1968 recalled (2008)

From the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nineteen sixty-eight was a year of dramatic political developments – the assassination of Martin Luther King, violent demonstrations against the Vietnam War, uprisings in the black ghettos of America, a month-long General Strike in France, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.It was also, though not being recalled by the nostalgia department of the BBC, the year when the Labour government of the time was in dead trouble, trying to impose wage restraint, introducing racist legislation to keep out Kenyan Asians, losing by-elections to Scottish and Welsh nationalists. But they still managed to stagger on for a couple more years before being voted out. Even fewer recall that 1968 was the TUC’s centenary.We reprint here what we said on some of these events.

Black Power

“As an insurrectionist slogan, black power is suicidal. Only 15 per cent of the population in the U.S. are black. One needs no great mathematical skill to figure out who would be victorious in a racial war, not to mention the fact that a bottle full of gasoline is a rather inadequate defense against fleets of helicopters and tanks, armed with napalm, poison gas, and fragmentation bombs.

As a revolutionary theory, black power is divisive and self-crippling. Attacks on the "white power structure" mean little unless one understands that the source of its power is not the skin colour of the bureaucrats, but the enormous property values which employ them. We have already mentioned that any part of the working class cannot alone solve problems which stem from their position as wage workers; they must act together with the majority of their class. The concept of black power implies that black workers have basic interests which conflict with those of white workers. Both black power and white prejudice divide the working class against itself, thereby weakening the class and diminishing the power of each of its members. Black power is not a cure for exploitation, but a symptom of the disease.

Nevertheless, it is possible that black power may also be a healthy sign in the American working class movement. The young insurrectionists of Detroit, Newark, Boston, Cincinnati, do belong to the urban working class, and this is the first time since the 1930s that masses of American workers have broken with "their" government and openly defied it to put them down. Some black power leaders also feel the need for greater support among white workers, and stress their goals of better schools and housing will benefit more white than blacks.

Class consciousness takes a long time to develop. One of the signs of its development is a wholesale rejection on the part of workers that a treadmill is their only possible alternative in life. The black powerists, the hippies, and the peace movement suggest that large things are happening in America which the socialist need not regret.”

(“Black Power in the United States”, February).

The General Strike in France

“The following manifesto (for distribution in France) was adopted by the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain on 28th May. This is the English translation.

We address you not as citizens of one country to citizens of another but as world socialists to fellow members of the world working class.

We reject frontiers as artificial barriers put up by governments. All men are brothers and the world should be theirs. All men should be social equals with free access to the plenty that could be if only the means of living belonged to a socialist world community. We oppose governments everywhere, all nationalism, racism and religion, all censorship, all wars and preparations for war.

Workers! We support your class struggle for better wages and conditions against the employers and the government. But do not be taken in by the ease with which you have occupied the factories. They allowed you to do this because they know that in time you must give in. Political power is always in the hands of those who control the machinery of government, including the armed forces and the sadistic CRS. Do not be misled by those who say that universal suffrage is a fraud. Learn from your masters. You too must organise to win political power if you want a new society. Do not let cunning politicians or the discredited Communist Party return to power on your backs. Ignore those who would be your leaders. Rely on your own understanding and organisation. Turn universal suffrage into an instrument of emancipation.

Students! We share your distaste for the indignities and hypocrisies of the present order. We share your wish for a new society with no exploitation of man by man. But do not underestimate what a task it will be to change society. It will be a hundred times more difficult than changing the government. A democratic world community, based on common ownership with production for use not profit, can only be set up when people want it and are ready to take the steps needed to set it up and keep it going. Democratic political action is the only way to Socialism. There are no short cuts. We must have a majority actively on our side. Do not be misled by student demagogues, those who praise Bakunin, Trotsky, Mao or Che Guevara, who would use you for their own mistaken ends. They think that an elite should use unrest to gain power and then set up a classless society. What dangerous nonsense! Look at state capitalist Russia where a new privileged class rules, with police intimidation and censorship, over an increasingly restless population. Look at state capitalist China where power-hungry bureaucrats cynically manipulate the people in their own sordid squabbles. Learn the lessons of history: elite action leads to elite rule. No Socialism unless by democratic political action, based on socialist understanding.

The task you face in France is the same that we face in Britain and our brothers in Germany, Russia, the United States and other countries: to build up a strong world-wide movement for Socialism. What is needed more than anything else in this period of social unrest is a clear, uncompromising statement of the case for a socialist world community.

If you agree, please write to us. We will be glad to help you ensure that the voice of Socialism is again heard in France.

Workers of the world, Unite !”

(“To the Workers of France”, July)

“Millions of viewers of the BBC programme last June on the students will have heard Tariq Ali declare "we believe in the abolition of money". Someone pointed out that "the others looked very doubtful". As well they might. Even Cohn-Bendit has only called for equal wages, presumably to be paid in money. Tariq Ali himself probably did not understand the implications of what he said. But he did break a leftwing taboo. Normally they don't like to fly so much in the face of popular prejudice and risk being called "Utopians". No, normally they like to be seen as r-r-revolutionaries boldly declaring they believe in violence!

Whatever the reason for his lapse Tariq Ali did at least provoke some discussion in the papers as to whether or not it was practical to do away with money. Most people ridiculed the idea but one Guardian letter-writer pointed out that the absurdity of capitalism should be obvious every time you get on a bus and have "to exchange metal discs for a ritual rectangle of paper which an intelligent man was paid to punch".

(“What! No Money!”, September)

Invasion of Czechoslovakia

“The dictators of state capitalist Russia have sent their armies into Czechoslovakia in a bid to impose a puppet regime which will carry out their orders to crush free speech and restore rule by torture and the secret police. ( . . .)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain wishes workers there every success in establishing the framework within which a genuine socialist movement can grow, namely, political democracy.

The crude power politics of Russia once again expose the myth of Socialism there. Russia is a great capitalist power and behaves like one.

The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain abhors this latest display of imperialist brutality, all the more vile as it has been committed in the name of socialism, and calls upon the workers the world over to oppose capitalism, east and west, and to unite for Socialism.

August 21st 1968”

(“Power Politics and Czechoslovakia”, September).

Vietnam demonstrations
“Socialists were out in force to sell genuine Socialist anti-war literature at the pro-Vietcong, and thus pro-war, demonstration held in London on Sunday 27 October, about which the press spread such hair-raising scare stories.

On the Friday evening, when students of the London School of Economics occupied college buildings to turn them into a sanctuary for the demonstrators, Socialists (including two who were LSE students) were able to hold an impromptu meeting and sell a few dozen SOCIALIST STANDARDS. A photograph appeared in Saturday's Morning Star in which one of our members selling this journal could clearly be seen.

At 12.30 on Sunday, thirty or so Socialists were at Charing Cross to get ready to sell literature to the demonstrators as they marched to Hyde Park (we stayed well away from Grosvenor Square and the hooligans). Of course, as with CND, we did not join the march but sold literature to the marchers and by-standers. The cover of the October SOCIALIST STANDARD can have left no one in doubt as to our position: VIETCONG, NO! MAO, NO!, CHE, NO! SOCIALISM, YES! Up to 600 copies were sold in what turned out to be a very successful afternoon's socialist activity.”

(“Socialists and the "October" Revolution”, December)

1968 and all that

The Socialist Party will have a stall at the 1968 and all that International Conference and Bookfair, which takes place next Saturday, 10 May and which will be held at Conway Hall in Central London.

The Socialist Party will also be holding a meeting at the Conference on the subject of France in '68.

Was there really a revolutionary situation in France in May 68?

Speaker: Adam Buick

Room: Artists Room

Time: 3pm

How To Achieve Socialism

From the SPGB's 1998 pamphlet, From Capitalism To Socialism . . . how we live and how we could live

NO MINORITIES

Socialism can only be established when a great majority of workers understand and want it. It would be absurd for a minority of conscious socialists to try to take over power and impose the new system on an unwilling majority. Such a strategy would certainly fail, with the armed forces, controlled by the majority-backed government, being used to defeat the rebels. The idea is heroic fantasy at best and would lead to a bloody tragedy at worst. And even if such a method of 'revolution' were successful-if a determined minority should seize political power in an attempt to introduce socialism on behalf of the working class-there would be no prospect of it resulting in a socialist society. It would not be possible to run a society in which everybody contributed co- operatively according their abilities and took freely according to their needs unless the great majority of people understood the arrangement and wanted it. It would not be possible to establish and maintain a society based upon conscious democratic control unless the great majority were prepared to exert that democratic control. If the population did not want to participate in social decision-making and were prepared to leave it to a particular minority, that minority would be forced to become the exclusive decision makers themselves and would eventually become a new ruling class. But in the final analysis, the very fact that a minority wanted it would show that they did not understand the full implications of socialism themselves, and so were not really socialists.

A look at the various theories of minority, or minority-led, action to establish 'socialism' essentially Lenin's Bolshevism and its various offshoots, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism, etc confirms that in practice these are the ideologies of would-be national ruling classes aiming to industrialise economically backward parts of the 'world-'through a policy of state capitalism misleadingly called 'socialism'. Their tactics-vanguard party, violent insurrection, ruthless measures against the old rulers and all opponents-are thus quite' irrelevant .for a genuine socialist movement, though superficially attractive to those who want radical social change, yet despair of ever winning over a currently indifferent or conservative- minded working class. In the unlikely event of them being successful in some highly industrialised country the outcome would be some form of state capitalism, certainly not socialism.

THE POWER OF THE STATE

The establishment of socialism must be the work of a socialist- minded, democratically organised working-class majority. The socialist revolution, in other words, must be a majority revolution. This is because of the power of the state in capitalism.

The state is the machinery for the defence of a system of minority ownership by a ruling class, and also that class's instrument for administering that system. It follows therefore that before capitalism can be abolished and socialism established the state must be taken over, firstly to prevent it being used to forcibly resist the change, and secondly so as to utilise its administrative facilities within the new system. Any attempt to establish socialism while leaving coercive power in the hands of the capitalist state would meet with brutal resistance. The idea entertained by some that capitalism can be 'brought to its knees' by workers organising a general strike through their trade unions but not taking over the state is quite untenable. Trade unions, which are sectional organisations, are no substitute for a political party which has as its clear aim the conquest of state power.

Socialism will not come therefore from minority action aimed at disrupting society and then taking advantage of the resulting social and political instability to seize government power in an armed uprising. Nor will it come from ignoring or trying to bypass the state. Socialism will come from a majority revolution which undertakes the task of gaining control of state power.

Where does the state's power come from? The power to form a government is invested in the votes of the electorate, where there is an electoral system. In countries like Britain the vast majority of the electorate are members of the working class. It would be impossible for the capitalist minority to appoint a government of its choice within the electoral system unless they persuade a significant number of workers to vote for such a government. It is true - that different sections of the capitalist class favour different styles of government and therefore huge funds are invested by them to influence workers into voting for one party rather than another. But many capitalists are aware that the only real differences between the parties are their marginally different policies for running the system. The whole of the capitalist class, however, has an interest in ensuring that working-class support for capitalism continues, as it is through this support-in the tangible form of votes-that the capitalist class maintains its position.

THE LEARNING PROCESS

Many workers clearly see the vast gulf between the pampered minority who own the world and the rest of us, the propertyless producers, but what can be done about it? Most think the way out is merely through their own individual advancement, not a social revolution. There is nothing particularly wrong with a person wishing to move up within capitalism: it is inevitable that workers will want to do so. But rags to riches stories are rare; that is why they make headlines. Under feudalism the ambition of the early capitalists was to become feudal lords themselves, and some did. But eventually the interests of the capitalists became so much opposed to feudalism that they had to destroy it. In the same way the modem working class will learn -- and is learning - that any progress they may make within the confines of capitalism leaves the roots of their problems untouched, and often creates new problems.

Capitalism itself causes workers to learn. It increasingly demands healthy, well educated wage-slaves, trained to think clearly and critically to cope with the technical nature of modern industry and the ever more complex nature of modern society .In many countries, including Britain, it has suited the ruling class to yield to working class pressure for the vote. This means that the democratic machinery for putting an end to capitalism is available to us when we, as a united working class, decide to use it. At present the working class in this country, as in other countries, votes repeatedly for capitalism run by one party or another. Most workers have not yet realised how deeply entrenched are the causes of their problems, and how futile are the patches and tinkerings and minor adjustments to capitalism. As more of them do so the number becoming socialists will increase at a faster rate. This in turn will increase the ability to propagate socialist ideas and information, and more socialist parties will be formed in other countries.

During this period there is bound to be a growing amount of discussion about the working of the future socialist society. Not only will there be private conversations and public meetings, but newspapers, radio and television will find the topic impossible to ignore. More and more people will become clear about what is at stake and what are the steps necessary to make the change from capitalism. Socialists may well be organising planning conferences so that all the problems of expanding production and distribution to cater for everybody can be foreseen and dealt with as soon as society is free to do it. This is probably also the period when the governments will make strenuous efforts to maintain support for the existing social structure. Large numbers of workers will have become able to resist appeals to illusions such as 'the national interest' or 'our traditional way of life' because they will have seen through them. Governments will: think twice about using repressive measures because these can arouse stronger and more determined opposition. It is more likely that they will begin to offer reforms which would be thought impossible today, in an attempt to fob off the working class. The capitalist parties may at this point decide to sink their differences and work closely together, much as religions are doing today in the face of the growing number of unbelievers. They will perhaps try to manipulate capitalism to provide a batch of free services (gas, electricity, transport, etc.) with the claim that this heralds the 'beginning' of the free society. But socialists will not be so easily deceived.

THE SOCIALIST MAJORITY

With a majority of socialists and large socialist parties in all the main countries, we shall be in a position to establish socialism. In the unlikely event of there being a country without some form of political democracy at this time, socialists could apply pressure from all over the world to insist upon its introduction.

The parties formed by socialists will be thoroughly democratic: their policy and all their activities will be under the active control of their members; they will have no leaders. In this they will be completely different from existing parliamentary parties or Leninist 'vanguard' parties. Being the actual movement of the working class to establish socialism they will reflect, as far as is possible under capitalism, the organisational forms of socialism, namely democratic control and popular participation. And far from being parties which seek to lead workers with attractive slogans, they will merely be the instrument workers can use to win political power once a majority of them have become socialists. Such parties will of course have to elect candidates to contest the elections for public offices. But those appointed will simply be mandated delegates from the working-class socialist majority. The position will be the exact reverse of that in existing parliamentary parties. Instead of the party outside parliament being essentially vote-catchers for the parliamentary leadership, socialist MPs and councillors will merely be the messengers of the socialist working class outside parliament, democratically organised in their socialist political parties and economic organisations. And, naturally, the aim of sending socialist delegates to parliament will not be to form a 'socialist government' (a contradiction in terms) but to abolish capitalism as smoothly and peacefully as possible.

The task of socialist delegates, when elected in every country, will be: firstly, to take over the state machine in the name of the great majority of the population, the working class; secondly, to enact legislation making the means of production and distribution the common property of the whole community under the democratic control of all the people; and thirdly, as a consequence, to abolish the state itself along with those coercive powers and agencies necessary to the maintenance of class society but superfluous in socialism. The remaining administrative institutions (such as health services, education, communications and state-run industries) may be temporarily maintained in their existing form, but fully democratised, as will be the case with the entire organisation of production and distribution. All useful regulations will also be maintained and adapted to the requirements of socialist society.

Some political theorists think it possible that the police and armed forces would be used to resist such a democratic socialist revolution. In practice it is extremely unlikely, since those who make up these forces of repression are workers, not capitalists. When socialist understanding is widespread among the working class they cannot fail to be influenced by it. Once they see which way the social wind is blowing, not very many of them are likely to want to risk their lives for their masters' wealth, power and privileges. And, in the final analysis, the police and armed forces are supported, supplied, housed and fed by society as a whole. They cannot continue as organised bodies if society decides they shall not.

USEFUL PRODUCTION

Once socialism is established, there will be a rapid growth in the amount and quality of useful goods produced. As there will no longer be any patents or industrial secrets, all productive units will have access to the most advanced technical processes. There will no longer be any banks, stock exchanges, wages offices, advertising agencies, and although some of the workers previously in these fields may continue to be concerned with statistics relating to production and distribution, many millions of them will be released to involve themselves in socially useful activities such as house building, food production and other rapidly expanding sectors.

It is reasonable to suppose that, since the revolution will not take anyone by surprise, many workers will have been, within capitalism, preparing themselves for new occupations in socialism. Trade unions and other workers' organisations will probably have been adapting themselves to help the growing socialist movement to prepare for the future running society on the basis of production for use. Resources and manpower invested in armaments production will be switched to the satisfying of human needs. Onslaughts will be made on any centres of backwardness and destitution. These will not be given the kind of Cinderella treatment now awarded to 'community development' but instead the top priority now enjoyed by 'defence'. In fact, since socialism will grow directly out of capitalism, the present organisational machinery of the armed forces could be used for this end, since they are the most efficient means capitalism has developed for moving men and materials fast. Think of the implications for famine victims in, say, Ethiopia, or the Sudan, if the full system of communications, transport and services available for military purposes were available for the distribution of relief supplies.

The socialist revolution will be unlike all previous revolutions because, instead of one minority seizing power from another, it will be the majority taking power to establish a classless, stateless, moneyless, democratic society .And it will be a society consciously organised directly for human need, in which planning will play an important part-but in a completely different way from the so-called 'planned' economies of the ex-state capitalist countries-Russia, China, Albania, etc. Production and distribution will be planned because the vast majority of men and women will be actively and democratically co-operating to provide themselves with what they want, where and when they want it. This will put an end to the anarchy of production and haphazard distribution--'domination of the product over the producer'-which exists in capitalism.

THE WORLD SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

The revolutionary task of the movement for world socialism is therefore twofold: it is firstly to persuade our fellow members of the working class to reject capitalism and to aim for nothing less than socialism; and secondly to engage in political action for the purpose of measuring the growth of the socialist movement and, when the majority join us, of achieving our objective of bringing into being a new, exciting stage of human existence.

For more information about the World Socialist Movement, contact:

World Socialist Party of the United States

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Socialist Party of Canada

World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Greasy Pole: Winners and losers (2008)

The Greasy Pole column from the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

One law for the poor, and another for MPs.

Day after day, in magistrates’ court up and down the land miserable, friendless wretches stand a-tremble as they wait to hear how they will be punished for behaviour which, they are encouraged to believe, is akin to a weapon of social mass destruction. For these are the benefit frauds, people who have successfully claimed a state hand-out which the rules – the law – says they are not entitled to. In some cases, perhaps dependent on where the court is situated, the illegal claimant is surprised to find that the prosecutor from the benefits agency and the magistrates are not unsympathetic to the defence that it was the misery of persistent extreme poverty – perhaps trying to get by as a lone parent or on the starvation wages of a cleaner or a carer or the like – which led, inexorably, to the false claims. But in other cases, when the circumstances of the claimant are not so bleak, they are liable to hear themselves denounced as a threat to an orderly, fair society in which everyone has their place and where all benefits will come to those who are grateful enough to wait. In such cases a sternly salutary sentence is in the offing.

A recent example of this was heard at a court in Somerset, when a David Wilshaw was sent to prison for 20 months. His offences were to claim, over a period of four years, tax credit for 16 children who did not exist. It all began, he said, when he claimed legitimately for two children of his partner and saw that he was not required to provide any proof, such as birth certificates, of their existence. This encouraged him to invent other children, which brought in over four hundred pounds a week. It was said that when he was arrested he hinted that he should be congratulated rather than punished; he had, he said, done a “public service by identifying this loophole” which, although showing that he was typically acquiescent in the delusions about the essential justice and progressiveness of class society, did not persuade his sentencers to go easy on him. After all, they had already heard some other facts about him, for example that he had many previous convictions for fraud and was a gambling addict who could run through six hundred pounds a week. It did not help his case that while he was at the betting shop his partner was contending with her own addictive needs, swallowing a minimum of two bottles of brandy a day.

Epidemic

So there you have it – a man who, rather than tackle his personality defects exploits the generosity of a compassionate society. Except that he is not alone in this; a BMA report in January 2007 described Britain as heading for a gambling epidemic, with an estimated 300,000 addicts, while widespread and easily available “treatment” –stifling, or perhaps substituting for, the compulsion – is urgently needed. Gambling is no longer mainly a male preoccupation for it is now known as “female friendly” – although what is “friendly” about it is not easily apparent – and it now threatens to engulf children. The outlook is that the problems will get worse. A Labour MP who sat on the committee which examined the laws of gambling said that new opportunities, such as on-line gambling, were bound to result in a rise in addiction – and “addiction,” he said, “isn’t like flu; it doesn’t just go away and you can’t take a pill to beat it”. Which, true as it is, avoided the point that this Labour government, like its predecessors on the other side of the Commons, had actually aggravated the addiction, akin to forcing someone with flu to stay outdoors in bad weather.

The Gambling Act 2005, among other things, eased the entry requirements for casinos and bingo halls and sanctioned TV advertisements for casinos. Professor Mark Griffiths, who was co-author of the BMA report, commented on the likely effect of this: “The liberalisation of gambling and the number of different ways people can do it, such as mobile phones and spread betting, means the figure (of addiction) will go up”. The Act also allowed the establishment of the “super casinos” ( although in deference to loud protests and, it is rumoured, Gordon Brown’s Presbyterian background, this has since been modified) and other such establishments whose purpose is to supply an hour or two of fantasy to some particularly desolate workers while separating them from what is left of their wages. Gambling is a big, growing industry in which about nine and a half billion pounds are “lost” each year. Such harsh realities threaten the very foundations of working class dreams.

Gravy Train

It might be that none of this is of interest to David Wilshaw sitting in his cell but at least he has time there to reflect on his wasted life, which may be more instructive for him than crossing off the days until he is free to get back to his sad, alcoholic partner and the local betting shop. It might occur to him that the treatment given to those who offend against capitalism’s expectations is not unconnected with their social standing. Newspaper addicts will be aware of the turbulence over the scale of expenses available to MPs and the manner in which these have been claimed, giving the overriding impression that Honourable Members are happily aware that they are on to a good thing. Among the most blatant examples of working the system was that of Tory MP Derek Conway, who claimed allowances to employ his two sons and the boy friend of one of them to work for him as “researchers”.

The problem was that there was no evidence of any of them doing any research or even of attending the Commons other than when being entertained on the Members’ Terrace. One of the sons is a university student and the other a “fashion writer” whose day job is to arrange swell parties for upper class youngsters at the exclusive Mahiki night club, a favourite haunt of Prince Harry when he is not preoccupied with clearing the Taliban out of Afghanistan. The estimates of the amounts paid to these “researchers” varied but it was clear that in total it ran into tens of thousands of pounds. Naturally the other MPs got very cross about this unwelcome exposure of their gravy train and as a result Conway had to make the usual noises about being sorry, he was ordered to repay just a part of the money he had misappropriated and he was suspended – told not to turn up for work for a few days. By David Wilshaw’s standards, not too bad a result.

Why were there such differences in the treatment of these two cases, both of which involved obtaining money through false declarations? Both men gambled on not being found out but Conway had the better chance of getting away with it in that he relied on the established system based on the assumption that MPs, who spend their time telling the rest us how to behave, and passing laws to ensure that we do as they say, are incapable of abusing their own rules. Nothing must be allowed to undermine this assumption. Some analysts would regard this as an addiction as powerful and as destructive as the one which bring all those desperate people into the dock and shut David Wilshaw away in prison.

Ivan

Material World: Iraq: Violence Without End Or Purpose? (2008)

The 'Material World' column from the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." Michael Ledeen (American Enterprise Institute)

Last month 100 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan held hearings in Washington to describe their experience. Named Winter Soldier after a similar meeting of Vietnam veterans in 1971, the event was ignored by the major corporate media outlets. In contrast to Vietnam, media coverage of these wars is sanitized. Viewers see no scenes of carnage, hear no cries of pain. No publicity accompanies the coffins on their return.

On the internet, however, there is uncensored testimony, including videos and personal blogs (e.g.: ivaw.org, indybay.org, therealnews.com, 5yearstoomany.org, aliveinbaghdad.org). These are the sources on which I draw here.

The recruiter’s lament
Let’s start with the army recruiter who inveigles the naïve youngster into the inferno. A sinister figure? Or just another victim? After all, he didn’t seek transfer to the Recruitment Command. Now he has to make his quota or else endure constant humiliation, weekends in “corrective retraining” and the threat of the sack. So he works himself to exhaustion, answers the kids’ questions with lies, and recruits anyone he can, whether or not they meet official standards of health, education or “moral character” (i.e., no criminal record).

Few now join for “patriotic” reasons. Most are bribed with the promise of financial benefits, often payment of college fees. Many foreign residents sign up as a way of becoming U.S. citizens. Over 100 have been awarded citizenship posthumously.

Destroy the enemy
A few weeks of basic training and the new teenage soldier, who has probably never been abroad or even in another region of the U.S., suddenly finds himself in a strange, uncomfortable and disorienting environment. He does not understand the language, nor can he decipher the Arabic script. He has been taught to fear every haji -- the term used to dehumanize Iraqis – as a possible enemy. He starts to kill and goes on killing, usually with the connivance of his superiors, often with their open encouragement. He kills in blind fear, or on orders, or even out of boredom. Most likely he feels no shame: his mates take souvenir photos of him standing by his “trophies.”

It is not necessarily only Iraqis who he kills. When Marines find their forward movement blocked, one blogger tells us, they “start using their training ‘to destroy the enemy’ on civilians or other Marines.” Violence and degradation pervade relations not just between the military and Iraqi civilians but also within the military. Soldiers are abused and humiliated by officers. Rape is commonplace.

To what purpose?
It is hard to see what purpose all this violence can possibly serve. The U.S. government would like to suppress all resistance to the occupation and stabilize a client regime that can be trusted to keep Iraq open to plunder by Western (mainly U.S.) corporations. But the more people are killed the more of their relatives and friends will take up arms to avenge them. Various militias temporarily ally themselves with the occupation forces in order to eliminate their rivals, but later they too will fight the Americans (as well as one another). And the persisting “instability” and destruction of resources make Iraq less appealing to corporate investors.

So the chances are that the U.S. will cut losses and give up, although the process will no doubt drag on for years. Otherwise the fighting will continue until the whole population is dead or has fled the country. In that case there will be no one left to run the puppet government or work for the corporations. Of course, the chore of administration could be dumped on the UN and workers brought in from abroad.

The sanctity of property
Amid the bloody mayhem, measures are still taken to preserve the sanctity of property – or at least of American property. One soldier tells of being sent with others to guard a military contractor’s truck that has broken down on the highway. After hours of warding off hungry Iraqis who want to take the food stored inside, they received the order to destroy the truck together with its contents. On another occasion they were ordered to destroy an ambulance.

When capitalists are forced by circumstances to abandon their property, they evidently prefer to have it destroyed rather than permit its use to satisfy the needs of desperate people. That is the true face of the real enemy – the class enemy.

The cost to American society
The cost of this futile war to American society can hardly be compared with the damage inflicted on a devastated and shattered Iraq. It is quite substantial nonetheless. As always, the working class pays by far the highest price for their masters’ insane adventures.

Over 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far. This may seem quite modest in view of the 50,000 killed in Vietnam. However, the number killed is a misleading indicator of the amount of suffering. Due to medical advances, the ratio of wounded to killed, which was 3:1 in Vietnam, is 7:1 in Iraq. Many soldiers who in previous wars would have died of severe brain injury, loss of limbs or extensive third-degree burns have been “saved” – not restored to health, but salvaged to live out the rest of their lives in pain and discomfort.

Brutalized and traumatized
Even more numerous are the psychological casualties. Apart from those who serve in office jobs and rarely if ever leave the Green Zone (the specially secured part of Baghdad where the U.S. embassy and military headquarters are located), there can be few who return from Iraq free of psychological trauma -- “post-traumatic stress disorder” as the psychiatrists call it. (Over 100,000 are seeking treatment, but there must be many more who do not seek treatment – and, indeed, it is doubtful whether any effective treatment exists.)

Many veterans feel unbearable guilt for what they have done, although it is those who sent them who are mainly responsible. So it is not uncommon for a young soldier to return home “safe and sound” only to hang himself the next day. Besides suicide, the veterans are prone to alcoholism and depression, homicide and domestic violence.

And there are so many of these brutalized and traumatized veterans! While “only” about 175,000 troops are deployed at any one time (currently 158,000 in Iraq and 18,000 in Afghanistan), at least 1,400,000 soldiers have fought at some time in one or both of these wars. The damage to the social fabric is therefore enormous -- in the same way that the social fabric in Russia, for instance, has been torn by its wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. And a new war against Iran is still on the cards. Nor can we exclude a U.S. military intervention against pro-Taliban forces in northwestern Pakistan.

Stephen Shenfield

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'