Pathfinders: Conspiracy of Dunces (2007)

The Pathfinders column from the August 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whatever is the point of psychology? Is it really a science if most of its theories are not testable, its tests not controllable and its predictions not reliable? Worse, it takes no account of cultural and political context, focussing on the individual as if they live alone on a desert island, which removes the very large but, for psychologists, awkward possibility that society and not the individual is the problem. Whatever useful insights it may have afforded over the years could be as nothing to the damage it has done to individuals and to social preconceptions about individuals, condemning people in droves to a panoply of 'isms' and 'ologies' and 'opathies' rather as Soviet doctors used to diagnose political dissent as a mental illness to be treated by hospital confinement in a gulag. Generations of mentally unstable people may well have been relentlessly tortured by well-meaning practitioners of 'obvious' truths which could turn out to be wrong, such as the idea that it is best to relive your childhood potty traumas instead of letting sleeping dogs lie (New Scientist, February 3). Small wonder many recovered mental health patients themselves regard 'therapist' as two words.

Psychology, like string theory, exists in the grey hinterland somewhere out of reach of mainstream science but still disproportionately influential in the intellectual zeitgeist, somehow not quite untrue enough to disregard completely, but frustratingly beyond any concrete and reliable quantification. But whereas the nutty and mind-bending world of quantum mechanics can at least point to its equations as evidence of its roots in solid ground, psychology has its feet in shadow and its head in the clouds, as amorphous and elusive as the mind-states of the individuals it claims to illuminate.

A recent article in New Scientist about the perennial phenomenon of conspiracy theories inadvertently underlines just how bovine psychologists can be in their mutual conspiracy to ignore the real world around them (July 14). Beginning with the mildly interesting observation that those who believe one conspiracy theory are more likely to believe others, and that the 18-35 age range, and those in the lower income brackets, are the most susceptible, the article goes on to propose the intriguing idea that major events cannot, in the popular mind, have trivial causes, because our worldview cannot allow it. Positing ourselves as rational creatures in a supposedly ordered and rational universe, we shy away from the hideous tyranny of randomness, that force of nature which defies our control and thus denies us our sense of meaning and 'place'. Thus, Princess Diana didn't die because a driver got drunk, it was all a vast conspiracy involving the top echelons of power. Ditto JFK, who ninety percent of Americans believe could not possibly have been offed by one lone nutter with a rifle and some personal issues but rather good eyesight. Ditto 9/11, whose reverberations spanned the globe like Krakatoa, and which clearly couldn't have been simply the work of a few homicidal amateurs who got very, very lucky.

As with so many arguments in psychology, there is something in all of this, though not much. True, people like a sense of order, and in an ordered world, effects ought not to be wildly disproportionate to their causes. Yet people don't automatically create a conspiracy theory out of their children getting randomly run over in the street, or losing their job, or suffering some other deep and personal tragedy. And why not? Because in these cases, they are usually in possession of the facts. And this is the key social difference which, as usual, the psychological explanation removes from consideration.

People don't fall for conspiracy theories because of some metaphysical hunger for proportionality, but because they know - and those in the lower economic reaches know particularly well - that the working class in general, like the proverbial mushrooms, are kept in the dark and fed on shit, and that in such solitary confinement, imposed by shadowy jailers with almost biblical power over the means of communication, almost anything might be true.

So, no real need to invoke psychology at all. Put any sentient, self-aware animal in an environment where they can't trust their senses, and pretty soon they'll stop functioning 'rationally' and display all the signs of being mad as hatters.

What is particularly unfortunate about conspiracy theories is not that they foster a view of the world as hopelessly in thrall to some shadowy elite with god-like power, because this is largely true. What it incorrectly encourages is the much more damaging idea that this elite is actually much cleverer than the rest of us.

In fact, politics, even geo-politics, is not brain surgery, and world leaders, despite their privileged backgrounds, are not exceptionally gifted individuals. Anyone who can run a corner shop could run a country, given the same infrastructure and advisors as the present incumbents, and allowing the same level of incompetence in an economic system which is anyway chaotic, unpredictable and accident-prone. They may not do any better, but they wouldn't do any worse.

And thus the central mistake of conspiracy theorists is the notion that anyone is really in control of anything. Did Blair force the UK population into war with Iraq against their will, based on power and intelligence they didn't have? No, he lied through his teeth and then held his nerve, while the protestors held a couple of big demos and then gave up, satisfied that they had done their bit. He didn't really have the power to go to war, he just bluffed the working class into believing he did.

And the resulting quagmire of blood in Iraq illustrates perfectly why the cultural institution of leadership, based as it is on this assumption that there are 'experts' who know better than us, can be so catastrophic. Just as science in the US cannot advance until the reactionary moron in the White House is removed, so it is only with the retiring of Blair that a new administration can start to make tentative noises about 'reconsidering' the Iraqi affair. A socialist democracy is one which presupposes that everyone is in possession of the facts and that there is no leader whose decisions cannot be reversed, even when the disastrous consequences are screaming at everyone.

Yet the notion that those in control know what they're doing is hard to shift, even as news comes that many biohazard centres have failed to report accidents and leaks, because there is a culture of silence, reinforced by the unexpected jailing of one scientist who did report losing some vials of plague (New Scientist, July 14), and that you can buy dirty bomb materials like caesium in the US because nobody checks your credentials (New Scientist, July 27).

Fortunately perhaps, those whose messianic task is to attack the institutions of 'western imperialism' by removing limbs and heads from innocent workers, are no more competent than anyone else. What is overwhelmingly apparent from the recent stories of the failed London bombers, with their rucksacks full of soggy chapatti flour, and the bizarre and shambolic episode of the two doctors and their astonishingly low-tech attempt to set fire to Glasgow airport, is the towering ineptness of these suicidal warriors of the new order. As New Scientist couldn't help wondering, with their medical knowledge and access to drugs and radioactive material, why on earth the two Glasgow doctors couldn't have come up with something more imaginative than a Range Rover with a few gallons of petrol on board. Still, on reading the protestations of innocence made by those other men who were amazed to find themselves being prosecuted, and just recently jailed, for loudly and persistently advocating mass-murder in the wake of the Mohammed Cartoons affair (they claimed they were making 'a joke'), it is clear that IQ is not an inexhaustible commodity among terrorists any more than it is in the establishment.

Can all this possibly be explained by the Peter Principle, we ask? This is the famous idea, formulated in his 1968 book by Dr Lawrence J. Peter, that in a hierarchy every member tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence. The subversive corollary of this, which Dr Peter took some care to avoid stating explicitly, concerned as he was primarily with business organisations, is that all hierarchical organisations, including the capitalist system itself, are necessarily run by idiots.

Surely not, you protest. Wouldn't such a world be insanely self-destructive, out of control and in defiance of every principle of common sense and good management? It cannot be so. The conspiracy theorists, for one, would never allow it.

Paddy Shannon

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (8)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the eighth of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 656 friends!

Recent blogs:

1) Engels on Thomas Muenzer
2) Boom goes bust

This week's top quote:

"Indeed, in my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.
And so for the past ten years I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the Socialist movement." George Orwell, Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, March 1947.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Chomsky on Class

Recent post from the socialist blog, Mailstrom:
Chomsky on Class

Borders Crossed (2007)

From the August 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

It is all too easy to blame immigrants for causing or at least aggravating problems such as unemployment, bad housing or crime. Whether it is a matter of people from Eastern Europe or South Asia in Britain, or Hispanics in the United States, or Germans in Switzerland, a finger can always be pointed at 'them' for making things worse for 'us'. Socialists, however, prefer to take a wider view, to see processes like immigration as part of world capitalism and its historical development.

In the first place, there are many arguments in favour of immigration made by supporters of capitalism. Workers are more productive in developed than in so-called developing countries, so migrants can produce more in the UK or US than in (say) Mexico or Indonesia, causing the global economy to expand. It tends to be the younger, brighter, more adventurous who migrate, and they are prepared to do the 3D jobs (dirty, difficult, dangerous) that other workers are reluctant to take on — in transport or the hotel industry, for instance. Migrants send remittances to their families back home, thus boosting the local standard of living, and (unlike much official aid) such remittances genuinely go to workers and peasants rather than to bureaucrats or corrupt dictators. Population in the country that migrants go to is kept up by younger migrants, so avoiding the supposed problem of disproportionately many elderly. Allegedly, then, everybody benefits from migration, and free movement is moreover a basic 'human right'. Some writers would compare restrictions on migration to apartheid in South Africa, one of the cornerstones of which was strict laws about where black people could live and work.

Arguments along these lines are found in books such as Philippe Legrain's Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them — which should really be called Immigrants: Capitalism Needs Them. For that is what is really being claimed. Migrants provide capitalists with a supply of cheap, flexible labour, which they have not had to pay to educate, into the bargain. Even before capitalism, there were labour shortages, solved by immigration — the period after the Black Death in the fourteenth century is an example. But capitalism, with its insatiable appetite for labour power, is the true era of increased demand. Acute shortage of workers after the Second World War led to the importation of workers from the West Indies. During the oil boom in the Gulf, large numbers of cheap labourers migrated, including nearly five million to Saudi Arabia. Lebanon, too, has many immigrant workers from Syria, who perform much of the unskilled labour. In Scotland many employers are concerned that the country's population has fallen below five million, and look to immigrants to make up the shortfall. This year, British farms have lost large parts of their strawberry crop, because there are not enough immigrant workers prepared to come and pick the fruit, which highlights the fact that capitalism sometimes needs immigrant workers to keep profits up.

Rival capitalists, however, take different views on the usefulness or otherwise of immigrant labour. In the US, Bush recently attempted to set up a formal guest worker system. 'Illegal' immigrants currently there would have been allowed to apply for citizenship, at a price of course. But the Senate defeated the bill, preferring to maintain border security. One employer who supported the reform commented that its opponents were 'destroying the economy to save the US border' (BBC News Online, 29 June).

Over the centuries many different peoples have migrated to the British Isles, from Vikings to Italians, Jews to Africans. In both World Wars the British Army contained many troops from overseas (almost a third in the Great War). Many cherished British institutions were developed by migrants — not just Marks and Spencer but Moss Bros, Burton's, ICI and meals on wheels. Even the figureheads at the top of the tree are migrants: the royal family was French after the Norman Conquest, and later German. Queen Victoria, often seen as one of the greatest British monarchs, had almost all German ancestors, and she and Prince Albert spoke German to each other.

As such examples might suggest, movement across national frontiers was once less encumbered than it is now. The Aliens Act of 1905 and the imposition of passports during the First World War led to all the paraphernalia of visas, border controls, illegal immigration and so on. Immigrant ships could now be turned back, and customs officers could refuse entry to those deemed unable to support themselves. But the whole border and migration system is very expensive to maintain, another reason why many capitalists dislike it. In 1999, for instance, the Immigration and Naturalization Sevice in the US had a budget of over $4 billion, mostly spent on the border with Mexico.

It is often objected that migrants move from one country to another in order to claim benefits and live off the backs of 'indigenous' people. But there is no reason to think this is true in the vast majority of cases. Benefits are low, and most migrants are not entitled to them anyway. The migration journey can be expensive and hard, often indeed fatal, with many dying at sea on leaky boats or while trying to cross a frontier. Migrants are rarely well off in the country they move to, forming an underclass with little if any security of employment or housing. A committee of the British parliament described official attitudes to migrants and paying benefits to them as 'a deliberate policy of destitution', a rare example of straight talking from such a body.

Margaret Thatcher famously talked of people afraid of being 'swamped' by immigrants, a refrain taken up by the British National Party and MigrationWatch. The latter want strict limits on numbers of migrants, while the BNP want to stop immigration to the UK completely and start a programme of 'voluntary' resettlement. Even workers who do not support such ideas may still blame migrants as convenient scapegoats. This is often based on totally wrong ideas, such as that the proportion of immigrants in the British population is far higher than its true figure of four percent, or that asylum-seekers receive much more in benefits than the measly sum they actually get.

The Socialist response to all this is simply to point out that poverty and social disruption are caused by capitalism, a social system which requires the vast majority of the population to rely on selling their labour power to survive. With or without immigration there will be unemployment, homelessness, crime. Migration is the other side of globalisation, the massive increase in the interdependence of various parts of the planet. Investment is directed overseas, as capitalists look for the biggest profit they can extract and build factories or sweatshops in China, Thailand, and so on. But at the same time some jobs have to be done in the developed world — foodstuffs can be grown half way around the world, but the cooks, waiters and dishwashers have to work in restaurants in London or Manchester.

Equally, talk about migration undermining indigenous culture is so much hogwash. A nation is not something natural but an artificial idea that has been constructed over the centuries, based on accidents of geography and history. From fish and chips to curry and pizza, food in Britain is a mixture just as much as the inhabitants of these islands are. Globalisation may be leading to a unitary world culture, but Starbucks and American television are more responsible for this than migration.

"Open borders" is a capitalist slogan, not one that Socialists endorse. Socialism will be a world without borders and with no concept of migration, where we will all be at home anywhere.

Paul Bennett

Howard Zinn’s ’Marx in Soho’

"Marx in Soho – A Play on History" Howard Zinn. South End Press

Witty, imaginative, to the point, with the ability to stir the emotions from frustration and anger to amusement, hilarity even, this was originally conceived as a traditional play which Zinn later reworked into this monologue. Zinn read Das Kapital (Volume 1 at least) before the age of twenty and was excited to recognize "certain core truths" about the value of labour, surplus value and the division of the classes, i.e. labour was the source of all value; labour produced a value beyond its meagre wages; surplus value went into the pockets of the capitalist class.

The play was written at the time when the collapse of the Soviet Union brought on much gloating from the media and politicians because "not only was 'the enemy' gone, but the ideas of Marxism were discredited." Zinn wanted to show "that Marx's critique of capitalism remains fundamentally true in our time." The opening of the play has Marx, having been granted an hour to return to Earth to defend his stance of a century and a half earlier, arriving in the wrong Soho – New York, not London – to point out the relevancy of his writing to today's working population (the audience). Zinn states that the major events are historically accurate but that there is some literary licence regarding his meetings with Bakunin and the relationships within his own family (especially with Jenny and Eleanor) and although most of the dialogue is invented he uses Marx's own words liberally.

This is a refreshingly different approach to bringing the fundamental ideas of Marx home, stressing, by using humour, just how relevant the principles of Das Kapital still are. "Did I not say 150 years ago that capitalism would enormously increase the wealth of society but that this wealth would be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands?---(reads from newspaper)—'Giant merger of Chemical Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank. 12,000 workers will lose jobs---Stocks rise.' And they say my ideas are dead."

Commonly held confusions about communism and socialism are laid bare here with Marx becoming angrier as he (from this end of the 20th century perspective) looks back at Stalin's legacy. He barks out "Socialism is not supposed to reproduce the stupidities of capitalism." Industry, war, national borders, prisons, the Paris Commune, education, all subjects are covered with relevant jibes at the current political situation – "because people voted, it was thought they had a democracy. A common mistake."

Marx's anger builds as he remonstrates at the slowness of succeeding generations to accept and act on what he foretold but, realizing that he only has limited time to get his message across at this, his second coming, he mellows somewhat, reiterates the basic premises and leaves us with hope for the future – if we get off our asses!

This book is fun and will serve both to rekindle and enliven the tired socialist spirit and to encourage and further motivate active participation by armchair socialists.

Janet Surman

Red Crosses for Johnson & Johnson

From the Socialist Courier blog:

Capitalism cares little for society other than as a milk-cow for profits and further profits. Socialists are rarely shocked by the depths of decency that capitalists will go to accrue profits.

Johnson and Johnson is suing the American Red Cross, alleging the charity has misused the famous red cross symbol for commercial purposes. The lawsuit asks for sales of disputed products - also including medical gloves, nail clippers, combs and toothbrushes - to be stopped and unsold items to be handed over to Johnson and Johnson. The firm is also seeking damages equivalent to the value of such goods sold in supermarkets such as Wal-Mart.

Johnson and Johnson claim a deal with the charity's founder in 1895 gave it the "exclusive use" of the symbol as a trademark for drug, chemical and surgical products. It said American Red Cross had violated this agreement by licensing the symbol to other firms to sell certain goods. The lawsuit argues that the firm reached an agreement with the charity's founder Clara Barton about the commercial use of the symbol for certain products. It maintains that the charter did not give the charity the right to engage in commercial activities which would conflict with a private company.

The American Red Cross described the lawsuit as "obscene", adding that it believed the firm's actions were financially motivated.

It said many of the products at issue were health and safety kits and that profits from their sale had been used to support disaster-relief campaigns.

Alan Johnstone

Chomsky on Anarchism and the State

Hat tip to Alan J of Mailstrom blogging fame for finding the excerpt from a recent Chomsky interview.
We have issues with Chomsky's characterisation of Lenin and Trotsky actions as being part of the "orthodox Marxist" tradition but, for all that, it is an interesting excerpt. The whole interview with Daniel Mermet can be accessed here.

Daniel Mermet: Critics tend to lump you together with the anarchists and libertarian socialists. What would be the role of the state in a real democracy?

Noam Chomsky: We are living here and now, not in some imaginary universe. And here and now there are tyrannical organisations - big corporations. They are the closest thing to a totalitarian institution. They are, to all intents and purposes, quite unaccountable to the general public or society as a whole. They behave like predators, preying on other smaller companies. People have only one means of defending themselves and that is the state. Nor is it a very effective shield because it is often closely linked to the predators. But there is a far from negligible difference. General Electric is accountable to no one, whereas the state must occasionally explain its actions to the public.
Once democracy has been enlarged far enough for citizens to control the means of production and trade, and they take part in the overall running and management of the environment in which they live, then the state will gradually be able to disappear. It will be replaced by voluntary associations at our place of work and where we live.

DM: You mean soviets?

NC: The first things that Lenin and Trotsky destroyed, immediately after the October revolution, were the soviets, the workers' councils and all the democratic bodies. In this respect Lenin and Trotsky were the worst enemies of socialism in the 20th century. But as orthodox Marxists they thought that a backward country such as Russia was incapable of achieving socialism immediately, and must first be forcibly industrialised.
In 1989, when the communist system collapsed, I thought this event was, paradoxically, a victory for socialism. My conception of socialism requires, at least, democratic control of production, trade and other aspects of human existence.
However the two main propaganda systems agreed to maintain that the tyrannical system set up by Lenin and Trotsky, subsequently turned into a political monstrosity by Stalin, was socialism. Western leaders could not fail to be enchanted by this outrageous use of the term, which enabled them to cast aspersions on the real thing for decades. With comparable enthusiasm, but working in the opposite direction, the Soviet propaganda system tried to exploit the sympathy and commitment that the true socialist ideal inspired among the working masses.

DM: Isn't it the case that all forms of autonomous organisation based on anarchist principles have ultimately collapsed?

NC: There are no set anarchist principles, no libertarian creed to which we must all swear allegiance. Anarchism - at least as I understand it - is a movement that tries to identify organisations exerting authority and domination, to ask them to justify their actions and, if they are unable to do so, as often happens, to try to supersede them.
Far from collapsing, anarchism and libertarian thought are flourishing. They have given rise to real progress in many fields. Forms of oppression and injustice that were once barely recognised, less still disputed, are no longer allowed. That in itself is a success, a step forward for all humankind, certainly not a failure.

Cooking the Books: Strictly For The Birds (2007)

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

In his latest book on evolution, The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins offers a "sociobiological" explanation for money. Apparently, it goes back to the time when our ancestors were still apes. He supposes an upright ape-man using his freed hands to carry back food to "trade favours" with other members of his troop, and comments:

"Chimpanzees are known to share meat for favours. In historic times, this kind of I.O.U. became tokenised in money" (p. 82).

In a new chapter added to the second edition in 1989 of The Selfish Gene he gave another example: birds needing to have another bird to pick nits off their head since they couldn't do it themselves. The first bird to nit-pick another has no guarantee that the other bird will reciprocate, but, according to computer models, the ideal situation, which Dawkins says will therefore be brought about by natural selection, is one where all the birds will nit-pick each other in return for being later nit-picked themselves. He again opined "money is a formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism".

What, you may ask, have meat-sharing chimps and nit-picking birds to do with money? Nothing in fact, but this is typical of how "sociobiologists" attempt to explain a human social practice in terms of biology.

If this sociobiological theory of money were true, this would mean that money would have originated within separate human societies when, supposedly, instead of people doing each other favours for free they started to ask for an IOU which they could later use to get someone else to do them a favour. The trouble is that this is not what anthropologists have discovered about how money began. In The Evolution of Culture, which came out as long ago as 1959, Leslie A. White, wrote: "commercial exchange originated in intersocietal relations", i.e., between not within societies.

The earliest human societies were communistic; what was gathered and hunted was shared in accordance with customary rules which amounted to "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". There was no barter or money.

Shells and stones found far from where they would normally be indicate that, even in these early days, there could have been some trading between different tribal communities. For millennia this would have been on the basis of barter, but this is not the same as "delayed reciprocal altruism". Something that took a certain amount of time to produce would exchange for something that took more or less the same time, and immediately on the spot.

Nor did money originate as an IOU. At a later stage, when, after the break-up of tribal communism and the coming of private property, trading became more widespread and began to appear within societies, barter was found to be too cumbersome. What then emerged was something that could be exchanged for anything else – a universal equivalent, or money. But the object filling this role had to have a value of its own by virtue of being a product of labour. Otherwise nobody would accept it.

According to White, all sorts of things have served as money in the past: cowrie shells, beads, dog's teeth, bundles of unthreshed rice, sacks of beans, copper axe blades, cattle. In the end, following developments in the techniques of metallurgy, the precious metals silver and gold emerged as the money-commodity. First as weights, then as coins, then paper and metallic tokens for them. But this evolution had nothing to do with some biological urge in people to do each other favours which they expect to be returned. Money arose out of producing goods for sale instead of directly for use. It will disappear when socialism is established and production for use and distribution "from each according to abilities, to each according to needs" restored.

Dawkins should stick to studying birds (or devouring priests).

Adam Buick

The Scramble For The North Pole

Latest post from the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back:

Last Thursday a Russian mini-submarine descended to the seabed two-and-a-half miles under the North Pole. But this was not just a scientific expedition and achievement. The main aim was to plant a Russia flag there. In other words, to claim the sovereignty of the Russian State over the area.

Why? Why do you think? Oil of course:

"The US Geological Survey estimates that some 25 per cent of world oil reserves are located north of the Arctic Circle" (The Times, 3 August).

Until recently extracting these reserves was not a realistic prospect but the beginning of the melting of the polar icecap as a consequence of global warming has made this more possible, if not yet practicable. Hence the posturings and the manoeuvrings of the countries bordering on the Arctic Sea -- the US (Alaska), Canada, Norway, Denmark (Greenland) and Russia.

It's unlikely to come to war and will in all probably be settled through diplomatic negotiations and an agreed carve-up and sharing of the profits made from exploiting the seabed resources of the area. But Russia's move confirms that diplomacy is not just a question of abstract "right" but that "might" also enters into it. Which is why universal disarmament is a pipe-dream under capitalism.

Ironically -- or maybe alarmingly -- access to the oil reserves of the Arctic has been made easier, through the melting of the Arctic icecap, due to the very burning of fossil fuels that has contributed to global warming. If these reserves, too, are burned that would contribute even more to global warming and to the melting of the icecap -- and to rising of sea levels everywhere.

In 1970, when mining the seabed became a practical possibility, President Nixon (of all people) proposed that "the natural resources of the seabed" should be regarded as "the common heritage of mankind". Of course all he meant was that the profits of seabed mineral extraction should be shared amongst all the capitalist states of the world.

But the phrase is a good one. Making the natural and industrial resources of the planet "the common heritage of mankind" -- of all the people of the world rather than of all the capitalist states of the world -- is the only basis on which these resources can be used rationally and for the benefit of all.

Adam Buick

Voice From The Back: The Filthy Rich (2007)

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

The Filthy Rich

"Somewhere in the world, 100-foot yachts are derided as 'dinghies' ... and 'true wealth' starts at a hefty $10 million. That's 'Richistan'. The term, which journalist Robert Frank defines as a 'parallel country of the rich,' is also the title of his new book about its inhabitants, whom he calls Richistanis. The book got its start in 2003, when Frank, who reports for The Wall Street Journal, picked up a fresh, full-time beat: the new rich..... From 1995 to 2003, the number of millionaires in America doubled. During the same period, the number of households worth $5 million, $10 million and $25 million, respectively, all doubled. In 2005 alone, America minted 227,000 new millionaires." (USA Today, 17 June) As you are reading this in the Socialist Standard and not the Wall Street Journal it is unlikely you belong to Richistan, you are more likely to be a subject of Povertistan.

Wealthy get wealthier

"The 2007 World Wealth Report, from Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini, indicated that the number of ultra high net worth individuals - with $30 million or more to invest - in Britain rose by 10 per cent last year to about 3,750. About one in six of Europe's 23,460 super-rich now hails from the UK. ... Globally nearly 10,000 more individuals joined the ranks of the super-rich, taking the total to about 95,000." (London Times, 28 June) So much for the Labour Party's promises about a more equitable society.

Biblical Weather Forecasting 

The owning class spend a great deal of money in keeping the Meteorological Office running but a reverend gentleman has come up with a super wheeze to save that expenditure. "The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God's judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society, according to senior Church of England bishops. One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless. ... The Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, argued that the floods are not just a result of a lack of respect for the planet, but also a judgment on society's moral decadence." (Sunday Telegraph, 1 July) Simple really - read your bible, do what the bishops say and you can close the meteorological offices and get rid of redundant mops. Floods — what floods?

The Failure of Reformism 

"Social mobility is more difficult for children in Britain than for those in most other wealthy countries. A study by the London School of Economics found that poorer children born in 1970 had less opportunity to improve their economic and social status as adults than those born in 1958." (London Times, 3 July) Fifty years of reforming British capitalism and the end result is abject failure.

The Church goes commercial 

"A prominent Polish cleric known for preaching against communism and for his anti-Semitic remarks said on Tuesday he planned to launch perfumes, clothing and cafes branded with his image. Father Henryk Jankowski took part in strikes which led to the end of communism in 1989 as part of Solidarity movement. He was later suspended from preaching for a year after insulting remarks about Jews. ... Jankowski, who already has a wine branded with his image under the name 'Monsignore,' said he would be on the panel for 'castings' of waitresses for the 16 cafes he plans to open in major Polish cities." (Yahoo News, 3 July) Wine making? Cafe owners? What about that story about Jesus casting money changers from the temple? On Sunday mornings priests can preach against materialism but capitalism rules the rest of the week.

Big Brother is watching you 

"Every day in London, an average person is captured on camera 300 times — on a bus or subway, in stores or office buildings, or simply walking on the street. Britain is home to 20% of the world's closed-circuit cameras, according to a report issued last year by the nation's independent Information Commissioners Office. That may make Britons the most closely monitored people in the world. There are 4.2 million such cameras throughout the country, or one for every 14 people." (USA Today, 4 July) Modern Britain is even more closely monitored than dreamt of by Orwell in his dystopia 1984.

Charity as a status symbol 

The immense wealth enjoyed by the British capitalist class is well illustrated by their charity donations. "Two tycoons have in the past few days earmarked stupendous sums for charity: hedge fund manager Chris Hohn, a prime mover in the fight to take over ABN Amro, is giving away £230m, and Peter Crudas, the founder of CMC Markets, is donating £100m. ... The rich have complex motivations for their philanthropy; a real desire to do good may be mixed with wallet-waving competition between Masters of the Universe. Some hope to disarm critics who are uneasy at the gap between rich and poor. Others have so much money they genuinely don't know what to do with it." (Observer, 8 July)

World Without Borders (2007)

Editorial from the August 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in a world which has the potential to adequately feed, house and provide clean water and decent medical care for every single man, woman and child on Earth. The resources exist to banish material want as a problem for members of the human race. Yet millions throughout the world are malnourished, live in squalor or are actually dying of starvation or starvation-related diseases. The big question that faces the human race is: what can be done about it?

For some years, pressure groups concerned with the plight of populations in the less developed countries have urged bankers and governments in the richer nations to cancel the Third World debt. They imagine that if the billions of dollars in loans and interest owed by governments in Africa, South America, and Asia were written off then the crushing burden of poverty suffered by the mass of people in those regions would begin to lift. A fresh way would be open for development, they argue. Food subsidies and health programmes would attack the deaths from malnutrition and disease. Education and housing would raise the quality of life for millions.

These things would not happen. The cancellation of the debt would leave the curse of world poverty intact. The beneficiaries would be amongst the ruling elites who own and control production and distribution in the debtor countries. They are the ones who through their governments owe the money but they are not poor. Amidst the poverty of the masses they live in luxury. Holding power often with brutally oppressive methods they care little for their populations. Their aim is their own self-enrichment. Why should we want to bail them out? Why should we want to ease the way for the rising capitalists of the underdeveloped countries to accumulate capital from the exploitation of workers?

There is of course a case for the populations of the advanced regions giving aid and assistance to the people in areas where infrastructures, services, means of production and distribution are poorly developed. This is the compelling case that those with advantages should put themselves out to help those in need. Most people will accept this but it cannot happen under world capitalism which keeps even our ability to help others in economic shackles — or reduces it to the pathetic levels of charity. The tragic illusion which is misguiding those organising the Cancel the Debt campaign is their belief that the devastating problems of world capitalism can be tackled by re-arranging its finances.

The things that are desperately needed — food, clean water, housing, sanitation, transport, medical services and so on — can only be provided by useful labour, of which there is an abundance throughout the world. Finance is part of a system which operates as a barrier to useful labour producing what people need. Useful production must be freed from the constraints of profit and class interests. Only useful labour applied through world cooperation in a system of common ownership can solve the problems of world poverty.

World socialism could stop the dying from hunger immediately, and provide the conditions for good health and material security for all people across the Earth within a short time. It would do this by producing goods and services directly for need.

World socialism will operate with one simple and ordinary human ability which is universal — the ability of every individual to cooperate with others in a world-wide community of interests. For too long has indignation at human suffering been dissipated by useless causes. How much longer must the price of failure be the misery of countless millions?

'The Right To Hunt Landowners'

From an undated 1990s issue of the Socialist Standard (and also used as a text for a leaflet for a Countryside Alliance march)

The good old English sport of sending hungry hunting hounds to chase aristocrats through the woods, catch them and rip them to pieces, has been slow to take off as a popular pastime. Despite claims that these predatory parasites are a foul rural presence, serving only to infect the countryside with their conceited greed and indolence, it has been hard to find dogs with sufficient brutality to enjoy the so-called sport. Those who favour such hunts claim that it is nothing more than a healthy rural tradition, misunderstood by town dwellers, and that ripping duchesses and viscounts to shreds is the most human way to rid nature of those who have only survived historically by plundering and murdering others. The Royal Society for the Protection of Useless Aristocrats has been long split on the issue, with one section accepting that such blood sport is "just a bit of harmless fun", while others prefer the idea of culling – or permanent quarantine in the House of Lords.

This laboured account would be funnier were it not for the harsh reality that rich, privileged, barbaric bullies, most of whom are brutalised at birth by hereditary right and public-school conditioning, do indeed defend their right to chase around the countryside with packs of hounds in order to savage and tear apart defenceless animals. Their callous defence is mounted in the name of sport. And because it is traditional for these parasitical killers to dress up in the costumes of their class and indulge their pleasure in watching deer, foxes and other animals being ripped apart, they respond with well-rehearsed cries of arrogant immunity to human behaviour when their ritualised sadism is opposed.

These depraved beings, who rejoice in their right to inflict pain on animals, are in the same class and historic tradition as those who proclaim the inviolable right to cast the peasant off their land and into destitution and starvation. The same haters of freedom who smashed down the communal utopia of the Diggers when those early communists sought to hold the land in common as a store of wealth for all; the same bullies who until a century ago enjoyed the propertied right to flog peasants and rape their daughters, and still today treat those who work on the land as if they are indebted to the landowners who steal the fruits of their labour. Looking at this savage minority of ruthless parasites, bleating their message of outrage against those reformists (destined to parliamentary defeat) who dare question their freedom to kill for pleasure, it is hard not to wish on them the fate of a frightened cornered fox, surrounded by a pack of dogs trained for the kill.

That, however, is not the socialist way. Why should we lower ourselves to their brutal customs? As Shelley reminded us: "We are many, they are few." They are not worth the bullets which it would take to shoot them. Nor are they important enough to lead us from our hostility to the cause of violence, however guilty the victim has been conditioned to become. No the aristocrats need not fear our blood sports; the victory of our consciousness of human solidarity over theirs of class oppression will be reward enough for us.

But look what these parasites are doing to the land. They spray it with chemical pesticides, killing off whole species of birds, butterflies and plant life in their quest for profits. They have fed cattle upon cheap and lousy diets, creating the BSE crisis and whole varieties of food adulteration which makes us and our children all the potential victims of their profit-lust. They have dumped millions of tons of soil into the rivers which pollute the water which we are charged to drink. They have pursued, in the name of efficient "factory farming", the most obscene practices of cruelty to animals which are tortured for the sake of making a few more pounds for their avaricious owners. They have contracted out farm management to City firms which seek to push down agricultural wages, casualised skilled farm work, thrown wage-slave-farm-workers onto the scrap-heap of the unemployed, and destroyed whole rural areas in the name of agribusiness.

The landowners, who protest for their freedom to enjoy themselves in exhibitions of collective brutality, remain free to rape and vandalise the countryside. As Graham Harvey observed in his book The Killing of the Countryside, "they [the landowners] favour a countryside devoted entirely to industrial-scale food production, with the products traded on world commodity markets in exactly the same way as coffee and copper…Since this 'progressive' view of farming is supported by big business and the City, it is the one most likely to prevail. If so, the current losses of birds and flowers from our landscape will turn out to be merely the first casualties in a long process of attrition."

The beneficiaries of this rural plunder are the very few. One percent of the population owns half the land in Britain and two percent owns three-quarters of it. A mere 600 landowners own half the land in Scotland. These capitalist-farmers are subsidised by huge grants to support their manipulation of the market. They receive millions of pounds and euros in return for taking land out of cultivation so as to keep profits up. Their protest for the right to hunt and murder animals for fun is no more worthy of support than a campaign to reintroduce slavery or to bring back the deportation of criminals. What is a worthy campaign is the one to rid the world of the parasites we have described above and their counterparts the world over, who will stop at nothing to make a profit, whether through our toil and sweat or the plunder of the natural environment. This same campaign envisages the workers of the world uniting to take control of the planet on behalf of its rightful owners, to free production from the artificial constraints of profit and to establish a global system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of production. If you agree with us, even only slightly, then please get in touch.

Steve Coleman

“Old McDonald's had a brand...” (2007)

From the August 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world's biggest fast-food chain trains customers in its own image - but we don't have to be part of its assembly line.

McDonald's is one of the largest global mass consumption brands, straddling the world like a ravenous colossus. With a presence in 119 countries, over 30,000 restaurants and 48 million customers daily (2005 data), it is the world's largest fast food chain.

What is it that McDonald's sell? At first sight, the question may seem foolish, as McDonald's is synonymous with hamburgers. But that is not how the brand sells itself, or how it wishes to be portrayed. Since the 1950s, Ray Croc – the great disseminator of the McDonald's brand – insisted that he was not in the hamburger business, but in show business. McDonald's sell not only bread but circus, too, which makes it an outstanding paradigm of what has been called the "image society".

The early McDonald's: the pursuit of fun
McDonald's started as a small drive-in in California in the late 1930s, when mass production began with Henry Ford and his Model T and movies were becoming an industry. The appearance of drive-ins brought promise to the business of serving consumers inside their cars. The McDonald brothers (the original owners prior to purchase by Ray Croc) decided in the late 1940s to renovate their drive-in and turn it into a fast food restaurant. Their innovations included replacing all utensils with disposable wrappings; doing away with waiter service – customers would have to leave their cars and order at the counter; and a new way of making and delivering sandwiches: the menu was reformulated and reduced and orders prepared as if on an assembly line.

To encourage the public to identify with their business, the McDonald brothers developed the company's first branded character, a cartoon chef called Speedee. They figured that service speed would be appreciated by customers, as would predictability of product.

In the 1960s the association of brand image, brand character and entertainment was achieved through the creation of clown Ronald McDonald. There was also an architecture and design mix that matched the goal of selling fun. According to his "biography", provided by the company, Ronald is a smart, sensitive clown who loves hamburgers, fun and children. Ronald McDonald is a superstar, the company's official speaker for children, and became the world's most publicised clown.

Children's pester power was enlisted to boost sales. "Ask Mummy and Daddy to take you to McDonald's." But the clown's tone was always happy, innocent and sincere, matching his appearance. His look was dictated by McDonald's products. His hat was a tray with a styrofoam hamburger, a bag of French fries and a milk shake. His shoes were shaped like buns and his nose was a cup. He wore a styrofoam belt from which he would magically pull hamburgers.

Ronald McDonald appeared within a culture that was already in process of being branded by consumerism and at a time when television was becoming ever more popular. Mass culture was, and still is, attempting to fill the leisure time of workers with the commodities of the Industrial Revolution and beyond: consumer goods and services of all kinds. The activities of production and promotion are done by workers who then wear their other hat as consumers: only a relative few big owners can stand outside and control this duality, making sure they are the people with real privileges and benefits.

McDonaldisation as part of globalisation
Globalisation is a complex of inter-related processes which have in common the basic idea that relationships and organisations have spread increasingly around the world. Its key components are the destruction of distance barriers, the stretching of relationships beyond national boundaries, a growing awareness of the world as a whole, and an increasing inter-dependence between different parts of the globe.

The world is becoming a singular domesticated space, a place where everyone is in process of becoming assimilated into a common culture – a dominant capitalist culture. The success of fast-food franchises such as McDonald's is a case in point. Ritzer, in his 2001 book The McDonaldization of Society, argues that this is a process to be found not only in food but also in car maintenance, education, child care, supermarkets, cinemas, theme parks, and so on. McDonaldisation represents not just food but also a cultural message. The burger is not only consumed physically but also as an image and an icon of a particular way of life - capitalist way of life. Extravagant claims are made for the "freedom" of personal choice, but this is increasingly being governed and determined by market forces.

Brands and images in socialism?
Nineteenth-century socialists like Marx and Morris didn't have to worry about things like brands and images. There weren't any. Perhaps that last statement is a bit too sweeping. There were probably some early indications of how capitalism would develop from its primarily goods stage to its increasingly services stage (the Great Exhibition of 1851? Barnum and Bailey?).

Then and now it basically was and is the same system – private or state ownership, class division into workers and capitalists, access according to monetary demand. But the emphases have changed over time, especially in what has become known as the First World. It is not that food, clothing and shelter have stopped being marketed. They haven't. It is not that industries and places of work like factories, offices, mines and railways have disappeared. Generally speaking, they haven't. But today, much more than in the past, "intangibles" have been pushed to the front of the market.

Appearances, brands, celebrity, many things to do with computers, entertainment, experiences, fantasies, fashion, icons, illusions, images, lifestyles, mass markets, niche markets, planned obsolescence, retail therapy, show business, simulations, spectacle, virtual reality, waste - all are on the march, even though not everyone is in step. To say that shopping is not what it was is no mere expression of nostalgia - it is to recognise that the dominant capitalist culture has changed for many people the buying of things into a socially-produced and market-promoted but self-administered drug - from "don't really need" to "must have".

The future shape of socialism is more likely to be influenced by its replacing and converting the later than the earlier forms of capitalism. No one will buy or sell brands, images and suchlike. But does that mean there will be no use for them and therefore no need of them? We can, of course, simply say that the people at the time will decide. But we can be a bit more imaginative, and discuss, admittedly in a very tentative way, plans for a socialist future.

It seems safe to say that brands like McDonald's won't have a brilliant future. Perhaps there will be living museums in which "customers" will stand in line to place their orders for hamburgers and volunteer "staff" will experience for a short while what a McJob was like. Not to everyone's taste, but maybe fun for some, especially children.

There is a better case for the survival - even development - of images in socialism. Take travel, for example. Today the market for mass tourism is being promoted furiously and satisfied recklessly. But it is clear that this trend can't go on. The six and a half billion world's population - let alone the 9 billion expected by 2050 - won't all be able to travel at First World frequencies and distances.

Image - the experience of being there but not the reality - may come to the rescue. "Walking around" an art museum or suchlike is not physically limited. Feeling what it's like to skim over a mountain top is potentially open to everyone. Here we are in the exciting but sometimes scary territory of technology. Bearing in mind the unforeseen inventions of the last 50 years, who knows what the next 50 years will bring? The greatest challenge to be met is how to get from the capitalist world to the socialist world.

Stan Parker

Note: some material in this article is taken or adapted from Isleide A. Fontenelle, Fantasy sandwiches: image as value in the McDonald's case, World Leisure Journal, 1, 2007.

The New Reformism (2002)

Book review from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

French Socialists Before Marx: Workers, Women and the Social Question in France by Pamela Pilbeam. (McGill-Queen's University Press)

The emergence of the new Labourite and general European "plural left" in politics of the late 20th century has resulted in the rewriting of the history of working-class politics. No longer seen as a linear history, the "rise of the Labour Movement", "socialism" so-called is now deemed a cyclical rise and fall of various progressive trends in which state intervention was only one option. This view, it is true, has been expressed ever since the disappointments of state ownership sent Labour politicians back to the drawing board in the 1950s and 1960s.

In recent times, however, with the conclusion of Labour's shift from the left, the search has been on for a new historical tradition for British capitalism's new political elite. Throughout the 1990s many books and pamphlets on this theme culminated in the will-o'-the-wisp that was the Third Way but still the output of the reformers-turned-reactionaries trundles on, the lack of any content beyond the oft-repeated mantras being no bar.

Pamela Pilbeam's recent book on early French socialism falls into this bracket, despite offering some original historical insights. The book's aim is clearly laid out as being to assert "the vitality and relevance of plural socialism in the first half of the 19th century, to show that the social question was addressed by a range of methods and led to a variety of milestones, but the underlying goal was to make society fairer", slap in the middle of the aforementioned revision.

Pilbeam goes to some lengths to claim the utopians and social radicals of early 19th-century France in the "socialist" camp, against a body of historical opinion that rightly has defined Saint-Simonianism, Fourierism and other schemes of social improvement as too vague to even be termed "socialist" (meaning reformist). This amorphous section of social reformers, claimed as socialists, were apparently held together by "the same initial starting point, the 1789 Revolution; a belief in the value of education; the need to improve the legal and educational status of women; address contemporary employment problems through co-operative, no capitalist, enterprises, and above all, take concrete actions to attack the social question. Many also had profound religious convictions."

There certainly were many early or proto-socialists in France in the period covered by Pilbeam's book (1820s to 1840s) but they were not "before Marx"; they developed at the same time and influenced his political development; they were not utopians or reformist tinkerers, they were revolutionaries who talked of the class struggle and working-class emancipation. Of these revolutionaries there is little said, except in reference to the Babouvist tradition of revolutionary violence (which was indeed prevalent although later rejected by Marx).

There are positive sides to this work, however. It serves to confirm Fourier as a utopian crackpot despite the author's best efforts and provides a good account of the roots of the politics of working-class reformism and - its most original contribution - serves to highlight the role of women in the movements which, however incomplete, were reactions against the onslaught of industrial capitalism. For the 21st century, however, it is Marxian contributions to socialist analysis, rather than the utopianism and reformism of Fourierism and Saint-Simonianism, that offers the way forward for the working class.

Colin Skelly

Unvarnished History of the Panama Canal (2007)

From the June 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The story of the building of the Panama Canal at the turn of the last century is an expose of the operations of the capitalist system and the enormous damage that is done to workers under it.

Matthew Parker's recent book Panama Fever (Hutchinson) is a piece of unvarnished history that makes the case for socialism more powerfully than any political tract could do. The construction of the canal and the ambitions, machinations and cold calculations that lay behind it make for grim reading. There were two elements in the building of the canal; the first, a failed French attempt under the leadership of De Lesseps ('builder' of the Suez Canal) and the second successful effort of the government of the United States. Over both construction stages, in the region of 28,000 workers lost their lives, mostly from diseases, which is a toll on a par with many wars.

As soon as fifty years after the 'discovery' of the continents of North and South America, the advantage to World Trade of a man-made opening through the narrow isthmus of lower Central America was appreciated. Construction though had to wait until the appropriate technology had advanced and such a project began to appear feasible from the middle of the 19th century onwards. One of the main drivers was the rapid economic growth of the United States and its trade with the rest of the World, including both Europe and Asia. The canal which would be about 80 kilometres (50 miles) long would shorten the sea-going distance between New York and San Francisco from 22,500 km (14,000 miles) to 9,500 km (6,000 miles). In the 19th century Panama was a still a province of Columbia, ruled from Bogota. For the major powers of Britain, France, Spain (all three of which still had remnants of their colonies in the Western Hemisphere) and the United States, the future and control of the region provoked strong strategic rivalry. Panama itself had a sparse population and Columbia was weak and prone to recurring civil wars. Along with its own ambitions, each country was fearful of the significant commercial and military advantages that would accrue to the nation that would dominate the region.

While some 'understandings' were present between the powers, the most explicit posture was that of the United States with its self-declared Monroe doctrine of 1823. This policy began as a defensive mechanism whereby the US stated that it would not accept any future European re-colonisation of any part of the Americas; though ultimately it was used to justify exactly such activities by the United States itself. More specifically, as the idea of a canal was mooted, it became US policy that, if the canal was to be built, it would not be allowed to be under the control of any foreign power. As early as 1848, the Americans forced Columbia to grant it the right to land troops on the isthmus if free transit across it (by road, rail or future canal) was prevented. This was the only foreign treaty signed by the US in the 19th century and for almost the first time the country declared it had strategic concerns outside its continental borders. American interest was whetted by its acquisition of vast Pacific territories from Mexico after the 1848 war, which made the isthmus a key strategic artery for the country. The California gold rush accentuated this trend and an American financed railway across Panama was completed in 1855. Simultaneously, the US Navy made itself routinely present in the neighbouring seas.

Financial swindle
The European powers, while mindful and wary of the obvious growing strength of the United States, were not ready to relinquish their presence in the western hemisphere. Confident from their success in building the Suez canal, a private French company headed by De Lesseps came to an agreement with the Columbian authorities and began work on a canal in Panama (more or less along the exact path of the current canal) in 1880. There was strong American suspicion that this was another attempt by France to gain leverage in Central America after the debacle of its involvement in Mexico in the 1860s, while the US was pre-occupied by its own Civil War. The US made its displeasure known with the result that this private French effort could not be officially backed by the government in Paris. Nonetheless, there was a patriotic flavour to the French enterprise with the project being seen as a means to improve France's standing after the defeat by Prussia in the war of 1870.

There were two main tasks for the De Lesseps organisation: the raising of capital to finance the project and the sourcing of adequate numbers of workers for the huge construction effort that would be required. To lessen the dependence on what were regarded as Jewish-dominated monetary institutions, small investors were encouraged to come forward to give the project a more 'authentic' Catholic French flavour. This could be regarded as an early type of 'Peoples Capitalism'. From the outset, dubious methods were employed to raise finance and maintain investor confidence. Payments to newspaper editors and financial journalists for positive coverage, sweeteners to senior bank and stock exchange executives and payoffs to government deputies for a favourable attitude were prevalent and seen as necessary. This of course is still a practice that is widespread today by Western companies in undertakings such as the massive gas and oil pipeline projects in the former Soviet Union and in southern Asia.

The British Caribbean islands were identified as a promising source of labour, principally Jamaica owing to poor economic conditions on the island. Large numbers of workers were shipped from there to Panama. In fact initially so many Jamaicans left the island that plantation interests there lobbied to stop the outflow as it was driving up the price of labour. In Panama, the workers had to contend with extremely difficult and dangerous conditions; the diseases of malaria, yellow fever, pneumonia, dysentery, typhoid and tuberculosis were all present in addition to the hazards of physical exhaustion and frequent industrial accidents. The workers toiled outdoors in one of the wettest places on Earth with poor food and rudimentary accommodation. They were completely open to exploitation as there was no labour law in Panama except 'the freedom to work'.

By the late 1880s the French effort had run into serious problems. They had grossly underestimated the scale of excavation involved and persisted with an unrealistic sea level plan for the canal. The project was plagued by mismanagement, extravagance and corruption amongst the contractors and senior officials with huge profits being taken by some engineering firms and financial middlemen. In addition, periodic civil unrest in the province of Panama and a weak police force hindered any meaningful advance. The high death rate amongst the workforce (approximately 20,000 died in the eight year period) caused demoralisation, led to a high turnover of workers and thus pushed up the wage rates. The scale of the deaths amongst the West Indians, combined with some high profile fatalities amongst the senior French administrators and their families, caused doubts about the canal's prospects for success. Hence raising money in Paris for the scheme became more and more expensive. The project eventually collapsed in 1889 with most investors losing their savings. A bitter atmosphere of recriminations developed in France with professional anti-Semites, in the years just prior to the Dreyfus case, using the collapse to make allegations about the role of some Jewish financiers. The canal company was accused (and indeed was guilty) of misleading investors by false announcements of progress. An enquiry, driven by angry shareholders, was held to determine whether embezzlement and corruption had occurred. The fact that 20,000 people had lost their lives, as opposed to their savings, was not regarded as a cause for scandal.

Land grab
After the failure of the De Lesseps venture, a new French company was formed to try to keep the project going but little extra progress was recorded. The remaining investors realised that they could not hope to complete the work and the whole asset would have to be written off, unless they could find a purchaser for the, by now, quarter finished canal. They turned to the United States government as the only feasible body and employed intermediaries (what we would today call lobbyists) to petition the administration in Washington. They were helped by the advent of Teddy Roosevelt to the Presidency after the assassination of McKinley in September 1901. While regarded as a progressive Republican in domestic issues, Roosevelt was one of the new breed (and still historically one of the most important) of American imperialists who rose to power at the turn of the 20th century. At the outset, the new President decided that absolute American control over the canal zone would be necessary for success. This was opposed by the authorities in Bogota, who would only grant a lease arrangement that respected ultimate Colombian sovereignty. In a move that would be repeated many times in years to come, the US sponsored an independence movement amongst the top levels of society in Panama which was also supported by people with a financial interest in the canal. A successful coup against the small local Colombian garrison took place. This could have been subsequently suppressed by Bogota but crucial American intervention took the form of warning the Colombian government off. A pliant administration was formed in the newly independent country and in fact the US obtained decisive control over internal Panamanian politics for decades to come. One of the first acts of the new government was to cede the canal zone (a strip about fifteen miles wide) to the US government in perpetuity. The United States had total control over the zone and appointed a series of Governors and Special envoys to the region. While such a naked land grab was clearly unpopular with nationalists in Central and South America, it also provoked a backlash in America itself. Critics claimed the country was behaving more like an Empire than a Republic; defenders of the move replied that such operations were essential to the economic future of the United States and such arguments proved hard to refute in the Age of Imperialism.

From the start in 1904, the US effort was much more substantial than the French, backed as it was by the enormous resources of the American government. It was also free of the constraints to continually raise capital on the stock markets. The US army took effective control over the project, operating as a quasi-autonomous government and the military oversaw most aspects of workers' lives in the canal zone. Undesirables could be immediately deported from the zone with the police given almost unlimited discretion as to who constituted an 'undesirable'. Everything (health, housing, schooling, canteens, entertainment) was provided or organised by the state and at the time the project was viewed as having all the characteristics of paternalism and 'welfare socialism'. So much so that a member of the then US Socialist Party working on the canal was asked by a visiting journalist whether this was the type of society he wanted to see in the future. He replied, 'government ownership don't mean anything to us working men unless we own the government. We don't here – this is the sort of thing Bismarck dreamed of'.

Diseases
It was recognised that one of the main reasons for the failure of the French attempt was the crippling effect of disease on the white administrators and black workforce. Using prevailing medical advances and knowledge gained from conditions that faced US troops in the recent war in Cuba, the Americans were in a position to eradicate yellow fever and control malaria. This was accomplished by a massive sanitary campaign against the mosquito transmitters of both diseases. The huge resources put into this campaign were also seen to have wider strategic advantages in permitting safe settlement of the tropics by Caucasians. In actuality, pneumonia was a much bigger killer of black labourers but was almost unknown amongst the white work force. Malaria affected the success and efficiency of the project more significantly, both because this disease affected whites mainly and because, being generally not fatal, it resulted in expensive hospital treatment. Thus virtually nothing was done against pneumonia compared to the large programme to minimise malaria. This bears out the socialist view of the ultimate purpose of state-run health systems: they are financed precisely to the amount where the cost of dealing with the consequences of not having then would exceed the cost of having them. Hence hospitals were not constructed and maintained for workers' benefit but as a judicious investment to ensure the profitability of the enterprise.

As with the French effort, the supply of an adequate labour force was seen as essential. The skilled workers and foremen would of course be white Americans but as regards manual labourers, white US workers were regarded as too expensive, too unionised and susceptible to tropical disease. Black Caribbean labourers were again seen as the most suitable being English speaking (thus able to understand instructions) and having some immunity to tropical diseases (to reduce hospital and sickness costs). More importantly they would be 'cheap' in all senses of the word. The island of Barbados was this time identified as the best source. The island was overpopulated with descendants of sugar plantation slaves who were now landless labourers and there was a tradition of emigration. Over the course of the first decade of the 20th century, Barbadians in their thousands were shipped in cattle boats to Panama. Technically of course these were all voluntary migrant labourers though because of economic pressures, the real situation was little different to slavery. It highlights the socialist case that slavery can exist long after its formal abolition which is something those proponents of 'Apology for the Atlantic Slave Trade' could do well to remember. In many cases, the Barbadians were victims of racism from the local Panamanian police and from their American supervisors.

While conditions for the black workers were materially better under the Americans (principally because of a major reduction in the death rate and appreciation of the cost benefits of maintaining a healthy workforce), compared to the French era, there was much more rigid colour stratification. The first decade of the 20th century marked the approaching apogee of the Jim Crow system in the southern US states. Intermingling of the races was seen as undesirable and was actively prevented; there were separate schools, canteens, bars, churches for blacks and whites. Not surprisingly living quarters and canteens, etc. were of a much lower standard for black workers. They endured conditions such as working in the rain 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Black workers (unlike their white colleagues) did not have paid sick leave and could lose their jobs if they became ill. The West Indian workers were three times as likely as other workers to die from disease or accidents. Furthermore, to weaken worker solidarity and to prevent the occurrence of strikes (of which there were very few) the authorities had a scheme of periodically bringing in labourers from different European countries to lessen solidarity amongst the manual workers. Spain, Italy and Greece provided the majority of these extra men who were given double the wage rate of the black workers. This was a deliberate and successful Divide and Rule policy by the authorities.

Less important
The canal eventually opened under the Wilson Presidency in the summer of 1914 just as World War I started. It remains a busy trade route to this day. As it happens one of the main military reasons given for its construction, namely to permit US warships more rapid movement between the East and West coasts of the US was soon rendered redundant. The huge and permanent expansion in the US navy in the 20th century to police America's global commitments made it necessary to have separate Atlantic and Pacific fleets and the development of aircraft carriers (too large to pass through the canal) as the crucial naval warship made the canal militarily less useful. Hence it was important but not vital to America in World War II and the Cold War. Increasing Panamanian resentment at the permanent ceding of a portion of their territory to the United States led to the signing of a revised treaty in 1977, in spite of vehement opposition by American conservatives. This set in motion the process of the return of ownership of the canal to Panama which was fully completed in 1999.

Would the canal have been built if socialism existed? In my personal opinion, yes, though clearly with a careful analysis of the costs and benefits to humanity. Instead of the needless and pointless diversion of time and resources into raising finance, political manoeuvring, wining and dining the people with influence, maintaining confidence etc, the focus under socialism would be on the engineering aspects of the project, its environmental impact and the health and safety of the people involved. The story of the Panama Canal serves as reminder of the totally avoidable waste that occurs under capitalism and the bizarre priorities of the money system. The fever for profit that gives the book its appropriate title was fundamentally the cause of the devastation wreaked upon the workers by exposure to the yellow fever and malaria fever on the Panama Canal.

Kevin Cronin