Obama, the Rev. Wright and hesitation

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

The latest scandal that surrounds Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama’s previous involvement with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and that highlights his difficulty fully disowning this association with the politically radical pastor until a statement unequivocally doing so publicly on April 29th is angrily upsetting his fans and supporters who fear that the time it has taken him to do this may seriously undermine his popularity among Democrats, and so impair his bid for president.

The mainstream press has not been able to provide any explanation for this hesitancy to detach himself from Rev. Wright either. It is certainly a major concern as Obama attempts to win the Democratic primary in Indiana on Tuesday, May 6th.

But a little bit of logic and materialist understanding may be able to come to our aid in explicating this curious phenomenon.

How would a young Chicago community organizer with strong ambitions to become a politician actually make his way into the political arena? His choice of church would have to be made carefully. There are hundreds of churches in Chicago, indeed more per capita than in any city in the United States. Young Obama could easily have joined any one of them if it were merely a matter of finding a place of worship in which to receive sermons about the miracle of God raising Lazarus from the dead. No, far more likely is that Barack, plotting to realize his political ambitions, would join a large, even controversial, church, such as the enormous Trinity United Church of Christ that has over 10,000 members, headed by Senior Pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Wright’s church had been openly advocating Black liberation theological principles as those found in the writings of James Hal Cone (whose 1969 book Theology and Black Power was among the first to delineate the importance of such a theological stress among churches in the black community). Barack would be best placed to forge community alliances in a church of especially disgruntled but educated and upward mobile parishioners if he were to win support for his own political aims of making a big political difference in America.

After beginning to sew important social connections on Chicago’s South Side through the Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama went on to Harvard Law School in which he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, his first major breakthrough into the world of the wealthy, powerful and influential that is essential to establishing a critical footing upon any important political career. He returned to Chicago to head an influential voter registration drive, taught law at the University of Chicago Law School, and then ran as a candidate for the Illinois Senate, which he won in 1996. Mr. Obama was representing the 13th District of Chicago, which is the same South Side area of Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods in which he had first forged important connections through Reverend Wright’s church.

It is likely that Obama’s connections with Wright’s church could no longer be severed thereafter since to do so would be to alienate himself from his initial and ongoing power base in Chicago, even while it was being expanded into wider territory. It is not known to what degree, beyond this speculation, he had even assigned political positions as a senator to some of these members of the community who had supported him in his rise to political success the same way other African-American Chicagoans from the same community, such as Senator Emil Jones, Jr., (who is President of the Illinois Senate) had been instrumental in supporting Obama when he was a little known legislator (for more about this connection, see CNN.com article dated March 31st, 2008, entitled “Political ‘godfather’ boosted Obama’s early career”). While it is clear that Obama is a very bright, likeable and socially aware presidential candidate, who is well meaning in his desire to reform the United States for the better, those who only see Obama’s lengthy hesitancy to detach from his prior association with Reverend Wright as a sign of his weakness as a politician, may be failing to understand the deeper psychological ambivalence that Obama may be experiencing about both Wright and his mega-church, given any other political associations that that church or its members either did, or continues to, provide for him as an aspiring politician.

Capitalism is a society defined by a class that owns and a class that works for it. This reality will continue unabated until we, members of the class that works for the owning class, decide to put an end to it. We must never forget that however well-meaning, personally attractive, or articulate politicians may be, they remain politicians, who are as much attempting to rise in the political arena to accelerate their own upward mobility for pure personal reasons as much as to realize political ambitions of a reformist nature. Such personal motivations are not necessarily entirely avaricious. It is simply a reality that as the present political system exists to run the affairs of the capitalist class, nobody can navigate that realm without forging important relationships with those with money and power, backstabbing them when the relationships seem more costly than beneficial, and sometimes, as did Obama recently, making unfortunately poor political decisions about maintaining relationships with them because of a fear of possibly losing important support associated with them.

Politics is crazy, yes. But we are the crazy ones in allowing the machinations of adult babies who are political careerists as a way of trying to meet our needs and to look after ourselves. The only way to establish sanity in our world is to stop supporting the politicians altogether and to create a world in which power resides permanently in the democratic hands of the community, in which the means of producing wealth are owned by that same community, and in which the production of wealth is produced to meet our needs freely. Now that is what we are talking about.

DV

Further Reading on the US Presidential Elections:

The Mass Debaters

Selecting a US President: the invisible primaries

What’s the Matter with Pennsylvania?

The Visible Man

Mayday 2008

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

We’re celebrating the 122nd anniversary of a General Strike held to win the 8 hour work day. That General Strike of May 1, 1886 was called by the forerunner of the American Federation of Labor and organized throughout the Canada and the US.

On that day 300,000 to half a million workers set down their tools and marched in the largest industrial cities in North America. 80,000 in Chicago, 10,000 in Detroit, New York, St. Louis, etc. In an action of this size happened today, 4 to 6 million would be on strike and 100s of thousands in the streets.

In Milwaukee 7 strikers and witnesses were killed by State Militia and 4 more by Police in Chicago.

On May 4th a rally was held to protest the shootings itself turned violent when police waded into a peaceful crowd and someone threw a bomb into the police line. Shooting broke out and 7 police and at least 4 workers were dead. According to contemporary newspaper reports, most of the police dead were caused by other police fire.

In the aftermath, 7 labor leaders who organized the rally, were arrested for murder of the police. Because of the men’s anarchist politics 6 were sentenced to hang and 4 were executed, including one who had been at home with his children at the time of the rally. This Haymarket Affair and subsequent trial was followed throughout the world. It is widely held as one of the worst cases of judicial injustice in American history.

In 1890, Sam Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) requested that the Socialist International call an international day of action agitating for an 8 hour work day. The International agreed and call for international rallies to be held on May First to commemorate the strike of 1886. This is the origin of Mayday as International Labor Day.

Which Labor Day?

Many incorrectly claim that Mayday is the original Labor Day as opposed to the one held on the first Monday of September in Canada and the US. The September Labor Day had been celebrated for at least 4 years previous to the General Strike of 1886. It was developed by US rank and file unionists from the inspiration from a strike for the 8 hour day held in Toronto in the 1870s (see section on Canada).

So both have much in common and both should be considered as legitimate since both were motivated by a desire to have “8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest and 8 hours for what we will” (from a labor song “Eight Hours“).

The beasts that graze the hillside,
And the birds that wander free,
In the life that God has meted,
Have a better life than we.
Oh, hands and hearts are weary,
And homes are heavy with dole;
If our life’s to be filled with drudg’ry,
What need of a human soul.
Shout, shout the lusty rally,
From shipyard, shop, and mill.

Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will;
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest
Eight hours for what we will.

In other words, both Mayday and Labor Day should be reminders of the need of working people to try and capture the good things in life.

What happened?

The strike of 1886 was a flop. While hours dropped to 40 hours a week in some skilled trades where unions could control job conditions easily, the increase in unskilled factory work kept working hours at 50-60 per week until the 1930s. It took the desire for post-World War 2 industrial peace to establish the 40 hour week for some years in the 1950-60s.

Today the average workweek in the US is 46 hours and there is an increase in poorer workers working multiple jobs just to get by. This explains which nearly a third of Americans work more than 50 hours a week. Compare this to the legal maximum of 45 hours the British Empire established for Plantation slaves.

Read it and weep

On average, modern Americans work longer than plantation slaves in the 1800s.

Families need close to 2 wage workers to survive vs. 1.3 in the 1880s. So the total amount of work needed to maintain a household has risen.

It’s taken us 128 years to lower the working week from 60 hours to 46. That means it will take us another 54 years to reach the 8 hour day.

Using the “Unskilled Wage Index” the $175 a year factory workers earned in 1886 Chicago would be equivalent of $22,180 today or slightly more than what American Axle Company is offering it’s workers currently on strike.

Conclusions?

Why is it, that despite all the struggles, the marches, the organizing, we are more or less in the similar place as in 1886?

The WSP argues it is because we haven’t learned the lessons of the first Mayday and Labor Day. We cannot get the ‘life’ our class wanted in the 1880s by confronting the bosses with petition, pickets, pistols or pipe bombs. Each of those strategies assumes we need bosses and they can be intimidated into lessening our poverty.

As Marx first showed, and we have argued since our inception as a political movement, in capitalism, the rich grow richer and all workers can do within capitalism is slow that process down. It is capitalism as a whole system - wages, profits, markets - which needs abolishing. The murder or intimidation of one ruthless boss won’t help. Nor will the formal change of the social structure at a particular workplace into a collective, etc. We need to see the enemy as entirety, only then can we make decisions to free ourselves and the world.

Mayday 2008

In 1886 strikers carried banners which stated a simple truth:

“Labor creates all wealth, All wealth belongs to labor”

Working people need to learn and understand that truth. The capitalists need us, capitalism needs us, we do not need it.

The rich will continue to get richer and we will continue to march on Mayday until a majority of us decide that enough is enough. Sure, let’s support those who try and defend or increase their wages, but let’s face facts, in the long term they aren’t going to be any more than what it takes for us to merely survive.

Capitalism is killing us and it is killing the world.

There is enough for all and a decent life can be had only when socialism is established.

Abolish the Wage System!

FN Brill

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (44)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 44th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1240 friends!

Recent blogs:

Why vote for politicians?

Who are "we"?

Why just land?

This week's top quote:

"The first of May is the symbol of a new era in the life and struggle of the toilers, an era that each year offers the toilers fresh, increasingly tough and decisive battles against the bourgeoisie, for the freedom and independence wrested from them, for their social ideal." Nestor Mahkno, The First of May, 1928.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

International Workers' Memorial Day

From its Wiki page:

"International Commemoration Day (ICD) for Dead and Injured takes place annually around the world on April 28, an international memorial day and action for workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work. In some anglophone countries it is known as Workers' Memorial Day."

The following article was cut and pasted from the British blog, Random Pottins, and relates to events in Britain but the same story could be told many times over across the world.

Remember the dead, Fight for the living!

NOT JUST A STATISTIC. Patrick O'Sullivan's son John and widow Mary at unveiling of memorial, Wembley stadium.

Remember the dead, fight for the living!

That's the slogan of International Workers' Memorial Day, which is April 28. It's a time to remember those like Patrick O'Sullivan, who went to his work as a carpenter on the Wembley stadium site one morning, 15 January, 2004 and was killed under a platform that fell 300ft. after it was hit by the load swinging from a crane.

Or Simon Jones, 24, decapitated by a crane grab in his first hour working at Shoreham docks, ten years ago.

Or the Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay.

Or the many men and women who have suffered and died from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases, before they could even see a penny of the compensation they had to fight for.

We might have thought things were changing from the days when dangerous work conditions and work-related illnesses and death were almost accepted. Certainly families, friends and campaigners are insisting their loved ones are not just statistics.

But while the media and, to their shame, some social commentators and academics, have gone on about the "nanny state", "compensation culture" , and "obsession with safety", facts assembled by the London Hazards campaign, Construction Safety Campaign and unions present a less comfortable picture.

The number of people killed at work rose 11 per cent to 241 in 2006/7, with a 28 per cent increase to 78 in construction, and a 16 per cent increase to 85 in service industries.

There has been a 10 per cent increase in work-related illness, affecting 2.2 million people.

There have been six major incidents involving cranes in the last eighteen months, with three people killed. Monitoring of cranes for safety is still left to the owners.

Asbestos deaths have increased to 4-5,000 per year, and not only is it more difficult for workers with asbestos-related illnesses to prove which former employer is liable, but the government has ruled that the non-fatal condition pleural plaques does not entitle the sufferer to compensation.

The government has cut the budget for the Health and Safety Executive(HSE), thus reducing workplace inspections, enforcement and prosecutions. Some 9 out of 10 major injuries now are not investigated.

Thus April 28 is more than ever a time to also fight for the living, for those who might be tomorrow's victims, and for the right of working people to organise, elect their own safety reps - without those chosen having to fear victimisation - and if necessary, strike over safety and conditions. It is a time to demand the government reverses its cuts in safety provisions, and that its promises of "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" are applied to bosses whose negligence or cutting corners for profit can lead to the death of workers.

April 28 is a day when we should not only remember the colleagues we have lost, or seen suffering illness from work, but also think about what kind of conditions we are leaving for the next generation.

There are Workers Memorial Day events in many places. Two I know about are:

LIVERPOOL -Monday, April 28, 2008

12:00pm - 1:00pm

South Piazza Georges Dock Building
Corner Mann Island and The Strand

Liverpool.


LONDON - gather 10.30 am. Holland Street, SE1, beside Tate Modern.

march to HSE, Southwark Street, for rally outside.

march then to City Hall, SE1 for rally with speakers.

Also in London: Monday evening, April 28, 6-8pm, meeting at Congress House, Great Russel Street, WC1 (nearest tube Tottenham Court Rd) with Paul Mason, author of 'Live Working or Die Fighting', Tom Jones, from Thompson Solicitors, and film: Mesothelioma: the human face of an asbestos epidemic.

Food and wine buffet.

RSVP mdykes@tuc.org.uk

Further Reading:

Article commenting on Patrick O'Sullivan's death

Speech by Patrick's daughter at Workers Memorial Day 2004

Report on inquest

Simon Jones Memorial Campaign

Charlie Pottins

PDX - 4/27 - Meet the World Socialist Party of the United States

World Socialist Party of the United States member, FN Brill, will be speaking at the Portland pre-Mayday event at the IWW’s Liberty Hall (311 N. Ivy) this Sunday April 27th at 7:30pm.

A Witness At Ludlow (1965)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

Edit. Note: In The Western Socialist, No. 3-1965 there appeared an article entitled, The Ludlow Massacre (1913) - fifth in a series entitled, Gems From American History. The Ludlow article evoked the following letter from an old-timer member of the World Socialist Party who was a witness to some of the events described in his capacity as a soap-box propagandist for the Industrial Workers of the World at the time.

Our soap-boxing began in Albany, New York. Passenger trains furnished the transportation, provided we kept to the “decks” of the dining cars, rode the “blinds” or the water tank behind the coal cab. At likely towns we dropped off to hold open-air meetings.

West of Chicago, where trains did not take water on the fly, we took to the freights. Occasionally we rode the rods on the crack limiteds.

Salida, 7000 feet high in the Colorado Rockies, looked good, despite its thin mountain air made open-air speaking difficult. It was a division point on the old Denver and Rio Grande R.R. The railroad work shops, the cow camps and mining settlements would furnish the audiences.

We had placed the soap box in front of the well-lit, crowded corner saloon. Not long after we got started, the saloon doors opened and spewed forth a band of hard-looking ruffians, who immediately decided to wreck the meeting and to forever end our speaking careers. This was our Initial encounter with the Infamous Baldwin-Felts thugs These professional scabs and killers of union men and their families were In the employ of John D. Rockefeller to break the strike In his nearby Colorado Fuel and Mine Company properties in Trinidad and Ludlow.

(These same murderers were, at a later period, Included in the acclaim given by President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard to strikebreakers as the “nation’s heroes.”) At the same time, working men throughout the West were singing:

“Down with the Baldwins,
Up with the Union,
And we will rally Colorado,
We will rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Union.”

The saloon doors opened again soon after and out came a group of powerful-looking men: striking C.F. & I. strikers. They grasped the situation quickly and went promptly into action. Swinging fists routed the thugs. We were urged to proceed by our rescuers. We finished with a good literature sale and a fine collection. After some liquid refreshments with our new friends, we accepted their invitation to visit their camp in the hills.

* * * *

In addition to these thugs, the Colorado governor furnished the state militia’s services to pious J.D.R. Their objective was to destroy the tent colony established by the union, the United Mine Workers, after they had been dispossessed from the company-owned shacks.

Louis Tikas had left his native Greece to make a new home in what he thought was the land of freedom, par excellence. He soon found out the facts of life after he found employment in the nonunion mines of Ludlow. He helped organize and struck with his fellow miners against their unbearable working conditions.

After a day-long battle, he volunteered to carry a white flag to request a truce to remove their dead and wounded and to plead for some drinking water far the women and children. He was met halfway by the lieutenant in command of the militia (and of the Baldwin thugs). The brave lieutenant quickly pulled his revolver and shot down the unarmed miner, under a flag of truce.

Indignation swept through the country. Mass meetings, from coast to coast, addressed by liberals, clergymen, and other protesters against such callousness, demanded that the lieutenant be brought to trial. He was promptly court martialled by his superior officers and severely punished: a reduction of nine points in rank!

One dark night, the B-F thugs crept down on the camp, poured some of the Rockefeller kerosene over the tents and set them on fire. Forty-three of the sleeping miners and their families were severely burned. Thirteen, mostly children and women, were burned to a crisp. The capitalist Moloch needed its victims. Sanctimonious old J.D.R. made his peace with his God, shortly thereafter, by donating twenty million dollars to erect the Riverside Baptist Church on Riverside Avenue, New York City.
Two of our new-found friends had discovered the home where the leader of the thugs boarded. They induced a miner’s son to tell this “hero” that some young lady wished to see him on the outside. Munching a chicken bone, he stepped out. Two of the miners were flattened against the wall on either side of the doorway. As he stepped out, they took revenge for the death of their incinerated babies.
We stayed about a week. We had our first lessons in the use of a gun. The moaning and crying of our hostess, the mother of a baby killed in the fire, was heartrending. The family were concerned for our safety but they, themselves, were too “hot” for our safety. They did not want us involved if they were apprehended. We parted company with same of the bravest people we ever met. We left and went on to the Mormon capital, Salt Lake City, in time to get involved with the struggle to save Joe Hill. But that is another story.

* * * *

A year later, Congress authorized the Industrial Relations Committee to probe the wave of strikes and, in particular, bloody Ludlow. Under the chairmanship of that rare politician, fearless Frank Walsh, their objective findings have become a classic study of those times. Under the grueling cross examination of Walsh, John D. Rockefeller, under oath, testified that he had never been in Colorado. and had never seen his blood-soaked mines. Here was but another proof how necessary the owners are in the production of commodities.

My speaking partner, Harry Krietzer, who later became the advertising manager of the alleged “socialist” daily, “The Jewish Forward,” stepped up to John D., as he left the proceedings in Washington, surrounded by his body guards and that famous founder of the noble profession of public relations, Ivy Lee. Harry showed John D. a copy of the “Masses” and asked him to subscribe to see the workers’ side. He had to borrow a dollar from Ivy Lee.

Sam Orner

Further Reading:

Wiki's page on the Ludlow Massacre

Eyewitness to Murder: Recounting the Ludlow Massacre

Libcom's page on the Ludlow Massacre

Howard Zinn on the Ludlow Massacre

St. George and the Coloured Rag (2008)

From the Vaux Populi blog:

Things have moved a long way since Enoch Powell's rivers of blood speech 40 years ago. Today, all the mainstream parties are against immigration, as long as it's illegal of course. A border police force has even been set up to keep them out. St. George's Day was once celebrated only by fascists. Now the red-and-white coloured rag is even flown on public buildings. The gentlemen of the League of Saint George (see http://www.leaguestgeorge.com/) must be happy.

Yes, unfortunately, St George's Day is upon us again, but what is this mythical saint supposed to have done?

We all know that, according to legend, he slew a dragon but in The History of the Seven Champions of Christendom we are told that, among his many feats of valour, he did away with two.

He was, so the story goes, born in Coventry, son of Lord Albert, High Steward of England. Having been abducted as a baby and held captive by the witch Calyb for 14 years, he tricked her into revealing her magic whereupon he split a rock and imprisoned her in it. This freed not only St George but also St Denis, patron saint of France, St James (Spain), St Patrick (Ireland) and St David (Wales), after which they went their separate ways on great adventures and acts of valour. These included sorcery, battling against incredible odds and rescuing princesses.

George, the legend continues, fought and won many battles, apparently single-handed. In the course of one he also freed St Denis who had carelessly allowed himself to be captured. And, of course, he slaved that dragon.

On his return to England he wanted to turn to a contemplative life but the king asked him to slay one more dragon which was terrorising the people of Dunsmore. This time, although he killed the beast, he also died from the poison spewed on him by it. He was, we are told, buried in the chapel at Windsor Castle and his sons - no mention of a wife - were given high office by the king.

If you believe all this you'll believe anything, including that St George's Day is anything more than an excuse for xenophobia - and for pubs to sell more beer.

We shan't be celebrating today but will continue distributing our leaflets in favour of world-wide socialism where the planet and its resources will have become the common heritage of all humans and the world won't be criss-crossed by frontiers.

ALB

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (43)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 43rd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1238 friends!

Recent blogs:

Reply to the BNP

Who Cares? (U.S. elections and the treatment of armed services personnel)

Home Is Where The Heart Attack Is...

This week's top quote:

"Patriotism . . . for rulers is nothing else than a tool for achieving their power-hungry and money-hungry goals, and for the ruled it means renouncing their human dignity, reason, conscience, and slavish submission to those in power. . . . Patriotism is slavery." Leo Tolstoy, Christianity and Patriotism, 1894.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Kicking Against The Pricks

Socialist Party Public Meeting

“If you prick me...”: a survey on racism
Speaker: Bill Martin
Central London
Friday 25 April. 7.30pm

The Lucas Arms, (first floor)
245A Grays Inn Road,
London WC1
(nearest tube: King’s Cross St.Pancras)

Heathrow Homeless

From the Socialist Courier blog

"Each night, scores of London's homeless men and women take advantage of modern travel delays by posing as stranded passengers in order to sleep in a warm, safe place. ... Those contacted included a man sleeping under his coat, another conspicuously hiding behind an open newspaper, and a woman clutching a duty free bag, who insisted she was waiting for a flight, only to whisper when police were out of earshot, "I can't afford electricity. It's warm here. Please let me stay." (Time, 21 April) RD

Paul Mattick's review of Kropotkin's 'Mutual Aid' (1956)

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

MUTUAL AID. By Peter Kropotkin, with Foreword by Ashley Montague, and including “The Struggle for Existence” by T. H. Huxley. Extending Horizons Press, Boston, 1955, pp. 362, $3.00
Originally published in the January-February 1956 issue of the Western Socialist, Boston, USA

This new issue of Kropotkin’s work on Mutual Aid, first published at the turn of the century, not only satisfies the need for its continued availability but — in some measure — also helps to combat the current neo-Malthusianism and the renewed, though futile, attempts to present capitalist competition as a “law of nature.” Provoked by Huxley’s belief that in nature and society the struggle for existence is one of all against all, Kropotkin demonstrated that both in the animal world and human society it is rather mutual aid which secures existence and makes for progress.

What Huxley proclaimed passes under the name of Social Darwinism — “the survival of the fittest.” The successful in society are such by way of “natural selection.” Nothing can be done about it, and no apology is needed, as nature is neither “moral” nor “immoral,” but “non-moral.” Of course, attempts are made to defy “natural law” through the establishment of social order designed to mitigate the struggle of all against all. Yet this promises little for the future because population tends to outrun the means of subsistence, and thus the struggle for survival continues to destroy the weak.

Kropotkin did not answer Huxley’s Malthusian argument, even though it is the only one Huxley advanced in support of his views. Instead, he described forms of mutual aid observed in the animal world and various types of social collaboration throughout man’s history. This he did excellently, so that the book — quite apart from its special intent — is an important study of animal behavior and of the evolution of human sociality. Himself under the spell of Darwinism, Kropotkin wished to correct its capitalistically-determined one-sided interpretation, which saw only competition and not the far more important factor of mutual aid as the instrument of survival. He did not take up the Malthusian argument because he thought that existing “natural checks to over-multiplication” made it irrelevant.

This plays into the hands of the “social Darwinists,” who do not distinguish between society and nature, and see in all social misery manifestations of “natural laws.” They would insist that, even though the struggle for existence may not be characterized by the ever-present bitter struggle for the means of subsistence, nevertheless pauperism and starvation, as also famine and pestilence, must be regarded as “natural checks to over-population.” In their views, the alleviation of human suffering, caused by whatever reason, opposes the necessary “natural checks to over-population.”

Kropotkin did not answer the Malthusian argument because he, too, did not clearly enough distinguish between society and nature. Just as to the social Darwinists competition is instinctive to both men and beast, so to Kropotkin mutual aid is a “moral instinct” of “prehuman origin” and a “law of nature.” This did not hinder him, however, from making the “watchword, mutual aid,” which comes to us “from the bush, the forest, the river, the ocean,” into the foundation of our “ethical conceptions” so as to secure “a still loftier evolution of our race.” It seems, then, that “natural laws” to be really effective require the support or neglect of men.

Observation reveals that there is both competition and mutual aid within and between the different species. Mutual aid is, of course, the best way for survival for those species whose survival depends on mutual aid, as competition. For a long time, however, survival in the animal world has not depended upon the practice of either mutual aid or competition but has been determined by the decision of men as to which species should live and thrive and which should be exterminated. Whatever “natural law” may mean with regard to animal behavior, it is overruled by man-made “laws” that shape “nature” to their own needs or whims. “Nature in the raw,” so to speak, where “natural laws” could rule is now in need of preservation and protection by national and international law. Wherever man rules, the “laws of nature” with respect to animal life cease to exist.

If this is true for the animal world, how much more must this be true for man himself. Although also a great admirer of Darwin, Marx drew attention to the fact that “nature” is continuously changed by the activities of men, and (against Malthusianism specifically) that no “natural law” governs the growth of population. The changing social structure, not “natural law,” determines whether there is “over-population” or not, and whether in consequence thereof, or independently of it, mutual aid or competition characterizes social relationships. “Over-population” and the hunger and misery associated with it, are not products of nature but products of men, or rather of social relationships which preclude such a social organization of production and of life generally as would abolish with the problem of hunger that of “over-population.” The “over-population” of which Huxley spoke was not one relative to the means of subsistence, but relative to the needs of capital accumulation; it was a product of the capitalist mode of production not of “natural law.”

To be sure, “over-population” seems to exist in large parts of the world where people are subjected to famines, floods and backward methods o production. While this condition may not be man-made, it is at any rate maintained by men, so as to secure privileged positions within existing social relations, or international power relations, or both simultaneously. “Over-population” is not the cause but the result of these attempts to arrest social development, as may be seen by the fact that wherever hunger is eliminated population tends to decline. But even if it would not do so, there exist for a very long time ample opportunities for an increased production able to feed a world population many times its present size.

It is not really “over-population” which worries the ruling classes. Rather the opposite is true; as is made clear by frantic efforts to increase population at the first sign of its tendential decline, by the fact that birth-control is made a crime, and by the maintenance of conditions that foster a vast increase of the impoverished masses. Conditions of misery for the masses are a prerequisite to the wealth and special social position of the ruling classes.

Although it is good to know that there is just as much, or more, mutual aid as competition in nature and society, this is not enough to make men change their ways and to alter social relationships. For those who profit by conditions it does not matter whether it is “natural” or “unnatural,” the “best” or the “worst” method for survival of the species. Mankind s none of their concern. For those who create the profits it may be nice to know that the mutual aid practised in their own circles attests to their high ethical concepts and natural behavior, but it does not stop their exploitation. The whole controversy between Huxley and Kropotkin is somewhat beside the point — it does not touch upon the relevant issues of society, namely that “mutual aid” in human society presupposes the abolition of class relations.

Paul Mattick

Further Reading:

More Paul Mattick on the WSPUS website

Paul Mattick's page at the Marxist Internet Archive

SPGB talk: 'What Marx should have said to Kropotkin'

Food Security

From the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog:

The United Nations warned recently of a "new face of hunger" - it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay. Is this due to drought, pestilence or civil war? No, it would appear that there is now a fifth apocalyptic horseman stalking the planet - a hike in the price of food.

Annual food price increases around the world of up to 40 percent accompanied by dramatic rises in fuel costs have stretched the already flimsy safety net of global capitalism to breaking point. Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) earned his crust by identifying what might just turn out to be the problem: "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market". Not for the first time, capitalism appears to have made history of recent attempts to reform it.

It’s no longer just the countryside that is suffering: famine is coming to the cities of the third world. There is vulnerability in urban areas never seen before. Food riots have sparked recently even in countries with no history of such events, from Morocco to Mexico, Senegal to Uzbekistan. An increasingly globalised society appears to be presenting the same problems worldwide.

The cause of the price rises is complex but is in part due to increased demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, who have rising expectations of a "western" lifestyle. Climate change has also had a direct impact due to increased extreme weather events affecting productivity. Indirect climate change impacts include the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels rather than for food. Is a starving child factored into your carbon footprint calculation? No sooner does the market system start to try and solve one problem - making production of supposedly renewable biofuels profitable in order to address global warming - than it appears to create another problem.

Of course the hungry and malnourished have never actually been away. Famines are just the tip of the iceberg: even between the droughts and civil wars, fellow members of our species die needless deaths (usually before their 5th birthday) and in their thousands everyday. The exact figures are not known or recorded: the Tomb of the Unknown Famine Victim grows bigger by the minute.

It is clear now however that, for every death from hunger, there is no genuine technical cause. For every child's life that hangs in the balance, sufficient food has always been available within a matter of hours' - if not in some cases minutes' - distance. It’s not a logistical problem or a matter of distribution. Neither is it an error in the market: the system is operating as it is meant to.

But isn't the market meant to send signals between consumers and producers ? That's its claim to fame surely, that it efficiently lubricates supply and demand, matching the two. In reality the signal which the market often responds to is not one regarding supply and demand but the one identifying profitability. The entire edifice of the money system is not geared to satisfying the needs of the majority for even the simplest means of living, such as food. Instead the objective is nothing more or less than profit, and it is an objective shared by the small minority who own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of us.

If you are an individual capitalist, why sell your entire warehouse of grain for a small profit per unit ? And just to watch the market price drop? Far better to make just as much profit by restricting the amount you sell, and keeping the price high, and make just as much profit, while keeping your stock levels up for making a killing during the next famine. The invisible hand of the market can send all the signals it wants, but there is often an invisible hand picking up a telephone to tell fellow capitalists to keep stuff back, restrict sales and keep prices up. This society offers little security - food or otherwise - except the security to make profit.

Who Cares? (2008)

From the April 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the US presidential election circus passes, people continue to suffer even in the US

It’s the US presidential election year. Populations of the world take notice. The media circus is in full flow and the season is a long one. The mainstream media love a good fight and will pounce on any juicy morsel, wringing it to death in the cause of democracy – Clinton’s moment with tears in her eyes or the decision or non-decision to show some cleavage; Obama’s plagiarizing or agreed borrowing of phrases from a third party’s speech – grist to the mill of information for the masses, essential in the common voter’s decision making process. Who do we think will make the toughest Commander in Chief and be able to make the ‘hard’ decisions? It appears the aim is to keep the public’s eyes as far away from reality and the real issues as possible. Deflect their attention whilst hypnotising them into believing their vote will actually make a difference in any significant area of their lives.

Even the more serious ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ US media are spending an inordinate amount of time and space debating and dissecting which sections of the population will vote for (1) a black, or (2) a woman. The fact that they are from the same party and broadly back the same agenda – and may ultimately stand on the same ticket – is less important than speculating about in which direction the various sections of the electorate are likely to be swayed either by popular appeal and endorsement of celebrities or by muck-raking and negative campaign advertisements.

Seemingly disconnected from the multi-million dollar, multi-media frenzy of the race for the presidency can be found other articles given over to topics not covered in the mainstream media but which ought to be in the forefront for the presidential candidates, the whole electorate and the rest of the world. Writers of several articles recently have investigated the care of physically injured or mentally scarred US troops returning from Iraq, and have revealed some chilling truths. Last year conditions at the Walter Reed Medical Centre, a military hospital, became so bad that it entered the realm of international coverage for a short time. Equipment was in short supply, specialists were leaving, the unit was seriously underfunded leading to lack of appropriate care for seriously wounded patients and a Pentagon Mental Health Task Force deemed its staffing level “woefully inadequate”. Bush made promises that it would be sorted and the hue and cry died away. Fairly early on in the conflict in Iraq some doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors recognised that significant numbers of military personnel were suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially if they had had to undergo a second or third term of duty. Many were simply given a course of drug therapy, a pep-talk and sent back to their unit or, whilst in the US between tours, some of them, with impeccable records and commendations for heroic action, developed problems with drugs, alcohol, gambling, writing bad cheques and ended up in military jail, some losing rank and others being discharged dishonourably.

In the early days counsellors and psychiatrists were pressed not to accept PTSD, certainly not to register it on record, rather to rebrand the affliction as ‘Personality Disorder’ and to suggest that those so afflicted were obviously unstable before they entered the military and were consequently kicked out of the service. Eventually after pressure from certain quarters thousands, rather than the original few dozen, were accepted as bona fide sufferers of PTSD and were put on a list to await treatment. But still denial of PTSD persists, especially in the Marine Corps which has “a deeply macho culture”. It is 93% male, 66% of whom are 25 or younger and 13% are teenagers. One civilian psychiatrist who treats Iraq and Afghanistan veterans tells of young veterans being ridiculed by their chain of command if they asked for help.

The Pentagon’s Mental Health Task Force reported last June that 31% of marines serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from traumatic stress and that marine suicide rates have been above average since the invasion of Afghanistan. (32 active duty suicides in the Marine Corps in 2004, no mention of the number among veterans). There are severe shortcomings in providing care for those who do qualify. A year after the Marine Corps’ review of less-than-honourable discharges recommended screening all marines and sailors who commit ‘particularly uncharacteristic misconduct’ following deployment the programme has not yet started because they lack the manpower.

Before the severely wounded or traumatised arrive back in the US they are transported to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany. The Air Force colonel who was chief of medical operations in the Europe headquarters for 2 years, 2004-6 said “politics infused every aspect of care” and that the funding was the worst she had seen in 20 years in the military. They weren’t allowed to increase staffing because it would give the wrong message, that it would look like they were expecting more casualties. They weren’t allowed to send the visibly wounded home on commercial planes because it might upset US citizens to see them and the military planes were so cold that charity appeals were made in order to provide hats, scarves and mittens for the wounded. Mittens, because they fit wounded hands better than gloves.

Here’s the rub – this huge military set-up with an annual budget of billions, desperately recruiting from all quarters, promising college educations for free and later reneging, promising full US citizenship to non-citizens and then reneging and promising full support to veterans and reneging wherever possible. The reason PTSD is a contentious diagnosis is because it means that sufferers are entitled to full support, free drugs and veterans’ benefits for life (i.e. expensive). If it can be reduced to ‘personality disorder’ they can be thrown out and denied entitlement. If they can be recommended for an ‘other-than-honourable’ discharge (for drug use whilst recovering or other misdemeanours) notwithstanding an exemplary service record, veterans’ benefits would be denied, including healthcare, for life.

The bottom line, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, don’t kid yourselves about patriotism or fighting terrorists or protecting your country. When was war any different? It’s just the workers protecting the interests of their masters. It’s the same for you as it is for the rest of us. You’re simply there to be used, abused and paid as little as they can get away with. These are the issues that should be engaging the media circus, placing them squarely in front of the electorate and the presidential candidates. But they aren’t and they won’t be because the mass media supports the status quo. Will the workers ever learn?

Janet Surman

Whats the Matter with Pennsylvania?

From the Marx and Coca-Cola blog

Recently at a campaign event Barack Obama made the following comment about the dying Rust Belt towns in Pennsylvania:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

I couldn't agree more (except for the gun part. People like guns, because like cigarettes, they're cool). The goal of this blog is to channel working class bitterness away from religion and xenophobia into actual constructive action (I admit it's a long term project). According to a McCain spokesman that makes me a latte-drinking, New York Times reading, Volvo drinking liberal freak show:

"It shows an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking," [Steve] Schmidt said. "It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."

This from a candidate that thinks everything is going great in Iraq.

Hillary, who's made 109 million dollars since leaving the White House, also disagrees:

"Well, that is not my experience," she said. "As I travel around Pennsylvania I meet people who are resilient, optimistic, positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard every day for a better future for themselves and their children"

Move along. Nothing to see here. Everything is fine. People are working harder, but for a lot less then they used to. Not for a better future, but just to keep their heads above water. Obama with his typical silver tongue, fired back in Indiana:

"When I go around and I talk to people there is frustration and there is anger and there is bitterness. And what's worse is when people are expressing their anger then politicians try to say what are you angry about? This just happened - I want to make a point here today.

"I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how're you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What's going on there? We hear that's its hard for some working class people to get behind you're campaign. I said, "Well look, they're frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they've seen jobs shipped overseas. They've seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

"And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we're going to make your community better. We're going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they're bitter. Of course they're frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement-- so, here's what's rich. Senator Clinton says 'No, I don't think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack's being condescending.' John McCain says, 'Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he's obviously out of touch with people.'

"Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain--it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he's saying I'm out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I'm out of touch? No, I'm in touch. I know exactly what's going on. I know what's going on in Pennsylvania. I know what's going on in Indiana. I know what's going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They're angry and they're frustrated and they're bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that's why I'm running for President of the United States of America."

As I've said before I like Obama's populist rhetoric. It will probably carry him to the White House. His actual policies, however, aren't much of a change from the liberal consensus. So when he says "And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them." he's not quite right. The working class can't vote their economic interest, because even Democrats, like Obama, believe that the market is a force of nature. You may be able to cover people's head, but you can't stop the rain from falling. Us working folk shouldn't expect the government (or religion, or nationalism) to save us. So we'll have to find another way.

JM

The Sick Society

Manchester Branch Day School

Saturday 19 April, 1pm to 5pm

Capitalism on The Couch

Speaker: Peter Rigg

Can Socialism Cure our Ills?

Speaker: Ed Blewitt

Friends Meeting House,
Mount Street,
City Centre
(next to Central Library and Manchester Town Hall)