Material World: Protests in Russia – For Democracy or Just Against Putin? (2012)

The Material World column from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

In late 2011 moderately large-scale protests broke out in Russia directed against election fraud in particular and, more generally, against the increasingly authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin. (Putin remained the regime’s dominant figure even when he was taking his turn as prime minister and Dmitry Medvedev kept the presidential seat warm for him.) The protests continue, but on a smaller scale, despite repressive measures adopted after Putin’s inauguration for his third term as president.

It is clear what, or to be more precise, who, the protest movement is against. But what is it for? On May 18 a critical assessment of the movement appeared on the website of the Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists, the Russian section of the International Workers’Association. An English-language version can be found here.

The author of the assessment, who identifies himself only by the initials V.G., first warns against exaggerating the size of the protests. Even at their height, there were “at most a few tens of thousands” of demonstrators in Moscow, while those in provincial cities were numbered in the hundreds or low thousands. “The overwhelming majority of the population have observed the latest round in the struggle for political power with complete indifference.” And they are right, he adds: the interests of working people are not at stake. 

Occupy Abai

The protestors called their movement Occupy Abai in an attempt to create a resemblance to Occupy Wall Street. ‘Abai’ refers to a statue of the nineteenth-century Kazakh poet Abai Kunanbayev in Pure Ponds (Chistye Prudy) Park, close to where the protestors set up a camp, which has now been broken up by the police.

As V.G. points out, any resemblance to Occupy Wall Street is superficial –one of style and organizational structure only, and not political content. The protests in Western Europe and the United States give voice to social and economic grievances directed against the greed of banks and corporations. Most of the Russian protestors just want a “Russia without Putin”. All sorts of political groups are involved in the movement, but ‘bourgeois liberals’ occupy the pivotal position. Other tendencies: leftists, anarchists, nationalists, etc; provide ballast, making the opposition look like a mass movement.

In V.G.’s view, the confrontation is a power struggle between, politicians and capitalists that have close ties with the regime, and those that do not. Among the outsiders one of the most important is Mikhail Prokhorov, a tycoon (‘oligarch’) who stood for president against Putin and did quite well in Moscow, where he outflanked Gennady Zyuganov, candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. According to Forbes magazine, Prokhorov, who has interests in technology, mining, banking and insurance, is worth $18 billion, making him the third richest man in Russia and the thirty-second richest in the world. In his election campaign he openly called for revisions to the Labour Code that would abolish restrictions on working hours, deregulate overtime pay and make it easier for employers to dismiss people.

Democrats and others

Can we say that whatever the economic interests behind the opposition, it is at least a movement for democracy? Opposition to a specific authoritarian regime cannot automatically be equated with support for democracy. This applies especially to countries like Russia with weak democratic traditions. Consider, for instance, the mass movement in Iran that replaced the Shah’s dictatorship by the rule of the ayatollahs.

Some of the many political groups that make up the anti-Putin movement are committed to democracy; others are not. There are two major and overlapping anti-democratic tendencies: those ‘leftists’ who still hope to restore some variant of the Leninist (Soviet) system, and the Russian nationalists and neo-fascists.

At the beginning of 2012 a “civic council” was formed to represent the protest movement. Equal numbers of seats were allocated to three categories of organization –liberals, leftists and nationalists. Considering that only some leftists and not necessarily all liberals can be regarded as democrats, it is doubtful whether democrats constitute a majority on this council.

A shameful tragicomedy

At first some leftists and human rights activists objected to the participation of Russian nationalists in the movement but found themselves in a small minority on the issue. The main counter-argument was that excluding anyone would weaken the movement and make it harder to achieve the common goal –getting rid of Putin. The Russian nationalists made it very clear that they were not going anywhere.  

V.G. is especially scathing about fellow anarchists and former ‘anti-fascist’ activists who are now willing to cooperate with neo-fascists. He calls it “a shameful tragicomedy”. They should have kicked up a big fuss, he says, and declared that unless the nationalists went they would go themselves (“either them or us”).

Some of the campers in Pure Ponds Park moved a resolution to stop ethnic hate propaganda being distributed in the camp. The resolution was not even accepted for discussion. In fact, nationalist thugs were entrusted with the job of guarding the camp and enforcing the camp rules. (Many young nationalists earn a living as bodyguards and security men.) Can you imagine Nazis ‘guarding’ the camp of Occupy Wall Street? V.G. asks sarcastically?     

“The anti-Putin movement,” V.G. concludes, “is just as reactionary … as the Putin regime. Real anarchists and leftists … do not want to choose the lesser of these evils.”

Stefan

Greasy Pole: 1922 And All That (2012)

The Greasy Pole column from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

As David Cameron never forgets to remind us, when he eventually bargained his way into the top job at Number Ten, he was confronted with a block of problems so huge and urgent that only someone of his unique analytical and curative powers could be relied on to demolish it. Especially demanding was the matter of the arrangement that had smoothed his way to success – the coalition agreement with Nick Clegg and his floundering Liberal Democrats. How would MPs of both parties view the adjustments, the compromises and the back-tracking which the agreement demanded of them? Pondering on these matters, Cameron would have had to think about the 1922 Committee – a kind of parliamentary shop-stewards organisation which allowed backbench MPs to express their opinions about, and thereby influence, government policy. There was reason for him to be uneasy about tackling the 1922 on this issue for the precedents were not encouraging.

Welsh Goat
The committee arose in October 1922 from a meeting of all Conservative MPs at London’s Carlton Club, whose interior was not intimately known to the millions who had voted in the 1918 coupon election for the wartime coalition of Conservatives and Lloyd George’s Liberals. But the stresses of struggling to control the capitalist system, rampant in its chaos after World War One, had forced division between the two parties. The Cabinet hoped that the meeting would bring about what they regarded as unity, but Stanley Baldwin announced that if the Coalition contested an election he would stand as an Independent Conservative. Without actually naming Lloyd George as his principal rival in the leadership stakes, he elaborated that the “Welsh goat” (a nickname in salute to his extravagant sexual activity) was also “a dynamic force” and that such a thing could be “a terrible thing” for its destructive qualities –  in the case of the Liberal Party, for example. After a succession of speakers revealed that their experience of political power had not qualified them as any less confused and irrelevant, the meeting voted firmly to fight the coming election as an independent party with its own leader and programme. Lloyd George had to resign and soon afterwards Stanley Baldwin led the Conservatives to defeat in the 1923 election. And from that shambles there emerged the 1922 Committee.

Duncan Smith
It did not take long for the 1922 to equip itself, like any bunch of effective shop stewards, with a reputation as the bane of the leadership – which, if not strictly accurate, was not unwelcome to them. There is the case of Iain Duncan Smith (known as IDS) who was the Tory party leader between September 2001 and October 2003 in succession to the blundering William Hague. IDS quickly showed himself to be cruelly out of his depth in so demanding a job and he was not helped when a TV programme in 2002 revealed that he had not been as truthful as an aspiring leader should be in his account of his higher education. His call for the party to unite behind him was blatantly at variance with his own record of persistently opposing Prime Minister John Major (who described him as one of a set of “bastards”). Early in 2003 there was a campaign to remove him, and the 1922 became the rallying point to receive the necessary written demands for a vote of no confidence in him. IDS resisted to the bitter end but the Tory party moved on to the equally disastrous leadership of Michael Howard. As a final irony IDS has taken to informing us that after all the politicians’ blathering about abolishing poverty, it still disfigures the country and also (as an ex-officer) to advocating the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan to fight an indefinite war in Iraq.

Cantankerous
When Cameron became Prime Minister he quickly made it clear that one of his priorities was to deal with (i.e. to control) the 1922. In May 2010, before he had even announced the terms of the coalition agreement with the Lib-Dems, he tried to impose a change of the 1922 rules which would have allowed front benchers – ministers and the like – to become members. This was met with emphatic refusal. A “senior MP” described the proposal as " . . . a stitch-up the Mafia would be proud of” while Margaret Thatcher’s ex-hatchet man Lord Tebbitt raged that it was “ . . . quite disgraceful, totally improper . . .”. But this was new life for the Tories, back in power after 13 years in the wilderness; the changes were agreed except that the ministers would not be able vote for the 1922 officers or executive committee. Cameron’s case for the changes was partly that the committee was under the control of some MPs who, even by the standards of Westminster, could be seen as eccentric. In April this year, the 301 group, who aim to reform 1922 out of all recognition, condemned them as “a group of mostly cantankerous old farts who do little to further right-wing ideas”. (Although, on the subject of eccentricity, it should be noted that a prominent member of the 301 group, Priti Patel, is in favour of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime and was unwise enough to insist on the point even after evidence that an innocent person had recently been executed).

The People
Is there anything to be learned from considering the parallels between the events that took place when the 1922 Committee was formed and those of this year when the Tory leader planned effectively to abolish it? The original assumption was that as backbench, run-of-the-mill, salt-of-the-earth MPs are elected by popular vote, their voice should be heard and responded to as the Will of the People. There would be more force in that argument if The People always spoke up in the interests of a humane society. But that is too rarely heard – and if it is heard it is disregarded as fantastic. So what we are assumed to accept as normal life – the arrangement whereby one class exploits and dominates the other – runs on and on. It was ninety years ago when Baldwin and Lloyd George clashed, but in any fundamental sense nothing has changed.

Ivan

Barack Hussein Obama is a secret Muslim stealth Socialist born in Kenya!!! (and other frightening tales) (2012)

From the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

  With policy differences between Democrats and Republicans negligible, a good conspiracy theory comes in handy at election time.

If politics and policy were synonymous, the voters who loyally backed the Bush administration over eight years might as well support Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election. His first four years in office have demonstrated that he can deliver the same basic policies as the Bush years (the military adventures overseas, the bailouts for investment banks, the cuts in social programs, the chipping away at constitutional rights, and so on), with the added benefit of no protesting peeps from liberals.

But politics is about more than policy, of course. For individual politicians, it all comes down to getting elected. This requires ‘brand differentiation’–setting oneself apart from the other guy. Politics may at times make for strange bedfellows, but more often it thwarts a loving embrace between those with much in common. And so Republicans must exaggerate their policy differences with the Obama administration for the sake of their election campaign.

But that’s not enough. Precisely because the difference in policy is so thin, the campaign must also be seasoned heavily with personal attacks. The task is to convince voters that Obama is a terrible menace to society, requiring an Internet-age whispering campaign in which conspiracy theory plays a prominent role.

Your lying eyes
Some Americans may need no more evidence than the colour of Obama’s skin to doubt his capacities. But outright racism is not exactly socially acceptable these days, at least in a public forum. What does still have wide currency, in Republican circles and beyond, is xenophobia. And this fear of the Other is a central theme of the imaginative efforts to personally discredit Obama.

Instead of reminding voters, with a wink and a nudge, that the president is black, conspiracy theorists are trying to build their anti-Obama case around the fact that he’s Barack –a ‘secret Muslim’ born in Kenya. If either half of the theory were true, the Republicans would have hit the jackpot, because Muslims remain an acceptable scapegoat among many Americans and only ‘natural-born citizens’ of the United States are eligible to run for president.

Rumours that Obama, the son of a Kenyan, was born outside the United States began to percolate during the presidential primaries in 2008, and the Hillary Clinton campaign was happy to benefit from the rumours or even help to spread them. The rising controversy led Obama that year to release a certified copy from the Hawaii Department of Health of the “short form”of his birth certificate.

But that only stirred up even more speculation among conspiracy theorists, who claimed it was a forgery. These ‘birthers’ continued to demand that Hawaii provide clearer proof that Obama had been born there. And some states even called for such proof in order for Obama to be eligible on their ballots. Bombarded by these requests, Hawaii in April 2011 decided to waive its policy of only issuing the short form and release a certified copy of the long-form Certificate of Live Birth.

This has quieted the controversy somewhat, but die-hard birthers remain unconvinced that the second document is based on actual fact. And not all of these skeptics are on the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. As recently as May of this year, Donald Trump (who is a lunatic, but not on the fringe), said in a CNN interview, “A lot of people think [the birth certificate] is not authentic,”and he suggested that Obama’s parents may have filed a US birth announcement in Hawaiian newspapers for his overseas birth. Trump made these comments on the very day he helped raise $2 million for the Romney campaign.

Romney does not endorse the birther conspiracy theory, but he can’t say too bluntly that supporters like Trump have crossed the line separating bullshit from batshit. Romney doesn’t want to alienate the Tea Party movement, where birthers and other conspiracy theorists are welcome.

Jihad over Jesus
The other conspiracy theory that Republicans politicians are wary to embrace too tightly, even though they benefit from it, is that ‘Obama is a secret Muslim.’ This rumour has spread mainly through e-mail. At the beginning of 2007, around the time the right-wing magazine Insight ‘broke’ the story, the following e-mail was widely forwarded among rank-and-file Republicans:

  “Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim . . . Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama’s mother . . . introduced his stepson to Islam. Osama [sic!] was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.”

This e-mail contains the crux of the claim that Obama is a secret Muslim. Other cute flourishes added to the theory include the rumour that he was sworn into the US Senate on the Koran rather than the Bible, and that he will not recite the pledge of allegiance or show reverence for the US flag.

Like any conspiracy theory, this one is concocted by mixing facts, speculation, and outrageous lies. It is true that Obama’s stepfather was, at least nominally, a Muslim. But the claim that “O[b]ama was enrolled in a Wahabi school”is a lie; in fact, he attended an ordinary Indonesian public school (and later a Catholic school).

What’s interesting about the theory is not its content but that millions of Republicans find it (at least somewhat) convincing. It attests to the paranoia and bigotry that runs through the ranks of the party, and the extent to which the party leaders must tap into this ignorance to get elected.

The company he keeps
Another horrible secret the president is keeping from the American people, say the Republicans in unison, is that he’s a socialist.

Of course, Republicans have been labelling opponents “socialists”since the 1990s, when it dawned on them that “liberal”had been worn too thin from overuse to serve as a choice insult. (How the limp creed of liberalism could have ever frightened anyone is a great mystery of American political life.)

The insult has changed but not the meaning: a socialist, like the once dreaded liberal, is someone who advocates “big government” (i.e. the modern welfare state, Keynesian economic policies, etc.). Socialism, under this commonly held view, is a society in which the “free market” is fettered –nota society where markets and money no longer exist.

But even when ‘socialist’ is just another word for liberal, and ‘socialism’ but a specific form of capitalism, Barack Obama still doesn’t stack up to much of a socialist. There are only a few examples of Obama’s “radical” (big government) policies that the Republicans can point to, such as the bailout of General Motors and support for the failed company Solyndra. And these have nothing to distinguish them from similar policies implemented by past administrations of either party. Even his health care reform, denounced as “socialized medicine” by Republicans, is premised on the continued existence of private insurance companies.

If Obama’s policies as president are socialistic, then every US president since FDR has dabbled in a bit of socialism. Republicans must know that the “Obama is a socialist”claim cannot be made on the basis of what he’s done in office. They have no choice but to turn from policy to conspiracy.

Having found so few juicy titbits from Obama’s first term in office, Republican conspiracy theorists have been sifting through his past, way back to his college days, looking for any sort of connection to radical individuals and organizations. Dozens of books have already appeared with the findings of this research, invariably published a few months before an election.

The authors all seem to conclude, regardless of their specific topic, that Obama is somehow alien to American political life, a sort of secret agent who has weaselled his way into the centre of power. The books are written to stoke readers’paranoia and have titles like, Barack Obama and the Enemies Within or The Secret Life of Barack Hussein Obama.

“HE ISN’T WHAT HE SEEMS”–warns the back cover of The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists; a book that promises to present “chilling findings”about “how dangerous Barack Obama really is.”These findings include: “Obama’s deep ties to anti-American fringe nexus [?] instrumental in building his political career”; the existence of “extremists . . . in the White House . . . including communist-linked Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod”; and Obama’s extensive “ties to terrorist Bill Ayers.”

Radical-in-Chief: The Untold Story of American Socialism, apparently one of the more respectable contributions to the genre, offers a similar list of revelations.  Along with the de rigueur obsessing about links to Bill Ayers, the book reveals, “Obama’s long association with an organizer training institute called the Midwest Academy –whose archives reveal it to be a classic socialist front group,”and recounts how “Obama’s life was changed forever when . . . he attended his first of many ‘Socialist Scholars Conferences’ in New York”where he “discovered community organizing and its stealth-socialist agenda.”(Quotes are taken from conservativebookclub.com.)

This might sound convincing to some readers, at least those who have never attended something like a Socialist Scholars Conference. But I wonder how many young people, after sitting through a left-wing academic presentation, would describe the experience as life-changing?

Apocalypse now (again)
“Armageddon is a triennial festival,” the critic Dwight MacDonald wrote in a 1960 essay. He was describing the hysteria that was arising before the US presidential election that year, which was no different from the frenzy in the run-up to other inconsequential elections, he recalled.

And now, more than fifty years and a dozen elections later, we face once again “the most important election in our lifetime.” The Republicans, for their part, fear that Obama, the stealth socialist, will finally implement his super-secret radical agenda. In a recent article on the New York Review of Books website, Garry Wills explains how Republicans are trying to scare people into voting for Romney:

  “Republican operatives describe this year’s presidential election in apocalyptic terms. It will determine our future. It will seal our national fate. . . . They tell Republican voters that President Obama, in a second term where he does not have to face re-election, will reveal and follow the full socialist agenda he has been trying to hide.”

But that article by Wills (‘Why 2012 Matters’) was written to scare people into voting for Obama! The line I took out in the middle of the passage quoted is: “Well, they are probably right, but not for the reason they give.”In other (less mealy-mouthed) words, Wills himself is describing the 2012 presidential in “apocalyptic terms”and saying it will (probably) “seal our national fate”–as he explains:

  “[T]his election year gives Republicans one of their last chances –perhaps the very last one –to put the seal on their plutocracy. They are in a race against time. A Democratic wave is rising fast, to wash away the plutocracy before it sets its features in concrete, with future help from the full (not just frequent) cooperation of the Supreme Court.”

There is a lot that can be said about this description, starting with whether the country actually has a politically cohesive “plutocracy”(the term itself certainly suggests rock-solid unity among capitalists), and if so, whether it truly fears drowning under a Democratic (not democratic) wave.

In any case, the simple point to make here is that Democratic ‘operatives’ (like Wills) rely on the same scare tactics as the Republicans, with plutocrats (or fascists) and Christian extremists serving as the bogeymen instead of socialists and Muslims. These operatives are now in a race against time . . . to finish their anti-Romney books before the November election.

No doubt, the untold story of Mitt Romney as plutocratic puppet with ties to grassroots Mormon-fascist organizations will be rolling off the presses soon.

Michael Schauerte

Party News (2012)

Party News from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party stood two candidates in the election to the Greater London Assembly on 3 May. Here are the results:

Lambeth and Southwark: Labour, 83,239; Conservative, 30,537; Liberal Democrat, 18,359; Green Party, 18,144; UKIP, 4,395; Socialist (Danny Lambert), 2,938 (1.9%).

Merton and Wandsworth: Conservative, 65,197; Labour, 55,216; Liberal Democrat, 11,904; Green Party, 11,307; UKIP, 3,717; Independent, 2,424; Socialist (Bill Martin), 1,343 (0.9%).

The on-line London magazine, the Big Smoke, did a video interview with our candidate in Lambeth and Southwark which can be seen here: http://www.bigsmoke.org.uk/?p=77382

Readers may be interested to note that the party virtually doubled its percentage vote in Lambeth and

Southwark compared to four years ago when we last stood there.

Explaining the Paranormal (2012)

Chris French

From the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Marx’s original ideas and his worldview are very much in the sceptical tradition of philosophy. When we say we are scientific socialists, what we mean is that we are sceptical in the same way that scientists should be sceptical – rejecting dogma in favour of doubt, and thus allowing the possibility of progress. But is a properly scientific attitude consistent with capitalism, (with all its contradictions and hypocrisies, invisible hands and other dogmatic notions)? We put some questions to Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths College, London and former editor of The Skeptic.

1.    What exactly is ‘anomalistic psychology’ and what have you learned from it?

Anomalistic psychology may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, including (but not restricted to) those that are often labelled ‘paranormal’. It is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming a priori that there is anything paranormal involved. It entails attempting to explain paranormal and related beliefs and ostensibly paranormal experiences in terms of known psychological and physical factors.

2.    You like to test people’s unscientific beliefs scientifically. How do they react when you prove their beliefs false?

We would never claim to have disproved a claim of, say, psychic powers on the basis of a single test. All that we could conclude is that under the particular conditions of that particular test, the results do not support the claim. Taken in the wider context of numerous other failures to support such claims and more plausible non-paranormal explanations of the phenomena in question, others can draw their own conclusions. We always ensure that claimants agree that the test is fair before we begin but the reaction from the claimants once they fail the test is always the same. They come up with reasons why, in retrospect, the test wasn’t actually fair at all!

3.    People often manage to live with ‘cognitive dissonance’ through denial. Is there an evolutionary value in deluding oneself or is this an accident of advanced cognition?

Our brains have evolved for survival, not necessarily for apprehending “Truth”. In terms of the evolutionary cost-benefit analysis, it makes more sense for us to come to quick decisions that are usually right rather than slower decisions that are right slightly more often (is that rustling in the bushes really a sabre-toothed tiger?). Thus we tend to think using heuristics (quick and dirty rules of thumb) that are good enough to usually lead to the right conclusion. But they can lead us astray. Sometimes we think we’ve found a meaningful pattern or connection when there is not really one there.

4.    Has your research suggested ways in which changing mindsets might be made easier?

Extreme believers (and extreme sceptics for that matter!) will probably never change their opinions regardless of the evidence. They are trapped in an “intellectual black hole” in which they employ various strategies to allow them to dismiss any evidence that does not support their views. The key to changing mindsets is education, education, education – in particular, giving people the critical thinking skills they need to evaluate evidence for themselves. The aim is to tell people how to think not what to think.

5.    Would you say that the study of religious beliefs is a branch of anomalistic psychology?

The psychology of religion is already a recognized, albeit very specialized, sub-discipline of psychology. In general, researchers in this area have tended to hold religious views themselves. More recently, anomalistic psychologists, who tend to be more likely to be atheist or agnostic, have provided a different perspective on a range of religious topics such as near-death experiences, the power of prayer, and mystical states.

6.    You’ve argued that people who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to be alienated individuals. Why do you think this is?

The limited findings available do indeed support the not-too-surprising conclusion that those who feel alienated are more likely to believe in conspiracies. A number of factors appear to underlie this. For example, those who feel alienated will, almost by definition, distrust the government. This can lead to them endorsing mutually contradictory conspiracies such as Osama Bin Laden being still alive and him having been killed many years ago! Also, those who are alienated are probably drawn to conspiracy theories because such theories provide an explanation for their own marginalized position in society. They feel that they have been held back or pushed out by powerful “others” who are working behind the scenes.

Apocalypse Now? (2012)

From the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

On December 21, 2012, the end of the world is predicted by some. According to their calculations, which are based on the Mayan long-count calendar (and some serious mushrooms no doubt), the world will end in a cataclysmic event on or around that date. Or the magnetic poles will shift. Or the sun will burn us up. Or even a planet called Nibiru or Planet X will smash into us. Or we shall get sucked into a black hole. Or, of course, and more obviously, it could all just be ill-formed pseudo-science clap-trap. Undeterred, the Socialist Standard will take a quick look into the future to see if it’s worth publishing any more issues, and it will start with the basis of the above theories, known as the Mayan (or 2012) Prophecy.

Mayan Civilisation

The Mayans were an advanced ancient civilisation with hierarchical government, trade and commerce and advanced building techniques which expressed themselves in large cities and many elaborate stone temples that are still here today. They also studied and paid great heed to astronomy and the configurations of the stars and planets, and worked out quite complex mathematical problems, including those related to the study of time. The Maya had worked out the solar year with better accuracy than the Europeans, even though the Mayan calendar was cruder, having exactly 365 days in each year, so that it was inaccurate by one day in every four years. By contrast, our present calendar is accurate to one day in every 3,275 years. It is the Mayan calendar, however, that has given rise to the ‘end of world’ predictions, as Wikipedia explains:

  “December 2012 marks the conclusion of a b’ak’tun—a time period in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar which was used in Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Unlike the 52-year Calendar Round still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20:
  “20 days made a uinal, 18 uinals (360 days) made a tun, 20 tuns made a k’atun, and 20 k’atuns (144,000 days or roughly 394 years) made up a b’ak’tun. Thus, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 b’ak’tuns, 3 k’atuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days.
  “Additionally there is a strong tradition of ‘world ages’ in Mayan literature, but the record has been distorted, leaving several possibilities open to interpretation. According to the Popol Vuh, a compilation of the creation accounts of the K’iche’ Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the gods first creating three failed worlds, followed by a successful fourth world in which humanity was placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous world ended after 13 b’ak’tuns, or roughly 5,125 years. The Long Count’s ‘zero date’ was set at a point in the past marking the end of the third world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. This means that the fourth world will also have reached the end of its 13th b’ak’tun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.”

In 1957, Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester Makemson wrote: “the completion of a Great Period of 13 b’ak’tuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya”. In 1966, Michael D. Coe wrote in The Maya that “there is a suggestion … that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b’ak’tun]. Thus … our present universe would be annihilated in December 2012 when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion.”

Thus began the idea that the world would end this December.  But it has little basis in any study of Mayan thought: “…there is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012,” said Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone. “The notion of a ‘Great Cycle’ coming to an end is completely a modern invention.”  Even the Maya themselves deny this ridiculous notion – Ricardo Cajas, president of the Colectivo de Organizaciones Indígenas de Guatemala, said the date “did not represent an end of humanity or fulfilment of the catastrophic prophecies.”

Socialist Perspective

So how does the above crackpotism affect socialists? Aside from the application of simple scientific method and research to prove the above as nonsense, it is interesting to see the reaction within capitalism to the rise of such theories. A short search of the internet will reveal a raft of sites supporting and furthering the doomsday predictions and all of them eventually link to solutions that involve the spending of money. Many offer survival kits from the simple $30 (£20) personal carry-packs to the extremes of $40,000 (£26,000) for a space in a communal shelter and upwards of $200,000 (£130,000) for one of your own with exclusive land. Apart from each having their own take on these mad end-of-world theories, most of these sites have scary countdown clocks to enhance the panic effect and make those dollar bills fall from wallets faster.  Ignoring the obvious fact that if the future is that bleak, you probably wouldn’t want to survive anyway, it seems that no-one is concerned with the thought that if any of the major scenarios predicted actually do occur, then dollars and, indeed, all money will become meaningless.

While large numbers of people are engaged in essentially harmless activities and spending money at the same time, they are not occupied with finding out about real alternatives to the current state of affairs. As socialists, we have a duty to point out that aside from the utterly unscientific basis of these insane predictions, the real problems exist in the here and now and that capitalism is incapable of solving them. Moreover, if a doomsday scenario did occur, you can be sure that the rich would only be concerned with protecting their own hides and that the global capitalist system would not leap to the rescue of the masses nor would it care.  Its only function is making profit, even if it results in its own destruction.  Proof positive of this assumption can be seen in capitalism’s weak and uncoordinated response to the threat of global warming – the system’s demand for profits always winning out over human need.

The world won’t end in 2012. And capitalism won’t end unless we work globally as socialists to counter this doomsday nonsense by concentrating our energies into building a truly global society based on free access for all. No-one can predict the precise nature of the future but our actions now can make that future much brighter for everyone.

David Humphries

Marx and Materialism (2012)

From the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

If Marx had a philosophy it could be best described in his own words as critical materialism as opposed to mechanistic materialism. He believed with Feuerbach that critical materialism would mean the end of metaphysics and religion. Again, Marx regarded materialism as the only valid expression of scientific method. Thus, in a footnote on Page 368, Vol. I of Capital, he refers to a particular method as the only materialistic and, therefore, the only scientific method.

Marx took the world that is man and his relations with nature as they are. Marx then embraced a thoroughgoing naturalism as opposed to the super-naturalism of Hegel and other religious thinkers. He believed that facts are not more real than they are found to be, and do not express some deeper underlying truth. It was because Marx collected his facts and organised the knowledge gained from them on the presupposition that he was dealing with a material world, that his theory can be empirically demonstrated. Because Hegel began with metaphysical as opposed to materialistic assumptions he could offer no empirical guide as to the course of history. He could only assure us that a cosmic self-consciousness would come to pass, but how it would do so he is silent. Even in a brief and sketchy analysis of Marx and Hegel, it can be shown that in outlook and method they were worlds apart.

On the question of religion itself, Marx denied that there was some religious essence in man. Religion itself is a product of social life and it only arises when society has reached a certain stage of development in the division of labour. Like all other forms of culture, it can be critically analysed in a specific social situation, and like all other forms of activity it can be shown to change under the impact of changing conditions. While religion had historic justification in the productive rituals of the past, it serves no useful social purpose today.

Marx also denied that man was endowed with a natural religious sentiment, any more than he is naturally endowed with any other aspect of culture. A religious sense is not the outcome of a timeless abstraction, but the product of social consciousness and bound up with a certain stage of social development. To suppose then that any element of supernaturalism could find a place in Marxism is to invalidate the most basic assumptions of historical materialism. For that reason a belief in super-naturalism is incompatible with Marxism.

From the Socialist Standard, July 1957

The Irish Euro Referendum (2012)

From the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Voting one way or the other was not going to change the reality that capitalism in a slump means extra austerity.

On the 31st May, the electorate of the Republic of Ireland went to the polls to decide on the latest European Union fiscal treaty. The referendum was passed with 60 percent of voters in favour and 40 percent opposed. The Treaty (known as the Stability treaty to its supporters and referred to as the Austerity treaty by opponents) is part of the attempt by Europe to contain the turbulence that has engulfed Euro-zone countries for the past three years. In broad terms signing up to the pact, commits the governments of the signatory countries to limit annual deficits and over the economic cycle to maintain a balanced budget. In return for committing to this, the signatory countries are promised access to the EU’s new assistance fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) if needed in the event that countries cannot raise funds from the capital markets. Most countries within the European Union, both within and outside the Euro-zone, have indicated a willingness to ratify the Treaty and it is expected to come into force early in 2013.

Yes and No

Regarding the campaign that preceded the vote in Ireland, the sides lined up in a predictable fashion. Advocating a Yes were the government (a coalition of the centre-right Fine Gael party and centre-left Labour Party) together with Fianna Fail (long a dominant force in Irish politics but currently much diminished due to their abject handling of the economic crisis that overwhelmed Ireland in 2009) and the majority of big business and farming interests. Conventionally these are regarded as the establishment centre ground.

The opposition consisted of Euro-sceptics from the left and right and single issue political mavericks who customarily appear on these occasions. Leftist opposition primarily consisted of Sinn Fein augmented by the Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party of Ireland and People before Profit (an organisation that could be characterised as a front for the two ‘Socialist’groups). The rightist component of the opposition in the main came from Declan Ganley and his mysterious Libertas organisation (having minimal membership or popular participation in Ireland and yet amazingly well funded) together with some non-party members of the Irish Parliament and further reinforced with certain publicity-seeking economic commentators. As a whole the trade union movement adopted a position of neutrality though individual union leaders could be found on either side.

The whole context of the debate was framed by the fact that Ireland is currently in receipt of a large loan from the International Monetary Fund and the EU to cover both the government deficit and the huge losses sustained by private Irish Banks due to the property boom (formerly called the Celtic Tiger) that took place in Ireland prior to 2008. The fact that the Irish government (popularly interpreted as the Irish taxpayer/citizen) has had to pick up the tab for 40 billion euros of private debt has proved especially controversial and naturally has caused genuine and understandable bitterness across whole swathes of Irish society. While the initial decision to cover the losses on these private speculative loans was taken by the Irish government, to prop up the banking sector, the continuance of the banking guarantee has been insisted upon by the European Union as a condition of the bail out. Over the past three years, this has been the main bone of contention between the government of the day and the opposition; the former regarding it as unpalatable but unavoidable while the latter demand a tougher stance to be taken on the issue with Europe.

For and Against

Given the major uncertainty that now exists about the medium term future of the European economy and particularly of the fate of the Euro itself, a trump card for the Yes side was the fact that Ireland may require a second bail-out when the current IMF/EU assistance ends next year and the thus need to ensure access to the EMU fund in that eventuality by backing the Treaty. This almost certainly swayed people who depend directly on the state for their income such as pensioners, public sector workers and those in receipt of social welfare payments. The government also kept repeating the point that passing the Treaty would instil confidence in Ireland from international investors and the subsequent inflow of funds would promote job creation and help the economy to recover.

The No side’s major argument was that passing the Treaty would copper-fasten a monetarist economic strategy and prohibit future governments from stimulating the economy with Keynesian type initiatives. They declared it would result in many years of unbroken austerity to come with inevitable cuts to social services. A more nationalistic message was also put forward accusing the government of being too timid in defending Ireland’s interests and too willing to fall into line with the wishes of the large powers in the EU (primarily meaning Germany) especially in readily subsuming the massive private bank debt into sovereign debt in order to help stabilise the Euro currency.

While the government won the debate with its clear-cut electoral victory, it derived very little political capital from its success as it just ensures continuance of the status quo. A defeat would have damaged its standing, both nationally and internationally so in that sense the referendum was always going to be thankless for them. It’s generally accepted the big winners were Sinn Fein as the lead mainstream organisation on the No side. Irish electoral rules demand equal access to be given to both sides in any referendum on the constitution irrespective of the relative size of either side. Hence Sinn Fein received huge publicity and air time to expound their ideas and the campaign marked a further stage on their long and calculated transition from being the front organisation and principal apologist for an entirely undemocratic terrorist group (Provisional IRA) to becoming an acceptable alternative to the existing political options. During the campaign their spokespeople blended vaguely radical sentiments about taking a tough line with Bankers (both Irish and European) to defend Irish interests while assuring the electorate of their commitment to financial discipline. From that perspective, they are part of a long history of parties who have moved from a nominal, if unconvincing, opposition to capitalism to outright acceptance of it as the only means of ordering society.

Left-wing advice

The debate associated with the campaign highlighted yet again the fact that many movements claiming to be Labour or Socialist or Left Wing ultimately are only offering a re-ordering of capitalism. The Communist Part of Ireland advocated a No vote and suggested Ireland should borrow money from sovereign wealth funds from countries such as Russia, China, Norway and various Middle East funds as an alternative to seeking to obtain loans from the markets or the European Stability Mechanism on the basis that better terms would be available. Such financial advice to the government of the day is a curious activity for a group with the name of ‘Communist’in its title. Kieran Allen a leading member of People Before Profit and the Socialist Workers Party also attacked the Treaty from a financial standpoint on the basis that it was a ‘bad deal’for Ireland and that its costs would exceed its benefits. He may of course be proved correct but again this viewpoint is devoid of socialist content. He also indulged in the common electoral practise of scaring pensioners about the entitlements they might lose if the Treaty was passed which of course is the type of tactic that all political parties engage in as part of the shoddy custom of drumming up votes from sectors of the electorate. Possibly the most poignant aspect to all of this is that May 2012 marked the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Irish Labour Party in a congress in Clonmel in 1912. One of the resolutions at that meeting committed the new party to the notion ‘that labour unrest can only be ended by the abolition of the capitalist system of wealth production with its inherent injustice and poverty’. While it is not news that such revolutionary rhetoric has long been discarded, it does highlight the fruitless path that these social-democratic parties have followed whereby they are now further away from their original goals than when they first started out.

On one level from a socialist view, the campaign and its result is entirely devoid of interest. There has been a boom and now we have the bust; this is an inevitable part of the capitalist system. Voting one way or the other was not going to change this reality and studies revealed that this was tacitly accepted by the majority of the electorate. The referendum was an example of the sham that is democracy under capitalism; as members of whatever electorate we happen to belong to we are constantly being cajoled to take part in the democratic process when it’s clear that voting will not make any meaningful difference to our future. For the case in point, the prospects for Ireland’s economy and the future of the Euro will not be decided by the result of the Irish referendum but will depend more strongly on economic developments in Spain and the political situation in Greece. Fundamentally as regards the common currency it will hinge on the willingness of German capitalism to persevere with the Euro by balancing the great benefits it bestows to its powerful export sector against the costs it imposes on the wider economy and its ability to strike a bargain with France on the issue.

Kevin Cronin

Theatre Review: ‘Don Giovanni’ (2012)

Theatre Review from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Don Giovanni’ by Mozart at Heaven, London, Sunday 29th April 2012

Mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni, is set in London in 1987 with a modern libretto by Ranjit Bolt.  It was recently produced at the gay nightclub, Heaven in London. Bolt’s libretto has gay philanderer, Don, sung by baritone Duncan Rock but the rest of the cast has been reversed: basses and tenors become sopranos and vice versa.

Mozart represents the rationalist enlightenment when the bourgeois classes were wrestling power from the feudal masters of the ancien regime in 1789.  His opera, Marriage of Figaro, portrays the servile classes as good as their masters. Mozart himself was a servant to an Archbishop and the Hapsburg Emperor.

Bolt’s Don is both a feudal master with droit de seigneur and a greedy Thatcherite capitalist.  The supernatural apparition of Il Commandatore at the denouement does not have its horror-effect because the character appears like Miss Havisham from Dickens and elicits laughter from the audience.  AIDS as a Faustian metaphor is not pursued in the libretto. This is a pity because Forman and Schafer in the 1984 film, Amadeus, successfully incorporated the dark elements of Don Giovanni into the tale of the Mozart and Salieri intrigue. The aria, Il catalogo e questo, is very funny and appreciated by the audience.

In 1987 there was a palpable sense of the smell of Weimar in Britain when Thatcher won a third election victory: capitalism had been unfettered, the nationalised industries sold-off and the working class beaten down with the end of the miners’ strike.  Increased powers had been given to the police, and a Tory MP had declared on the Channel 4 programme, After Dark: Tomorrow Belongs to Us, evoking the brown shirts of Cabaret-era Berlin. Capitalism had one of its periodic crises when the stock market crashed on Black Monday. There was AIDS, and the frenzied voices of the petite bourgeois were heard in the newspapers, the Tory Party, the House of Lords, and the Police. There was talk of re-criminalising homosexuality. The Government introduced Clause 28, prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality; 30,000 marched against it and “Lesbians invade the Lords and the BBC” screamed the tabloids.

Gay rights are subject to the whim of reformist politics and moral re-armament revivals in capitalist society, as can be seen from events in 1987.  And even as recently as May 2012, in North Carolina, gay marriage has been prohibited.  This is a contradiction of capitalism: it allows gay identity to develop but still needs the working class to reproduce.  The family therefore has to be prioritised and homophobia is an inevitable by-product.  Engels identified that oppression begins with the family and the rise of class society, and thus the oppression of women and gays has its origin in class society. With the end of capitalism, the bourgeois family will vanish and, as Engels wrote: “the traditional bonds of sexual relations, like all fetters, are shaken off”. With the transformation to a socialist society all humanity will be emancipated and there will be an end to exploitation and oppression.

Steve Clayton

Socialism and Nationalisation - Part 1 (1912)

From the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

An early article by Paul Lafargue

  Readers know the circumstances in which Paul Lafargue and Laura Marx have ended life together, with their last words expressing their belief in the early triumph of the cause for which they laboured. We bow before death. Nevertheless we rejoice that, although Lafargue has laid down his pen, his words still fight on behalf of the workers. The following article, written in “L’Egalité” of June 2nd, 1882, is still trenchant and useful.

At the present moment a kind of Socialism for the capitalists is being created. It is very modest. It contents itself with the transformation of certain industries into public services. Above all, it does not compromise one. On the contrary it will rally a good number of capitalists.

They are told: Look at the Post Office, that is a Socialist public service, functioning admirably to the profit of the community, and more cheaply than if it were entrusted to a private company as was formerly the case. The gas supply, the railways and the building of workmen’s dwellings must also become public services. They will function to the profit of the community and will chiefly benefit the capitalist class.

In capitalist society, the transformation of certain industries into municipal or national services is the last form of capitalist exploitation. It is because that form presents multiple and incontestable advantages for the bourgeoisie that in every capitalist country the same industries are becoming nationalised (Army, Police, Post Office, Telegraphs, the Mint, etc.).

Certain monopolised industries, indeed, delivered up to the greed of private companies, become instruments for the exploitation of other sections of the capitalist class, and so powerful that they disturb the whole bourgeois system.

Here are a few examples. The electric telegraph, on its introduction into France, became a state service because the political interests of the Government required it. In England and the Unites States, where the same political interest did not exist, the telegraphs were established by private companies. The English Government was compelled to buy them out in the interests of all, particularly the speculators, who in the transformation found means of obtaining scandalous profits. In the United States the telegraph service is still in private hands. It is monopolised by a gang of speculators who control the entire Press of the country. Those speculators communicate telegrams only to newspapers in vassalage to them, and which must pay such a heavy tax that many, being unable to bear such a burden, do without telegraphic news altogether. In America telegrams are the most important part of the newspapers; to deprive them of these dispatches is to condemn them to languish and die. In that republican Republic, which individualist Liberals take as the ideal of their most daring dreams, the liberty of the Press is at the mercy of a handful of speculators, without government force and without responsibility, but in control of the telegraph service.

The railway monopoly is so exorbitant that a company can ruin at will an industry or a town by differential or preferential tariffs. The danger to which society is exposed by the private ownership of the means of transport is so keenly felt that in France, England and the United States, many capitalists in their own interests demand the nationalisation of the railways. In capitalist society a private industry only becomes a State service in order to better serve the interest of the bourgeoisie. The advantages which the latter obtain are of different kinds; we have just spoken of the social danger created by the abandonment of certain industries to private exploitation, dangers which disappear or are attenuated as soon as the State directs them but there are others.

The State, by centralising administration, lessens the general charges; it runs the service at a smaller cost. The State is accused of paying everything more dearly than private enterprise; nevertheless, such is not always the case when there is a question of the establishment of means of communication, one of the most difficult and complex enterprises in modern society. Thus the tramways constructed in France have, with rare exceptions, cost an average of 250,000 to 300,000 francs per kilometre as a first establishment charge. The railway from Alais to the Rhone has eaten up per kilometre of line a sum of about 700.000 francs. M. Freycinet, who is not a bourgeois director for fun, has established upon positive grounds that the State could construct railways at a cost of 200,000 francs per kilometre. The State can therefore sensibly diminish the prices of the services it exploits. It is the capitalists who profit by the reduction, because it is they, principally, who make use of them. Thus, what a number of workmen only use the postal service once or twice a year! And how very numerous are the commercial houses and industrial concerns which send out over ten and twenty letters a day!

State services become a means to politicians for placing their tools or dependants, and for giving good, fat sinecures to the sons-in-law of the bourgeoisie. M. Cochery has accorded lucrative posts to Orleanists; among others, to the son of Senator Laboulaye, the man of the inkpot.

Militants of the Parti Ouvrier may and must in their polemics against the public men and the politicians of the capitalist class, make use of this transformation of one time private industries into State services, to show how the bourgeoisie themselves are led by the logic of events to attack their own principles, which demand that society, represented by the State, snatch no industry from private initiative. But they must not desire, and still less demand, the transformation of fresh industries into national services, and that for diverse reasons.

Because it is to the interest of the workers’ party to embitter the conflicts which lacerate the capitalist class, instead of seeking to pacify them – these antagonisms quicken the disorganisation of the ruling class; because nationalisation increases the corruptive power of capitalist politicians; because State employees, like workers in private employ, strike and engage in a struggle with the exploiters.

The only Socialist reason that one might put forward for that transformation is that perhaps it might simplify the revolutionary work of expropriation by the workers’ party; we will examine this on another occasion.

Translated by F. C. Watts

[To be concluded.]

Infliction (1912)

From the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For February. (1912)

Party News from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Click to enlarge.

Attention ! (1912)

Party News from the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are asked to announce that a Public Meeting will be held under the auspices of our Battersea Branch, in the Large Hall of the Latchmere Baths, Latchmere Road, Battersea, on Sunday night, February 11th at 8. Doors open at 7.30.

Speaker: F. Vickers. Subject: "Why We Oppose All Other Parties."

Admission and all seats free. Questions and discussion invited.

Aggressive Lancashire Capitalists. (1912)

From the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rarely has our “free” Press had such an innings as during the recent cotton lock-out in Lancashire (and during the Parliamentary recess, too). Thousands of columns of servile paid trash have been written “about it and about.” Let us sift out the wheat from the chaff, and see what really is the position of the workers in Lancashire. Children leave school to work half-time in the weaving mills at the age of twelve, and full time at about thirteen. After “tenting,” or helping a four or six loom weaver, they get first two looms to look after, then in the course of time, three and four looms. Four is the usual number — when six are minded a “tenter,” or help, is necessary.

The average earnings per loom (given by Wood in his “History of Wages in the Cotton Trade”) are 6s. 6d. per loom per week for a two loom weaver ; 5s. 11d. per loom per week for a three loom weaver ; 6s. per loom per week for a four loom weaver; but many have help to pay for. Weavers having happy family connections or other exceptional help may become overlookers and earn 45s. or 50s. weekly, conditioned by the earnings of the weavers. The overlooker, paid on the weavers’ earnings, is thus tempted to keep production up to the maximum.

A large number of weavers are women, and when married many continue their employment. The sight of women taking out infants to their nurse at half past five on a winter’s morning is an incident of family life which only an anti-Socialist can appreciate. In Burnley, out of the total number of married women and widows, 33.8 percent. are occupied in various industries. The average earnings per loom before mentioned only applies to times of regular employment, “bad” times come, when many looms are stopped and fewer hours worked. Taking all in all, the outlook for a lad or lass when school is left behind, is, in Lancashire, much the drab, dull outlook of the worker the capitalist world over.

Beaming Radical politicians gloat over the extravagant prosperity of the weavers compared with the poverty of their forebears. Let us briefly examine the course of events.

In Lancashire, says Toynbee, “we can trace step by step the growth of the capitalist employer. At first we see, as in Yorkshire, the weaver furnishing himself with warp and weft, which he worked up in his own house and I brought himself to market.” By degrees he became dependent on the merchants at Manchester, who gave him out warp and raw cotton. Finally the merchant would get thirty or forty looms in a town — then came the great mechanical inventions.

The times when the weaver fully or partially controlled his product were decidedly his golden age. Down to the year 1810 the hand-loom weaver waxed fat; then the power loom caused a catastrophe. Even in 1833 the hand loom weavers out-numbered the power loom weavers by three to one. Says Mr. Wood: all the records agree that an extraordinary fall in prices paid and amounts earned by hand loom weavers took place between the early years of the century and 1830-40. In Lancashire in 1806, according to the same authority, there existed :

80,000 to 100,000 factory operatives earning 9s 6d. to 10s 6d. per week.
165,000 hand-loom weavers earning 18s. to 24s. per week.

From the year 1806 down a rapid change took place in the earnings of the hand-loom weavers, a reduction in wages of 50 per cent. taking place in 25 years. The competition was drastic, and it was not until 1840 that the turn was taken, and not until the year 1890 that the wage level (nominal wage) of 1800 was again reached truly a century of progress for the workers.

Besides changes in piece wages (for over 30 years stationary) there are two factors affecting the wages of weavers: the speeding-up of the looms and the increase in the number tended. These factors become more important if we remember that in the year 1901 over 350,000 fewer persons were employed in the textile trades than in 1851; a diminution contemporary with a constant increase in the quantity of textiles produced. If we take the cotton trade alone we find a slight increase in the number employed, an increase, however, negligible compared with the vast difference in the amount of stuff produced This is the truth: after a century of mechanical change we have not equalled the conditions existing prior to that change — now power loom production is established the worker is in many ways in an inferior position to that of the weaver in the palmy days of the hand-loom. If it is not so I should be pleased to see some textile union leader haul forth some facts.

To come to the lock-out, during the past year an attempt has been made to bring non-unionists into the ranks of the textile unions. Oral persuasion failed in some cases, and the weavers at an Accrington mill refused to work with non-unionists. The reply of the masters was to lock out the bulk of the weavers in Lancashire. Now what were the masters' motives for their action ? Were they anxious that a few non-unionists should have freedom or license or liberty or some other abstract concept? Reverse the position and imagine that but ten percent. of the weavers were in the union, and that the ninety per cent. non-unionists threatened to cease work unless the unionists abandoned the union — would then the bosses have prated about freedom and liberty? It is not at all likely. The unionists would have to surrender, for at such a time, in the midst of a trade boom, the mills would never have closed, and it would have been left to the philosophers to prate about liberty. So in the case of the lock out it cannot be possible that the bosses were much bothered about the few non unionists.

In searching for reasons for the lock out it is necessary to ask: Were the masters opposed to the trade unions on principle? Would they not rather negotiate with the unions than with unorganised workers? The following quotation from the “Manchester Guardian” of Jan. 20th, the day following the settlement, is apt here : 

“Comparatively few employers could be found to deny, or even question, the advantage winch they as employers have gained from the regulation of wages and the general systemisation of conditions of employment which their own associations and the uuions have jointly brought about. We believe that a great majority of employers wish the unions to be strong, if for no other reason than that they shall be able to prevent the minority of what may be described as non-union employers from competing unfairly with them by paying wages less than the standard rates.”

The following gem is from the “Blackburn Daily Telegraph'' of Jan. 19th. The manufacturers “have a direct interest in the effective working of the employees’ unions, which they have no desire to see smashed, as they operate effectively in keeping prices at a uniform rate. The absence of these organisations would result in certain firms underpaying, to the detriment of all fair competition.”

Such citations could be reproduced in abundance from the capitalist Press at the time of the lock out.

It is the writer's opinion that the cotton capitalists do not desire to smash the unions so long as they retain their present servile position. Then why the lock out? Why this apparently disproportionate, huge lock out in reply to a strike at a single mill? Does it not look as if it were a case of using a steam hammer to smash a nut, even if there was danger of an extension of the strike? The truth is probably this—that within the Lancashire unions exists a militant section, and it is this minority which has taken the initiative on the non-unionist question and forced action upon the supine majority in the unions. The capitalists are not afraid of trade union leaders of the old school, but, rightly or wrongly, they look with suspicion on the activities of a section of the workers.

The lock-out was settled on terms that left the weavers in a worse position than before the non-unionist agitation. When the terms were known meetings of protest were held in many weaving centres; in Nelson. Accrington, Blackburn and other towns vigorous language was used anent the terms obtained, a majority of those who take an interest in the working of the unions condemned their “delegates” Unfortunately, many are insensitive to humiliation by employers, and it is such the “delegates” lean upon for a mechanical support.

This minority I speak of are not Socialists; they are no doubt reformers and would disavow the class war. But the silly habit of looking upon capitalism as a thing that was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, is fading away. A more rebellious, if uninformed, spirit animates many of the workers. It is this which the masters fear.

Many factors are at work which will in the near future bring these operatives to see that Socialism is the only way out of the mire. Their stationary wages, the increase in the cost of living, the failure of the Labour Party, the “flitting” of their leader, Shackleton, the obvious permanency of their proletarian condition under the present system—all such factors must tend to compel the workers in Lancashire to make the war against the bosses political besides industrial; and permanent, not haphazard and fitful.

John A. Dawson.

By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them. (1912)

From the February 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those politicians who are out for political fraud, must, in the very nature of things, persue their object by means of fraud The explanation is that since they wish to practise fraud upon their victims, they must always cloak the truth for fear their dupes may become enlightened. On the other hand the honest politician has no use for the dupe The realisation of his object demands that everyone who stands with him shall do so in knowledge and understanding. Therefore when trickery is resorted to, it shows that those who use it depend upon ignorance, and hence are engaged upon fraudulent enterprise. These few words are sufficient introduction to the following.

  “Tooting. At a meeting held at the S.DP. Rooms on Saturday. December 30, the following resolution was unanimously carried, members of the I.L.P. and S.P.G.B. being present, although these organisations, unfortunately, were not officially represented: ‘That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable that a branch of the B.S.P. be formed in the Tooting Ward of the Borough of Wandsworth, and urges the several Socialist organisations in the said ward to take steps to wind up their affairs, in order to unite in said branch, and also calls upon the assistance of all unattached Socialists.' "

“Justice." Jan. 6th.

As this is clearly an implication that members of the S.P.G.B. were present at the time the resolution was put to the meeting, and that they therefore acquiesced in it, the following letter was sent to “Justice.” It is significant that it was refused publication.

141. Eswyn Road. Tooting, S.W.

Jan. 14, 1912

To the Editor of “Justice.”
Sir.
Referring to a report in last week’s issue of “Justice.’’of a public meeting held at the S.D.P. Rooms, Tooting, on Saturday, the 30th ult, with the object of forming a local branch of the British Socialist Party, I, as the only member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain present on that occasion, wish to point out that that being the case, your report was incorrect inasmuch as it says “members” of the S.P.G.B. were present. I should also like to add that I only arrived toward the end of the meeting, after the resolution referred to had been put, so it is obviously incorrect and misleading to state that members of the S.PG.B. were present and the resolution was carried unanimously.
I trust you will insert this letter in your next issue and so remove any misconception arising through the inaccuracy of your report

Yours, etc., D. B. Campbell.