Is Watching You; Charity As A Symbol Status