50 Years Ago: Armed revolt in Spain (1984)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

From a working-class and socialist standpoint the revolt was a piece of criminal irresponsibility. The overwhelming majority of Spanish electors are not socialist, and do not understand or desire socialism.

No minority, whether in Spain, Russia, Austria or anywhere else, can impose socialism on a hostile or apathetic majority. Forced, therefore, to abandon the idea of introducing socialism, the new rulers sooner or later accommodate themselves to the job of administering capitalism. Finding power sweet they develop the century-old technique of intrigue, deception, bribery, and arbitrary violence in order to keep themselves in power. Unable to give the reality of socialism they learn a new propaganda, which consists, crudely put, of calling the unregenerate capitalism by a new name — socialism.

Knowing this the Socialist Party of Great Britain refuses in any circumstances to countenance the policy of minority armed revolt. That road does not lead to socialism. In truth it leads nowhere, for workers who head that way must sooner or later retrace their steps if they are to play their part in achieving socialism.

[From an article, “A Vain Sacrifice” published in the Socialist Standard, November 1934.]

The Socialist Forum: The Question of Republicanism. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are asked what is our view of Republicanism and of the Spanish revolution.

Our object as a Socialist Party is to get Socialism, and we are not much concerned with the question which is the better way of running’ capitalism, by means of a monarchy or by means of a republic. The purpose in both cases is, from the capitalist standpoint, to have a figure-head in whom the majority of the population will repose confidence. As far as the workers are concerned, it is a distinction without a difference. In Spain the capitalist system will be carried on in much the same way as before, and in the main by the same set of politicians. Our objection to Republican presidents is the same as our objection to kings, i.e., that workers who still believe in the fiction that affairs are run by the titular heads of the republics or monarchies are not yet fit to take on the responsible task of understanding political and social problems themselves and of organising to control affairs collectively in their interests as a class.

Brewing up a storm? (2024)

From the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

After 29 October of this year many more people, (particularly in Spain) will, one suspects, have become a lot more familiar with the acronym DANA. It stands for Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos (Isolated Depression at High Altitudes).

A DANA is a rather unique meteorological phenomenon, often experienced at this time of the year on the Iberian peninsula. It begins with a large slow-moving mass of circulating cold air, breaking off from the jet stream and settling over the peninsula at an altitude of about 9,000 metres. What then happens is that warm air sucking in moisture from the Mediterranean is forced upwards by mountain ranges and collides with the cold air above, precipitating a torrential downpour mainly along the Mediterranean coastline.

Temperatures are a critical factor. According to the World Meteorological Organization website:

‘For each 1°C of warming, saturated air contains 7 percent more water vapour on average. Every additional fraction of warming therefore increases the atmospheric moisture content which in turn increases the risk of extreme precipitation events’ (31 October).

Friederike Otto of the World Weather Attribution organisation argues that climate change has made extreme rainfall 12 percent more intense and twice as likely (Guardian, 4 November). This is something we had better get more used to, she suggests. We need to build more resilience to deal with events like 29 Oct – better infrastructure, more effective early warning systems and so on.

But, of course, in capitalism this boils down to spending money on something that doesn’t yield a financial return; predictably, it will meet some resistance. What seems like just plain commonsense has to constantly do battle against financial priorities and short-term thinking just to reach some sort of compromise.

Aggravating factors

In any event, it would seem that people in those parts of Spain affected by the storm of 29 October had not really been prepared for what happened. Of course, it was expected that there would be heavy rainfall since this is what normally happens around this time of the year in this part of the world. What was not expected was the sheer intensity. AEMET, the national weather forecasting service had, as early as 25 October, issued a warning but this had been largely ignored and apparently, even ridiculed by climate change denialists as ‘alarmism’ (‘October 2024 Spain floods’, Wikipedia).

It’s not just atmospheric temperature that matters, so too does sea temperature since this affects the take-up of moisture into the atmosphere. Since the 1980s, the Mediterranean has warmed up by about 1.5 degrees. Water, of course, retains heat longer than land so this has implications not only for the intensity of precipitation but, also, the timing of DANA events (in the past, they were more common in September or early October).

As one commentator explained, it takes just a tiny increase in the sea´s temperature to make a big difference: ‘The DANA encountered water temperatures around 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) off the coast of Valencia, while the usual temperature for this time of year is around 70 F (21 C). That difference may seem small, but it is enough to supply the storm system with extra energy’.

The storm that followed caused a truly unprecedented amount of damage – most particularly to communities in the autonomous region of Valencia but also in areas as far afield as Andalucia and Castilla-La Mancha. Some communities received a year’s worth of rain in the course of a few hours. The impact of this enormous volume of water in such a short space of time was made worse because of the recent drought, making the soil hard and unable to absorb the water rapidly enough.

Other aggravating factors included vegetation loss, inappropriate farming techniques and rampant urbanisation along the Mediterranean coastline, covering the land with impermeable surfaces. Speculative building projects have resulted in housing units being constructed ridiculously close to old water courses prone to periodic flooding.

As of early November, we still do not know the full extent of the damage, but the tragedy has already been dubbed Europe’s worst flood-related disaster since 1967. The death toll is currently 217 and rising. There are still many more people unaccounted for and reported missing

Rescue teams have been searching for bodies in underground car parks such as the Bonaire shopping mall near Valencia airport, as well as river mouths where currents may have deposited bodies. Additionally, at the time of writing, there are still many flooded underpasses and basements that have yet to be inspected, not to mention remote rural locations.

It is not just the lives lost and damaged that define this tragedy. The physical destruction has been catastrophic: houses washed away or structurally weakened, countless roads blocked or partially destroyed, bridges broken up and swept away like mere matchstick structures.

Video clips have revealed the fearsome sight of enormous volumes of fast-flowing water gouging out the sides of once bone-dry barrancos or carrying countless cars down narrow streets, along with the flotsam, to some final resting place where scores of them can be found piled up like metal corpses in what are perhaps some of the most hauntingly emblematic images of this whole dreadful event.

Beyond the urban areas, thousands of hectares of crops have been seriously affected. In Almeria’s greenhouse belt that supplies a significant fraction of the UK´s fresh vegetables, initial estimates suggested at least 4,500 hectares of greenhousing have been seriously damaged by hailstones–the plastic shredded beyond hope of repair.

Pent-up anger

Very understandably, all this is has aroused a great deal of anger among local people. In quite extraordinary scenes, the Spanish monarchs, along with the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, were pelted with insults and lumps of the ubiquitous mud that cakes the streets of the towns they visited. Accused of being ‘assassins’ they prudently decided to cut short their scheduled tour of the area.

Predictably, political opportunists have waded into the fray with far-right elements, like supporters of Vox, protesting against the Sanchez government for its inexplicable tardiness in sending in the army to help. For their part, leftwing groups like Podemos, have called for the resignation of the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón of the conservative People’s Party, not least because of his decision last year to scrap the Valencia Emergency Unit (UVE) as a ‘superfluous expense’. The UVE was set up to respond to emergencies precisely like the current one, but such is the stupidity of short-term thinking that it is only with hindsight that we can now appreciate its potential value.

Much criticism levelled at the authorities has focused on the question of why people were not alerted sooner to give them more time to reach high ground and safety. According to an Al Jazeera report (3 November): ‘When authorities sent alerts to mobile phones warning of the seriousness of the flooding and asking people to stay at home, many were already on the road, working or covered in water in low-lying areas or underground garages, which became death traps’.

AEMET, as mentioned, knew of the approaching storm and issued a yellow warning a few days before it broke. On 29 October, it converted this into a red warning:

‘AEMET issued a red alert level warning very early on Tuesday, the day of the Dana, but life pretty much went on as normal until hours later when the torrential rains began to fall, and the rivers began to overflow in inland Valencia’ (4 November, Sur in English).

As that day dragged on and conditions deteriorated Mazón held a press conference at about 13.00 claiming that ‘the storm would dissipate by 18:00’ (Wikipedia). Of course it did no such thing and matters steadily worsened. Only by 20:11 did the Generalitat Valenciana issue a general SMS alert to the public to stay indoors while around midnight on 30 October, ‘Mazón’s social media team deleted a tweet claiming the storm would dissipate’. Astonishingly, Mazón also apparently rejected offers of help from firefighters in Catalonia, Navarre and Bilbao.

It was not just the regional government that was at fault. Many businesses in the area adamantly insisted that their employees turn up for work that day and in the evening, despite the obviously deteriorating circumstances, thereby putting the latter´s lives at risk. That speaks volumes.

Political bickering

Of course, it is all too easy to get embroiled in the blame game when it comes to ‘natural tragedies’ when we should really be focusing on the wider picture. Strangely, though, weather forecasters are often the first to cop the blame. One recalls the famous gaffe by the BBC weather forecaster, Michael Fish, in 1987 on the eve of the Great Storm reassuring his viewers that there was no hurricane on the horizon, (though as an afterthought he suggested it might become ‘quite windy’). One truly feels for poor Mr Fish and the backlash he endured but predicting the weather has never been an exact science.

Blaming the weather forecaster is precisely what seems to have happened on this occasion as well – except that AEMET actually got its forecast spot on. That did not stop Alberto Feijoo, leader of the Popular Party, springing to the defence of his comrade Carlos Mazón and, in desperate need of a scapegoat, claiming that AEMET had not forewarned the public sufficiently promptly (31 October, elDiario.es ).

Undoubtedly, the descent into political bickering and backbiting has hampered efforts to deal with the situation. It has also provoked a huge amount of public anger at the ‘political class’ – not just over the delay in warning people but also because of the delay in responding with practical help.

A complicating factor is that Spain has a relatively decentralised system of regional government. There are protocols to be followed as to when central government can become directly involved in the affairs of regional governments and Mazón seemingly dragged his feet when it came to formally raising the official crisis level which would have automatically triggered central government involvement. Of course, when the latter did get involved it was already too late, in the view of many.

In any event this all set the scene for what has been the one truly positive and outstanding development to emerge from this whole sorry saga – the awe-inspiring and magnificent efforts of ordinary working people to handle the situation themselves. Unwilling to wait any longer for the authorities to take action they themselves set about the monumental task of rescuing others, locating bodies and cleaning up. Even those who had lost everything.

Wave of solidarity

The mobilised power of mutual aid is indeed a wonderful and inspirational sight to behold. There are videos circulating on the internet of truly enormous columns of volunteers – thousands upon thousands of people – buckets and mops in hand, trudging on foot from one part of Valencia to another (travel by car being impossible and, at the time of writing, forbidden by the authorities).

This spontaneous voluntary effort originated in social media – for example among groups of young Telegram users – as a bottom-up initiative. Predictably, this has not stopped the authorities from muscling in on the act:

‘From now on, all the organisation is in the hands of the Generalitat. A “wave of solidarity” that needs “coordination”, said Mazón in an institutional message. “We are doing this to better organise, transport and segment the aid of those who are lending their solidarity”’ (2 November, Sur in English).

That smacks of the typical politician trying to save his bacon while claiming the kudos for what others have done. Nevertheless it won´t detract from what the latter have shown themselves amply capable of achieving as working people – not ordinary but extraordinary.

Robin Cox

Outrage is Not Enough (2011)

From the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has shown that it cannot meet people’s needs properly, not even in the developed countries of the West, let alone in the rest of the world. In a world capable of providing enough for all, austerity is being tightened on people everywhere. Political democracy, despite its advantages, has become an empty shell, with popular participation limited to giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down every few years to rival bands of professional politicians and with fewer and fewer people bothering to do even this. Social disintegration is gradually spreading, with increasing mental ill-health, drug addiction, crime and anti-social behaviour.

Most people are aware of this, but don’t think they can do anything about it. They don’t like it, but accept it as something they have to put up with as they try to make the best of their life and that of their family. This has been called apathy, but it’s really more resignation or fatalism.

Socialists find this frustrating as we know that, if people chose to, they could get rid of capitalism and establish a different world in which not only could people’s material needs be met as a matter of course but where a genuine community would exist. This is why we can only welcome any sign of people beginning to realise that present-day society has nothing to offer them and to think about doing something about it. The latest example of this is the Real Democracy Now! movement that started in Spain in May with the slogan ‘We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers’ and who call themselves the ‘Indignados’ (the outraged). See their manifesto opposite.  A similar movement has arisen in Greece.

Regular readers of this journal will be able to see the manifesto’s limitations, but what is significant is that here are some people who are beginning to see through capitalism, even if they haven’t worked out what going beyond it has to involve. A welcome feature of the movement has been the democratic, non-violent nature of the public meetings, indoor and outdoor, that they have organised, at which all points of view, including the socialist, can be expressed.

The manifesto is intended to be an appeal to ‘ordinary people’ by other ‘ordinary people’ who consider themselves (and in fact are) the victims of the present system without a say in how things are decided. Some of its points are clearly true:

‘The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.

Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.’

In view of our tradition, we prefer to talk of ‘workers’ rather than ‘citizens’ but we are not going to quibble over a word because it is true that, whether we are called or call ourselves citizens or workers, we run society from top to bottom but for the benefit of a privileged minority.

When it comes to describing the outlines of an alternative society, we wouldn’t employ the language of ‘rights’. We agree of course that everybody should be able to automatically satisfy their need for housing, education, health-care and culture (entertainment) and should also be able to have enjoyable work and a say in the way things are run.  But to describe these are ‘rights’ is to give credence to the illusion that there are ‘inalienable truths’.

In any event, there is no ‘inalienable’ right to ‘employment’ or ‘consumer protection’ as these would only be applicable in a capitalist society, where work takes the form of paid employment and where people have to buy what they need. But, given capitalist society, they are not achievable as both a reserve pool of labour and an underclass of unemployables are necessary, endemic features of capitalism. As long as there is buying and selling, some sellers will always try to swindle buyers, as the Romans understood when they coined the phrase ‘Buyer, beware’.

This brings us to our fundamental criticism of the proposed alternative. There the manifesto states ‘instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service’. In other words, it proposes to retain money and all that implies, and to try to make the system serve human needs and interests. The full implications of this become clear when the practical proposals published elsewhere on their site (www.democraciarealya.es) are examined (our translation).

• ‘Reduction of working time and a better balance between work and family life, so as to eliminate structural unemployment (i.e. until unemployment falls below 5 percent).’
• ‘Retirement at 65 and no further increase in the retirement age, so as to eliminate youth unemployment.’
• ‘Security of employment: prohibition of collective redundancies for large corporations that are making profits.’
• ‘Banks in difficulty must be allowed to fail or be nationalised to create a public bank under social control.’
• ‘Increase in the rate of tax on wealth and the banks.’

This is very disappointing as it is the sort of thing that reformist politicians have long promised. They have never delivered. Why? The suggestion of the Indignatos seems to be that it’s because these politicians seek to enrich themselves as they are not subject to democratic pressure from below. The evidence, however, points to another reason – because they could not deliver even if they were sincere or subject to outside democratic pressure as capitalism is inherently incapable of being made to serve the interests of all the people.

Capitalism is a class-based society which can only operate for the benefit of the minority who own and control productive resources, as rich individuals or through private corporations or the state. This is the reason for the failure of all reformists politicians and governments in all countries. In Spain it is the reason for the failure of the PSOE (literally the Spanish Socialist Workers Party) which started out with a much more radical programme than above.

Things would not be any different if members of parliament were elected by and were responsible to democratic assemblies, as Real Democracy Now! wants. Capitalism just cannot be reformed to work in the interests of workers and their families (or ‘citizens’ if you prefer). If Real Democracy Now! goes down this road they are doomed to failure and disillusionment. A genuine, participatory democracy is part of the solution but is not the solution on its own.

As they state in their manifesto, ‘the will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency or the welfare of society.’ Precisely. Capitalism is a system of capital accumulation out of monetary profits extracted from the labour of those who ‘move the world’. This gives rise to economic laws which impose that priority be given to profits and profit-making rather than to satisfying people’s needs. No government, no pressure from the street, no riots, can change this. Any government, however democratically elected and accountable, that takes on responsibility for governing within the framework of capitalism is obliged to respect these economic laws or make things worse by provoking an economic crisis.

What is required is a revolution but not an ‘ethical revolution’. It is a revolution in the basis of society, to be carried out, yes, by democratic means and more or less peacefully, that will make productive resources the common heritage of all under democratic control. Within this framework alone can production be re-oriented towards satisfying people’s needs while at the same time respecting their welfare at work and the welfare of the rest of nature. This involves the end not just of the accumulation of money by a minority, but the disappearance of money altogether.

Adam Buick

Democracia real YA! Manifesto

We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for those around us.

Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.

This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But if we join forces, we can change it. It’s time to change things, time to build a better society together. Therefore, we strongly argue that:

• The priorities of any advanced society must be equality, progress, solidarity, freedom of culture, sustainability and development, welfare and people’s happiness.
• These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.
• The current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights, and in many ways is an obstacle to human progress.
• Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us. Politicians should be bringing our voice to the institutions, facilitating the political participation of citizens through direct channels that provide the greatest benefit to the wider society, not to get rich and prosper at our expense, attending only to the dictatorship of major economic powers and holding them in power through a bipartidism headed by the immovable acronym PP & PSOE.
• Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice, which leads to violence, which we reject. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest. Until the collapse.
• The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.
• Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.
• If as a society we learn to not trust our future to an abstract economy, which never returns benefits for the most, we can eliminate the abuse that we are all suffering.
• We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products. I am not a product of what I buy, why I buy and who I buy from.

For all of the above, I am outraged.

I think I can change it.

I think I can help.

I know that together we can. I think I can help.

I know that together we can.

The Mirage in Spain (1934)

From the April 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard 

From recent reports Spain appears to be well on the road already trodden by other European countries. Somewhat similar circumstances have thrown up similar groups and catchwords and the leaders of labour are making the same mistakes and marching to their doom with a blindness that would almost drive one to despair.

The economic development of Spain has been such that, until recent years, it has not favoured the rise of a strong capitalist class or a considerable body of proletarians in the modern sense of the term, although the mass of the people have been poverty stricken. The helm of state has been controlled by a small group of nobility in alliance with the Catholic Church.

During the 19th century the industrial and commercial development of Spain was unimportant. In fact, so backward was it that the mass of the people were illiterate, and even to-day half of them can neither read nor write. An economically privileged nobility and clergy had control of political power and reduced the majority of the population to a low level of existence by grinding taxes and tributes of various kinds.

There was a professional element that drew their ideas from the more advanced countries and strove to fit on to the country a political system out of harmony with the economic framework. Periodically there were revolts, sometimes instigated by dissatisfied sections of the ruling group, sometimes led by the professional element who wished to see Spain take its place with the more advanced countries.

One result of these struggles was the constitutionalist movement of 1868-76, during which a republic was proclaimed so weakly founded that, after an existence of three years, it ended with the Constitution of 1876 and the return of the Monarchy. In spite of the collapse of the republic, however, the constitution represented a real advance and was based on liberal views. But the old repressive measures and the control by the Church of education continued. However, the economic development of the country was beginning to gather energy and Bilbao in the Basque Provinces, Barcelona in Catalonia and Valencia were becoming the centres of considerable industrial activity.

The isolated industrial development in departments such as Catalonia, Valencia and the Basque provinces, combined with differences in language and the hopelessness of breaking the wall round the central government developed a movement towards local autonomy. Nationalist movements within the country aiming at separate and autonomous departments have arisen and anarchist and syndicalist movements have flourished. The nationalist sentiment was the mainspring of the federal constitution of 1931 and the anarchists and syndicalists who joined the unions were the despair of the leaders of the growing labour movement, who modelled their attitude upon that of the leaders of the other European Social-Democratic movements.

During the present century industrial development has made considerable progress and industrial and commercial capitalists have joined in the struggle to obtain political influence. The capitalists objected to the commercial competition of the Catholic Church (which took part in ordinary industrial ventures) and to its freedom from taxation. They also objected to the heavy cost of an overgrown and inefficient bureaucracy and mismanaged military expeditions. In short, they had reached the time when they wanted a political apparatus cleared of antiquated rubbish and fitted to meet the needs of modern conditions.

While the Monarchy existed it represented the tyranny of the past and people of all shades of opinion could unite against it under the slogan of Republicanism and settle their differences afterwards. The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, in 1923, was a belated attempt to save the old order by keeping down some of the disruptive dements. But the dictatorship was expensive and it failed to keep down internal turmoil. It thereby lost what support it originally commanded outside the Church and the aristocracy. The franchise was sufficiently wide for the local elections to show that the aristocratic group were going to be swept away in the elections to the central Parliament, so they took time by the forelock and went before the storm broke.

The movement that ended the dictatorship was the result of an agreement reached at San Sebastian between the Regionalists (the advocates of local autonomy) the Liberals and the “Socialists" which united these groups in a common movement for a Republic.

The Spanish Socialist Party originated in the ’80’s before there was any large body of wage workers in existence, although there were plenty of poverty-stricken peasants. As the Democratic-Socialist Working Men's Party it was formed at Barcelona in August, 1882, at the National Working Mens' Congress. It was influenced by the movement in France and Germany and issued a Manifesto almost identical with that of the German Social-Democrats. This Manifesto proclaimed the necessity for the Spanish proletariat to seize political power “in order to transform individual and corporate property into common property belonging to the whole community."

At the Annual Conference, in 1884, of the Spanish Working Men there were 120 delegates present, many of whom were representatives of agricultural labourers.

The growth of the movement was slow, but, in 1904, the party had 10,000 members and obtained 29,999 votes at the Parliamentary elections. The Anarchist and Syndicalist movement considerably hampered its development and there was a struggle for influence in the labour unions.

The industrial crisis following the Phillipine and Cuban wars gave the movement a bad setback. The membership of the party and of the labour unions declined.

The war and post-war economic development, during which rapid industrial progress was made in many directions, particularly in transport, coal, electricity and agriculture, gave the party a considerable push and, in the elections after the establishment of the Republic, they became the second largest party in Parliament, with a representation of 117 members out of 475 elected.

The quality of the support given to the party, however, has not taken long to show itself. In the recent elections it was only able to secure the return of 60 members ! The reason for its decline is quite simple. It was one of the supporters of the Government since 1931 and has had to carry the blame for the conduct of the Government—an inevitable result of alliance with avowedly capitalist groups.

The facts are that the original professions of the Manifesto remained pious ones, and the party occupied itself with the much lauded practical policy of reforms, losing sight of the object originally conceived—on paper, at any rate.

At the moment of writing it is threatened with the same fate that has fallen upon its Austrian counterpart and it is debating the fatal policy of armed resistance.

A situation closely resembling that which occurred in Italy in 1920 now exists in Spain. A minority of the population supporting the “Socialist,” Syndicalist and Anarchist groups are considering united action against the Government. The strike fever is spreading and an attempt is being made to bring about a general strike of all workers, with the object of overthrowing the existing system. The ground has been prepared, as it was fourteen years ago in Italy, for the rise of a Fascist movement, and two such groups have been organised and have made rapid progress during the last few months.

The view taken by the Government is illustrated by the following significant quotation taken from the Observer (March 18th, 1934): —

  A curious commentary on the trend of Spain’s Republic is the official announcement of the establishment of permanent concentration camps to hold 3,000 men. The gem of this announcement lies in the statement by the Director of Prisons that “a special camp to hold 160 persons is being erected on the Island of Hierro (Canary Islands), and which will be devoted to writers, authors, journalists, and suchlike persons.” About sixty social prisoners were removed from Madrid Prison this week, and it is understood, although no official statement has been made, that they are en route for the main concentration camp for 1,600 persons which is being hastily prepared on the Island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands), and which will be ready for occupation within fifteen days, according to the Director of Prisons.

The Labour movement in Spain has manoeuvred itself into a hopeless position, and is simply asking for the fate that befell the Italian movement.

Gilmac.

Running Commentary: Austerity for Spain (1983)

The Running Commentary column from the February 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Austerity for Spain

After France and Greece, Spain is the third Mediterranean country to elect a "socialist" government. Actually, of course, the new Spanish government under Felipe Gonzales is no more socialist than its predecessors. The PSOE, despite its name of Spanish Socialist Workers Party, is a reformist party which has been elected to run the affairs of Spanish capitalism; and it has already announced that it will do so in accordance with the economic logic of capitalism: profits for the capitalists, austerity for the workers.

A few days before he was appointed "super-Minister" for the Economy, Miguel Boyer revealed to the Madrid correspondent of Le Monde (27 November) precisely what the new government's approach was going to be. We reproduce his words without comment:

  There is no other solution for this country but to pursue a policy of austerity. To want an immediate reflation without first curing the economy and while the international situation is against us would only delay the reckoning and in a year oblige us to in the end take even more severe austerity measures. There will be no reactivation of the economy in Spain without wage moderation, without refloating enterprises and without giving priority to controlling inflation.

  Our priority is not to increase internal demand since we would only succeed in upsetting our balance of payments as the example of France has shown. We must first of all relaunch investment. then exports, and there is only one way to achieve this: the profits resulting from the increase in productivity must remain in the hands of the heads of enterprises so that they decide to invest. The workers, to begin with, will have to be satisfied with the maintaining of their purchasing power at its present level.

Unfair cops

Home Secretary Whitelaw and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Newman are supposed to be organising a police force to prevent public disorder so it is very embarrassing for them when a group of policemen irresponsibly shoot a man in the street. It is of course even more embarrassing for the policemen who fired the shots who may have been expecting the usual commendation for bravery for approaching a highly dangerous criminal if they had shot the “right" man.

The event has strengthened a number of dark suspicions, that the police in London are issued with guns too easily, which conditions them to use them too freely. The uproar which followed the shooting promises to rumble on for a long time. A number of prominent public figures are striving, in the name of our safety, to wring some advantage from it all. When it is over there may be some minor changes in some obscure regulations, which will be presented to us in triumph, as an insurance against it ever happening again.

So far, then, the debate has been off target. There have been demands for the police to be more efficient in catching criminals so that they gain more public confidence and therefore do their job even better. There have been, again, calls for the police to be more “accountable”. One Tory MP made himself unpopular by saying that the people attacked by the police were associated with crime, implying that perhaps it was all right to try to kill them after all.

The basic facts of the true function and role of the police have been passed over. They are there to protect the rights of private property; the man they set out to catch that day was wanted by them because, they said, he has committed some determined robberies and is, therefore, a personified threat to property rights.

In this job the police, as well as the other arms of the coercive state machine, will be as ruthless and as efficient as they need to be and are able to be. If this means that they must roam the streets with guns, then that is what they will do.

It is nonsense to demand that an organisation like that should be accountable to the very people they are in business to repress. Property rights need not be protected against the ruling class, since they possess them already; it is the dispossessed working class who must be resisted.

It is members of the working class who commit the vast majority of offences against property; it is members of the working class too who arrest the offenders and, when they are punished, it is workers who carry out the court's orders.

That situation exists by virtue of workers' acquiescence; they are accountable to themselves for their degraded position in society and the repression and violence which they wreak on themselves.

OPEC not OK

For almost ten years the oil states in OPEC have been cast as the world's villains, responsible for starting the present recession. It was in 1973 that the international price of oil surged upwards, as the cartel clamped on restrictive production quotas.

This gave the Heath government a convenient explanation for the economic crisis — one which fitted in with an established tradition that such difficulties are the fault of avaricious, untrustworthy foreigners. It was in that tradition that the Labour Party blamed the crash of the 30s, which swept them from power, on to a foreign bankers' ramp. After the war, the Attlee government grumbled that most of their worries were due to the dominance of the American economy. Harold Wilson’s dramatic plans for prosperity through technological progress were, we were darkly told, laid waste by the gnomes of Zurich.

An essential part of the tradition is that the villains, like plump vultures, are themselves invulnerably prosperous and secure. No gnomes arc expected to be seen, begging in the streets of Switzerland. No oil sheik is reported to be down to his last desperate million.

Well, whether OPEC triggered off the slump or not (the real explanation of the cause is a lot more fundamental) they are now themselves suffering in it. One result of the recession is that the oil market is glutted. This has severely damaged the unity on which OPEC relies to make itself felt, as member states cut their prices below the agreed levels or produce above their set quota.

This disorderly behaviour is threatening the very existence of the cartel. The process is being aggravated by the oil producing states outside OPEC — notably Britain and Mexico — who are carefully keeping their export prices “competitive”.

Combines like OPEC are attempts to introduce a permanently profitable order into the chaos of capitalist production and commerce. OPEC could operate for as long as conditions allowed but it cannot escape the fact that oil is a commodity and that it will not be produced unless it is profitable to do so. It cannot avoid the reality that capitalism passes from boom to slump and back again in an uncontrollable cycle which takes no account of any assumptions that it can be brought to order.

Saviour for civilisation

Workers who worry their way along the dole queue about whether the pound is worth what it used to be will be comforted that the new governor of the Bank of England, Robin Leigh-Pemberton (which is the sort of name not usually to be found in a dole queue) regards ". . . sound money as fundamental to civilisation”.

Of course Leigh-Pcmberton is bound to have some ideas about money because he has a fair bit of it himself. He had an expensive schooling at Eton and then, like a lot of pubescent members of the ruling class, he became an officer in a fashionable Guards regiment.

He is sometimes known as a farmer, which doesn't actually mean that he gets up in the small hours to milk the cows or comes home tired and smelly after a day with the muck-spreader but that he owns a couple of thousand acres in the lush county of Kent.

Leigh-Pemberton has been getting £78,000 a year for being chairman of Westminster Bank and it seems that his new job might mean a wage cut of about £3,000 a year but, if he is typical of most members of his class, he will regard that as a worthy sacrifice in the cause of sound money and civilisation.

So we should all be grateful, even if we are trying to survive on the dole, to have such a man at the top in Threadneedle Street. From the heights of his privileged origins, his inherited wealth, his effortlessly accumulated positions of power. Leigh-Pemberton will be able to lecture the lower orders about the profligate living habits they acquire through their lifetime of being exploited.

Workers who are scraping by on their wages, watching their livelihood run through their fingers like sand, or those who are barely existing on what are called state “benefits" may be willing to heed his words in the cause of sound money.

Others who are more sensitive, more aware, will know that such issues are of no account to them and will feel themselves insulted as well as exploited.

Not for Workers (2020)

Book Review from the December 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the People: Left Populism in Spain and the US by Jorge Tamames (Lawrence and Wishart, £17)

Most populist movements and parties are right wing: Fidesz in Hungary, Law and Justice in Poland, Trump supporters in the US, the Bolsonaro government in Brazil. At the same time, some left-wing organisations are described as populist, such as Syriza in Greece and the former Chávez government in Venezuela. Here Jorge Tamames examines two particular cases of left-wing populism, Podemos in Spain and the support for Bernie Sanders in the US.

Unfortunately it is not entirely clear what he means by ‘populist’. He claims to follow the view of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, according to which it involves people going beyond addressing individual problems such as racism, unemployment and evictions, and joining together as a movement. In Tamames’ words ‘The result is a community mobilising to protest against an entire status quo, not merely asking for a few policy tweaks’. But it is not spelled out just how this is supposed to apply to the movements he discusses or how it relates to the features usually claimed to distinguish populism, the distinction drawn between the elite and the people, and the opposition to pluralism and separation of powers.

Podemos, of which Tamames is a member, means ‘we can’. It was formed in 2014 and received over a million votes in the European Parliament elections in May of that year. Despite its supposed populist objections to an elite, on the ballot papers it was not the Podemos logo that was used but the face of its leader Pablo Iglesias, who had become a well-known contributor to TV discussion shows. Since earlier this year, it has been a junior partner in the government run by the PSOE, which is roughly the equivalent of the Labour Party. Podemos’ programme has included increasing the minimum wage and raising taxation for the rich, so it is hard to see how they are protesting ‘against an entire status quo’, as suggested above.

Sanders, who has a fairly positive view of Pope Francis, has said that he wishes to stand up to ‘the billionaire class’. His policies included implementing universal health care, raising the minimum wage and breaking up the largest banks. In 2019 he extended this to the Green New Deal and abolishing student debt. All this is probably fairly radical in terms of US politics, and he had more support in 2016 from those under forty-five than Hillary Clinton did, but it obviously remains within the limits of capitalism, and he has twice failed to win the Presidential nomination.

As the author says, ‘I refer to Podemos and the Sanders movement as “left” populists because their agenda, while more ambitious that that of contemporary centre-left parties, is nevertheless reformist and not vastly different from that of a Western European social-democratic party in the early 1970s’. So all the fuss about left populism boils down to it being more or less the same as the Labour Party under Harold Wilson! The book gives some useful background on the impact of austerity and rising inequality, but it unsurprisingly fails to show that populism of whichever brand has anything to offer workers.

Paul Bennett

The Imperial Communist Party of Spain (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

After forty years the Spanish dictatorship, dominated by bankers, landed aristocracy, mine-owners and wine-growers, has had to give way to its industrial capitalist section in its struggle to emerge as a competitor in the European and other markets by legalising trade unions and political parties. Restrictions imposed by the Franco regime — the police state, rigid censorship, and the political influence of the armed forces and the church, have produced a top-heavy bureaucracy and increased the expenses of government, whereas capitalism requires cheaper government. Surplus-value extracted from the working class, which is taken by the state in taxation, reduces the appropriation in private hands. The greater the overheads of the capitalist the less his competitiveness. In addition membership of the Common Market, which Spain seeks, entails the free movement of capital and labour, free competition, and free property lobbies in the shape of political representation.

According to the Daily Telegraph (28th April 1977) 130 parties are now legally recognized. Many of these are small fragments and sects from the main parties of Fascists, Communists, reformers, Syndicalists, Republicans. There is no Socialist party at the moment. Public assembly is strictly controlled by the police, the press is still censored, and strikes are still illegal. The Republican Convention (a Spanish anti-Fascist group) claims that 150 million work hours were lost in 1976 involving 5 million workers (May 1st circular, 1977). So much for the Fascist government’s attempt to suspend the class struggle.

It is this factor as much as any other which has pushed the ossified ruling class against its will into the 20th century of labour relations. There is still a long way to go before the corrupt Syndicatos (state- controlled trade unions of employers and workers) are swept aside, and a free and independent trade- union movement allowed to develop. The Workers’ Commissions (trade unions) are dominated by the Communist Party who are exploiting them for political ends which in the long run can only be detrimental to the independence of the re-born movement. A glaring example of this was seen during the recent TU May Day demonstrations organized by the Communist Party which were forbidden by the police, and ended in a series of riots. Marcelino Camacho, head of the Workers’ Commissions, openly admitted that the object of the TU demonstrations was to help the Communists in their forthcoming June elections (Daily Telegraph, 3rd May 1977).

Communist Hypocrisy
In denouncing police brutality he also stated: “Our main enemy is not the Suarez government but the threat posed by the Francoists and neo-Francoists forces to a true return to democracy”. So the Communist Party are not opposed to the Suarez government, and are prepared to support moves to a more democratic regime using the trade unions as pawns in order to achieve their political ambitions. At the Communists’ first legal meeting since the Civil War, held at Valaldolid with 10,000 present, the flag of the Spanish monarchy was displayed on the platform. Replying to protests from party militants, Santiago Carrillo the Party secretary explained: “To consolidate democracy it was necessary to be intelligent politically as well as brave . . . To win over new followers and neutralise enemies we have taken a step that many people do not understand”. (The Times, 28th April 1977.) We agree with Senor Carrillo; many people will not understand why the Communist Party support King Juan Carlos, hand-picked by Franco as the figurehead of the Spanish ruling class. Some Communists at least had sufficient principles to object to this shameful alliance.

The British, French and Italian Communist parties have all betrayed workers in the same way. During the last war, the British party dropped its opposition to British capitalism, and were calling for the prosecution of strikers and urging workers to fight for British capitalism on the Second Front. They too draped the Union Jack on their platform, and carried it in their processions. They also supported Winston Churchill and Tory parliamentary candidates. The Italian Party is sitting down together with the Christian Democrats, whilst the French Party is patriotic and supports French capitalism. Carrillo told a provincial committee that the Party “would support the monarchy without abandoning its Marxist principles”. (The Times, 25th April.) This is a contradiction, because they cannot stand for the abolition of capitalism and its retention at the same time; nor can all the warped and twisted reasoning of the Communist Party change Marxism into support for capitalism. The fact is that the Communist Party has no Marxist principles and could therefore scarcely abandon them.

Reform or Revolution?

Political democracy is the cry of a capitalist reform movement which no genuine Socialist would take part in. All the left-wing parties, including the United Socialist Party, Republicans, Communists and Syndicalists, want democracy in order to push their reform programmes. These range from agrarian reform to self-determination for oppressed minorities, and the release of political prisoners. Other reforms which are proposed include the right to strike and better working conditions for wage workers. These, however, can be achieved by the action of the workers themselves on the industrial field using the strike weapon. Workers can strike without the right to strike, they can achieve higher wages and better working conditions whether it is legally recognized or not. Workers have no rights before capital other than those they obtain and keep through their own action in the class struggle. If the workers using the strike weapon in a properly organized way are unable to wrest from their capitalist employers higher wages and better working conditions, then they are unable to obtain these by means of reformist political action. Reforms will always be enacted when the political parties representing the various sectional interests have made out their case, and the capitalist is convinced that his interests, whether long-term or short-term, will be served. By legalizing trade unions the government will be able to monitor their activities and to obtain their co-operation.

On the industrial field the working class can force the capitalist employer against his will to disgorge a larger share of the wealth extracted from the worker than he would otherwise part with. Therein lies the antagonism of interests which manifests itself as a class struggle between possessors and producers. Higher standards of living and better working conditions must be sought on the industrial field, and not through reformist political action.

However, this economic antagonism of interests, which expresses itself in the class struggle, can only be ended by political action for the establishment of Socialism. This is the real issue which must confront the workers of Spain, not the futile and useless policies of hordes of reformers bent on keeping capitalism going. Propaganda for Socialism does not require permission from the ruling class. Neither does it need any assistance from reformist democrats. The reformer and the so-called progressive elements in Spain have not only separated democracy from the class struggle, they have changed it into an administrative reform measure for the running of capitalism. They want the democracy of the commodity where equal value exchanges for equal value — the equality of property before the law.

Socialism and Democracy

Socialism and democracy are inseparable. Socialists in Spain must campaign for both at the same time. The left in Spain claim that their activities, which are non-Socialist, express the level of political thinking. At the moment this is unfortunately true because a genuine Socialist party has yet to emerge. However, to claim, as do the Communists (Sunday Times Supplement, 26th March 1972) that the workers are not in a position to win power therefore they must make a pact with the bourgeoisie to get the key of the door to get their freedom, is defeatist nonsense.

The Spanish working class is capable of Socialism, and they must stand together with the worldwide Socialist movement in working for its establishment. British workers have made the repeated mistake of making a pact with the bourgeoisie in the shape of the Labour government, and look where it has got them.

Correspondence. (1921)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editors.    .

Plaza de la Derrota 13,

Bilboa, Spain. 

15th Jan., 1921.

Dear Sirs,—I think there is no doubt that sooner or later the mass of the workers in factories, mines, ships, offices, etc., will be converted to the principles of Socialism, and the victory practically won in the most advanced industrial countries, such as the United States, Great Britain, Germany, etc.

But then the question arises, what about the countries which are predominantly agricultural, such as France, Spain, Russia, Japan, etc.? It is well known that the peasantry everywhere are far more refractory to the Socialist propaganda than are the industrial workers, and in Europe at any rate, these people still form by far the greater part of the population.

In France, Belgium, some parts of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and now in Russia as a result of the revolution, the peasant proprietors with their families form in every case at least half the population and in some cases much more. This class is completely hostile to Socialism and up to the present all attempts to convert them have proved absolutely fruitless.

It may be said that the Marxian doctrine proves that in time the properties owned by this class will become merged in great estates belonging to wealthy capitalists or capitalist companies. All I can say is that hitherto there is not the slightest sign of any such process, rather the reverse: the number of peasant proprietors tends to increase. Great Britain is, I believe, the only country in which this class has been practically eliminated.

What is the opinion of your party regarding these people ?   Are they to be considered as capitalists or proletarians, or as combining some of the features of both these classes ? 

Yours faithfully,

J. Urquhart.

The Simple Solution.

The great factor overlooked by Mr. Urquhatt is the development of agricultural machinery and science. While it is quite true that peasant proprietor is hostile to Socialism, as the Bolsheviks have found out in Russia, in countries that are coming more fully into the orbit of capitalism the economic pressure is driving these peasants into new paths. In Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland, and to a growing extent Belgium, the need for machinery, pedigree stock, means of transport, etc., has forced forward the formation of co-operative societies who purchase these things, the members using them in turn. This is one of the stages in the industrialisation of agriculture and necessarily carries in its wake the increase of industrial workers in that sphere. The small farmers and peasant proprietors not only combine to hire and purchase machinery, but also hire wage labourers to run or assist in ruuning this machinery. Those peasants who do not follow this method are driven out of competitive business by their more efficient rivals.

A further factor, often lost sight of, is the operation of the giant capitalist concerns who are taking over huge farms and ranches, particularly in South America and whose competition with European products, when fully developed, will crush out numbers of those who at present are able to scratch an existence from their little plots.

Mr. Urqnhart says "the number of peasant proprietors tends to increase," but gives no evidence to support this statement. To take one country alone—France—the number of peasant proprietors has greatly decreased. While the actual number of peasants is still large—nearly 50 per cent. of the population— the majority of them are not proprietors as their little plots are mortgaged up to the hilt and are really owned by the moneylenders.

Our view is that the peasants are in a transition stage from small ownership to either (a) joint ownership developing into the capitalist position or (b) to the loss of their small property and their becoming wage workers as the result.

Editorial Committee.

UBI: Redistributing Poverty (2020)

From the May 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

From Lockdown to Basic Income?

The acolytes of the fashionable radical idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI) must have been overjoyed by two recent news items. Apparently, the Pope has endorsed the idea. According to the Irish Times (13 April), ‘In a letter addressed to popular movements around the world, he expressed solidarity with their aim of bringing change to global systems and structures that exclude the majority’.

They report him as saying in the letter:

  ‘Street vendors, recyclers, carnival workers, small farmers, construction  workers, seamstresses, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time… and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable. This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out’.

This news was coupled with reports that the Spanish left-wing government has announced that it intends to become the first European country to implement UBI:

  ‘Minister for Economic Affairs Nadia Calvino said that UBI would be introduced “as soon as possible” and could be something that “stays forever, becomes a structural instrument, a permanent instrument”’.

Although, as advocates of UBI noted, ‘the payments will be targeted to families and will differentiate based on their “circumstances.” In practice, differentiating based on circumstances will result in means tests that fall on the poor’.

If it is targeted at families, not individuals, and is based on assessment, it would more closely resemble a Beveridge-style welfare state, than the full-fat version of UBI, something referred to as a Contingent Basic Income.

Redistributing poverty

The idea behind UBI is that every individual in a country is guaranteed a certain amount of income. In its most basic form, the state would simply send a payment to each person (much as the United States has done as part of its response to Covid-19 related unemployment). This sum is irrespective of employment or personal status. Fundamentally, it breaks the link between the sale of labour power and the ability to access necessary resources. It is simultaneously egalitarian and libertarian, since it avoids the need for state bureaucracy to carry out cheeseparing assessments and domination over individuals lives.

It also has the benefit of being easy to imagine, since it has the simple form of keeping commodity relations intact: it keeps the market in place. That is its chief problem: it tries to address the problems caused by a system that defines people by their property through giving them all property. Although it will give people money, those who own other types of property, such as houses, would be able to benefit from rents and market demand for goods they hold.

Hearne and de Ruyter estimate it would cost £540 billion to give everyone in the UK over 16 £10,000 a year (LINK). In 2017-18 the UK government tax take was £589 billion. It would be possible, but the government wouldn’t be able to do much else (which is why right-wing supporters like it).

Employers would be able eventually to lower wages, relying on the UBI subsidy to count towards their employee’s cost of living. In those terms, it would be a substantial transfer of wealth from firms that don’t need much labour to labour intensive industries (in particular, as many people focus on, the so-called gig economy of the likes of Uber).

We described this as the ‘redistribution of poverty’ in our classic pamphlet on the Beveridge Plan . That criticism stands true for UBI.

Flawed Acquisitive Notions

By concentrating on the surface phenomena of money and commodities, UBI ignores the social relationship behind in the form of value production. This comes to the fore when people start whining about ‘the incentive to work’ and the need to keep UBI so low that the lash of poverty can still be applied (surely if we were talking about incentive, doubling your income should be enough? That people might be assumed to prefer to not work and live on a basic income demonstrates the flaw in acquisitive notions of human behaviour).

People will need to work to make the taxes to pay for the UBI. Society and the employers would then be locked in a struggle over the share of wealth going to labour and the share going to profits. The only difference would be that the state would become a key battle ground instead of the labour market directly.

Likewise, the ideology of people getting something for nothing can cause resentment. We can see this sort of thing when Tories call for unruly families to be thrown out of council housing, as if it were a grace and favour home, rather than a right to housing. If UBI is seen as a gift, with obligation (as per the Contingent Basic Income idea), then it would not be supported by many of the population. Hence, also, why Donald Trump wanted to have his name on all the cheques sent out to Americans to cover loss of income due to Covid-19, he wants them to see the money as a gift from him.

Since some will be net contributors to the UBI, they will not perceive this as a benefit to all but a cross-subsidy, a gift they make to others, with corresponding obligation.

Although the reality is that the burden of taxation comes from profits, the structure of income tax nominally coming from employees creates an ideological value that deceives them into thinking they are paying for the government and therefore have a stake in it. In this case people would believe they were paying the income for those who earn less than them.

Universal Basis Services

Some, such as David Harvey, propose Universal Basic Services instead of UBI. This would be things like the NHS, free at the point of use. This has the benefit of removing the commodity character of the service, and would represent an improvement (though likely, in a capitalist world, to still be wrapped up in the struggles between classes over spending levels and coated in bureaucracy to control those costs). But if we had the political strength to impose substantial gains through UBS, we’d have the strength to abolish capitalism outright.

The post-Covid situation will be that millions will be out of work, and capital may not be readily available to provide new employment, as many firms go bust. Governments will have to find ways to keep social peace. They will take radical steps, throwing much market ideology to the wind, but they will be doing that to maintain the advantage of the owning class and rejuvenate market society, as they did after the 2008 crash.

Pik Smeet

Recovery — Fact or Fiction? (1994)

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

From the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article in the Socialist Standard last May we described how politicians and media commentators had developed a whole new terminology when describing what in fact was a developing recession.

From Norman Lamont's announcement that "recovery had begun" in June 1991 terms such as "growth recession”, "slowdown in growth", "soft landing" have all been used in the press to describe what we know was the commencement of a major economic slowdown. As conditions worsened we were told that it was going to be "a shallow depression of short duration" in an economy that needed "kick starting".

Recovery under way?

This year, almost in chorus, the press are telling us that recovery is under way here and abroad with one or two qualifications. According to a CBI survey published in the Daily Telegraph (11 January) it is "fragile and patchy". The survey also concludes that "no U.K. region has totally eliminated recession".

The consensus view expressed in the popular press is that the United States is leading the world out of recession, and that a strong recovery is underway in Britain and the emerging economies of south-east Asia.

It is not that long ago that Germany was to be the source of a booming recovery following unification. Prior to this Japan was the "wonder economy" of the Far East. Both these countries are now in deepening recession.

In Germany unemployment is now 9.6 percent of the working population. Volkswagen announced it would bring in a four-day week following losses of £612 million and an 11.4 percent slump in sales in the first nine months of 1993 (Daily Telegraph, 26 November). The level of unemployment of just over four million has prompted comparisons with the Weimar Republic when unemployment touched five million in 1933 and Hitler took power. The prospect of an export-led recovery has not materialized. "According to the Economic Ministry, orders received by Germany Industry fell by 0.8 percent after declining by 0.6 percent in October" (Daily Telegraph, 6 January).

Rising unemployment

With rising unemployment the pressures on the public sector debt has increased. Describing this in an article entitled "Up. up and away", the Financial Times says that

  total overall public sector debt will sail through another Maastricht convergence criteria, topping DM 2000 billion or more than 60 percent of GDP. The last straw has been the addition of East German debts of DM 275 bn to the total.

Private household debt has reached record levels with industrial bankruptcies close behind. "The recession has driven one in two households into debt with 1.5 million families out of a total of 35 million estimated to owe an average of £16,000" (Daily Telegraph, 7 October).

Europe too

France like Germany, has all the features of a deepening depression. Unemployment is 12 percent. Car sales are falling. It too has increasing problems with its welfare budget, resulting in the unemployed having cuts in their dole payments whilst a group of nurses staged a 500 days’ protest outside the Ministry of Social Affairs as a protest at understaffing and poor pay (Financial Times, 24 November).

In Britain, in spite of the optimistic announcement of recovery by politicians and others, the economy is still in a contained depression. This means it has been contained to some extent by public, personal and corporate borrowing as well as relatively low-interest rales. But these factors can only have a transient effect.

Of course it wouldn’t be Spring without the usual optimistic cuckoo noises from the building societies.

The Halifax Building Society has published its Monthly Index of house prices and announced an increase of 2.2 percent in February. If the implication is that this is likely to continue then house prices would rise by 27 percent for the whole year. This is difficult to reconcile with the fact that between one and one and-a-half million owners are living in houses that are worth less than they owe to the banks and building societies. With this amount of debt outstanding and the tax increases in the budget plus the lowering of interest rate relief on mortgages, recovery in this market is unlikely.

Retail sales are often quoted as evidence of recovery. The optimistic forecasts for retail sales have failed to match expectations. The Xmas sales improvements forecast last year have turned out to be a damp squib.

Price war

Overall sales fell by 0.2 percent over the sector. Supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury. ASDA and Safeway are now engaged in a price-cutting war. This sector has often been described as counter cyclical in periods of recession. Sainsbury have even been considered recession-proof and cited as evidence of recovery based on their results. When, however, it announced reductions in the price of 300 basic food items, the fear that this would escalate price-cutting by their rivals led to a fall in the share prices of food retailers including their own (Daily Telegraph, 4 November). The company has subsequently announced forthcoming staff cutbacks.

The United States is now said to be in a recovery of sufficient strength to lead the world out of recession. Whilst it is undeniable that there has been an increase in housing starts as well as an increase in manufacturing and purchase of machinery and equipment, much of this equipment has been cost-cutting which will be lead to idle capacity elsewhere.

The increase in housing starts have been to a large extent due to very low interest and mortgage rates. Non-residential construction has remained flat. Whilst there has been a rise in published GDP statistics there has not been a corresponding rise in living standards commensurate with a sustained recovery. Much of the optimistic projections failed to consider the huge personal debt that still exists in America.

In an article in the Financial Times (4 January) entitled "Locomotive runs out of Puff", Robert Giordano forecasts a slowdown in US economic growth:

  Households will be unable to sustain their consumption binge because it cannot be financed. Outlays have been rising at a 4 percent annual clip since early 1993 while real disposable income growth averaged only 2.5 percent.

Commenting on America’s problems he writes

  foreign trade prospects look bleak despite completion of the Uruguay Round. A deteriorating trade balance has restrained growth and should do so in coming months. 

He also points out that US GDP adjusted for inflation has yet to equal the level achieved in 1988. As in Britain, the deficit has been cushioned by a huge Federal Deficit and by deposit insurance to prevent a financial crisis as in the 1930s. But this cannot continue indefinitely. The outstanding debts have still to be eliminated. The recession in Europe and the trade disputes with Japan does not bode well for US exports.

Economic opinion formers in the rest of the world have been waiting three years for the US to act as the world’s locomotive for growth. It seems that they will have to wait longer yet.

Italy is still plagued with massive public spending problems and political scandals. Unemployment is 11.5 percent. Public spending is equal to 114 percent of GDP at a time of low growth and rising interest rates (Financial Times, 28 February).

Spain, like Italy has political scandals. The banking system was recently shaken by the collapse of the Banesto Bank which had to be bailed out by the Central Bank of Spain after depositors rushed to withdraw their savings. Spain has the highest rate of unemployment in the European Union at 23.1 percent.

Japan, formerly the miracle economy of the 70s and 80s and until recently the largest economy in the world, is moving into deeper recession. The Normura Research Institute has forecast that the economy will shrink by 0.4 percent this year and blamed the expected shrinkage on a continuing fall in corporate earnings and capital spending in coming months (Financial Times 10 December). Three attempts by the government to stimulate the economy along Keynesian lines have not produced a recovery.

Nippon Steel has built a $240 million new steel plant in Nagoya which has yet to open. Steel output in Japan has fallen by 40 percent. As the Wall Street Journal reported in January one of the largest property companies in Japan AZBUV has total debts amounting to twice the value of its assets. According to the Economist (19 February') it will take Japanese banks ten years to clear their debts provided conditions do not worsen further.

Japan is expected to have the highest percentage of people over 65 among the industrial nations by the end of the century. As elsewhere many consumer prices are falling. Unemployment is 2.9 percent but the security of job tenure is becoming impossible to maintain. With production and exports declining Japan is an accident waiting to happen. There can be little doubt that with deflationary recession sweeping Japan there will be repercussions on the rest of the world economy.

Here in Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer is advised by the Seven Wise Men. They are economists who suggest ways of "managing" the economy. This usually consists of recommendations on interest rates, taxation and the monetary aggregates such as the money supply. However, the Seven do not always agree on the remedial measures to be adopted. One of the most optimistic is Professor Patrick Minford of Liverpool University. He considers that recovery is underway and is being held back by failure to reduce interest rates and lower taxation. Opposing this view is Professor Congdon of Lombard Research who vigorously advocates higher taxes and interest rates to control public spending. The Seven rarely reach a unanimous conclusion. They think that by tinkering around with the monetary aggregates depressions can be smoothed out. Of course they cannot achieve this. If they could it would be possible to prevent these economic upheavals from arising.

Inherent dislocations

They fail to realize that the major dislocations in the capitalist economy are inherent to the capitalist system. The bulk of what passes for economic opinion tends to look at the world economy as if the conditions that have applied since 1945 are the only ones applicable. With the ascendancy of Keynesian economics in the post-war period with massive public spending and money supply growth and with the inevitable consequent inflation, it has been assumed that the Great Depression of the 1930s is something from an economic dark age and which won’t be allowed to happen again.

In interpreting economic events orthodox capitalist economists tend to take short-term trends and project them in linear fashion into the future in the way in which the Halifax Housing Index was used earlier. An increase in production over a three-month period is projected forward as a positive trend. They fail to realize that capitalism is fundamentally chaotic in its movements. The fact of the matter is that we seen to be in an era of falling prices, rising unemployment and financial instability on a global scale. In short, the current economic environment has much more in common with the conditions of the 1930s.

Looking at the economic indicators in the Economist (26 February) of the 15 industrial countries listed 13 have shown year-on-year increases in unemployment. Industrial production has exceeded four percent in only four.

Taken on a global view there is no convincing evidence of an upturn anywhere of sufficient strength to lead to world recovery. The probability that we are entering into another 1930s scenario cannot be dismissed out of hand. The fact that millions of people may consider it too terrible an event to contemplate does not mean it cannot happen. Five years ago many people believed that the housing crash with people thrown out of their houses was something the government would not let happen. Sadly they know otherwise now to the extent of 250,000 repossessions in five years.

The propaganda of strengthening recovery this year is being put out by the same official sources that promised this last year as well as every year back to 1991. They were wrong then so why should their promises of recovery be taken seriously now?

Terry Lawlor

TV Review: Worker co-operatives (1981)

TV Review from the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Worker co-operatives

“They have abolished the distinction between capital and labour” was the outlandish claim made recently by a BBC Horizon documentary, The Mondragon Experiment. The people in question were the workers in a conglomeration of about 80 “industrial co-operatives” in the Basque country. Commodities such as refrigerators and washing-machines are manufactured for sale at a profit as elsewhere, but the internal organisation is somewhat different.

Each worker joining a co-operative provides £2,000 for the company’s funds. This is increased by 6 per cent each year from the wealth the workers produce. They then receive a standard monthly salary. The higher paid workers may receive up to three times as much as lower paid workers. Then 10 per cent of the profits is spent on schools and so on, 20 per cent is paid pack, into company funds and the other 70 per cent is divided among the workers. There are two significant features of this “distribution of profits”. Firstly, these profits are allocated in the same proportions as the salaries The workers who were paid three times the wages of their colleagues each week are also allocated three times as much profit. Secondly, none of these “profit bonuses” can be withdrawn from the company capital (including the £2,000 original contribution) unless the worker leaves the co-operative.

Capital is wealth used to make more wealth; it is an accumulation of labour used to employ more labour, in order to realise a profit. In capitalism, wealth takes the form of commodities, articles produced for sale in the market at a profit. Capital is by definition divided from the labour it consumes. Workers receive wages or salaries which are generally just enough for them to replenish their energies and live in a way which is determined by place and time. They are then able to produce wealth greater in value than that represented by their wages or salaries. In a week a worker can make more than he himself requires. This surplus wealth created belongs to the employer, to capital.

This process can clearly be seen in Mondragon. The salaries paid were said by the reporter to be the “going rate for the job in the Basque country”, in other words, co-operative workers “pay themselves” just enough to live like other workers. The surplus they create is accumulated as capital. They can only get hold of their individual small share of that capital by leaving their job, and even then, the workers on higher salaries have much larger shares of it. Managers are elected by all workers, but so is a Social Council whose job it is to negotiate with the managers over wages, conditions and so on, just as trade unions do elsewhere.

There are some similarities between this form of capitalism and state-capitalist nations like the USSR. In both cases, the old set-up of private shareholders has been replaced by a complex bureaucratic structure, where specially inflated salaries for certain managers are used as a means of channelling the wealth to a privileged minority. In both cases the world market system of capitalism remains, so in periodic recessions production is restricted. But in Mondragon they are not made redundant. “Instead they send them back to school” said the reporter. In Russia they can put them in the army. The restrictions of the profit system remain. Both Russia and Mondragon are examples of capitalism where no specific shareholding capitalists are clearly in evidence.

These industrial co-operatives are said to be more successful as capitalist enterprises than other companies, firstly because almost all the resources are ploughed back without any dividends being paid, but also because the workers supervise themselves, without having to employ any foremen. So most of the workers are directly productive.

What if the co-operative workers democratically vote one week to pay themselves twice or three times as much, of the wealth they create? The frantic process of capital accumulation would be held up and the co-operative would lose ground in the vicious rat-race of capitalism. This is unavoidable in a worldwide system of buying and selling, or production for profit.

The way in which these workers are searching for co-operative work, though, and the degree to which they have succeeded in organising themselves without external investors or directors, is certainly a hopeful sign. It shows how the working class of the world can organise itself to produce wealth. But why retain this system of wages and profits, labour and capital? What is needed is a global political movement to replace the whole market system with planned production, co-operative production, without the fetters of wages, prices and profit.

Miss World contest

In this age of mass commodity consumerism, beauty is definitely NOT in the eye of the beholder. It is in the hands of the mass media. In commercial society, where commodities and money are mystified and personified, and where people are turned into objects, physical beauty is defined by conformity to a norm. Fashions, from lipstick to stilettoes, complete the conveyor-belt conversion in which workers are forced to go and sell themselves, as objects, to employers.

A few weeks ago, the ITV cameras were present in the Albert-Hall, where sixty-seven “beautiful girls”, representing sixty-seven nation-states (Warsaw Pact countries were excluded) were assembled to compete for the absurd title of "Miss World”. As with other sports, the spirt of fierce nationalist competition was in evidence, with the first stage of the contest consisting of a parade by the participants in their “national” costumes. Regional culture transformed into national rivalry. The trade figureheads parade past like plastic marionettes. “Miss Bolivia, Miss Turkey, Miss Zimbabwe, Miss Chile, Miss Jamaica . . .” While in each of these countries hundreds of people are dying in the political wranglings of the demagogues who own the resources, these painted puppets, moulded by a depraved society, stroll up and down smiling in their desperate efforts to conform to the norm. Red lips, blue eyelids, high heels and a frozen smile. This is a beauty contest, don’t forget. Place your bets. You can’t guess wrong, because whoever gets the prize, capitalist normality will have won.

The most touching moment was when all the participants sang together:

I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony,
I’d like to hold it in my arms, and keep it company.
I’d like to see the world for once, standing hand in hand
And hear the echo through the hills of peace throughout the land.

Sexual preoccupations are created and encouraged with promises of a “swimsuit” parade to come later. “Miss India” dances in a talent contest and Anthony Newley comments: “Makes you sorry we lost India doesn’t it”. The only thing he’s ever lost, as we were to find out subsequently, is his singing voice. Workers owned India no more than they own Ireland or ICI. Then the judges are wheeled on. Alan Minter, boxer, Denis Waterman, actor, Bruce Forsyth and the wife of the Swaziland High Commissioner. We don’t know where she came from, perhaps a friend of the organiser, Eric Morley. Presumably these people are trained experts on the oppressively narrow conception of “beauty” inculcated through constant exposure to media and advertising. We live more than ever in a social system which is insidiously restrictive. Individuality is stamped out. Social conformity is stamped in, at an early age, through what they call “education”. Beauty becomes a convention, a composite moulded from the mix of a million faces. And this is the very ideal to be attained in schools and in discotheques as much as in “Beauty” contests.

Out of the blue, Dame Vera Lynn appeared on the screen singing, “When you’re smiling . . . the whole world smiles with you”. Then, when called upon to actually speak, the beauty queens mouthed typically constricted ambitions such as “travelling” or “speaking a language”. In a co-operative system of society, individual and cultural development will be fostered, free from the prejudiced moral constraints imposed when social power is concentrated in the hands of a minority. Until real social democracy is established, with no class division or national frontiers, it will be true to say “When you’re different . . . the whole world sneers at you”.

Clifford Slapper