Socialism is the enemy of Nationalism (1980)

Book Review from the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nation et lutte de classe by Otto Strasser and Anton Pannekoek (Union generale d'editions, Paris.)

Before the first world war, Austria was a multi-national empire in which the Emperor and his bureaucracy ruled not only over Germans and Hungarians but also over Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Croats, Slovenes and others. As a result theoretical discussion of "the national question" became a speciality of Austrian Social Democracy. The problem was particularly acute in Bohemia where Germans and Czechs lived side by side and where a language quarrel raged over schools, jobs in civil service, signs in railway stations, and so on. Even the Social Democratic Party was not immune, the Czech party splitting in 1905 into those who wanted a separate Czechoslovakia and those prepared to work with the German-speaking party within the Austrian Empire.

Orthodox Social Democracy found difficulty in arguing against the Czech separatists since they were too nationalists, regarding the nation not only as a legitimate political form but even as the suitable framework for "socialism". However, within the Social Democratic movement, there were people who insisted on the world-wide nature of socialism and on the incompatibility between nationalism and socialism. They called themselves "intransigent internationalists". Among these were the authors of two pamphlets, first published in 1912, recently translated into French and published together as a single book: Otto Strasser, editor of a local German-language Social Democratic paper in Reichenberg (then in Austrian Bohemia, now in Czechoslovakia and called Liberec) and Anton Pannekoek, a native of the Netherlands then active in the Social Democratic Party in North Germany.

In his pamphlet L'Ouvrier et la nation (The Worker and the Nation), Strasser takes the various arguments of the nationalists as to why workers should regard themselves as part of a nation with a common interest (such as language, land of birth, national character) and demolishes them one by one. He also attacks those Social Democrats who argued that the best way to beat the nationalists was to meet them on their own ground by showing how the Social Democratic programme was in the "national interest". This (which was in practice the policy of the Social Democratic Party) was, said Strasser, self-defeating and should be opposed.

Pannekoek's pamphlet Lutte de Classe et Nation (Class Struggle and Nation) is more theoretical. He accepts the definition of nation given by Otto Bauer, the Austrian party's leading theoretician, viz. "a human grouping linked by a common destiny and a common character". He sees, however, nations as the product of the era of the rising bourgeoisie; at that time capitalists and workers did indeed have a "common destiny" against the forces of feudalism. But, with the development of capitalism, the class struggle more and more breaks out between capitalists and workers shattering their "common destiny".

For the workers the nation then comes to be replaced by the class as the "common destiny". Becoming class conscious, therefore, involves rejecting nationalism. He describes the "national conflict' in multi-national States such as Austria as merely an aspect of the competition between the capitalists within such states, with the different sections using language and nationalism to try to win mass support for their vested interests. He advocates that workers speaking the same language finding themselves divided between two different states (he gives as an example Ukrainian-speakers who were then to be found in both Austro-Hungary and Russia) should not form a single cross-frontier party, but should join the Social Democratic party of the state in which they happened to live, in order to help the struggle to win political power in that state.

Pannekoek emphasises the world, rather than inter-national, character of socialism:

The socialist mode of production does not develop opposing interests between nations as is the case with the capitalist mode of production. The economic unit is neither the State nor the nation, but the world. This mode of production is much more than a network of national production units linked with each other by an intelligent communications policy and by international conventions as described by Bauer on page 519. It is an organisation of world production as a unit and the common affair of the whole of humanity (Pannekoek's emphasis).

For him, "nations" will only survive in world socialism as groups speaking the same language and even then a single world language may evolve.

For all their criticism of the national policy of the Social Democratic parties, Strasser and Pannekoek were themselves Social Democrats and (at this time) shared many of their illusions, particularly that a socialist party should have a maximum (socialism) and a minimum (social and democratic reforms within capitalism) programme. This mistaken belief that socialists should try to combine the struggle for socialism with a struggle for reforms comes out occasionally in the text of both pamphlets. But this does not detract from the fact that both pamphlets put essentially the socialist case against nationalism.

Adam Buick

A shining light (and a dim one) (1997)

Theatre Review from the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), The Reduced Shakespeare Company, Criterion Theatre.

A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire by Caryl Churchill, National Theatre.

Many local theatres can no longer afford to recruit a company of actors and keep them for a season or so. As a result repertory theatre is slowly dying. Visit your local theatre and you are more likely than not to see something played by a touring company: a group of actors performing the same show, week-by-week, across the length and breadth of the country. In the past month I have seen three such shows. Two of them may likely soon appear in your neck of the woods. One I think you might wish to avoid like the proverbial plague; the other will likely enthrall even if it doesn't delight.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company are currently appearing at the Criterion Theatre in London. But their show The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), is so successful that a second company is currently on tour. I caught their show in Bury St. Edmonds; it was an excruciating experience.

I like satire, irony and farce, but not when they are managed as unimaginatively and crudely as here. Shakespeare is ripe for entertaining comment and diverting song as was recently apparent in a charming little show "The Shakespeare Revue" which also toured widely. But The Complete Works is the "cor blimey" humour of the Sun directed savagely at one of the giants of literature. It is someone who can barely play the piano parodying Mozart; a drunken karaoke performer mimicking the Beatles. In the theatre, as in the rest of life, I am ever the optimist. I've thought about leaving before, but always stayed. Three weeks ago was a first: we walked out at half-time.

In contrast A Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, by Caryl Churchill, makes for an illuminating if, finally, a rather melancholy evening. Written in 1976 and currently revived by the National Theatre, and on tour, the play is about those early proto-socialists, the Levellers and the Diggers. The play's title celebrates a Digger pamphlet of the same name, which was circulating at the time of the English Civil War in the late 1640s.

Writing a forward to the text Caryl Churchill talks about the time after Charles I had been defeated when "anything seemed possible". And she goes on: "The play shows the excitement of people taking hold of their own lives, and their gradual betrayal as those who led them realised that freedom could not be had without (the ownership of) property being destroyed."

In nearly two dozen short scenes we are offered a series of cameos of life in England at the time of the Civil War. We see first a hypocritical clergyman patronising his servant; then two cynical JPs sentencing a woman accused of vagrancy to be stripped to the waist and beaten to the bounds of the parish; and then a man joining the army to fight "with Christ's saints for the commonwealth"; and so on. But at the heart of the play is the dramatic realisation of the Putney Debates of 1647, when Cromwell and his generals met representatives of the Levellers.

If this debate grips and excites as it examines ideas about democracy, freedom and the supposed rights of property, the rest of the evening droops somewhat in comparison. This is not entirely Ms Churchill's fault. She has faithfully represented both the fate of the Levellers and the emergence of the anarchic Ranters, and in doing so she seems true to the demands of historical accuracy.

But the imperatives of drama are not the same as those of history, and it is possible to see ways in which the structure of the play might have been altered to give proceedings a stronger narrative line, and to make the key ideas more accessible to a contemporary audience who, as Carly Churchill herself observes, are unlikely to have heard about the Diggers and the Levellers. Moreover, if the play had ended with that classic dramatic device of an epilogue, the struggles of the Levellers could have been given some kind of historical perspective, and we could then have seen evidence of the continuing struggle of the socialist movement for democracy, freedom and the end of private property ownership. But enough of the cavils. This is a play to see.

Michael Gill

Voice of the People (1975)

From the November 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every week the London Broadcasting Company invites listeners to 'phone in suggestions for dealing with various problems.

The other week it was Inflation. The listeners had a ball! Funnily enough, not one listener or the jockey on the receiving end even mentioned Harold Wilson's £6 limit, or his expensive pamphlets. They all had their own ideas - and what ideas! None of that silly Socialist rubbish about the Government which is saying it wants to stop inflation printing the millions of banknotes which cause it; or the articles in the Socialist Standard making out that deflation (before the war) was just as bad.

No, the People's ideas were all solid, practical, down-to-earth: right down! Not one said that the real trouble was the capitalist system - that inflation, deflation or reflation, the working class was always in the same boat. Oh no! Or that rigmarole about the capitalist system working regularly through booms and slumps.

Unfortunately we cannot spare the space to report every brilliant suggestion, but a brief re-cap of the main ones should suffice to show that the spirit of pioneering initiative which made Britain great is not dead but still flourishes. One bright lady kicked off with the suggestion that everybody should buy secondhand clothes at jumble sales: "I haven't bought a new coat for years." (How everybody could be second without any firsts, she did not say.)

Another had discovered that although football-pool promoters ask for 14p a go, it is possible to get a coupon accepted for 8p. He'd had quite a bundle with them over this, and they had finally succumbed. We commend this to Denis Healey; after all, it's no sillier than his Budget proposals. One other suggestion was that everybody should refuse to pay their rates - although when this is to start he did not say.

The only point which was argued about was a proposal for a 100 per cent tax on all foreign goods - in fact, this listener said "no foreign goods at all". Even the simple-naive disc-jockey had to point out that inflation worked in favour of exporting countries, of which Britain has always been one.

Someone else weighed in with a master-stroke. He had observed that most voluntary societies - anglers, cyclists, bird-watchers, etc. - have, in addition to an annual subscription, a "life" one. He had worked out that quite a sum could be saved here (if you live long enough). Them of course, we were bound to get the old wartime chestnut: "Dig for Victory!" Why don't we all grow our own spuds, etc? Very good! Thank you for calling! Call again! Another wanted the Government to subsidize mortgages. A real heart-cry, this one: poor devil!

But the cream was reserved to the last. Even the imperturbable "public ear" got aerated over this one. One listener had discovered that if you write "OHMS" on letters you get away with it, because the Post Office can't collect on them. As was pointed out, what happens of it costs the Post Office 50p or £1 to collect a few pence from the Ministry of Power or the War Office?

And so it went on and on for an hour. What finally emerged was that most of those 'phoning in were so desperately anxious to save a penny or two somewhere that they had no time to think about inflation. They were all too concerned with their own dire poverty, and literally beating their brains out to try and save a couple of coppers somewhere by doing without something or other. Still, it's nice to know that the London Broadcasting Company is giving "the People" the opportunity to have their say and make their proposals.

As Harold Wilson says in his pamphlet: "Democracy works best when it relies on persuasion and consent". Armed with suggestions like these to add to the appalling mess it is already in, Wilson's Labour Government can now march confidently forward to further disaster - as they always have done.

Harry Young

That's the stuff! (1997)

Book Review from the March 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Long Johns by John Bird and John Fortune, Hutchinson, London, 1996, £9.99.

John Bird and John Fortune have been performing hilarious sketches on the Rory Bremner show for over six years now, and this is a transcribed collection of the best of them. They honed their comic talents and eye for the ridiculous in the 1960s at Soho's Establishment club, which they co-founded with Peter Cook. Bird, before he moved to London, had been a member of the Socialist Party. It is not clear from this book how much Bird's political views have changed since those days, though the indications are that they haven't shifted a great deal, while the influence of Cook's own particular brand of irony and satire is evident throughout.

The main targets of Bird and Fortune are the market economy's peculiar idiocies and contradictions, together with the hypocrisy of the ruling class. Trotskyist Paul Foot has claimed that "Bird and Fortune have done more to undermine this government than all the speeches of the opposition put together", and for once he might not be too wide of the mark. It is only to be hoped that they will not spare the Labour Party if and when Blair and company achieve office.

Several of the sketches included in this book are superb, and the famous one about the NHS internal market is arguably the best of all. In this Bird plays a Chief Executive of an NHS Trust. He is interviewed about his Trust's decision to operate a market system for all NHS equipment, and elaborately explains the new procedure whereby, when a surgeon finds that he needs a scalpel during an operation, a message is sent to the Trust's Scalpel Resource Manager who then puts in bids to other hospitals across Britain for a scalpel until the cheapest is found. "If that happens to be in Barrow-in-Furness, that is where he will get it from," Bird says, only to be asked by interviewer Fortune "He will personally go and get it will he?". "He will get it," replies Bird, " . . . we are talking about emergencies here."

Beautiful stuff, and certainly worth a tenner of you have it.

Dave Perrin

Oh! What a Lovely Centenary (2013)

From the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last October David Cameron delivered a speech at the Imperial War Museum detailing the government’s plans to commemorate the centenary of the First World War.

Also known as the Great War this was to have been ‘the war to end all wars’. There will be commemorative events to mark the outbreak of the war in August 1914, various battles such as the naval battle of Jutland, the disastrous Churchill-inspired Gallipoli campaign, the 'bloody' first day of the Somme, the Third Battle of Ypres popularly known as Passchendaele, and the Armistice of 11 November 1918. This is quite a number of events that will be commemorated between 2014 and 2018. It could be like the Royal Wedding, Diamond Jubilee, Olympics, Princess Diana's funeral and the première of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse for four long years as the capitalist class endeavours to bolster British nationalism and militarism.

It is interesting to note that in 1964 for the fiftieth anniversary there were no commemorative events apart from the 26 episodes BBC documentary series The Great War, and in the same year film director Joseph Losey made King and Country set in the Great war with a marked anti-war sentiment.

Nationalist propaganda

Cameron's speech was a great example of capitalist class propaganda to induce that false solidarity of ‘we're all in it together’, to make ‘us’, the working class, identify ‘our’ interest not with our own class but with that of the interests of the ruling capitalist class through identification with the ‘we’ of the nation state. Words like ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ are used all the way through Cameron's speech.

Celebrations such as the Royal Wedding, Olympics, and Diamond Jubilee are all part of making the working class identify with the nation state, and the normality and routine nature of donations to Help For Heroes or the Poppy Day Appeal all combine to create a powerful consensus in the nation state with its strong links to the military. It helps soften up the working class to accept the need for military action, as recently in Iraq or Afghanistan or Iran.

Cameron said in his speech ‘the Diamond Jubilee celebrated this year, says something about who we are as a people’. Actually, what it says is that we, the working class are subjects to a relic from feudalism, and that if we can be made to accept the inherited privilege of the Royal Family we can almost certainly accept the inequalities and exploitation of capitalism.

Cameron described a visit he made to Gallipoli in the following way: ‘the beaches we were meant to land at, the beaches we did land at’. It is as if you and I, the working class are private soldiers landing with subaltern Cameron in the Dardanelles.

Millions of pounds will be spent on events and educating school children in the capitalist history of the Great War, another generation will grow up not questioning capitalism or war and the links between them. Cameron emphasised that the Coalition Government would continue to maintain free access to museums despite Gradgrind and austere economic policies which shows how important the capitalists view the centenary of the Great War.

Cameron mentioned Rudyard Kipling, the Poet of Empire (‘send forth the best ye breed’) in the context of the War Graves Commission which is apt as he shares responsibility for the slaughter of the European working class in the Great War.

The Great War was a major disaster that befell ‘us‘, the working class in Britain and Europe. Millions were slaughtered or ‘sacrificed’ in the trenches. Cameron used the word ‘sacrifice’ seven times during his speech to refer to all this slaughter. They ‘gave their lives for us’, that is we, the working class did. Cameron talks about ‘us’, the working class of 1914 in the following terms;

‘for many going off to war was a rite of passage. Many of them were excited; they would eat better than they had when they were down the mines or in the textile mills. They would have access to better medical care’. Here Cameron distanced himself and by extension ‘us’ from the Great War with the use of ‘they’, the working class young men from the South Yorkshire coalfields or the Lancashire cotton towns. There is an acceptance from Cameron that in 1914, ‘they’, the working class, had it very hard, but with the implication that it's different today. But it isn't. Capitalism and the exploitation of the working class for their surplus value continues.

There are no veterans left alive today. Which is just as well for Cameron. Harry Patch, ‘the last fighting Tommy’ died in 2009 aged 111 years. He fought and was wounded at Passchendaele and is on record as saying things like: ‘War is a licence to go out and murder for the British government’ and ‘War isn't worth one life. It is the calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings’.

The working class were ‘sacrificed’ for the interests of the capitalist class in the Great War.

Economic causes

The Socialist Standard of November 1914 pointed out that theSunday Chronicle of 30August 1914 let the cat out of the bag when they wrote the following; ‘the men in the trenches are fighting on behalf of the manufacturer, the mill owner, and the shopkeeper’.

Cameron does not question why there was war in 1914. The capitalist media and historians would have us believe that the Great War was caused by a combination of things like Prussian militarism, the 'German character' (whatever that is), blood feuds in the Balkans, diplomatic alliances that got out of control, and even idiosyncrasies in the Kaiser's personality.

Economic causes are the fundamental reason for the outbreak of the Great War. Even Keynes in 1936 identified ‘the competitive struggle for markets’ as the predominant factor in ‘the economic causes of war’. Fundamentally, the causes of the Great War lie with ‘bacon and steam trains’, or the Serbian Pork war with Austria where an Austrian trade embargo on Serbian livestock fanned the flames of Serbian nationalism, and the German building of the Berlin to Baghdad railway whose ultimate aim was Basra on the Persian Gulf which so terrified British commercial interests in the Middle East and threatened the route to India.

Cameron believes that the Great War is important for the ‘origins of a number of very significant advances’, which is all very calculating. Firstly, he cites the execution of Edith Cavell as important in ‘advancing the emancipation of women’ which ignores the war work women engaged in, the ‘middle class’ women of the Suffragette Movement, and the working class women who always had to work and their involvement in trade unionism. Secondly, he sees the death of the first black army officer, as the ‘beginnings of ethnic minorities getting recognition, respect and equality’ which is quite baffling. It would be more apt to point to Arthur Wharton, the first black professional football player who played for Preston North End in the 1880s. Thirdly, advances in medicine, and finally ‘advances in technology transformed the nature of war’ which Cameron will be glad about as he travels as the capitalist sales rep for arms manufacturers. He visited the Middle East and North Africa trying to sell the latest military hardware in February 2011 at the height of the ‘Arab Spring’, and he was in the Gulf in November trying to sell the same stuff to autocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia.

Cameron proposed ‘friendly football matches to mark the famous 1914 Christmas Day truce’ which is rather ironic considering national rivalries in football are just displacement activities for war, witness the rivalries between England and Germany (two world wars), England and Argentina (Falklands War), and the most bitter of all that between Holland and Germany.

Cameron feels that ‘to us, today, it seems so inexplicable that countries which had many things binding them together could indulge in such a never-ending slaughter, but they did’. He adds that in Europe ‘we sort out our differences through dialogue and meetings around conference tables’. This is all rather disingenuous considering that war takes place outside Europe because that is where the resources are located. We have wars In North Africa and the Middle East, in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. And is Iran next?

In August 1919 the Socialist Standard wrote ‘while competition between capitalist groups for routes, markets, and control of raw materials exists, the cause of war remains’.

As socialists ‘we’ recognise the truth of what Marx wrote in 1848 that we, that is, the working class, ‘have no fatherland’. It is about our identity. We should use terms like ‘we’ and ‘our’ in relation to our class not the nation state and the capitalist class.

Steve Clayton

Is capitalism crumbling? (2009)

From the March 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Left-wingers are calling for the nationalisation of the banks. They may get their way. And then?

The severe economic crisis has dominated newspaper headlines – day after day for at least the past six months – like no other story in recent history. The massive layoffs, losses and bankruptcies have grown as familiar as the daily death-count in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ranks of the unemployed are overflowing and no job seems secure.

Not only is the situation spinning out of control, but workers are being reminded how little control they have over their lives. Their own futures are in the hands of business leaders and politicians, who themselves can do nothing more than follow the inhuman impulses of capital.

One bright spot, however, is the market for solution-peddlers and doom-prophesiers, which is booming. On the one hand, there are the experts claiming to know the secret for getting capitalism back on its feet and curing the system of its manic-depressive tendencies; while on the other hand, there is the minority that views the crisis as the beginning of the final collapse of capitalism.

The pages of this magazine, in contrast to that commotion, might seem calm, or even complacent. As in the quieter days before the crisis, we continue to advocate socialism in much the same tone and with the same arguments. Some readers might be wondering how this crisis affects socialists and how we are responding to it. How do we differ from those offering to solve the crisis or from those who say we are witnessing the end of capitalism?

Reformist solutions

As workers, socialists do not necessarily relish an economic crisis, as we face unemployment or wage cuts like everyone else. Being a socialist does not equip a person with a protective force-field to block the harmful consequences of capitalism. There’s no question that the working class, including socialists, will suffer the most from this crisis.

It is in this atmosphere of anxiety that reformists of all kinds step up to offer sure-fire ways to relieve capitalism of its hangover and keep it sober forever more. Most on the Left remain confident that greater intervention and regulation on the part of the state will pretty much do the trick, pointing to how well it apparently worked back in the 1930s. That is certainly debatable, but these ideas will probably be tested by reality soon enough. Even if such measures are more or less effective, the crisis still may drag on for several years – although no one is really in a position to make clear predictions.

The clear aim of reformists is to get capitalism back on its feet again, yet many on the Left like to spice up their own Keynesian reformism with revolutionary rhetoric. They are able to get away with this thanks to the widespread misconception that any involvement by the state in the economy is “socialistic.”

The more imaginative reformists have viewed bank nationalization, for instance, as an integral part of measures to both overcome the crisis and put in place a new system of socialist production – rather than being a temporary measure to prop up the crumbling financial system. Their brand of “socialism” may be very attractive as it offers something for everyone, but they are in fact peddling a form of state capitalism under a false label.

Take the Socialist Equality Party in the US, for instance, which back in September, at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, confidently issued the following demand as part of a “socialist program”:

“The entire financial system must be taken out of private hands and nationalized in the form of a public utility under the democratic control of the working class, with provisions taken to safeguard the holdings of small depositors and share-holders. It must be subordinated to the social needs of the people and dedicated to developing and expanding the productive forces in order to eliminate poverty and unemployment and vastly improve the living standards and cultural level of the entire population.” (“The Wall Street Crisis and the Failure of American Capitalism”)

The author, Barry Grey, presents this demand as one part of a “socialist program that places the needs of the people before the profits and personal fortunes of the ruling elite,” necessary because “there is no solution within the framework of the profit system” to the “crisis of the American economic and political system.” So we can only suppose his nationalized financial system is operating in a “socialist” society (or a society that follows a “socialist program”).

But with socialism like this, who needs capitalism! There will still be a financial system, so one would have to assume that goods are paid for with money and thus produced for the market. There would be no need for any of that in a society where things are produced to directly meet people’s needs, as democratically determined by them. It may sound nice to say that the financial system will take the “form of a public utility under the democratic control of the working class” and be “subordinated to the social needs of the people”, but what would that mean in practice? (Even that “socialist program” sounds a bit dodgy, with its promise to “place the needs of the people before the profits and personal fortunes of the ruling elite,” as it assumes the continued existence of a wealthy ruling elite.)

Perhaps we should compliment the Socialist Equality Party for being “ahead of the curve” on this nationalization issue, as any good “vanguard party” should be, now that many capitalist governments are thinking about implementing that measure. And we might compliment them further if bank nationalization succeeds in stabilizing the financial system. But this organization and so many like it deserve our contempt for dressing up reformist measures to look revolutionary. Their sweet-sounding promises only block the path to revolution by utterly distorting the meaning of socialism.

A collapsing theory

On the other extreme from the reformists, or at least it would seem, are those who argue the final collapse of capitalism has begun and that efforts to prop up the system are doomed to fail.

The reasons given for this inevitable collapse vary quite a bit, however. Some argue, as many Marxists did back in the 1930s, that it is the result of capitalism’s internal contradictions, such as the tendency towards a declining rate of profit. But many more, including the adherents of peak oil theory, view the collapse as the result of capitalism colliding with some outside force that prevents the further accumulation and expansion that is the lifeblood of the system. 

Not only are there a myriad of reasons offered to explain the inevitable collapse, but there are starkly different conclusions reached about what will replace capitalism. There are those who see the collapse as radicalising the population and bringing workers around to a revolutionary standpoint; while others depict a prolonged period of social anarchy or even a return to a pre-industrial life, and advise people to head to the hills after stocking up on gold, guns and vegetable seeds.

Regardless of those particular differences, however, the idea of an inevitable collapse of capitalism clearly implies that a great historical change could take place regardless of our actions. Instead of socialism replacing capitalism, based on the conscious decisions and actions of workers, we would have capitalism ending at some point, and that collapse then stimulating a great social change – for better or worse.

One might wonder, though, what sort of society would exist in the interim, however brief it might be, between the collapse of the old and the emergence of the new. It would be “non-capitalist,” one would assume, but what would be the dividing line between the two? Is it possible for a society to not be capitalist, but still not be anything else either?

The reason for much of the confusion among the “catastrophists,” as they are sometimes called, is that – just like the reformists who confuse nationalization with socialism – they do not have a clear understanding of what capitalism is, exactly. That is to say, instead of understanding capitalism on the most essential level, as a system of commodity production in the pursuit of profit, they get caught up in the various forms of capitalism, and imagine that some are more capitalistic than others.

It is certainly true that forms of capitalism or particular governments can collapse, but this should not be viewed as the collapse of capitalism itself. There are many examples of collapses to choose from, most notably the fall of the Weimer government in Germany that was followed by a fascist regime. For over a decade, Germany went through economic crisis, political upheaval, and a catastrophic war. With no exaggeration, one can speak of that period as a collapse of civilization. Yet throughout it all the capitalist system remained intact.

It is easier to speak of the “collapse of capitalism” if a person has no clear idea of what capitalism means. And if its meaning is unclear, then the understanding of socialism will also be a muddle (just like those reformists who mistake state capitalism for socialism). It is important, therefore, to distinguish between an economic or political collapse, and the end of capitalism itself, which only workers can bring about by replacing it with socialism.

Optimism in depression

The criticism of those two tendencies might lead some to believe that we offer no solution to the crisis, or that we ignore the objective factors of reality and overemphasize the subjective ones.

We do in fact have a solution to this crisis and to economic crisis in general. But our approach to the problem is similar to how we approach other problems, such as the destruction of the environment or war, in that we do not propose a separate solution for each problem. This isn’t because we are indifferent to the problems, but because we recognize the relation between individual problems and the capitalist system.

In a sense, to solve one problem requires the solution of all of them. The fundamental solution to the problem of crisis, for instance, requires the introduction of a new system of production and consumption no longer mediated by the market, where there would no longer be any basis for crises. In other words, socialism is the solution to this particular crisis and the problem of crisis itself, along with every other social problem that is specific to capitalism.

As for objective versus subjective elements, we would certainly recognize that the objective reality of the crisis will have an impact on how people view capitalism. This new situation may create a more favourable environment for explaining socialism.

Already, in the past six months, there has been a tremendous shift in “public opinion”, so that now it is almost fashionable to rebuke bankers for their greed and ignorance. There is no question that more people than ever are wondering whether capitalism is indeed the best of all possible worlds.

Of course, even while the changing reality has stimulated thought and debate, the conclusions people are reaching vary. Many see the crisis as the bankruptcy of “neo-liberalism”, rather than capitalism itself, while the religious minded might even say it is punishment from God. No matter how much the objective reality may influence ideas and test theories, it will not directly deposit the concept of socialism in a person’s mind.

So we still have the task of explaining socialism, and it is more important than ever as workers suffer under the crisis. That explanation, as always, is based on the recognition of the fundamental contradictions and limitations of capitalism, and the realization that this (obsolete) system cannot be reformed beyond a certain point. It is during a crisis that those contradictions and limitations are most evident. Marx describes how the “contradictions and antagonisms of bourgeois production are strikingly revealed” during a crisis of the world market, which is a moment when there is a “real concentration and forcible adjustment” of those contradictions (Theories of Surplus Value).

With the problems so plain to see, and the limitations of capitalism so palpable, the explanation of socialism as the solution may very well begin to seem more concrete and practical – and urgent – than before.

Michael Schauerte

Sociology or socialism? (1978)

From the June 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the era of the social worker. Over the last twenty years in Britain the number of welfare workers, probation officers, and social workers has quadrupled. In addition to these 20,000 fieldworkers there are now about 87,000 home helps and a similar number of residential workers in homes for old people, children, the disabled and the mentally disordered. All of these are employed by the state and local authorities.

In industry too, there has been a steady growth in personnel departments, while in the voluntary field there has been the growth of what might be called the new charities. Organisations like Shelter, The Samaritans, Child Poverty Action Group, Help the Aged, British Pregnancy Advisory Service, refuges for battered wives, groups to help alcoholics and drug addicts agoraphobics, organisations to give advice on marriage problems, legal problems, sexual problems. They have all grown up to try to deal with the casualties of capitalism.

When the post-war economic boom finished and the amount of money available for social work began to dry up, social workers in particular found themselves in a very different position. While the needs, as they saw them, were increasing on every side, their numbers and the funds at their disposal were cut or held ruthlessly in check. For those who had entered social work full of idealism it was a considerable shock. They were sandwiched between pressure from their bosses above and the clamour from their 'clients' below. In addition, they found that there was still a pressure from outside: a large number of people with idealism like their own, wanted to do social work and get paid for it.

Like the craft unions of the past, like doctors and teachers and psychologists, social workers have begun to defend their position with qualifications. With these they have started to set themselves above and apart from those people forced to go to them for help. and to warn amateurs like friends and neighbours and relations against offering 'inexpert' help. They are the experts because they have studied the social sciences especially psychology and sociology, and they think they know how society works and how people should be treated.

When we look at the social sciences, however, it becomes clear that they are unscientific in a number of ways. As mental training for social workers, modern sociology and psychology serve the purpose very well, because they provide an ideology which persuades a large number of idealists to work hard at the interminable task of patching up and supporting capitalism. But as objective studies of what goes on in modern society they are in many senses worse than nothing because they promulgate fictions and obscure the facts.

Social scientists have responded to the criticism that they are unscientific over the years in two ways. Some have striven to make their work as similar to the natural sciences as possible in trying to construct experiments in which every factor is controlled and only the variable being studied is altered. The trouble with this approach is that it too often confines itself to the trivial. In the first volume of the European Journal of Behavioural Analysis and Modification, April, 1975, is a seven page article which gives an account of an experiment in which twenty homosexual men were shown slides of erotic pictures while the changes in volume of their penises were measured with a "mercury-in-rubber strain gauge'. In following pages, a critic observes that the five researchers were really measuring the change in the diameter of the penis, not the volume, and so their results were not very reliable. He also goes into detail about the experimental methods he used with 'unco-operative subjects'. The silliness of it all does not obscure the sinister implications in the title of the journal.

The other stance taken up by social scientists (notably sociologists) is to admit that a human study like theirs cannot be scientific in the same way as physics and chemistry because of the complexity of the phenomena. But there is a very strong tendency for sociologists to use this as an excuse for being less scientific than they could be. What really causes them to be unscientific is something quite different, something not related to the inherent difficulties of the study at all. And this is simply that they avoid studying any aspect of capitalism that would bring out radical criticism of it. Superficial criticism occurs in abundance. They discuss crime, job dissatisfaction, aspects of poverty, aspects of alienation, and many of the pointless ways in which workers try to make their lives tolerable and meaningful in this society.

Such sociologists only ever examine the working class and various groupings and strata within it. When they talk of class they mean sub-divisions of the working class. What they never study is the capitalist, the member of this society who, because he owns and invests wealth employing workers, has no need to work, and can be unconcerned about all the sociologists' fetishes of role and status because his wealth ensures these things. The capitalist class form roughly 10 per cent of the population. Their interests lie in direct opposition to the people the sociologist studies. And yet it is their ideas and attitudes that are the dominant ones in this society and are fed down to the workers, including the sociologists. It is even a capitalist idea that there is no such thing as a capitalist, that we are all workers: some of us work hard in factory machine shops or offices or mines; others work hard at fox-hunting or polo or yacht racing. And sociologists behave as though capitalists do not exist. The consequence of this is that, if we have a grouse about our own living standards, or if we make a more calculated criticism of the pollution, repression or destruction that are part and parcel of the modern capitalist world, the social scientist will explain that we are simply reacting against 'society', an aggregation of individuals like ourselves. Under the guise of an objective science, sociology, together with its related disciplines, is really a system of apologetics for capitalism. From Auguste Comte down to Talcott Parsons, sociologists and social psychologists have obscured the irreconcilable conflict of interests between the working class and the capitalist class. They have diverted attention away from what really makes like boring, stressful, frustrating and dangerous for the majority of the population. Even 'left wing' sociologists, who dimly perceive that they serve this purpose, and criticise the superficialities of life in capitalist society even more bitterly, serve capitalism all the more faithfully. Their function is to sound the warning bells about its weak points.

It is perhaps a sweeping generalisation to say that all sociology is a reaction against Marxism, but the number of times that Marx is mentioned and then 'brought up to date' or 'corrected' is uncountable. Talcott Parsons, in his essay "Social Classes and Class Conflict in the Light of Recent Sociological Theory" (Essays in Sociological Theory, Free Press, 1964) puts it like this:

Thus class conflict and its structural bases are seen in a somewhat different perspective. Conflict does not have same order of inevitability, but is led back to the interrelations of a series of more particular factors, the combinations of which may vary. Exactly how serious the element of conflict is becomes a matter of empirical investigation. Similarly, the Marxian utopianism about the classlessness of communist society is brought into serious question. There is a sense in which the Marxian view of the inevitability of class conflict is the obverse of the utopian factor in Marxian thought.
It should, however, be clearly noted how important Marx was in the development of modern sociological thought. All three of the writers who may be regarded as its most important theoretical founders—Vifredo Pareto, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber—were profoundly concerned with the problems raised by Marx. Each of them took the Marxian view with great seriousness as compared with its utilitarian background, but none of them ended up as a Marxian. Each pushed on to a further development in a distinctive direction which in spite of the diversity of their backgrounds contains a striking common element. 

That common element, of course, is support for capitalism to which Parsons also devotes himself. And when Parsons talks of 'empirical investigation' to see 'exactly how serious the element of conflict is' it is plain that he is indulging in pseudoscientific talk, or else he has never properly understood what Marx was saying.

It is quite true that Marxism, the approach of the revolutionary socialist, looks at societies, past, present and future in all their aspects from the point of view of one class — 90 per cent of the population of the industrialised world. The Marxist declares: 'These are facts; deny them if you can: the privations and frustrations and dangers suffered by so many thousands of people — all of the working class — cannot be talked away. They are necessary features of a class dominated, exploiting society'.

But the socialist goes further and says it is not enough merely to study capitalist society. Any member of the working class (and that includes most sociologists these days) should want to replace it with a better society as soon as possible, and so should be politically active towards this end. It is not enough, either, to be a social worker, because the task of trying to care for the casualties is hopeless in the long run. Capitalism will continue to cripple far more than can ever be coped with.

Ron Cook

Cooking the Books: Has Money Gone? (2012)

The Cooking the Books column from the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article “The decline of money” (Weekly Worker, 9 March) Hillel Ticktin argues that money did not exist in the USSR, does not exist in China and that fiat money issued by governments even in the West isn’t really money.

Marx saw money as having two basic functions: (1) a medium of exchange or circulation, i.e. the means through which articles produced for sale get bought and sold; and (2) a measure of value, i.e. a common unit in which the value of articles produced for sale can be expressed as a price, and is thus a standard by which they can be compared.

“The natural form of money”, Ticktin writes, “would be a commodity that could itself be produced with labour-power and would therefore have its own value.” This was certainly the typical form of money in Marx’s day and the form he discussed the most. This money-commodity (usually gold or silver) does not have to circulate itself and be used for payments. It can be replaced in circulation by tokens, including paper ones issued by the government.

Marx identified two kinds of paper token money: tokens that were convertible on demand into a fixed amount of the money-commodity and tokens which were not. The former created no problem. The latter, however, could create a problem if they were issued in a greater amount than the amount of the money-commodity that would otherwise circulate. In this case, if they circulated alongside gold or silver, the value of the tokens would depreciate, i.e. they would buy less than their face-value. If they were the only currency (as is the case today) this would result in a rise in the general price level, i.e. in a change in the standard of price.

An inconvertible paper currency has to be managed by the government or some state institution such as a central bank which, to avoid depreciation or inflation, has to calculate the correct amount to issue. In Marx’s day the case where the only currency was paper token money was a hypothetical one which he only discussed in passing. He was rather sceptical that it would work, on the grounds that it would not be possible in practice for a government to get the amount right and so there would be no stable standard of price.

Marx scepticism proved to be misplaced. He was right that there was likely to be a changing standard of price, but not that capitalism would be unable to cope with this. It has, and in fact this has become the norm, with most governments aiming at a price level rising at 2-3 percent a year.

The difference between a money-commodity and paper money, says Ticktin, is “that paper money is issued by governments and controlled by governments. It is effectively a nationalised form of money. It is not a spontaneous form, as with gold.” That is so, but Ticktin goes on to claim that “this nationalised form means that money is not really money as we understood it. One cannot say that £1 is equal to so much abstract labour. It is decided by governments and whomsoever is actually dealing with the money supply.”

It may not be the form of money Marx knew, but it is still money. It is still the medium of exchange and still a measure of value and standard of price even if a changing one. Ticktin is concerned that this “nationalised money” is controlled by ruling class technocrats instead of democratically in the interests of the working class. As if it could be.

We want, like Marx, a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources and production directly to meet people’s needs instead of for sale and profit and where money would therefore be redundant.

Capitalism — No Magic Slipper (2005)

Film Review from the October 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Make no mistake, “Cinderella Man” is a crackerjack movie which thoroughly justifies the praise lavished on it. The true story of Depression Era boxer James J. Braddock, who rose from the welfare rolls to winning the World Heavyweight Championship, thereby earning his nickname, “Cinderella Man”, is totally absorbing and powerfully directed by Ron Howard.

Braddock’s story was representative of his time. The movie begins in the late 1920s, when he lived in a nice suburban house and was a leading contender for a world title. It resumes when the Depression was at its worse in the early 30s and Braddock’s career was at its lowest ebb, hence his standard of living too. As the Depression gradually recedes, we follow his rise to a shot at the title (at odds of 10-1) and victory over the seemingly unbeatable Max Baer, who was (dis)credited with two ring deaths.

“Cinderella Man” clearly depicts how tough times were in the early 30s, which doesn’t mean it’s a happy-go-lucky romp in Elysian Fields today. When Braddock’s daughter asks for an extra slice of baloney, Braddock, who hasn’t eaten that day, pretends he isn’t hungry. When a guy comes to their tenement apartment to switch off the hydro, Mae Braddock (who is unable to pay the gas or milk bills either) attempts to dissuade him. He tells her, “I’ve got kids too. If I don’t switch it off I’ll lose my job.” Mae and her three children tear the slats off a billboard, for fuel, risking trouble with the authorities.

Though his pride has sustained some fierce body blows, his spirit is unbroken. Braddock’s strength comes from his closely-knit family and the belief in his capabilities by Joe Gould, who (unbeknownst to Braddock) sells his own furniture to pay Braddock’s training expenses.

As we follow Braddock’s new-found success it becomes clear this movie is about the indomitable human spirit. As Ron Howard said recently, “It’s a film about people finding the strength to carry on and do the things they have to do.” Most of us like to see the underdog triumph, most of us like to see a comeback, and here we have both, therefore, we can enjoy this film. Although it’s perfectly OK to enjoy “Cinderella Man”, it’s not OK to be taken in by it. Sure it’s a paean to the never-say-die, gotta give it my best shot feeling that exists in all of us. In that sense it’s uplifting and a film in tune with the times we are living in, let alone the 1930s.

But on a deeper level the message of the movie is, “Hey, take it easy buddy, capitalism ain’t so bad. Sure there are times when it’s tough all over, but if you hang in tough and keep struggling like Jim and Mae Braddock did you’ll find things’ll work out just fine.” This viewpoint was echoed by Russell Crowe on the David Letterman Show on June 8 and has become the main mantra of the media.

On the docks, Braddock befriends an ex-stockbroker who lost his job, mortgage and belief in politicians the day the market crashed. When Braddock suggests things might improve now Roosevelt is president, his friend replies, “FDR hasn’t got me my mortgage back.”

In implying that we shouldn’t trust politicians, they are saying the right thing for the wrong reason. Politicians of all kinds stand for a continuation of capitalism, a system that causes the conditions within which the Braddock family, like most families, struggled.

The pity of it all is that Braddock, like most members of the working class, didn’t learn much, but continued to believe society didn’t need changing. In 1928, a year before the Wall Street Crash, he lost $20,000 when the Bank of the United States went belly-up. This was the year Herbert Hoover was elected president on the promise of continued prosperity. According to Mr. Hoover, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”

Braddock, who was paid $32,000 for beating Max Baer, eventually gained greater prosperity by a deal that was thoroughly in keeping with boxing’s, hence capitalism’s, shoddy ethics. When Joe Louis had emerged as the outstanding challenger, Joe Gould informed him he could sign ten percent of his earnings over the following ten years to Gould and Braddock, should he win, or forget about a title fight. Knowing he could be denied a title shot for years because he was black, Louis signed.

Braddock died in his sleep on November 30, 1974 at the age of 69. The next day in the New York Times, Red Smith wrote, “If death came easily, it was the only thing in his life that did.”

Steve Shannon

Bert Ramelson buries Lenin (1976)

From the March 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

What happened when the BBC's "Newsday" interviewed the industrial organiser of the Communist Party would have been more suitable for the Goon Show, or Monty Python. Bert Ramelson, keeping a perfectly straight face, point-blank denied everything that the Communist Party was founded on and peddled for over thirty years!

True it is, as he said in the interview, that he only joined the CP in 1936; whereas some of us knew it intimately since 1920. However, that should not prevent him (or anybody else) knowing the facts. The interviewer did not know a great deal about the subject, and questioned from a prepared brief.

But even the political department of the BBC had heard that the Communist Parties were founded on "Leninism". That is, seizure of power by an intrepid, resolute minority of "professional revolutionists", leading the working class — who would then lead the "toiling masses" (meaning peasants) to socialist victory. For thirty years a vast mass of pamphlets, books and newspapers flogged the Leninist dogma of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", meaning minority action.

Many able writes waded patiently  through Marx's work to show that, from The Communist Manifesto onward, Marx never used this then-popular French slogan to mean anything else than majority democratic methods. For instance, Lucien Laurat, who in Marxism and Democracy quotes The Communist Manifesto:

The first stage in the working class revolution is the constitution of the proletariats as the ruling class, the conquest of democracy.

No use! For thirty years CP writers and speakers denounced democracy and exhorted the workers to follow "Marx's best disciple" Nikolai Lenin. Parliament was a useless "gasworks", elections a waste of time (although they regularly took part in them, but "only for propaganda, comrade"). The state would be smashed and "bourgeois" parliaments replaced by Soviets, "the workers' democracy".

The theses of the Communist International, Third Congress, prescribed the basis of Communist Parties. They must be organized with strict military discipline, based on "democratic Centralism", meaning complete obedience to the edicts of the Central Committee, or E.C., and prepared for "heavy civil war". The Programme of the Third International included armed insurrection.

For many a long and weary year the speakers of the Socialist Party strove manfully against an avalanche of Communist falsification of Marxism and distortion of Socialism. Exploiting every possible grievance of the workers — "the Leninist tactic": especially the mass unemployment of the 'thirties. Communist-inspired Hunger Marchers were batoned by the police after the General Strike ended in disaster; to be followed by yet another "change of tactics" by the CP.

When the war broke out poor old Pollitt, not realizing that Stalin had signed a pact with Hitler, proclaimed it a "just war", wrote a pamphlet "How to Win the War, One Penny" — and was promptly sacked by Moscow. After Hitler invaded Russia, the "imperialist war" of the western imperialist powers became "a war of liberation against German Fascism" and Pollitt was reinstated, although not as General Secretary of the Party.

Stalin had wiped the "Communist International" out of existence once he had the prospect of nuclear weapons. Understandably, the interviewer politely raised the question of the CP's present policy, and its past. "Was it not the case that the CP had advocated 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' in the past?"

"Not any more", replied Bert. Not any more! And do you know why, dear reader? Let Bert tell you. Because there has been "so much misunderstanding of what Marx really meant". He actually said this. "Marx meant the action of the vast overwhelming majority", said Bert; the CP has not used the phrase in any document since 1950, to avoid any more misunderstanding.

He was then asked if the British CP is a constitutional party, now willing to obey the majority vote. Yes! said Bert. But, said the question-master, didn't the CP try to take control of the trade unions? No, said our industrial organizer, not any more — we only organize our members in trade unions to help the unions, whose job is not political but economic. He would up by saying that the CP hoped to be able to join in a Coalition Government of Left-wing Labourites, like the Communists in France or Italy.

When one considers that Stalin systematically exterminated everyone within reach, and certainly everu one of those prominent in the Russian CP prior to Lenin's death . . .  when we recall Trotsky's extravagant calls for ruthless terrorism and the wiping-out of all opponents, and that many were shot by Stalin for daring to doubt his infallibility — we can only describe Bert as the best thing since electronic ignition.

Funnily enough, in the same week that Bert did his comic turn (19th January) the BBC was running a series involving Russia, called "Fall of Eagles". It was not expertly informed, but at least tried to achieve some resemblance to the facts. It showed the famous 1903 Congress, where Lenin founded the Bolshevik faction. Bert Ramelson did not even mention Lenin's name. Poor old "Ilyitch" is dead and buried, along with the thirty-eight volumes of his Collected Works.

And yet, up to and after 1950, famous scientists in Russia did not dare try to publish reputable work without the customary sickening adulation of Comrade Stalin — "Lenin's greatest disciple". How fortunate for Bert that he wasn't the industrial organizer then. He'd have got twenty years in a labour camp — if he was lucky!

Horatio

Scottish? English? Who Cares? (2014)

From the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the run-up to the referendum in Scotland in September we begin a three-part series exposing the myths surrounding events in Scottish history.

‘Reive’ is an early English word for ‘to rob’, from the Northumbrian Scots verb reifen, related to the modern English word ‘ruffian’. The reivers also added the words ‘blackmail’ and ‘bereaved’ to the English language.

During the wars between Scotland and England, the lives and livelihood of the people on the borders would be devastated by the contending armies. Crops were destroyed, homesteads burnt and the people murdered or dispersed. Those living in places known as Liddesdale, Redesdale and Tynedale were the most affected as, for reasons of geography, the invaders regularly used these routes. Families on either side of the Border had a lot in common regardless of whether they were Scots or English. It is no coincidence that these people, having their crops regularly destroyed and their livestock stolen, looked for other means of sustaining themselves and their families. They took to reiving.

Royal authority in either kingdom was often weak and there was little loyalty to a feeble or distant monarch. The uncertainty of existence meant that communities or people kindred to each other would seek security through their own strength and improve their existence at the expense of their rivals.

Bishop John Leslie of Ross wrote of the Border Reivers:

‘In time of war they were readily reduced to extreme poverty by the almost daily inroads of the enemy, so, on the restoration of peace, they entirely neglect to cultivate their lands, though fertile, from the fear of the fruits of their labour being immediately destroyed by a new war whence it happens they seek their substances by robberies or plunder and rapine (for they are particularly averse to the shedding of blood) nor do they much concern themselves whether it be from Scots or English that they rob...They have a persuasion that all property is common by law of nature and is therefore liable to be appropriated by them in their necessity.’ (our emphasis)

The Border reivers, nick-named the ‘steel bonnets’, raided along the border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. Their ranks consisted of both Scottish and English families, and they raided the entire border country without regard to nationality. Border families practised customs similar to those of the Highland Gaels and although feudalism existed, loyalty to kin was much more important and this is what distinguished the Borderers from other Lowland Scots. Relationships between the Border clans varied from uneasy alliance to open deadly feud. There being much cross-border migration, families that were once Scots now identify themselves as English and vice versa.

The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, so long as the people they raided had no powerful protectors and no connection to their own kin. When fighting as part of larger English or Scottish armies, Borderers were difficult to control as many had relatives on both sides of the border, despite laws forbidding international marriage by punishment of death. They could claim to be of either nationality, describing themselves as Scottish or English at will. At battles such as Ancrum Moor in Scotland in 1545, Borderers changed sides in mid-battle, to curry favour with the likely victors, and at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, an observer (William Patten) noticed that the Scottish and English borderers were talking to each other in the midst of battle, and on being spotted put on a show of fighting. Indeed the Borderers had a much closer allegiance to their family than to their country. Raids were made, not in the name of Scotland or England, but in the name of their family or clan. A Border official, Thomas Musgrave said:  ‘They are people that will be Scottishe when they will and English at their pleasure.’

When a man was killed his whole family became involved in a feud with the family who had done the killing. Reprisals were not just against the killer's immediate family but against anyone with the same surname. Mostly feuds were English against English and Scot against Scot. These feuds could last for generations and families could be engaged in several feuds with several other families. The authorities were reluctant to get involved in feuds because it was their thinking that they could stand back and watch troublesome families kill each other and rid the authorities of problems with these families.

The Debatable Lands lay between Scotland and England, extending from the Solway Firth near Carlisle to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway, the largest population centre being Canonbie, and which country's sovereignty it lay under was a matter of dispute. Some twelve miles long and three to four miles wide, the boundaries were marked by the rivers Liddel and Esk in the east and the River Sark in the west. For over three hundred years they were effectively controlled by local clans, such as the Armstrongs, who successfully resisted any attempt by the Scottish or English governments to impose their authority and who could alone put 3,000 men in the field. They launched frequent raids on farms and settlements outside the Debatable Lands and the profits enabled them to become major landowners.

In 1530, King James V broke the strength of the Armstrongs by hanging Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie and 31 others. In 1551 the Crown officers of England and Wales, in an attempt to clear out the trouble makers, declared that ‘All Englishmen and Scottishmen, after this proclamation made, are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy all and every such persons, their bodies, buildings, goods and cattle as do remain or shall inhabit upon any part of the said Debatable Land without any redress to be made for the same.’

Upon his accession to the English throne, James VI of Scotland (who became James I of England) moved hard against the reivers, abolishing Border Law and the very term ‘Borders’ in favour of ‘Middle Shires’, and dealing out stern justice to reivers. He embarked on the so-called ‘Pacification of the Borders’.

James was determined to have a United Kingdom. He proclaimed that ‘if any Englishman steal in Scotland or any Scotsman steal in England any goods or cattle which amount to 12 pence, he shall be punished by death.’ The most blatant offenders were rounded up and served with what was known as ‘Jeddert Justice’ - summary execution. Some families abandoned their reiver connections and found favour with the king and joined in the subjugation of the old reiving families to be rewarded with the lands of their former friends and allies. All Borderers were forbidden to carry weapons and fortified tower houses destroyed. Reiving families were dispossessed of their lands, the people scattered or deported, and many families rounded up and banished to Ireland where they partly made up those who became known as the Ulster-Scots. And there lies another tragic tale of blood-soaked nationalism and unionism!

ALJO

War, Weapons and Water (2012)

From the December 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over.’ (Mark Twain)

The BBC in November 1999 reported on a UN Development Programme which argued that potential ‘water wars are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country’. Speaking in New Delhi in March 2001 the then Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, predicted that: ‘if we are not careful, future wars are going to be about water and not about oil.’ John Reid, Minister for Defence warned in 2006 that: ‘climate change may spark conflict between nations – and … British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence,’ Independent (28/02/06).  And in March of this year in the Guardian Energy Secretary, Ed Davies stated that: ‘I have a fear for the world that climate instability drives political instability,’ and continued by saying: ‘The pressure of that makes conflict more likely.’ Mark Twain may have got it right then.

The Pacific Institute (worldwater.org) underline Twain’s words through their chronology of 225 entries from 3000 BC to 2010 of violent conflicts relating to water. Water and air are the two necessities of human life. Fortunately, only water has evolved into private property and only recently as a commodity for sale on the market. Fortune magazine extols its virtues as a commodity: ‘One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21^st century what oil was to the 20^th’ (CBC News, 02/03). Which might give Kofi Annan something to brood over.

The origins of conflicts over water developed with the ownership of domestic livestock and the growth of agriculture several thousand years ago. Water had gradually taken on an economic character. Thus, when grazing pasture and natural watering holes dry up, and farmers seem to be flourishing, then peaceful cooperation inevitably stops working. Latterly, under capitalism, the procuring, extracting, treating, storing and delivery of water has a cost and, as Fortune magazine points out, a profit is expected in return. If supplies of any commodity become short, it can be expected that the price will rise.

Growth is as important to capitalism as water is to a human being. And water is a crucial element in any future growth of capitalism. Global capitalists compete to harness and control water because it is an indispensable component for commercial fisheries, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism, and most importantly it is a source of energy through hydroelectric power, which at present supplies around 6 per cent of the world’s commercial energy. But this commodity is becoming scarce. A CIA report in 2000 predicted that ‘By 2015 nearly half the world's population –more than 3 billion people –will live in countries that are 'water-stressed' –- have less than 1,700 cubic meters of water per capita per year –mostly in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and northern China’ (sourcewatch.org).

In Africa, The Okavango Basin is a source of tension between Botswana and Namibia. Both countries are victims of drought and Namibia has already built a water canal and has proposed building a pipeline to divert water from the river back into Namibia. At stake for Botswana is its only source of water and an expanding income from tourism. Namibia argues that it is entitled to any water that flows through its country. Egypt’s economy is highly dependent on agriculture and thus the distribution of the waters of the Nile. Egypt claims to have a historical right to the Nile, but upstream, Ethiopia and Sudan see matters differently. The former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak threatened in 1989 to send demolition squads to destroy a projected dam in Ethiopia, and ‘The Egyptian army still has jungle warfare brigades, even though they have no jungle’ (aljazeera.com/).

In the Middle East just one per cent of the world’s water is competed for by five per cent of its population. Thus, the former Israeli Prime Minister, General Ariel Sharon, could state that, ‘People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the six-day war began. That is the official date. But, in reality, it started two- and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.’ And in 1979 following the signing of the peace treaty with Israel, President Anwar Sadat said that ‘Egypt will never go to war again, except to protect its water resources’. Likewise King Hussein of Jordan stated that ‘he will never go to war with Israel again except over water’ (mideastnews.com). Israel maintains control over the River Jordan and has restricted supplies during times of scarcity as the people of the Palestinian Territories will validate.

The Euphrates River has been a regional flashpoint for a number of years. Minor skirmishes had been fought between Syria and Iraq over water rights. In May 1975 tensions were ratcheted up when both sides massed troops on their borders following Syria’s claim that Iraq had reduced the flow of water by 50%. In January 1990 Turkey shut off the flow of the Euphrates for 30 days by closing the gates of the Ataturk Dam. And in 1998 distrust, which some observers believed could lead to hostilities, arose because of Turkish plans to build dams that could be used to control supplies to downstream Syria. The escalating scarcity of water in the region has done nothing to improve this situation.

China and India’s economic growth is jealously eyed by other capitalist states. With the predicted consequences of climate change and faster glacial melt factored into the thinking of state planners, alternative methods for power, such as hydroelectricity, have been a strategic dynamic in their efforts to maintain future levels of growth. Power shortages are acting as a constraint on India’s factory output. Outages are frequent and for an economy that is already slowing a serious handicap. And, of course, the damming of rivers brings with it control: a useful adjunct to cheap power.

China and India boast two of the world’s mightiest armies who fought a brief border war in 1962. Both stand poised over tensions concerning upstream Chinese proposals to divert water from the Brahmaputra River. The Brahmaputra flows from its source in the Himalayas into Eastern India where it unites with the Ganges. To the east The Kishanganga River thunders down through Northern Kashmir to The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant, which was constructed to divert water from the river to a power plant in the Jhelum River basin. The Kishanganga flows on down past one of the world’s most heavily defended borders into Pakistan. The Pakistan state is concerned that the dam will have a detrimental effect on the flow of the river. Water has long been a source of strain between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile China is also busy in Southeast Asia, along with Laos, in constructing dams over the Mekong River to the alarm of downstream states. Moreover China has built almost 20 dams, and around 40 more are planned, on the eight Tibetan rivers. It is believed that hydropower alone is not the only motive for China’s increasing control over the sources of rivers.

In a society that is awash with weapons that come in various guises, water might appear to be less menacing than many. However, water is now talked of as a ‘Political Weapon’, which is synonymous with the deceptive language conjured up by the school of wordsmiths who gave birth to the snappy idiom, ‘The Nuclear Deterrent’. Brahma Chellaney, the author of the book ‘Water: Asia's New Battlefield’ has asserted, ‘Whether China intends to use water as a political weapon or not, it is acquiring the capability to turn off the tap if it wants to – a leverage it can use to keep any riparian neighbours on good behaviour.’

Problems globally will be exacerbated with the expected rise in grain and oilseed prices as US crops suffer from the country's worst drought since 1936 and the farming regions of South America and Russia suffer similar water shortages (Daily Telegraph, 5 September). According to Rabobanks’ commodities analysts, ‘By June 2013, the basket of food prices tracked by the United Nations could climb 15pc from current levels.’ Rising food prices are always a source of social discontent and thus political instability.

A growing number of environmental writers and strategic analysts view water as a potential trigger for future wars. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2007 stated that: ‘The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.’

Socialists view war as the last resort for states. Scarcity of any resource that is vital for the production of profits could be, and has been, seen by states as a reason to go to war.

Andy Matthews