Tolpuddle 2009 (2009)

Party News from the September 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July we had the Tolpuddle Rally in sunny Dorset. Tolpuddle is little village near Dorchester, where, in days gone by, six agricultural labourers were transported to Australia for having the temerity to organise a union to protect their wages. Different unions still turn out today to commemorate the beginning of the trade union movement, under the auspices of the TUC. The Socialist Party has been attending for a good thirty years or more and this year’s was great, as the weather was very kind to us, not raining, not too hot.

Various comrades and sympathisers turned out to ensure a successful weekend of selling, to the tune of £59 literature and £56 for promotional goods. We gave away dozens of Socialist balloons to (usually) happy and grateful children — and dozens of leaflets to their parents! The parade was bigger than ever. Billy Bragg sang songs, there were stalls aplenty and thousands of people. One comrade suggested we should have a socialist camp next year with a banner.

Although there were some doubts that we would be able to manage two stalls as we put lots of free back issues of the Standard on one of the stalls and by the end of the weekend, most of them had gone, so this ‘freebie’ stall actually worked really well. All in all, a pleasant, good natured rally that everyone enjoyed and a valuable outlet for our ideas — we hope to see even more comrades and friends there next year. 

Veronica Clanchy

Obituary: Paul Hannam (2009)

Obituary from the August 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

South West Regional Branch regret to have to report that Paul Hannam took his own life at the beginning of July. He was 52. He joined in 1997 and when he worked he was a skilled machinist and member of the AEU. I met first Paul at the National Schizophrenia Fellowship some 15 years ago. He was a generous supporter of both Head Office and more latterly SW Regional Branch, despite being on benefits. Whilst increasing ill health prevented him from attending meetings and he was in and out of St Anne’s hospital, his support for socialism never failed. He never threatened to leave the party, remaining steadfast in his quiet support. He leaves his brother, Barry and his girlfriend, Mary. We wish them our deepest condolences.

VC 

Letters: After Bulger (1994)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

"After Bulger"

Dear Editors,

A lot of what you say nukes sense. However, I’m afraid I disagree strongly with Steve Coleman in his article "After Bulger" (Socialist Standard, January), when he says that the British tabloid press are worse than James Bulger’s killers. As far as I know, the Daily Mirror and Daily Star have never abducted or killed anyone.

Steve Coleman writes "The boys played video games for hours.” Well, so did I when 1 was ten, but I’m not a murderer.

Don’t get me wrong, what you say about the capitalist system is quite true, but I think you’re wrong to try and make excuses for those two bastards. Being "confused and anti-social" is no excuse for murder.

And finally, I don’t understand why, under socialism, you would abolish the police, courts and jails. Surely, that would lead to lawlessness and anarchy?

Ivan Peters, 

Stockport

Reply:

In saying that we cannot endorse punishing those whose foul actions are a direct result of being brought up under this system, we are not making excuses, as if to suggest that it was acceptable for two boys to murder a smaller boy. In fact, our article stated clearly that we refuse either to blame or to excuse.

What we are saying is that these awful kinds of behaviour will inevitably happen in a social system which glorifies violence, gives medals to killers, corrupts the social environment in which young people grow up and denies us the right to be innocent by dragging us at an early age into the sordid priorities of an oppressively anti-social system. Attacking the effects might satisfy the anger which our correspondent is not alone in feeling, but only by eradicating the cause will we prevent it from happening again . . . and again

Police, courts and prisons are products of an oppressive social order which regards punishment as being the only response to wrongdoing. The problem is that the very laws which our correspondent is concerned about are only there to defend property relationships. Abolish property and we will not need laws; we can live co operatively as equals in a lawless society.

What about anti social behaviour which is not property based? In fact, much of that is really property related when it comes down to it: for example, rape is essentially about the right to take for free what is not yours; many murders occur in possessive relationships.

But even in those cases of inexplicable viciousness and sadism, what evidence is there that prisons do anything to cure such behaviour? Surely it would be far better for such people, should they exist in a socialist society, to be given help to understand their anti-social behaviour and to feel remorse for any harm that they caused others. Police and prison screw's don’t help that process.

Rather than put the pictures of these two boys on the front pages of the tabloids and call them names, would it not be more sensible for society to devote its efforts to teaching them to behave co-operatively? Of course, people need to be protected from those who are anti-social, but prisons only make the prisoners more resentful and anti-social.

In a capitalist society punishment is the cheapest response. Only in a socialist society can we not only remove the cause of gratuitously violent behaviour, but deal with the effects of it if it occurs in a way that is humane. 

Editors.

"When I was very young . . ."

Dear Editors,

When I was very young, I overheard the owner of an apple orchard say, "I’m letting them rot on the trees, it doesn't pay to pick them”. The year was 1922. I was bewildered, all those acres of luscious apples . . .

When I reached the age of 16 my father sat me down and tried to explain something that was apparently bothering me. He told me that he worked eight hours a day and only got paid for two hours. Once again 1 was bewildered. I could not understand why people agreed to do such a thing. I was told, of course, that they were not aware of the robbery.

In 1929 there was another event that was puzzling. The stock market crashed. Rich folks lost all their wealth overnight and some solved their problems by jumping out of windows located on the 10th floor.

Today, we read about millions of people dying of starvation because they cannot buy food. The owner of the apple orchard goes broke because he cannot sell his apples, at a profit.

Today there are mini-wars springing up all over the globe. In Russia they have not yet decided who is going to be top dog. It may end up in a civil war ... then there would probably be intervention by other nations?

There are people who have extreme wealth. They own private jets, fabulous homes all over the world and perhaps a large yacht in some secluded cove . . . Other folks are hunkered under an overpass for the night.

The culprit of course is the profit system, capitalism. The reason that it still exists is that folks just don't realize that the solution is Socialism.

Have a nice day. 

H.W.

Fascism

Dear Editors,

May I be allowed to respond to your reply to my letter, published in the December issue, on the subject of the emotional plague of fascism.

Confirmation of your fixation on "Economic Man” is verified (as with your general approach to other matters) by your vulgar interpretation of Marxism that purely socio-economic factors are responsible for fascism.

It is essential to repudiate that fascism is the ideology or action of a single individual or nationality or of any ethnic or political group and to strongly deny that it as an exclusively socio-economic foundation. But to understand that fascism is the expression of the irrational character structure of the average human being whose primary biological needs and impulses have been suppressed for thousands of years.

The social function of this suppression and the crucial role played in it by the authoritarian family and the church should be carefully analysed. Every form of organised mysticism, including fascism, relies on the unsatisfied orgastic longing of the masses.

The human character structure that creates organised fascist movements exists, dominating our present social conflicts. "Fascism" is not a political party but a specific concept of life and attitude towards man, love and work. Who has not met the black, Jewish, Indian or Oriental fascist and racist? Who has not met the materially comfortable and financially secure racist? Or the “red fascist"?

Who docs not remember the scenes of the 1930s of countless millions of workers overwhelmed with fanatical zeal with racist and fascist madness?

Who can ignore the mindless adoration of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin?

Once again we are witnessing that fast growing onslaught of the "fascist" emotional plague — worldwide.

The previously mentioned work by Dr Wilhelm Reich of The Mass Psychology of Fascism will help to reinforce the facing of the tasks, to combat these dangers, for today’s Marxists. We must all understand the emotional plague.

Lionel Rich, 

London NW6

Reply:

You keep saying we are "vulgar Marxists" and partisans of "economic man”, but what about our articles that take into account Marx’s theory of alienation (see previous reply and last month’s article)? 

Editors

Abortion

Dear Editors,

Unlike Ali Browning (Letters, December), I don’t think that abortion and contraception are completely separate issues. How about the IUD which prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the uterus? What about the ‘morning after"pill? Are these contraceptives or early forms of abortion, or both?

Also, for the women facing an unwanted pregnancy, when contraception has failed, or simply wasn’t used, abortion is one important option.

Ideally, there would not be any unwanted pregnancies, but there are, and I think that there will be, even in a Socialist world, with all the best sex education, access to contraception etc.

In the case of an unwanted pregnancy (distinct from "unplanned"), the woman should take into account the wishes of her partner and the advice of her doctors, but in the end the woman herself should have the final say. Not priests, doctors, nor even her partner should have more rights over her than she has herself.

As medical technology gets more and more sophisticated, and younger and smaller babies can be saved, are we to say that abortion should only be performed earlier and earlier in the foetus’s development?

I think that abortion should be performed ‘as early as possible and as late as necessary". I believe, as most Socialists do, that people should have a choice whether they want children or not. Thus I condemn the system in China, which limits family-size to one child and tries to force women expecting a second child to have an abortion, as much as I condemn LIFE and SPUC for trying to prevent women from having an abortion.

Perhaps it is best summed by by saying that I believe in choice. For Socialists still pondering the rights and wrongs of abortion, I found The Socialist Feminist by Janet Richards very helpful.

Veronica Clanchy, 

Poole

Letters: "New World Disorder" (1994)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

"New World Disorder"

Dear Editors,

The article "New World Disorder" in the January issue seems to imply that it would have been viable to retain the state capitalist systems of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and that the present mess there is due to the West having forced their abandonment. This concept is in my opinion seriously in error.

It is true that the Reagan SDI initiative finally broke the back of the Soviet Union, but this merely accelerated an inevitable end. The retreat from state capitalism is occurring all over the world, because that form has been undercut by the free (or at least freer) market version. Technological advances such as the rise of the computer coupled with the spread of the multinationals have favoured the free market and counteracted earlier trends in the opposite direction.

"Western economic approaches" have only "clearly failed in capitalist nations" in the sense that every approach within capitalism must "fail" from the working-class viewpoint. From the capitalist viewpoint, they form the best option, albeit from a grim bunch. The fact that capitalism has reached this point, after a period in which it seemed that clamping the market a la USSR was a good thing, strengthens yet further the case for Socialism.

The mess in Russia and eastern Europe Is greatly aggravated because the switch to the free market has been so long delayed. Cuba seems fated to go the same way, but China with a more liberal economy, may yet escape the worst. Any attempt to restore the status quo ante is foredoomed and will simply recreate again the situation which caused the crash in the first place. Significantly it is the Russian fascists who have come closest to advocating such a reactionary policy. Otherwise it has merely been a case of slowing down the pace of reform.

That is not to say that clamping the market cannot temporarily benefit many workers. What is being said is that, in the longer term, such economies are highly likely to be undercut by those who haven't clamped the market, with all the devastation this result may bring with it.

Ted Edge, 

Lytham St. Annes

Corrections

Dear Editors,

Thank you for printing my letter about abortion. May I correct a couple of printing mistakes. I wrote "Not priests, doctors, nor even her partner should have more rights over her body than she has herself." Unfortunately you missed out the word "body".

Also the book I recommended is "The Sceptical Feminist", by Janet Richards, not the "Socialist" Feminist. 

Veronica Clanchy,

Poole

The race to the bottom (2010)

From the June 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Could Western corporations do without sweatshop production?

Sweatshops are workplaces where the working conditions are extremely poor and health and safety laws are not enforced or are non-existent. News reports of fires which have killed dozens of people because fire doors were locked in sweatshop factories are not uncommon. Wages are very low, there may be bullying and intimidation, especially of anyone trying to improve conditions. Hours are long and the work itself may be very demanding and even dangerous. Sick workers cannot take time off and are penalised if they leave the factory. Sub-contractors for European, Japanese and American corporations refuse their staff breaks, monitoring the times they go to the toilet and harassing and humiliating staff. Profit comes before safety, before any quality of life the workers may have, before any idea of comfort.

Developing countries are producing an increasing amount of the world’s manufacturing production. This is symptomatic of the new international division of labour, whereby Western countries close their factories at home, where wages rates are higher, and invest in factories in the ‘Third World’ as the labour costs are so much lower. Unfortunately for the ‘Third world’ workers, it was not undiluted joy at the prospect of having jobs and a bit of money. The labour costs might be cheaper because the cost of living is cheaper, but the wage rates can be so low that workers find it hard to survive in Thailand and Cambodia for instance.

Western corporations used to be able to distance themselves to a certain extent from the conditions in their sub-contractors assembly plants, because of the geographical distance between, say, Britain and China. People in Britain did not necessarily realise that when they bought an item of clothing from Umbro, a British company, it was actually made in China in sweatshop conditions, conditions that would just not be acceptable in modern day Britain.

Campaigns by Human Rights agencies, such as Oxfam and the Clean Clothes Campaign, have publicised the conditions suffered by workers in the sweatshops. Although companies may try to say that they are not responsible for the conditions of work in the firms they sub-contract out to, campaigners have appealed to the sense of fair play and compassion in consumers. Although not all consumers are worried by the idea of sweatshop conditions for the people who make their clothes, the corporations do not want a bad image in the media and have produced corporate ‘codes of conduct’ and company policies which try to improve their standing in the public eye as well as (maybe) alleviate some of the worst problems.

How far they have managed to clean up their image or help people in sweatshops in the developing world is debatable. According to Oxfam, the ‘race to the bottom’ was inevitable as you cannot have very cheap clothes and also give your workers a decent standard of living. Although British workers also suffered from sweatshops in the past, a mixture of increased unionisation, philanthropy and labour laws helped to improve conditions for the working class.

The question of how far can Western corporations distance themselves from sweatshop production can only really be understood by looking at the bigger picture, which is: why is the pursuit of profit, to the detriment of all the finer things in life for the working class, so all pervasive?

The main goal in capitalism is the pursuit of profit. Profit is put before needs. This is why millions of people do not have enough to eat – they simply don’t have the money to buy food. The world is quite capable of growing enough food for everyone and more, but no money means no food for poor people. Poor people are stuck if they cannot improve their wages and conditions due to merciless capitalists, unless they either migrate legally or illegally to another better paid job in another country.

According to philosopher Iris Marion Young, we cannot blame consumers directly for the misfortune of the sweatshop workers, but we can accept political responsibility and change the process. She said that, although many individuals are involved, from the manufacturers to the consumers, they should all play their part in improving the lot of the ‘Third World’ workers. This is unrealistic in a capitalist world. Capitalist corporations are there to make money and all we can do is alleviate the symptoms – unless we cure it completely by changing the economic system in which we live. There will always be someone who wants to make even more profit, by forcing poor conditions on the workers, or moving the factory elsewhere to where the labour laws are laxer, as happened from Mexico to China, when some macquiladoras (or assembly plants) in Mexico were closed so the capitalist corporations could find cheaper labour elsewhere. And consumers may not even know where else to buy their clothes.

So, although Oxfam and the Clean Clothes campaign have brought the attention of the media to the practices of manufacturers, still people cannot see it for themselves ‘next door’ so are immune to the suffering. The suffering is too far away. They would help their next door neighbour but that is in close proximity. People at a distance are ‘out of sight, out of mind’. When even photos can be taken different ways, people would be overwhelmed if they did not block out some charitable appeals.

Some people think that the third world workers can work themselves out of poverty, in the way of the ‘Asian tigers’, without realising that the odds are stacked against them and they cannot repeat the success story of say, Hong Kong. The workers are very much subjugated and repressed in these assembly plants. It is difficult to see where they could help themselves, anyone found trying to start a union is quickly out of a job.

The Western corporations are just trying to do what they have to do in capitalism: make the biggest profit they can. If they don’t their rivals will undercut them and they will eventually go out of business or be taken over. It is a dog-eat-dog world, and whereas people have to acquire visas and passports, corporations and capital have relative ease of flows across the world. Money eases the wheels of commerce, but the migration of people can be very much resented and resisted, as in Mexico with the self-styled American Border Patrol.

Capitalists, who make up the richest 5 percent or so in the world, may not be ‘bad’ people: they may give to charity, go to church and be kind to children and animals. But back at work, the system makes them behave in a ruthless race to make the biggest profits. If they don’t, they go under. Charities like Oxfam and the Clean Clothes Campaign are just whistling in the wind. They may dampen down the worst excesses of the capitalist profit-seeking, but they can never stop exploitation until and unless they help to usher in a world, where people are free to enjoy their lives instead of making millions for the very few rich capitalists at the top.

Veronica Clanchy