News in Review: Nuclear Shelters (1962)

The News in Review column from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nuclear Shelters

This bit in the Observer it slays us all, it's so funny. Listen, it's about a retired army general and he's living in East Devon, so you know that something real humorous is coming up.

This general, he's got the bug about nuclear war. He’s even written a book about survival after they've dropped the H-bomb. Written it for the people of East Devon. Doesn't that make you laugh?

Listen, there’s more. He wants us to keep water in vinegar bottles. Non-returnable ones, of course—there's nothing dishonest about the general. Then he says we should fill up bits of furniture with earth. Yes, furniture. Fill them up and make a dug-out from them.

By now we're rolling on the floor.

Then we stop rolling because we've suddenly asked ourselves why. And this bit in the Observer it says the general's written this book because he knows that most people can't afford an expensive shelter against nuclear bombs.

So we stop laughing. And we wonder.

We wonder at a world which has built itself bombs which are powerful enough to wipe out whole cities—even whole countries. A world where most people can't even afford to get themselves a decent shelter against fall-out.

So maybe that general guy's nuts, filling his sideboard with earth. So maybe he’s only a little bit of a world that’s so crazy it's got its priorities and its motives right upside down.

So maybe the people of the world are crazy. They accept all this and they keep the whole show running, don’t they? And aren't they the ones to stop it all?

Hey there, Napoleon. Shake hands with the general.

Independent Jamaica

The short-lived West Indies Federation was regarded by some people as a great advance for the West Indian worker. They ignored the fact that capitalism would work on the Federation just as it works on the world outside.

Sure enough, it was a dispute over which territory should hold the economic and political reins which broke the Federation. When that happened it seemed fairly obvious that the richer and more powerful islands would go for their independence alone.

Now Jamaica is an independent state, born with all the barney of bands and festivals and speeches. Inevitably, God has been recruited to the side of capitalist independence. There was a thanksgiving service to mark the occasion in Westminster Abbey.

So Jamaica is free now to make her own way in capitalism's dangerous seas. All the familiar problems of property society will harass her government. They must struggle to safeguard her markets for bauxite, tobacco, rum, sugar and bananas. They must build up the island's armed forces, in case some other power threatens Jamaica's economic interests.

And they must sell all this to the Jamaican worker, who will vote them in and out of power under their new constitution. The island is notorious for its poverty, its slums and its diseases of malnutrition. That is why so many of its people come to seek what they hope will be a better life as a wage-slave in Britain —although this did not prevent them celebrating the independence of the island which gave them so miserable an existence.

Up to now the nationalists could easily blame the troubles of the Jamaican workers upon the shortcomings of British rule. It should soon become obvious that this was worth no more than any other vote-catching nonsense and that the problems cannot be cured by replacing British masters with Jamaican.

This will be a moment of truth for Jamaica.

If the new government is anything like the other capitalist administrations all over the world they will face it with lies, evasion and sometimes suppression.

Thalidomide Babies

It is not enough merely to say that the thalidomide babies are an awful tragedy. It is not enough, even, to help these tragic mites with artificial limbs and patient training.

We should be asking ourselves why so harmful a drug was so freely administered; why so many sedatives, stimulates, tranquilisers and the like are dished out in such quantities.

Pregnant women, like many sick people, often have trouble with their sleep. Sometimes this is a straightforward inability to drop off and in such cases there is a case for using a sedative. But in many cases it is only a difficulty in sleeping at the same time as the rest of us, whose sleeping and waking times are geared to the requirements of working class existence.

This difficulty need not be serious enough to need a sedative. The expectant mother can simply sleep during the day, or whenever else she feels the need.

But what if she, too, is tied to the regularity of working class life? What if she has to go out to work to help keep up the payments on a mortgage or on a hire-purchase buy? What if she has other children and, like all working class wives, cannot afford a nurse to look after them?

This is where the sedatives come in.

It is easier to give the patient a dose of something than to get to the root of her trouble. The handier to use, the easier to administer, the briefer its side-effects, the more popular the sedative becomes and the more freely it is given.

And that is where thalidomide came in.

Is there a lesson in this for us?

Whatever the truth of the controversy over drugs and medicines, of one thing we can be sure. The question should be settled in terms of human interests. But as long as capitalism lasts this will never happen.

Drug profits (1982)

From the January 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The perverse priorities of capitalism are most clearly reflected in the market place; if harmful products can be sold easily, capital will be switched in the hope of realising this potential of larger profits. This often forces the capitalist class to pass legislation in which the interests of the minority of capitalists directly benefitting are sacrificed to the broader well-being of the class as a whole. Certain minimum standards of health and safety are laid down so that the usefulness of the working class to capitalist production is not too greatly impaired by such things as adulterated food, industrial pollution, or the side effects of so-called “wonder” drugs.

Naturally those capitalists profiting by the sale of a harmful product will play down the dangers and try to find a loophole in protective legislation. For when Chemie Gruenenthal, the original German inventor of thalidomide, discovered that they had produced a killer drug they at first tried to continue marketing the drug, while spreading confusion about it. Johann Goden, Gruenenthal’s representative in Cologne took the lead by suggesting that the drug be mixed with other sedatives so that “if it proves impossible to keep things dark . . .  any side effect could then be attributed to the other preparations. But heaven help us if this expedient turns into a boomerang”. Later he visited a clinic and reported back “I took the opportunity to explain our standpoint over the peripheral neuritis problem” [one of the side effects] “and did my best to foster confusion over the subjects [1] Goden was as clear as anyone could be that considerable further harm would result from further sales of thalidomide, yet he continued to work actively to that end. This drug, like so many others, was originally considered to be safe, and the harmful side effects were only discovered later. There is however an industry, operating within the capitalist system but in most countries outside its legal framework, the harmful longterm effects of whose products have been known for a very long time. Yet it is flourishing now as never before, despite the current recession. This is the narcotics industry, which lures the wrecks of capitalism with a transient escape from all its woes, but leaves them evermore desperate for the next dose, and for the money to buy it.

The cultivation of opium from the oriental poppy, concentrated mainly in the so-called Golden Triangle in South Fast Asia, predates capitalism by many centuries. It was discovered that smoking the petals in long pipes, or hookahs, helped to relieve the drudge of the continual struggle for existence. The sensations of dreamlike euphoria, relaxation and the absence of pain are however bought at a price. The development of tolerance by the body means that ever increasing doses are required to excite the same response, and this can lead to dire consequences. This is more particularly the case with the opium derivatives which can be more easily absorbed and therefore work faster. Laudanum and morphine have genuine medical uses in emergency cases but addiction to them, and more particularly to heroin, supplied in a form which can be injected into the veins, does nothing but harm to the victim. The symptoms include lassitude, depression, sallow complexion, jitters, loss of appetite and insomnia. There is also damage to the circulatory system, as veins become useless following repeated injections.

Also of ancient origin is the cultivation of cannabis (Indian hemp) and marijuana. The latter (similar to hashish, long associated with Arabia and the Levant), is a plant which flourishes in North America. Unlike the opium derivatives, this family of drugs are much less habit forming. In consequence there is a strong lobby in many countries in favour of legalising their use. However well meaning the protagonists on either side, this is really no more than an argument about the cheapest way, from the capitalist viewpoint, of controlling the problem. Marijuana and cannabis are usually smoked in tobacco laced with the drug, which can produce a growing intoxication and sense of well being. In the long term there can be vivid colour hallucinations and relaxation of inhibitions, accompanied by a lethargy that acts to prevent the sufferer from becoming violent. Cocaine, in contrast to the opiates, is a stimulant sometimes used by doctors to relieve fatigue. Its use can lead to over-confidence, garrulousness and unnatural euphoria, overdosing to weakness, emaciation and depression.

Drug addiction is a serious problem to the capitalist employers because the addict cannot operate as an efficient cog in the production machine, indeed is often incapable of any work effort at all. Because of this inability to find employment, the confirmed addict will turn to crime in order to pay for “shots”. It was however not until 1909 that the capitalist class were sufficiently concerned to undertake any collaborative international action in this sphere. In that year an Opium Commission met in Shanghai, involving 14 countries led by the USA, the country which had then, and still has now, the most serious addiction problem. The object was to control movement from one country to another. The first Interhational Narcotics Convention met at the Hague in 1912, and five other Conventions up to 1936 were attempts progressively to check the traffic at its source and to control opium production, importation and exportation. This Convention eventually totted up 85 signatories, but all these efforts have been almost totally ineffective. The producing countries did not take the drastic action demanded to license production and collect all the opium produced. They were unwilling for the simple reason that the trade was too profitable and the effect on their own national economics would have been too severe. Consequently cultivation has continued and efforts to illegally smuggle the drug into other countries have been intensified. Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok are the main ports involved, but there is now a growing traffic by air. In the 1950s and 1960s “Communist” China became a major source of smuggled heroin, most of the supply to Hong Kong now arriving by the overland route.

In America, the illegal cultivation of marijuana is flourishing. Both there and in the Golden Triangle record crops have been harvested in 1981. The potential profits in these bonanzas cannot of course be reaped without sales, and efforts to achieve these are now in full swing. The equivalent in the narcotics trade of the orthodox sales representative is the “pusher”. Compared to his respectable counterpart, the pusher has two big problems. The illegality of the business means that most transactions must be conducted in secret, away from the eye of the law, and that there is no legal redress against any payment defaulters. This leads to on-the-spot sanctions. A case was recently reported [2] where a lad unable to pay had his knuckles broken so that he could no longer inject himself. If an addict is unable to get drugs, he or she suffers agonising withdrawal symptom, so that this victim was put in a ghastly dilemma. In a recent court case [3] concerning the smuggling of Columbian cannabis into Britain, the smuggler had bought a £2000 computer to keep account of sales. This compelled even prosecuting counsel to remark that “the way in which the accounting was done leaves one with a degree of admiration.”

Rehabilitation of individual addicts is a long and costly process, and the success rate is low. Thus the process has been depersonalised with the main effort being spent on trying to prevent supplies reaching the country in the first place, or reaching customers if this fails. Consequently, although there are some centres attached to hospitals for the treatment of addicts, there is an inadequate number of these. Another recent court case [4] illustrates this. A Blackpool cannabis pusher who was fined £1,500, had found demand so great that he had to take his phone off the hook. “It was like feeding the 5000”, he commented. The court were told that thousands of young workers in the Fylde area were begging him to supply them with drugs. Yet the nearest treatment centre is at Prestwich Hospital in Manchester, 40 miles away and difficult to reach except by car.

Those commentators who say that the addiction problem “is no respecter of class” [2] are incorrect. They fail to see the common class position of all workers in opposition to the ruling capitalists, being confused by the subdivisions into seeing “upper” and “lower” classes, managerial classes, and so on. What they really mean is that addiction is found among all sections of the working class. If a young capitalist becomes “hooked” that presents only the relatively trivial problem of a bad example being set. The capitalist nowadays takes no part in the productive process, so it matters little whether or not he is capable of doing so. On the other hand, workers who experiment with narcotics can damage only themselves, in more senses than one. For when they come down they find that there are still no diamonds in the sky.

E. C. Edge

References

[1] “Suffer the Children”, The Story of Thalidomide. Sunday Times Insight Team, published 1979. Andre Deutsch.

[2] Nationwide. BBC1 TV, 15.10.81

[3] Daily Telegraph, 1.10.81

[4] Daily Telegraph, 25.9.81

Thalidomide Crime (1968)

From the August 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every so often capitalism commits one of its more colossal crimes against mankind. A recent example is that of the Thalidomide Babies.

The Sunday Times of 19 May discussed this matter fully under the headline of “The Thalidomide File”. The public first knew of this in 1961. Nine men from the firm of Chemie Grünenthal in the little town of Stolberg are at this moment on trial charged with placing on the market a drug which even when taken as instructed caused the human body an unacceptable degree of harm, for advertising the drug as completely safe when they could give no such guarantee, and for brushing aside and then deliberately suppressing the adverse reports from doctors that it caused those who took it to itch, shake, vomit and lose the power to stand. The charge is made that this same drug, which the sales department called “the apple of our eye” because it was so profitable, caused a large number of monstrously deformed babies. The trial is expected to last some ten years. It is obviously in the interests of the defendants to spin it out as much as possible so that some of the hot feeling may have died down.

The drug was exported to about 11 European, 7 African, 17 Asian and 11 American states. There are in Germany alone thousands of victims and roughly five thousand babies have been born there with appalling deformities. The discoverer of K17, as he named it, was a qualified chemist and doctor who had served at the Institute for Typhus and Virus Research at Cracow in Poland which was under the control of the German Army High Command during the war. His name was Dr. Heinrich Muckter. His precise role at the Institute was not clear but no charges were made against him at the Nuremberg Nazi doctors’ trial. We can anticipate that — especially in view of his past — many people will blame Muckter for this crime.

Socialists, however, whatever the outcome of the trial, will not give Muckter and his associates the sole blame for this incident in medical history. This does not mean we condone the actions of the men concerned.

Under capitalism some people are capable of doing anything for personal gain; others are not. Our view is that, given certain conditions, society will produce people with no scruples who will do whatever suits them no matter what the cost in human life and welfare.

The “business mind” is well illustrated by this extract from a letter written by the Sales Director of the firm which marketed Thalidomide to a sales manager in Essen :

  “We must realise above all else that such a quick rise in the turnover of a sedative must lead to certain apprehensions in the minds of doctors and chemists. Not all members of this clientele can keep their ethical attitudes within the limits of the market economy. There will certainly be doctors conscious of their responsibility, who in view of this trend, will start speaking about addiction.”

And a report from the Sales Office in 1960:

    “Unfortunately, we are now receiving increasingly strong reports on the side of this preparation, as well as letters from doctors and chemists who want it put on prescription. From our side, everything must be done to avoid putting it on prescription, since already a substantial amount of our turnover comes from over-the-counter sales.”

Even the Sunday Times was prompted to ask “Was the fault that of society, of a set of attitudes to profit and the responsibility that it entails?” They use the word “society”. We would say rather “capitalist society”. Our answer to their question is: yes, it is the fault of society, capitalist society.

Capitalism is an obsolete system of society; it long ago outlived its usefulness. It fetters production; it distorts production so that hitherto unimaginable horrors like this become realities. The “set of attitudes to profit” is thus the reaction of men to the relations of production in which they find themselves. When men convert the privately owned means of production into the common property of all, classes will disappear. Wealth will be produced simply as products to be distributed according to wants and needs, and not as now as commodities to be exchanged on a market with a view to profit. Socialist production and distribution would mean that technical development would hold no threats to human welfare, as it does now, with its sales propaganda nuclear “deterrents” and so on.

J. MCL