Cuban Background (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

To anyone who follows the Latin American scene, so many aspects of Cuban politics seem familiar that there is a danger of failing to see just what distinguishes the Cuban question from the traditional turmoil in that part of the world.

When Spain’s colonies in the New World fought for independence a hundred and fifty years ago, their main source of inspiration was revolutionary France and the young United States. However, in one fundamentally important respect they fell short of the requirements of real social change; a unified and coherent class demanding the overthrow of the outmoded system on the strength of its mastery of the new productive and social forces.

As the present situation in the Congo shows, not all independence movements are the expression of a powerful embryo bourgeoisie, ready to effectively take the place of the former Imperialists on the backs of the local working-class and peasantry. The ousting of Spain from the Americas was due more to the weakness of Spain than to the strength of its colonies. The social vacuum, the rapid collapse into anarchy could not, in those days, become the concern of a United Nations Organisation acting as a broker and a policeman of international capital. The high-flown language of the constitutions drawn up by the South American disciples of Washington, Jefferson and even Tom Paine was not matched by the level of economic and class development in their respective regions. From Mexico in the north to Argentina in the south, the whole continent was to relapse into a state of autocracy where power rested with decadent, constantly feuding landowning interests.

At the turn of this century, the needs of European Industrialism led to the “Scramble for Africa”. Perhaps less spectacularly, and certainly without the formal annexation of territory as was the case in Africa, a similar process began in the Americas. The outcome of this process has, to a remarkable degree, run parallel to Afro-Asian developments. Britain, France, the USA and then Italy, Germany and Japan have, over the years, poured capital in and drained profits out. Vast rail networks were established. Soon hides and grain, meat and coffee, sugar and bananas, were flowing onto the world market.

The precious metals that had provided the funds for Spain’s “siglo de oro”, its century of supreme power and culture, were no longer of prime importance. Not silver from the mines of Potosí, but tin from neighbouring parts of Bolivia, was to become the source of immense wealth for the mighty foreign Corporations who were equally busy in their exploitation of copper and nitrates from Chile, petroleum from Venezuela, quebracho from Paraguay, and so on. Countries, most of them larger than any in Europe, were to become utterly dependent upon a single crop; here coffee, there bananas or sugar.

Guatemala, which in its time played the rôle of David to the American Goliath, is known as a banana republic. In Cuba, on whom the mantle has fallen, it is sugar that dominates. True, tobacco from these parts is justly famous throughout the world. In view of Cuba’s increasingly intimate relationship with the Russian Capitalist bloc we may yet witness the paradox of the Havana cigar as a status symbol of the Russian ruling class. We shall see bloated Commissars yet! Nevertheless, it is sugar that is Cuba’s economic life. As goes sugar so goes Cuba—boom or slump; it is the basis of its foreign trade which in this context means, overwhelmingly, trade with the USA. Fidel Castro now challenges the status quo.

As a “middle-class” Robin Hood, Fidel readily appealed to an American public weaned on the exploits of Davy Crocket. At the point where it became evident that in serving the needs of aspiring Cuban Capitalism the existing order of things would be upset, Castro fell from his pedestal. He was unmasked as the harbinger of “Communism” (read, Russian influence) in the Western Hemisphere. The bearded warrior of the mountains was romantic no longer.

The modern history of Cuba could be written around its relations with the United States. Of all the former Spanish colonies it was the last to break from the grip of the old country. It did so only to find itself a virtual colony of its erstwhile ally; to such an extent that there was an American governor at first, and US troops were not withdrawn from the island until eleven years after the signing of the peace treaty with Spain in 1898. US marines returned “to restore law and order” in 1920. The United States census of 1947 revealed that their industrial investments alone were only slightly less in Cuba than in Brazil; $64,000,000 as against $65,000,000 (Germán Arciniegas, The State of Latin America, p. 302). This figure later increased.

Trade Unions

Through this century, Cuban government has been a succession of “strongmen,” as Time magazine likes to call them, who have depended upon American patronage. Fractional alterations in US sugar tariffs in line with the protectionist demands of Hawaii or Porto Rico have had overnight repercussions on the Cuban economy. Laws passed by the US Senate actually reducing Cuba’s sugar quota, as in 1951, when the quota was varied in favour of Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Peru and Porto Rico could mean and often did lead to gross economic instability. In working-class terms this means unemployment, destitution.

Out of bitter experience there grew in the 1930’s a significant labour movement. In a limited sphere, in the cigarette and cigar factories and the Havana docks, Spanish immigrants of the Anarcho-Syndicalist school had introduced the principles of trade-unionism at the turn of the century. In more recent times a far wider range of trades has become involved although at the price of Stalinist influence out-weighing that of the old Anarcho-Syndicalists who, for all their faults, did not compromise their class interests with the state requirements of a world power as do the so-called Communists. In fact, the Communists’ record in Cuba puts them in a rather curious position in relation to the current “togetherness” of their home and “mother” countries.

Batista, murderous and corrupt, Farouk to Castro’s Nasser, had been given Communist support in his early years of power (M. Poblete,  El movimiento obrero latinoamericano, p. 196). It was he who gave the Party legal recognition. Batista came to power first in October, 1940. In December of that year the second congress of the Communist-slanted Workers Federation of Cuba, T.U.C. of sorts, drew up a statement with which a Socialist could scarcely disagree.

“Cuban workers …. resolve to struggle against the Imperialist war, to expose its Imperialist character and the war-aims of both belligerents and to develop a nation-wide movement to ensure that our country keeps out of this criminal conflict“.

When “you know what” happened, new instructions were given out. The first resolution to be carried at the third: congress of the C.T.C. went as follows:

“The supreme task of the labour movement at the present time is to concentrate all its efforts and to use all its might towards the defeat of the Axis. Workers organised under the C.T.C. are willing to collaborate with all those in favour or national unity, that is to say, willing to subordinate any grievances that may arise within the country in their over-riding interest in destroying the foreign enemy. For the duration of the war, Cuban workers wish to avoid strikes and disputes likely to interfere with production.”

The congress called upon working-class youth to volunteer for service at the war-front.

C.P. just in time

Communist support for Castro’s guerrilla struggle came late but, like Russia’s entry into the war against Japan, in time. At this stage, however, it would be a mistake to regard Castro as a Caribbean Kadar, a mere puppet of the Eastern bloc. Like many a Nationalist before him he is attempting to play off one great power against another in the hope that advantages will accrue to the would-be elite he represents. It is the universal demand of the Latin American bourgeoisie to free their respective national economies from the preponderance of Anglo-American capital.

As early as 1926, in a polemic with Lozowsky, chief of the Profintern, Haya de la Torre, of Peru, pioneer student of the development processes of backward countries within the Imperialist orbit, denied the accusation by the Communists that he favoured unconditional support of Japan in the event of a war between that country and the U.S.A. Nevertheless, he considered it would be a valuable opportunity to take advantage of their rivalry (Haya de la Torre, El antimperialismo y el APRA, p. 101). A mightier rival appears on the scene and, one by one, the Latin American rulers see how to use their bargaining position to diversify their means of production and to intensify or quite often to initiate industrial development. Back in Havana from Prague just recently, a Castro man announced he had secured promises to establish thirty new industries by East European concerns. Of course, for a small power to attempt playing off the great powers involves considerable risks. It is sometimes swallowed up in the process.

The overthrow of the Batista clique with its record of gangsterism in the Chicago tradition, has been followed by a vigorous and forward-looking regime under a new dictator; what in Spanish is wryly called a “dictablanda” rather than a “dictadura”, a mild dictatorship whose authority is used towards social reorganisation rather than to feather the generalissimo’s private nest. Be that as it may, the massive programme of nationalising most Western owned utilities, agrarian reform meaning the breakup and redistribution amongst the rural population of the great estates (a retrograde step from the long term point of view), the attack upon widespread illiteracy add up to a really serious attempt on the part of Cuba to enter the Capitalist arena on a more equal footing.

“In Europe, Imperialism is the culmination of a series of developments within Capitalism and is characterised by the export of capital and the capturing of markets and sources of raw materials in the economically backward countries. However, what in Europe is (according to Haya de la Torre whom we are quoting) ‘the last phase of Capitalism’ is in Latin America the first. For us Indo-Americans, imported capital marks our first step in modern capitalist society” (Haya de la Torre, El antimperialismo y el APRA, p. 51).

Pending a dramatic awakening of working-class consciousness within the metropolitan powers, the repetition elsewhere of our own bitter experience seems inevitable, though tragically so. But this much, at least, we can say: that the Socialist, on the strength of his Marxian analysis, cannot be deluded into believing that this latter-day development of Capitalism, the most inhuman of all social systems, whether of the state-owned variety or not, is the first stage of our revolution; the beginnings of a society built democratically by a conscious, international working-class to serve human needs on the basis of common ownership of the means of living— Socialism. Would that it were!

Eddie Grant

Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 2 (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The economy of the West Indies underwent a transformation following the abolition of slavery—from a primitive form of capitalism with many feudal features to full capitalism based on wage labour.

With the loss of its tied labour force, the plantation system of agriculture broke down, and the sugar owners faced quick ruin. It was to prevent this sudden loss of their labourers that the sugar plantocracy in many islands introduced a transitory state between slavery and wage-labour—“apprenticeship”. Under slavery, of course, no wages were paid, the slave being kept by his owner and encouraged to grow his own food. Until the sugar owners could buy the labour-power of the “free'’ workers the ex-slaves were “apprenticed” to the estates. They had to work for their former owners for about three-quarters of the week without pay, and from their earnings for the remaining quarter they were able to buy their “freedom" when their apprenticeship ended.

In their efforts to reduce the cost of producing the sugar the owners were forced to introduce labour-saving machines; this became even more necessary in face of competition from sugar planters in other parts of the world, notably the East Indies and the U.S.A., and the introduction of beet-sugar farming in Europe and the U.S.A. To make matters worse for the West Indian sugar owners the British Government drastically cut the subsidy which it had long paid for West Indian sugar when it became apparent that cheaper sources of sugar were available elsewhere. In addition, West Indian cotton and tobacco were virtually eliminated from the world's markets during the middle of the nineteenth century by improved farming in the southern states of America and Eli Whitney's cotton saw-gin.

To combat the twin capitalist problems of the rising cost of labour-power and the falling price of sugar, the West Indian sugar owners were forced to re-organise their industry; apart from introducing mechanisation, absentee ownership was discouraged, immigration (especially of European skilled artisans) encouraged, and serious attempts were made to build up an adequate, dependable, labour force.

In the islands with a long history of slavery, like Barbados, Antigua, and St. Kitts, there was an adequate supply of labour-power but in fast developing countries with little history of slavery (especially Trinidad and British Guiana) the shortage of labourers was acute. To these two countries, therefore, came regular shiploads of peasants from Madeira and India—indentured labourers who signed contracts or bonds to work on the estates as “free" workers. The workers from Madeira did not measure up to the exacting working conditions on the sugar estates in the tropics, but the Indians were quite at home. These “East Indians" were largely responsible for the agricultural wealth of Trinidad and British Guiana, and now number about half the population of Trinidad.

Although sugar-cane farming is the “monoculture" of the West Indies, other agricultural crops in different islands are important sources of profit for sections of the owning class. The (American) United Fruit Co., of which Elders and Fyffes are a subsidiary company, usually lakes about half of Jamaica's large banana crop. Citrus fruit, coffee, and cocoa are also grown on a considerable scale in certain islands. Grenadian planters enjoy a virtual monopoly of the spice trade in the West Indies.

Timber was, and is, the main industry in British Honduras. Timber, including hard woods, is also grown in Jamaica. Trinidad and British Guiana. The tourist industry, catering mainly for vacationing Americans, has developed considerably especially in Jamaica and is now a major source of profit for hotel and shop keepers; on the Jamaican north coast prices are quoted first in U.S. dollars. Trinidad is unique among the West Indian territories in having two important mineral deposits. The famous Pitch Lake, discovered in Raleigh's day, is the only source of natural asphalt in the world; despite competition from synthetic pitches produced during the refinery of oil. profits of the Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. still assure a comfortable income for its shareholders.

In addition, oil was found in Trinidad towards the end of the nineteenth century. Although production has increased phenomenally since then, Trinidad's contribution towards the world's total oil production is less than half of one per cent; and because of the unsatisfactory geological formation of the oil-bearing layers, the cost of producing oil in Trinidad is among the highest in the world. However, its geographical position plus its stable government gives its oil industry a special importance in the eyes of British and American capitalists. After the second world war, American capitalism entered the Trinidad oil industry by acquiring a large field and the largest refinery. To prevent further American economic invasion, British Petroleum (half-owned by the British Government on behalf of the British capitalist class) recently took over three “independent" oilfields.

The bauxite industry (in Jamaica and British Guiana) is an important recent addition to West Indian capitalism.

As capitalism improved its methods of production in the Caribbean, so also it improved its methods of administration, to control the growing working class and to assure profits for the owners. In British territories, Crown Colony government superseded the inefficient and self-interested rule of the sugar plantocracy. Crown Colony government which has lasted, with few modifications, until the present time of the “wind of change", was largely responsible for the introduction of organised health services, thereby virtually eliminating the two killing diseases cholera and yellow fever and providing a reasonably fit working class. It also built a greatly improved transport system, the British mode of law-making and enforcement and a rudimentary educational system.

The French islands had always been closely tied to France, the colonial assemblies (which were instituted in 1787) being only advisory in character. Following emancipation, attempts to decentralise the islands' administration were abandoned, and Martinique and Guadeloupe became departments of metropolitan France, which they are today.

The development of capitalism in the larger islands of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico is inextricably bound up with the interests of United States capitalism: capital investment, trading rights, and military bases for the defence of the Panama Canal.

After abolition in the British islands, the British Government pressed for the end of slavery in Cuba, whose sugar was underselling Jamaican sugar. The United States opposed British intervention, and later took the opportunity to gain firm control of Cuban affairs by a decisive and speedy military victory. The excuse for this was the loss of American property in the Cuban civil war of 1895 and the sinking of the American warship Maine in Havana harbour. Although American forces withdrew in 1902, American governors had effectively made Cuba a "friendly" country, and the establishment of the naval base at Guantanamo left no doubts about United States interest in the island.

Despite the oft-stated “principle" of the American State Department in the "self-determination and self-government of small nations”, Cuba has never been free of the intervention of American capitalism, political and military. U.S. naval forces were sent to Cuba in 1912 to protect American property during a Negro revolt, and the U.S. marines were sent in 1917 by President Wilson, also “to protect American lives and property". This touching concern for Cuban affairs apparently paid off. because as a result of the boom in sugar after the first world war a greatly increased concentration of wealth fell into the hands of American capitalists.

The growth of Cuban nationalism brought, first, the dictatorial regime of Machado, then in 1933-4 the left-wing government of Batista. With a history of strong left-wing parties (Cuba is the only country in the Caribbean with a Communist Party of any influence, thought to be a result of Spanish immigration during the 1920's), Cuba was the natural birthplace of Fidel Castro and his followers who seized power in 1958 and have ruled the island since then with all the trappings of a police state.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti have been of minor importance to the United States, both as markets and sources of capital, and any American interference there has been largely because of the islands strategic value. Both states of the island of Hispaniola have developed with dictatorial governments, and are at an uneasy peace with each other. Haiti is economically poor: the country is governed by a mulatto élite and the rest of the population are illiterate Negro peasants. The Dominican Republic, which is largely populated by descendants of Spanish settlers, is richer by virtue of sugar farming and the modest influx of American capital. The dictatorial regime of General Trujillo, which had ruled the country with no pretences of democracy for almost thirty years recently lost its iron control and the Trujillos were deposed. It is still loo early to say whether more democratic institutions for ruling the working-class will emerge; in the meantime the country has been "de-Trujillo-ised ” to the extent of the capital of Ciudad Trujillo being renamed Santo Domingo, the name given it by Columbus.

After centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 by the Treaty of Paris. America wished to gain control of the island (especially the fort of San Juan), not so much for her own use, but to prevent this strategic outpost failing into the hands of rival imperialist gangs. The sugar industry in Puerto Rico attracted American capital, and within a few years three or four American Corporations gained control of the industry and acquired more than half of the land suitable for cane growing. Although nominally American citizens. Puerto Rican workers soon discovered that, despite housing schemes, improved medical services, etc., they extracted little benefit from possessing American passports. It has been estimated that the average per capita income in Puerto Rico is less than one-fourth of that in the United States. In an attempt to relieve unemployment, the Puerto Rican government has encouraged emigration to the U.S.A., where, especially in New York, Puerto Rican immigrants meet similar problems that West Indian immigrants encounter in Great Britain.

No account of American capitalism's interference in the Caribbean would be complete without reference to the military bases in various West Indian islands granted to the United States during the early stages of World War Two by the British Government in return for fifty-odd old destroyers. The destroyers have all gone (some were reported to have sunk on their first Atlantic crossing), but the bases remain. They are a constant source of annoyance to West Indian politicians. especially Dr. Eric Williams. Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, who has apparently dedicated himself to the task of wresting the naval base of Chaguaramas in north-west Trinidad from the American Government.

Michael La Touche

(To be concluded)

World View: Bombs and poverty on an American island (2000)

From the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vieques is in the news. The United States, it seems, just can’t stop bombing it. It’s the best place in the world (maybe the Universe?) for bombing, says the chief of US naval operations, Admiral Jay Johnson. “Vieques is an irreplaceable asset,” he claims.

Vieques, which is a 20-mile-long island eight miles east of Puerto Rico, is administratively part of Puerto Rico, and its inhabitants, like the Puerto Ricans, are American citizens although they cannot vote in Presidential elections. In 1941, the US navy appropriated more than two-thirds of the island’s 52 square miles, forcing the 9,300 local population to live on a small central strip between the naval bases at the east and west of the island. For almost 60 years, the navy has used Vieques for bomb and bombardment exercises for up to 200 days a year. Up to 12 months ago, only one local civilian had been killed by a missile; and operations were then suspended as protesters occupied beaches on the firing ranges littered with unexploded munitions. Since then, more protesters moved on to other sealed-off bomb sites and beaches, and dared the US authorities to bomb them or arrest them. On Thursday, 4 May, about 160 protesters were removed from the beaches, but were not arrested.

According to the Guardian (5 May),

“The islanders blame the navy for a cancer rate that is 27 percent higher than on the Puerto Rican mainland, stunted economic development, damage to the environment and to fishing grounds which, other than tourism and service industries, provide the local employment opportunities.”

The unemployment rate is 50 percent.

President Clinton has suggested a compromise by which the navy would drop dummy bombs until 2003, and then leave Vieques, in return for US investment of $40 million in the local economy. However, a referendum which many of the islanders consider to be a bribe, has been mooted whereby $50 million of Federal money would be added if the islanders support a return to live bombing.

The United States took possession of Puerto Rico and Vieques in 1898. According to Josué de Castro (Geography of Hunger), “it found a population which, if not exactly swimming in wealth and abundance, was far from the misery and hunger that it suffers in our times” (1952). Until the United States’s occupation, 75 percent of the arable land comprised smallholdings of about 12 acres, devoted mainly to subsistence crops. Following the occupation, the United States Military Census Commission noted that “this general ownership of farms has unquestionably had a great influence in producing the contented condition of the people”. The main industry, sugar, flourished. But, as de Castro points out: “Profound changes were soon brought about” in Puerto Rico.

The small growers were driven out, and were replaced by great, American-owned plantations; and “through the agency of United States’s capital, the sugar industry fell under monopolistic control of a small but powerful group of absentee owners”. American corporations also developed tobacco and coffee production—all for export to the American mainland. The Puerto Ricans were no longer able to feed themselves. And the island had to import 60 percent of its food, all of which was expensive, from the United States. Not surprisingly, for decades during the last century, undernourishment was prevalent and living conditions deteriorated. By 1950, the population of Puerto Rico had doubled (people suffering from malnutrition and dietary deficiencies always have high birth-rates). Of course the Americans built roads—and even luxury hotels and the like. Denis Healey MP, recalled that when he was Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1977, “President Ford invited us all to Puerto Rico . . . we met in a millionaires’ holiday camp on a palm fringed beach, and stayed in luxurious bungalows, travelling from one to another in electric buggies” (The Time of My Life).

Meanwhile, between 1945 and 1965, one-third of Puerto Rico’s population emigrated to mainland United States; and by 1980, two million Puerto Rican workers lived in America, with around three million remaining on the island, where at least conditions had improved somewhat.

In the early part of the last century, the reformist American Socialist Party, both among Puerto Ricans in New York, where most Puerto Rican immigrants lived and on the island itself, had considerable influence. It popularised trade unionism and, in a somewhat general form, class-struggle politics. In the 1930s, with the decline of the Socialist Party, the political scene came to be dominated by nationalist and Labor parties, together with the leftist People’s Democratic Party, in both the mainland and on the island. Puerto Rican nationalists supported an uprising on the island in 1950, when an attempt on President Truman’s life was made by members of the Nationalist Party. In the late 1960s, radical groups similar to the Black Panthers emerged; and, later, a Maoist party, the Organisation of Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers, was formed in Chicago and New York. On the island, another reformist and pro-nationalist Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) was founded in 1971, which had a strong base in the trade union movement. Unfortunately, however, no party as yet has been formed by Puerto Rican workers with the sole object of establishing socialism and rejecting nationalist and reformist programmes.

They have embraced the cul-de-sac of nationalism, to a large extent, because of the repressive and exploitative actions of both American-based corporations and the American state. The use of Vieques Island as a base by the CIA in the 1960s to infiltrate Cuba, and the more recent use of the island for bomb practice, has only exacerbated the situation. As a postscript, it is worth noting that the US navy “often lends Vieques to its allies, including Britain, for bombing exercises” (Guardian, 3 May). How thoughtful!

The US navy resumed bombing on Vieques on 8 May, using non-explosive ordnance. By the middle of May, 225 protesters had been removed from the site.

Peter E. Newell

The Australian Scene (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sweet Sugar . . . .

Capital investment in the Australian sugar industry complex is either high or low, according to the higher or lower profit margins to be gained. As with other industries, sugar has known both these aspects of the trade cycle. At the time of writing, however, it is a booming industry for the cane grower.

Queensland is the sugar state of Australia, and in reviewing the past decade of the industry there, Frank Devine says that the average value of the crop has been in the region of £60 millions a year. It’s an ill wind that blows no capitalist any good, so in 1962, following the United Stales’ decision to stop trading with Cuba, the Australian sugar growers enjoyed a season of almost perfect conditions. The result, according to Mr. Devine, was a record production of 1.8 million tons of raw sugar (500,000 tons better than 1961) and a rake off for the year of £85 millions.

But the sugar men were just flexing their muscles. The income from the 1963 crop (120,000 tons less than 1962) is expected to be at least £105 millions. . . . By 1970 it is estimated, sugar growing in Australia will be close to a £200 millions a year operation. . . . The North Queensland sugar country has almost the atmosphere of gold rush days. (The Advertiser, South Australia, 5/4/64.) 

Not all the growers there are happy about the prevailing conditions, however. “Will the boom go bust?” is a question on the lips of some of the older and more established gentry, who have experienced the leaner and more difficult times of a few years back. They balk at the idea of throwing everything madly into the current boom and have expressed fears about the dangers of over-expansion.

Yet despite themselves, they are hurried along by the tide of frantic boom conditions. To do less would mean falling out of the race altogether and leaving the field to the younger men “. . . full of optimism and busy with plans for mechanisation to make even more competitively efficient one of the most efficient industries in Australia.” An idea of just what this means can be glimpsed from the Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook for 1963, which tells us that about ninety-two per cent of raw sugar is now handled in bulk, with no bagging at any stage.

As we might gather, not all cane growers are rich. Some of them (“battlers” they are called) do their own cane cutting, working terribly hard, but whose return can only be described as meagre after meeting mortgage and hire-purchase payments on plant and equipment. However much they may strive, theirs is a hopeless struggle against the growing efficiency of the big men. They are doomed in the main to bankruptcy, with little else left but their labour power.

Doomed also to extinction (after the manner of the English hand loom weaver of the eighteenth century) is the Queensland cane cutter. During the course of his comparatively short existence, he has become one of the symbols of the tough, cheerful, self-reliant rural battler, resistant alike to smugness, oppressive authority and religious cant. But the rapid growth of mechanisation, as Devine points out, will mean the end of the seasonal worker in the sugar country. ” . . . But it will bring to Ingham and Innisfail and other sugar centres a small army, of new permanent citizens who will sell, maintain and operate the machines.”

So it is the same old picture of emerging industry demanding a specialised labourer, and then casting him into oblivion as further development renders his acquired skills obsolete. Indeed, as though from afar, we hear again the voice of Marx:—

This change may possibly not take place without friction, but take place it must. (Capital, Vol. I.)

. . . . And Sour Grapes.

Grapes grown and harvested for the wineries, for fresh eating, or for dried fruit purposes, are among the most succulent of fruits. Yet because of their commodity status in the modern world, and because of the complications which arise from this, grapes can, and do. acquire a sourness of which perhaps only the grower is aware.

We are beginning to sec the grower viewing his commodity with concern as it becomes evident that demand is not keeping pace with his increasing supply unlike the present position of his fellow grower in the sugar industry. Reading again from The Advertiser of March 5th, Mr. Retalic, secretary of the Primary Producers’ Union of South Australia, airs a dispute between the grape growers and the wine makers. The growers complain that the wineries are refusing to buy much of this season’s harvest. The obvious solution, thinks Mr. Retalic, is to increase the price of sultanas by another £2 a ton. ,

This is clearly a case of man (Retalic) proposing and capitalism disposing, for it is the very uncertainty of the export market for dried fruit that has driven the growers to compete fiercely with each other for sales to the wineries. Just where the buyers are to be found who will agree to pay an extra £2 per ton in a falling market, Mr. Retalic does not say. However, he does seem to know enough about the basic conditions of the market when he admits that:—

The grower could not be blamed for trying to ensure the sale of his grapes, nor could the wine maker be blamed for trying to purchase his requirements at the best price.

So it is simply astonishing then, to hear him round off with a bout of moralising over something which is equally a fact of capitalist life, thus:—-“ What was blameworthy was the complete indifference of each party for the business of the other."

Competition is often lauded by our bosses as something desirable in itself and for its own sake. That sort of philosophy may be alright, when you’re on the winning side, but not when (like Retalic) you start to take some of the knocks. It is then that you begin to deplore “indifference” and want to get together against the other fellow, because he is now bigger than you.

Cold Water on Troubled Oil.

With commendable detachment, The Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook for 1962 informs us on a burning topic of the day. 

The discovery of oil in commercial quantities in Australia has been the object of oil exploration companies for many years. Recent discoveries in Queensland could indicate that this country is on the verge of proving commercial oilfields.

But less detached than the sober appraisal in the Yearbook, and understandably so, is the concern felt and voiced by Senator Maher, when dealing with the results of these expensive oil-seeking ventures. The senator has claimed that “. . . the search for oil in Australia would collapse unless provision was made for the purchase and distribution of the whole of the Moonie (well) production at a fair price.” Investors would lose heart, he said, if all the oil already produced could not find “an immediate market at equitable prices in Australia.” The senator is, of course, after the government to see that this does not happen.

To find and produce the oil is one thing; to sell it in a buyer’s market is another, and apparently more than one capitalist has got the jitters over the prospect of heavy financial loss. It seems that the oil-producing geological processes of the past few million years have played a lousy trick on the companies drilling for a paying flow in this continent, for there are suggestions that the quality of the product is not up to the standard of competitors. Apart from this, however, the adverse factor bugging Australian oil is the meagre flow by average world standards. The local flow rate may prove profitable next century when other wells are drying up, but this is cold comfort to the capitalists who want "a reasonable return” quickly on die millions they have spent. This “reasonable return” apparently carries Australian oil above current world prices to a degree noticeable and discouraging to buyers, so naturally they remain indifferent to the business problems of the sellers.

National Development Minister Sir William Spooner has denied that the question of price has bogged down negotiations between the government and the companies, yet this did not prevent him from saying that:—

If the oil companies remained adamant on the matter of a just price and also failed to lift the whole of the Moonie production, the situation would certainly provoke a head-on collision between some Australian governments and the oil companies.

Oil has had a troubled history wherever it has appeared in the world of capitalism. Australia is no exception. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of the struggle, although it will be of academic importance only as far as workers arc concerned. They had nothing before the oil was discovered. They will be in the same position long after the Moonie well has yielded its last drop.

Peter Furey

Editorial: Capitalism in Queensland. Ferocious Labour Government. (1927)

Editorial from the October 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

For years we have warned the workers against the danger of Labour Governments. Capitalism can be administered, as regards essentials, only in one way—the Capitalist way. Whether the administration calls itself Liberal or Tory, Communist or Labour, matters nothing to the working class. In our issues for December, 1923, and February, 1924, the position and activities of Labour Governments in different Australian States were fully dealt with. A recent incident should serve to drive home our lesson that Socialism is the only remedy, and a “Labour” Government is an enemy to be fought, not an ally to be supported by those who desire to establish Socialism. The Queensland railwaymen tried to help some workers who were on strike in the sugar industry. The “Labour” Government met this sympathetic action by dismissing the 11,000 railway employees, and was able to force them to desert the strikers and go back to work. Thus Queensland is vindicated as a territory which is still safe for Capitalism.

Three points are worth notice in this little incident. The first is that we see here Labour Government forbidding sympathetic strikes, yet how our own Labour Party has howled because the Conservatives have threatened to limit sympathetic strikes.

The second point is that the I.L.P. in this country has for years supported a useless, programme of nationalisation and other reforms of Capitalism similar to that put in operation in Queensland. In particular, it has sold since about 1917, and is still selling, two pamphlets with the lying titles “Socialism in Practice” and “Socialism in Queensland.” In fact, not the slightest attempt has yet been made by the Queensland or any other “Labour” Government to establish Socialism. How does the I.L.P. justify this Capitalist propaganda. Do they favour the prohibition of the legal right to strike?

Thirdly, for those who imagine that the existence and powers of a House of Lords are questions of first-class importance, it is useful to remember that Queensland long ago abolished its Upper House. When it is necessary to crush revolt among the workers, a single chamber in the hands of a “Labour” Government in Queensland can be as drastic and as brutal as anything England or the U.S.A. can show, and what is of more importance from a Capitalist standpoint, it can act so much more promptly than can a cumbersome two-chamber system.

Marx on Free Trade. (1926)

From the April 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from a previous issue)

But what of that? The class will still exist; nay, more, it will have increased.

But this is not all. The progress of industry creates less and less expensive means of subsistence. Thus spirits have taken the place of beer, cotton that of wool and linen, and potatoes that of bread.

Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of labour on cheaper and more wretched food, the minimum of wages is constantly sinking. If these wages began by letting the man work to live, they end by forcing him to live the life of a machine. His existence has no other value than that of a simple productive force, and the capitalist treats him accordingly. This law of the commodity labour, of the minimum of wages will be confirmed in proportion as the supposition of the economists, Free Trade, becomes an actual fact. Thus, of two things one: either we must reject all political economy based upon the assumption of Free Trade, or we must admit that under this same Free Trade the whole severity of the economic laws will fall upon the workers.

To sum up, what is Free Trade under the present conditions of society? Freedom of capital. When you have torn down the few national barriers which still restrict the free development of capital, you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. So long as you let the relation of wages-labour to capital exist, no matter how favourable the conditions under which you accomplish the exchange of commodities, there will always be a class which exploits and a class which is exploited. It is really difficult to understand the presumption of the Free Traders who imagine that the more advantageous application of capital will abolish the antagonism between industrial capitalists and wage-workers. On the contrary. The only result will be that the antagonism of these two classes will stand out more clearly.

Let us assume for a moment that there are no more Corn Laws or national and municipal import duties; that in a word all the accidental circumstances which to-day the working-man may look upon as a cause of his miserable condition have vanished, and we shall have removed so many curtains that hide from his eyes his real enemy.

He will see that capital released from all trammels will make him no less a slave than capital trammelled by import duties.

Gentlemen! Do not be deluded by the abstract word Liberty! Whose Liberty? Not the liberty of one individual in relation to another, but liberty of capital to crush the worker.

Why should you desire farther to sanction unlimited competition with this idea of freedom, when the idea of freedom itself is only the product of a social condition based upon Free Competition?

We have shown what sort of fraternity Free Trade begets between the different classes of one and the same nation. The fraternity which Free Trade would establish between the nations of the earth would not be more real, to call cosmopolitan exploitation universal brotherhood is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of the bourgeoisie. Every one of the destructive phenomena to which unlimited competition gives rise within any one nation is reproduced in more gigantic proportions in the market of the world. We need not pause any longer upon Free Trade sophisms on this subject, which are worth just as much as the arguments of our prize essayists Messrs Hope, Morse, and Greg.

For instance, we are told that Free Trade would create an international division of labour, and thereby give to each country those branches of production most in harmony with its natural advantages.

You believe perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies.

Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble itself about commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. And it may be that in less than half a century you will find there neither coffee nor sugar, for the East Indies, by means of cheaper production, have already successfully broken down this so-called natural destiny of the West Indies.

And the West Indies, with their natural wealth, are as heavy a burden for England as the weavers of Dacca, who also were destined from the beginning of time to weave by hand.

One other circumstance must not be forgotten, namely that, just as everything has become a monopoly, there are also nowadays some branches of industry which prevail over all others, and secure to the nations which especially foster them the command of the market of the world. Thus in the commerce of the world cotton alone has much greater commercial importance than all the other raw materials used in the manufacture of clothing. It is truly ridiculous for the Free Traders to refer to the few specialties in each branch of industry, throwing them into the balance against the product used in everyday consumption, and produced most cheaply in those countries in which manufacture is most highly developed.

If the Free Traders cannot understand how one nation can grow rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same gentlemen also refuse to understand how in the same country one class can enrich itself at the expense of another.

Do not imagine, gentlemen, that in criticising freedom of commerce we have the least intention of defending Protection.

One may be opposed to constitutionalism without being in favour of absolutism.

Moreover, the Protective system is nothing but a means of establishing manufacture upon a large scale in any given country, that is to say, of making it dependent upon the market of the world; and from the moment that dependence upon the market of the world is established, there is more or less dependence upon Free Trade too. Besides this, the Protective system helps to develop free competition within a nation. Hence we see that in countries where the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany for example, it makes great efforts to obtain protective duties. They serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute monarchy, as a means for the concentration of its own powers for the realization of Free Trade within the country.

But, generally speaking, the Free Trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the system of commercial freedom hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favour of Free Trade.

(conclusion)

Islands in the Doldrums (1962)

From the June 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil and sunshine 

Keeps the Yankees looking fine: 

Oil and sunshine, 

With a glass of local wine

Oil, sunshine, and Yankees. Perhaps the composer of this recently popular calypso was more interested in the local wine, but he summed up the importance of the West Indies in the modern world neatly enough.

Trinidad’s oil is the most important mineral product of the West Indies. Sunshine and a satisfactory rainfall allow crops (the most important being sugarcane) which form the basis of most of the islands’ economy. Lastly, the American Government keeps a stern, albeit paternal eye on the Caribbean as an important “outpost of democracy” and guardian of the eastern approaches to the Panama Canal.

But what are the West Indies? The term is in fact little more than an abstraction. To British people they mean those collections of islands forming the West Indies Federation. The French refer to les Antilles and mean particularly the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and French Guiana. Then there are the islands of the Dutch West Indies, the ’‘independent” island of Cuba, the American Virgin Islands, the twin “independent” states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the American satellite state of Puerto Rico. And what about the neighbouring mainland countries: British Guiana and British Honduras, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), and the Central American states bordering on the Caribbean? Do not their strategic positions and trading potentials label them as parts of the West Indies?

The truth is that the West Indies are a widespread collection of islands (Jamaica and Trinidad are 1,000 miles apart), possibly associated with countries on the South American mainland, with different cultural backgrounds, with people speaking many different languages, and having different economic affiliations to European and American colonial powers.

Little wonder that a succession of fact-finding committees and international committees of experts, have been sorely tried to propound a solution, within the framework of capitalism, for the ills of this economic, cultural, and political hodge-podge. And, as we shall see, problems there certainly are, especially for that section of the West Indian population which must seek an employer in order to live—the working class.

If the West Indies’ future is uncertain and unpromising, at least their past may be described with some accuracy: a past that exemplifies colonial expansion, capitalist accumulation of wealth, and the subjugation of a working class, with all the romance and colour of a Hollywood movie.

Search for Gold

The recorded history of the West Indies starts with their discovery by Columbus at the end of the fifteenth century. Columbus believed, and claimed, that he had found islands off the coast of Eastern Asia—hence the name West “Indies.”

The islands were already inhabited by tribes of aboriginal Indians, the Arawaks and the Caribs. These unfortunate Indians (the only "original” West Indians, despite Negro nationalist propaganda) were either destroyed or subjugated by the European settlers.

Following Columbus' various expeditions, the then strong Spanish crown founded a Spanish empire in the Caribbean and South America. Cuba and Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) were the bases from which forces sailed for the conquest of Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the lands in South America.

The driving force was the search for gold. More and more Spanish settlers arrived in quest of this, bringing with them the Spanish form, of municipal government (the cabildo), vestiges of which later continued under British rule. They also brought agricultural stock—rice, citrus fruit trees, bananas, and, most important of all, sugar-cane. Local crops were limited, the most important being maize, cassava (bread-stuff), and tobacco.

The search for gold proved fruitless on the whole but in the words of Parry and Sherlock, “The story of sugar is a continuous thread running through the whole history of the West Indies.” Because most of the West Indian islands are hilly and therefore have limited areas of arable land, the only economical crop was found to be one which gave a high yield per acre and a high price; it was mainly

because of these factors that sugar and not cotton became the staple crop. Furthermore, sugar can be grown by unskilled labour and does not exhaust the ground.

The shortage of labour (both skilled and unskilled) to grow, harvest, mill, and process the crop (sugar-cane must be milled and processed soon after harvesting) became a pressing problem for the Spanish land-owners: there were virtually no “free” labourers, very few “forced” labourers, and the Arawaks and Caribs were either extinct or unfitted for life as agricultural labourers. The first batch of Negro slaves from the West Coast of Africa to supply these labour needs were shipped by the Spanish to the West Indies early in the sixteenth century.

The forty-year period of economic and territorial domination of the West Indies by Spain was broken by the outbreak of war with France in 1536, and from that date France, Spain, Holland, and England were in more or less constant conflict over possession of the islands, trade routes, and trading rights. Admirals Drake and Hawkins were the most illustrious of England’s band of official pirates. Unofficial pirates, or buccaneers (the most famous being Captain Morgan), operated with the approval of colonial governors against Spanish settlements and shipping, and were paid by booty.

Islands were captured and re-captured. Barbados was the only island taken by England which never changed hands. Jamaica was taken by the British in the middle of the seventeenth century; this was a great prize, for a contemporary described Jamaica as “lying in the very belly of all commerce.” Trinidad was captured from the Spanish by the French, and by the British from the French in 1797, during the Napoleonic wars. Eventually, mainly because of superior sea power and possession of the only two naval dockyards (Port Royal in Jamaica and English Harbour in Antigua), Britain became the dominant imperialist power in the Caribbean.

The growth of the trade in sugar and the trade in men went hand in hand.

French and English settlers soon discovered that, along with cotton, West Indian tobacco (which was found to be inferior to the Virginian type) were not profitable crops; for reasons already given, and because the demand for it in Europe was growing steadily, sugar became the main crop.

Considerable capital was needed to establish a sugar factory, and a plantation had to be large enough to keep the factory supplied with sugar-cane; it is thus easy to see why the small sugar-cane holdings were soon swallowed up by large estates and why eventually the industry fell into the hands of a few capitalists. Today, for example, all the large estates and ail the factories in Trinidad are owned by Tate and Lyle.

Indentured Labour

There was soon a cry for labour to work the estates and the factories. First of all, indentured (“free") labourers were brought from Europe, with the promise of smallholdings at the end of their contracts (if they lived that long). When virtually all the arable land had been swallowed up by the large estates, the supply of indentured labourers rapidly dwindled. Political prisoners (“Royalists" and Irish) and convicted felons were shipped: these were dubbed “white slaves” by the Negroes and were treated as badly as, if not worse than, the Negro slaves. But these were not enough to satisfy the needs of the profit-hungry sugar owners and so, like the Spanish and Portuguese before them, the French and English planters had to buy slaves, mostly Negroes from the West Coast of Africa.

The slave traders were as anxious to sell their human commodities as the plantation owners were to buy them. By the middle of the seventeenth century a steady stream of slaves was leaving Sierra Leone, the Niger Delta, and the Slave and Ivory Coasts to face disease and death in the overcrowded slave ships, and an uncertain future of back-breaking toil at the hands of the rapacious sugar planters. Barbados had a few hundred Negroes in 1640, but by 1645 there were over 6,000, and in 1685 no less than 46,000.

There were few white sugar owners and overseers to control this rising black tide of resentful, sullen and undisciplined slaves, many of whom came from warlike tribes. Soon isolated uprisings caused severe penalties to be imposed; typical of such repressive acts of legislation was the French Code Noir.

The slave trade was one of the most profitable enterprises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—for the owners of the slave ships. The death-rate among the crews of the “slavers” was usually about the same as among the slaves they carried. Although the Spanish started the slave trade, eventually four countries (Portugal, Holland, England, and France) gained control. There was much competition between the various powers over the monopoly of such a lucrative business and to put a stop to keen Dutch competition Charles II of England granted a charter to the “Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa” in 1663. This slave-trading organisation later became the Royal Africa Company, about which Parry and Sherlock say: “Several members of the royal family were shareholders in this enterprise, which was to supply the English sugar colonies with 3,000 slaves a year at an average price of £17, or one ton of sugar, per slave. The purchase price in Africa at that time was about £3.”

The first European war to be fought over the West Indies began in 1739 between England, Spain, and France. It was frankly called a “war of trade,” and was dubbed “the war of Jenkin’s ear” after an English sea captain who complained to parliament of Spanish hindrance to his trading activities in the Caribbean. From this time the three powers fought intermittently until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, and many islands changed hands. For the English ruling class, this was a golden opportunity to cripple French sugar production by destroying both crops and machines and by capturing slaves. This period of imperialist skirmishing (which included the Seven Years’ War) was influenced, to the disadvantage of the English ruling class, by the American war of Independence, which drew English military and naval reserves from the Caribbean.

Plantation System

Despite wars and rumours of wars, however, for the sugar owners in the West Indian islands, the eighteenth century was probably the period of greatest prosperity. But it was also during this peak period of “plantation economy" that the seeds of future economic problems were sown, problems which teams of economic “experts,” government committees, etc., are attempting to solve to this day. The most important defect in the plantation system was monoculture, the growing of one crop. Other features were slavery, absentee ownership (most plantation owners lived in England and left the running of their estates to bailiffs), and the dependence of the traders on markets in the outside world.

To make matters worse, economic problems in the Caribbean have periodically been accentuated by natural disasters (hurricanes, droughts, and epidemic disease, such as cholera and yellow fever), from which some islands have taken years to recover.

However hard the planters tried, they were powerless to prevent their slaves learning about the world outside the slave compounds. It was thus inevitable that at the turn of the nineteenth century “leaders” emerged from, the ranks of the slaves: men who had heard the rallying cry of the French Revolution. “liberty, .equality, and fraternity,” and preached that this slogan should apply to slaves as well as to the plantation owners.

Slave Labour

Unrest and rebellion spread among the slaves and in 1791 the slave population of the northern plain of Saint-Domingue (later to be renamed Haiti) revolted, systematically firing some fields and houses and murdering the white inhabitants. Out of this bloody rising, during which both sides acted with the utmost savagery, arose the first Negro slave leader to prove himself competent both as a military commander and as a politician—Toussaint "L'ouverture.”

Movements for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade had for some years before the uprisings also been gaining strength in liberal circles in Britain. Various governments declared the slave trade illegal between the years 1808-1820 and slavery was abolished in all the West Indian colonies, except the Spanish, by the middle of the nineteenth century.

The erstwhile slaves soon found that they had exchanged one form of slavery for another. As one historian points out, “the Act which abolished slavery did not emancipate the slaves . . . As a social institution slavery disappeared . . . and it came back as a system of industry, the negroes . . . having to work as slaves for so many hours a week.”

Slavery was also a very mixed blessing for the plantation owners. It is true that the owners were reasonably assured of a constant supply of labourers who could not leave the plantations: following “emancipation” many ex-slaves left for more congenial work or to run smallholdings. But slave-labour was not very productive and the slave owners were bound to feed, clothe, and shelter their slaves. Sugar farming is largely seasonal. but the owners could not dispense with their slaves after the crop was harvested and processed as they now can with their wage-workers.

Michael La Touche

[To be concluded]

Mr Cube The Economist (1951)

Tate & Lyle's Mr. Cube

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tate &  Lyle, Ltd., have recently had a large size advertisement appearing in the daily press. The advertisement consists of a series of cartoons entitled, “Where all the money went in 1950.”

It is an attempt to show that out of a gross income for the year amounting to £84,435,000 only £618,000 was left for net dividends to stockholders, equal to 1/7 of a farthing for each pound of sugar sold.

The advertisement states that, “ Tate & Lyle, Ltd., employ 8,500 workers.” If you divide the net dividend of £618,000 by the 8,500 workers you find it amounts to over £72 per head.

Taxation on profits amounted to £1,228,000 which again divided by the number of employees equals over £144 per head. This is used for running the capitalist state machine.

The total profits before taxation amounted to £2,196,000, wages and employees benefits totalled £3,700,000 which with the so called Prosperity Sharing Scheme made a total of £3,818,000 paid to the workers.

This can be expressed as £2,196,000 Unpaid Labour over £3,818,000 Paid Labour.

The rate of Surplus value being just over 57 per cent.

This is being generous to Mr. Cube, as one cartoon states that “£1,770,000 went in overheads and special expenses which includes money spent in self-defence.”

Special expenses can cover a multitude of sins. (One of them is the advertisement). One thing that can be certain is that the workers produced the wealth for these expenses.

The series of cartoons can easily mislead workers who do not look into the figures closely, however the expression unpaid labour over paid labour clearly shows why Mr. Cube takes such an interest in economics. —He is a bright little chap.

D. W. Lock

Blogger's Note:

Mr. Cube (see the above illustration) was a genuine cartoon character devised as a clever and effective company propaganda ploy by Tate & Lyle against the Labour Government's supposed threat to nationalize the British Sugar Industry. More details on this obscure bit of British political history can be found at the following link, Mr Cube the sugar lump.

Finance and Industry: Making Money from Armaments (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making Money from Armaments

A generation or more ago, when most of the world's armaments were made by private companies, it seemed plausible to many people that if the armament-making came under government control and private profit was taken away there would be no deliberate encouragement of armament competition and the risk of war would be less. It was always a mistaken hope because the economic rivalries that make for war come from all the profit-seeking interests in all the countries, not just some sections or some countries. And in our own day armaments moving openly or secretly across the world are mostly despatched by governments not by private companies. These in any event could not operate without the consent of their own government.

The popular way of looking at the armament trade has changed too, and “merchants of death” has gone out of fashion as a term of abuse. This is not surprising, because the governments supplying the arms now present themselves as public benefactors, only concerned to help “good causes.” Anyway, all the governments are in the business—from the last Labour Government in Britain, which sold military aircraft abroad, to America, Israel and Russia.

Russia's latest business deal in its growing invasion of world markets is the reported sale to India of £11 million worth of equipment, including heavy transport aircraft, helicopters and road building machinery. (Guardian, 7/10/60). The India Government wanted to buy in America but the Russians offered the stuff at lower prices. The significant aspect is that the purpose of the purchase is to enable India “to defend its border with China.”

Of course, China may or may not continue to be Russia's ally, but business is business, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and who can object if Russia helps both sides.

It recalls the attitude of the Russian Government (and of the Communist Party) during the war, before Russia became involved. The Russian Government was selling oil and other materials to Germany and some simple-minded people here complained about it. Which brought from the Secretary of the Russia Today Society a letter to the Manchester Guardian assuring its readers that the Russian Government was quite willing to sell to both sides.

The "Alternative" Society

The people who refer to present-day capitalism as the affluent society make much of the greater variety of articles that are available to be bought by the mass of the population. They quote aggregate figures of washing machines, motor cars, refrigerators, etc., and the figures look impressive. But Mr. Mark Abrams, writing in the Observer (23/10/60) provides an analysis which puts the matter in better perspective. He divides families into two groups, those in “which the chief earner is in a white-collar post and earning at least £800 a year,” and those not in this group. About a third of families fall into the first group, and two-thirds into the second group, which he calls “working-class.”

He includes receivers of property incomes in this group as well as wage and salary earners. He shows that “only one item—the television set—is to be found in the majority of British homes.’' The rest are the possessions of minorities.

His list showing the percentage who own various items, among his “working-class” group is as follows:—

Television set            79 per cent.
Lawn mower             34 „ „
Washing machine ...  37 „ „
Car                            22 „ „
Refrigerator              13 „ „
House                         29 „ „

He does not make the important point that the percentage who own all of these items is, on his figures, at most 13 per cent. He does not include a telephone in this list; had he done so the percentage owning the lot would probably be under 10 per cent.

And he does not stress the point that “own” is an ambiguous term since millions of the houses and the rest are only “owned” by the user in the sense that he has them while paying off the mortgage or hire purchase instalments. And “car” includes all the barely roadworthy crocks.

Another enquiry (also referred to in the Observer) brings out that “many families when furnishing a home, prefer to leave some rooms bare rather than incur a small millstone of debt.” For the majority of workers it is not a question of moving all the things on the list but of owning one or two because they cannot afford them all—the alternative society. You can have full choice as long as you can afford what you buy.

A description of life in Stepney by Godfrey Hodgson (Observer, 21/8/60.) had the following which should further dampen the optimists.

  The Rev. Joseph Williamson, of St. Paul's, Dock Street, said that the best living quarters in his parish were the Peabody Buildings. They had no baths. The lavatories and sinks were outside the flats themselves, and were shared. “In illness, in winter especially, this is bad.” But all the other blocks of old flats were far worse.
  “Apart from the flats,” Father Williamson went on, “we have squalor beyond belief. Let me say in all seriousness that on a modern farm the accommodation provided for pigs is far superior.”

Canada’s Unemployment

The myth still receives wide acceptance that all the countries have for a decade had the low level of unemployment ruling in Britain. This ignores the years of massive unemployment that afflicted the workers in Germany and Italy until comparatively recently. And it ignores Canada. The Financial Times (28/10/60) printed a graph of unemployment in the past four years since January, 1957. It shows unemployment in Canada reaching 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. in each winter and never falling below 4 per cent. except early in 1957 and for a short period in 1959.

The Canadian Government has been calling special conferences to deal with the situation and admits that it threatens to get worse. Many British immigrants are coming back. The Canadian motor industry has been asking for tariff protection against the import of British cars.

Canadian workers out of a job or threatened with dismissal because of falling sales can derive what comfort they can from their Prime Minister’s remark that “the situation would get worse if action were not taken, and he promised that it would be taken before Parliament met.” Times (24th September, 1960.)

Russian Trade Policy

The oil industry has been worried by big Russian sales of oil at below the prices ruling in the rest of the world, but the Times (11/10/60) hopefully interprets some remarks made by Krushchev at a lunch in New York when he was asked: —

  Whether Russia would extend to other commodities the same sort of agreement on quotas that it had accepted already for tin, aluminium and diamonds.” According to Pravda “Mr. Krushchev replied that there was no reason why this principle should not be extended to other goods.”

The Times interprets this as meaning that “Russia is willing to join international commodity agreements provided that Western countries are prepared to allow the U.S.S.R. what it regards as a fair share of the market.” In the diamond industry it will be remembered that Russia now sells all its diamonds through the South African Diamond Group. A correspondent writing in Reynolds News (16/10/60) went further and suggested that Western oil interests are trying to do a deal with Russia.

   The leading capitalists in the world, the mammoth international oil companies, are planning to break through the Cold War barriers that have throttled top-level political contact between East and West since the Paris Summit fiasco. They are determined to make a vast oil deal with the Russians. In effect, they want to set up a cartel agreement that would span all the world's oil supplies . . . though the first news leaks, planned to test the temperature, refer to the scheme as a “ live and let live arrangement.”
   The Plan: Russia should be allowed to move immediately and extensively into the huge European oil market. With a one-fifth increase in consumption in 1959, this is still the world’s biggest market despite mounting African and Asian demands.
   In return, the Russians would offer the big international companies no oil challenge in the rest of the Western Zone and among the neutral nations.

Business Morality

Children may still be taught that honesty is the best policy and crime does not pay, but once they enter the adult world of business these notions fade away, not by “brainwashing” but simply by disuse; to be replaced by the practical rule that what is profitable is right, but when in doubt you should consult a good lawyer. In a successful take-over bid those who lose may set up an outcry about “shady methods,” but the business world really sees nothing wrong in taking over a concern at a fraction of its value, throwing out or buying out sitting directors, and getting rid of redundant workers. And when the takeover assumes the form of a government seizing foreign investments at dictated rates of compensation or none at all, the rest of the world sheds no tears over the “business immorality” of it but hurries in to trade with the new owners.

Cuba is a case in point. Fidel Castro’s government seized American-owned sugar plantations and factories and went on handling and selling the sugar on its own account. From the standout of capitalist morality these are "stolen goods.” So the American ex-owners started action to obstruct the sale of Cuban sugar by Castro’s government. At this point we turn to the Daily Telegraph (22/10/60), a correspondent of which had been making enquiries about the Americans’ chances.

The one thing entirely missing from the article was a nice upstanding declaration that of course they would not touch stolen goods, because that would be dishonest. The attitude rather was the purely legalistic one that the American companies do not stand a chance of proving their case. Not a denial that the Sugar is “stolen” but a near certainty that no American company can prove that a particular lot of unmarked Cuban sugar came from a particular factory which used to belong to the company.

The article quoted “a spokesman of a City firm” who said: “It is impossible to make any forecast. But if you have a cargo of, say 9,000 tons of sugar it would be very difficult for a person on the other side of the Atlantic to say: ‘These grains came from our factory'. "

Tate and Lyle’s are going on buying Cuban sugar and told the Daily Telegraph “We have not allowed our buying policy to change as a result of the dispute between the Cubans and the Americans.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Why Socialism? (1966)

From the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

This article has been adapted from a short Roneod pamphlet, "Socialism: Fact and Fiction", distributed by the small group of Socialists in Jamaica.

The opposition People’s' National Party plan recently published has been called a “Socialist Programme” although except for a few tax changes and the nationalisation of a few companies it contains nothing that the present Government have not promised to do in their own “development plan”. There is quite a conscious search presently going on, particularly among the young people, to find a definite purpose in the political field. Many declare themselves “Socialist”—it is quite fashionable and perhaps a romantic thing to do.

If you should examine the course of action proposed by the many “Socialists” some curious questions would inevitably crop up. For instance, it is stated that Jamaica should become a Republic and cease all allegiance to the Queen. This is regarded as a necessary step in a “Socialist Jamaica”. The Labour Party in England, which is regarded as Socialist, is quite happy however to work within a monarchy. There seems to be no unity of purpose, with all the various groups calling themselves Socialist throughout the world. What is called Socialism in one country might be regarded as Fascism in another.

Capitalism is the system under which we live. The system where profit is the only yardstick that measures production. Capitalism is international and therefore the problem of any one country is the problem of the world. These problems are not so evident perhaps according to the stage of development, but they are no less real. The interdependence of countries today has made it quite impossible for any one country to solve its problems within its boundaries and then gaze sympathetically across at its struggling neighbour. International Capitalism has placed us all under the same master wherever we abide.

A few years ago sugar enjoyed a great boom, as prices on the world market went sky high. We can all remember the slogans expressed for more sugar production. What is the situation today in the sugar industry? Is it not true that small farmers find it very uneconomical in planting sugar cane? Could any government have done anything to halt the drop in price of sugar on the world market? These are the fundamental questions that everyone who thinks of social problems should ask themselves. Of course, no political careerist or opportunist would dare think of such a question. They can “solve” every problem by blaming some individual.

It is not the people who administer Capitalism who are evil—it is the system itself. The pressure going on inside the sugar industry for mechanisation simply means that the Capitalists who own this industry realise the need for lower production costs to maintain their position on the market. If we were to do away with “private” Capitalism and have state Capitalism, as is suggested by all the “Left Wing Groups”, the situation would remain the same. There would still be the same pressure to keep production costs low so as to maintain export markets. Capitalism must try to keep costs in check whether on the export or home market, whether in a public concern or a private one. It is the laws of Capitalism that dictate what is to be done, and not the politicians who administer the system.

Socialism is common ownership, democratic control and distribution of all goods in the interest of all humanity. It is essentially world wide international and cannot be practised in any one country. Socialism will involve a fundamental change in the way people live. Money—that dead matter which dominates human life—will cease to be necessary. The roots of the present society will be completely uprooted and people will become truly liberated from fear and the many other mental tortures that civilised man is forced to endure under Capitalism. Only by the coming together of all countries with the sole objective of providing humanity with all its needs can war, that essential feature of Capitalism, be outdated. Mankind now has the means of feeding everyone, yet because of the restrictions of Capitalism, a quarter of the world’s people are hungry while food is stored away, or thrown away. The present system has outlived its usefulness; it is time we passed on to the next stage of human development.

What is to be done? Socialism can only be established when a majority of the workers throughout the world understand and desire it. Therefore, Socialist education is the key. This revolution cannot be rammed down the throats of the workers. The working class of the world must understand Capitalist society and realise the great need for Socialism. This will not be a minority movement, but the movement of the majority based on a common understanding and purpose. Our lives and happiness are to an extent determined by political action and so anything short of Socialism will be entirely useless. There are no short cuts and those who continually advocate such methods are exploiting ignorance to their own gratification, and to the frustration of those who believe in them.

Voice From the Back: Political Posturing (2013)

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

Political Posturing
Politicians love making grandiose claims that have nothing to do with reality and the president of the USA came up with a wild notion recently. ‘President Obama used the backdrop of the Brandenburg Gate yesterday to urge Russia to leave the Cold War behind by agreeing to a one-third reduction in its nuclear arsenal’ (Times, 20 June). The USA has 7,700 nuclear warheads and Russia has 8,500, so a one-third reduction would still leave enough nuclear warheads to burn the world to a crisp. Do you still listen to politicians’ ideas or give them any credence?


A Bleak Future
The following grim findings emerged from a poll carried out for the Association of British Insurers. YouGov asked 2,506 employees questions relating to retirement and welfare. ‘One in five working people believe that they will never retire. According to a survey being published today, of those who believe they will stop working full-time, more than four out of ten reckon they will have to keep a part-time job. Two thirds of those polled said they would struggle to meet the cost of paying for long-term care as they became infirm’ (Times, 9 July). Having suffered a lifetime of exploitation workers cannot even see some relief in old age.


Child Labour
In the industrial revolution British capitalism made its fortune on the exploitation of child labour, but the advent of the trade union movement, after a long hard struggle, saw that exploitation ended. Ever ready to make profits the British capitalist class have shifted their source of child exploitation to Asia. The British sugar giant Tate & Lyle has imported large volumes of sugar from Cambodia through a supplier that is accused of using child labour. ‘Tate & Lyle – which is the EU’s largest cane producer and whose ingredients are used in a wide range of foods around the world – has used the Thai KSL group since 2011 for its supplies from Cambodia. However KSL is alleged to have been complicit along with the Cambodian government, in the eviction of people from the land, arson and theft. ….. Children as young as nine years of age work on Cambodian plantations run by KSL.’ (Guardian, 9 July)


The Uncaring Society
Carers are being forced to cut back on essentials such as food and electricity because of the so-called bedroom tax. ‘Despite Government promises to protect them from the under-occupancy charge, one in six carers forced to pay it are falling behind on their rent and face eviction, research by Carer UK shows. …. Ministers pledged £25m in discretionary payments to protect carers and disabled people when the policy was introduced in April, but campaigners warned it would be only enough to support around 40,000 of the 420,000 disabled people affected by the cuts’ (Independent, 9 July). Just one in ten cases are receiving these discretionary payments on an ongoing basis, this latest research shows. When it comes to cutting welfare payments capitalism is ruthless even if you are disabled.


A Society Of Debtors
Politicians love to paint a picture of steadily improving living standards, but it is a complete illusion as a recent newspaper article by Christian Guy, Director of the Centre for Social Justice has revealed. ‘Yesterday’s grim figures revealed that more than 800,000 households will soon spend more than half their income on debt repayments. We already know that 274 people are declared insolvent or bankrupt every day, 88 properties are repossessed and average household debt, including mortgages, is almost £55,000’ (Times, 12 July). Hardly ‘steadily improving living standards’ is it?


A Grim Choice
In the city of Asbest in Russia workers face a grim choice – work to produce asbestos, which will probably kill you or else move somewhere else. Valentin K. Zemskov, who worked in the asbestos factory and developed asbestosis, a respiratory illness caused by breathing in  asbestos fibres summed up the position of workers in Asbest. ‘Still he said the city had no other choice. ‘If we didn’t have the factory, how could we live?’ he said gasping for air as he talked in the yard of a retirement home. ‘We need to keep it open so we have jobs’ (New York Times, 13 July). Inside a socialist society no one would have to endure such a hellish dilemma.