Editorial: The cracks start to show (1999)

Editorial from the February 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Eighteen months on and the Blair project is looking increasingly hollow. Government resignations, charges of “cronyism” and sleaze plus the apparent feuding between Blair and Brown. It seems like a far cry from the happy days of May 1997.

This is not all. There is the NHS crisis (nothing new about this of course), a looming recession and government plans to join the Euro which could prove tricky.

For our part, we did argue at the General Election that the New Labour project would be a damp squib. Unlike the leftists, we did not feel that the working class should have to experience yet another Labour government to realise that it would be anti-working class. We were arguing that reformist politics is anti-working class before the Labour Party was even properly formed! We feel the current government has not disappointed us—it has demonstrated yet again that capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class.

The vacuous nature of the Blair project is encapsulated by the much used phrase “the third way” which is associated with Professor Anthony Giddens—the Director of the London School of Economics and one of Blair’s intellectual gurus. The basic idea is that Britain should position itself somewhere between American neo-liberalism and European social democracy.

Quite frankly, if this is the best pro-capitalist intellectuals can come up with then there really is a crisis in capitalist intellectual thought and an obvious need to search for an alternative to capitalism itself.

However, “the third way” does broadly serve the interests of the capitalist class and the implicit message is quite clear: there is no other capitalist option than “Thatcherism with a human face”. As we have argued before in this journal, ideas do not come from nowhere—they have a material basis. The social and political crisis of the 70s never really ended which is why the current government is carrying on with ostensibly the same Thatcherite programme as those preceding it. The post-war period of reformism is dead and there is no going back.

From this point of view it is easier to understand why Blair is forever fiddling with constitutional reform, getting into bed with the Liberals etc. without such things the government would not have a programme. Not only this, Blair is clearly intending to stay in power for at least three terms and he has calculated (rightly or wrongly) that proportional representation and possible coalition government with the Lib-Dems is only probably the only way to achieve it. The Tories may be kept out of power for a generation but the Blair project will inevitably come to a sticky end sooner or later. And who will mourn? Not the working class which elected it in 1997 with such a landslide—that’s for sure.

Material World: Nigeria: need poverty exist (2020)

The Material World Column from the  February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of all the myths prevalent about Africa, none is promoted as widely as the idea that overpopulation is the core cause of African poverty. Nigeria has the largest increase in population and is destined to become the third most populated country in the world. By 2015 one-fifth of Africa’s births occurred in Nigeria alone, accounting for 5 percent of all global births. In absolute terms, Nigeria is projected to add from 2031 to 2050 an additional 224 million babies (21 percent of the births in Africa and 8 percent of all births in the world).

On average, a Nigerian woman gives birth to 5.5 children. In the conservative, Muslim-majority north, the number goes up to eight children. This is clearly more than most women want, let alone can afford. Women in northern Nigeria have little say in reproduction and require a signed letter from their husband to get family planning which is further undermined by cultural norms such as the prevalence of polygamy, child marriage, teen pregnancy, poor education.

Wealth in Nigeria in the decade ending in 2017 increased 19 percent. These increases, Oxfam has noted, could have created an opportunity to improve the lives of many. Yet, Oxfam pointed out, Nigeria has the worst score on social spending, not only in Africa but in the world.

Instead, the increases in GDP have essentially benefited only a select few. There are currently 29,500 millionaires in Nigeria. The five wealthiest Nigerians hold a combined fortune worth $29.9 billion, for just about a $6 billion average. Nigeria’s single richest individual, Aliko Dangote, Oxfam calculated, annually earns enough income off his wealth to take 2 million poor Nigerians out of extreme poverty every year and still at the end of the year be every bit as rich as at the start. Oxfam pointed out that he ‘earns’ about 150,000 times more from his wealth than the poorest 10 percent of Nigerians spend on average on their basic consumption in a year (LINK). Dangote could spend $1 million a day and still not run out of money for 46 years.

Corruption has long plagued Nigeria due to public officials feasting on funds generated from crude oil exports. Last year, Nigeria ranked 148th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index. A report in 2012 found that it costs Nigerians $8.3 billion to pay the salaries of those in politics yet only $7.4 billion was to be spent on developing infrastructure. A Nigerian senator takes home well over a million dollars every year in salary plus expenses and benefits. Nigerian politicians get away with this in a country where millions go to bed hungry.

In Nigeria more than 60 percent of the population live on less than a dollar a day. The unemployment rate stands at 23 percent. According to reports Nigeria has overtaken India as the world’s poverty capital. A study estimated that 87 million people in a country of nearly 200 million were living in extreme poverty, compared with 73 million people in India. According to a 2018 African Development Bank report, nearly 80 percent of Nigeria’s 190 million people live on less than $2 a day. A report on inequality by Oxfam International said one in 10 children in Nigeria died before the age of five. UN data puts Nigeria’s under-five mortality rate at 100 per 1,000 children – or one in 10.

Need this poverty exist?

The Danish Consul-General, Per Christensen, has said that Nigeria could produce food for some 600 million people through the application of the right technology. He said, ‘Let me say that the agricultural development potential in Nigeria is bigger than that of Brazil when Nigerian farmers engage in technology farming’.

Nigerian experts point to the case of India, condemned by many experts in the 1960s to perpetual hunger. Today India is producing the bulk of its own food.

There are a number of reasons why the population boom in Nigeria is going unchecked, such as children being seen as a status symbol and a retirement plan. But the lack of political will is uppermost. People who claim that too many people is the issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor.

ALJO

Open Letter to David Attenborough (2020)

From the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Your recent TV series Seven Worlds, One Planet has done much to highlight the plight of many species of endangered wildlife. Nobody could fail to have got the message, from this and previous series, that wildlife the world over is suffering from the effects of global warming, from the ingestion of plastic and other toxic waste products, and from dwindling habitats resulting from activities such as tree felling for lumber and palm oil or from deliberately started forest fires.

As your impassioned pleas for more to be done become more and more relevant, we agree that human activity is largely to blame. However, it is not humans per se who are the culprits. Those causing the damage are constrained by the demands of global money-making. Large-scale industrial activity is subject to the profit imperative, and as long as profits are to be made from cutting down forests, producing harmful, non-recyclable products and spewing toxic waste into the atmosphere and waterways, small-scale attempts at recycling and conservation will come a very poor second. Over 70 percent of harmful global emissions are produced by around one hundred companies, and climate change conferences, for all their apparent earnestness, by and large achieve nothing because the measures they suggest will be bad for business. Even the emerging ‘green’ industry can only operate within the bounds of what is profitable, which is to say, not in the interest of the many.

This is not to belittle the dedicated efforts of conservation groups and wildlife lovers across the globe in trying to stem the tide. But their work is addressing the symptoms, not the cause, as are the efforts of the general public in refusing to buy products such as palm oil and dutifully recycling our cereal packets and milk containers. All such activity merely scratches the surface: the problem is global and needs a global solution.

So why not go for the jugular? If we tackle the disease itself – capitalism – rather than its symptoms, and if more of those who care passionately about the environment join the campaign to eliminate profit-based society and replace it with common ownership of the world’s resources along with true democratic decision making, then we will be well on the way to a permanent solution, with the happy effect that humans, along with other animals, will be liberated from the stranglehold of capitalism.

Hoping that in your next series you invite people to join the movement to replace capitalism with world socialism.

Yours,

Rod Shaw

Even if He Wasn’t an Idiot (2020)

From the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has expressed regret over his handling of the bushfire crisis ravaging the country, a disaster that has killed 28 people. He conceded there were things he could have handled much better. He had been heckled in the town of Cobargo in New South Wales, where some locals called him an idiot and said he wouldn’t be getting any votes there. He had been was on holiday in Hawaii. When the bushfires worsened he said there was a new appetite for the government to take a more direct role in responding to the disaster. In an interview, the PM defended his government’s approach, saying he took into account the effect of climate change, another one of capitalism’s features, on the bushfires.

Australia is just like any other capitalist country, operating a system of society where the means of production are in the hands of a tiny minority who use the land and all the machinery, raw materials and the instruments for producing wealth and distribution solely for profit and reinvesting it as capital to make more capital. Until the working class understands this, the capitalist system will carry on bringing what it must bring to the working class, the same social problems.

This will go on until the working class organise consciously and politically to get control of the state for their own class interests, using the vote and parliament and to establish socialism as a system of society based on common ownership of the means of production and distribution and the democratic methods of meeting to decide and mandate what products will be built and used to meet their human needs.

The working class keep voting for the status quo, all the orthodox parties and all the ones that call themselves socialist but in reality it is capitalism with reforms they mistakenly think will lead eventually to socialism.

The Australian working class must understand that Mr Morrison, even if he wasn’t an idiot and doesn’t understand this, must run capitalism in the only way it can be run – in the interests of the capitalist class.

E. O’Neill

Cooking the Books: Boris’s Gift Nag (2020)

The Cooking the Books Column from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Boris Johnson to raise minimum wage four times inflation’ was how news agencies reported the government’s decision, announced on 31 December, to accept the Low Pay Commission’s recommendation to increase the minimum wage for over-25s from £8.20 to £8.72 an hour from the beginning of April. What is this? The world turned upside down with a Tory government bringing in a 6.2 percent wage increase by decree?

Not really, as all is not what meets the eye. The Cameron Tory government had already adopted the long-term aim of reducing the wage subsidy to employers represented by the tax credit scheme that makes the income of the lowest-paid workers up to the poverty line. Shifting the burden back on to employers was to be achieved by gradually increasing the minimum wage since as a person’s income increases so their tax credit payment goes down.

Marx didn’t think much of minimum wage legislation. In 1880 some members of the newly-formed French Workers Party came to London to ask him to help draw up their election programme. It consisted of two parts, the long-term aim of socialism and a list of immediate demands. Afterwards Marx wrote a letter in which he said that the second part included ‘some trivialities which Guesde found it necessary to throw to the French workers notwithstanding my protest, such as fixing the minimum wage by law, etc (I told him: “If the French proletariat is still so childish as to require such bait, it is not worth while drawing up any program whatever”)’ (LINK). Presumably he felt that it went too far as a vote-catching bait as it was unrealistic and unenforceable.

Maybe it was at the time but nowadays most developed capitalist countries have such laws. In 1999 the Blair Labour government introduced a national minimum wage (previously this had existed only for some sectors such as for agricultural labourers). In 2015 the Tory government renamed the rate for over-25s the ‘National Living Wage’ (NLW). Probably it has prevented some workers in industries where it is hard to organise effective trade unions from being paid less than the value of the low-grade labour power their employers seek, even though it will have rendered some others unemployable.

In its report on the application of the law in 2019, the Low Pay Commission listed reactions by employers to increases in the NLW: taking a cut in profits, seeking to increase prices, introducing automation, and increasing work intensity. These are the same as to any wage increase, whether imposed by law, trade union pressure, or tight labour market conditions.

The Commission noted that ‘absorbing some or all of the cost of the NLW through a reduction in profits was often the most common response’. This would be a sign that competitive conditions didn’t allow a price increase; the Commission itself noted that some businesses ‘do not have this option, whether because of market structures or reliance on government funding’. So much for the myth that wage increases cause rising prices.

Worrying from a worker point of view, but par for the course, is the fourth option of work intensification:

  ‘Employers reported expecting more flexibility and effort from staff, adding tasks to job roles and raising performance standards. Workers told us of the increased pressure they have come under from such changes.’ (tinyURL.com/t77l89t).

The working for wages system is a trap from which there is no escape. What you get from one hand is often taken away by the other. No wonder Marx urged trade unionists to work for its abolition.

Now He Tells Us! (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Progress from private enterprise capitalism to State capitalism does not change the fundamental status of workers in society". Will Paynter, former National Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, in an article on the 30th anniversary of the nationalization of the coal industry. (The Miner, Nov-Dec, 1977).

Money Will Go (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why do so many members of the working class find it difficult to understand the Socialist case? Certainly not because of its complications. On the contrary, it must be because of its simplicity. So accustomed are they to having placed before them the complicated plans, programmes and policies of other political organisations that the simplicity of the Socialist proposition makes them suspect that there must be a flaw somewhere.

The detailed plans of reformist labour parties, the hotch-potch of incomprehensible “immediate demands” of the communists, the cunningly conceived schemes of currency reform cranks and the elaborate domestic and foreign policies of all kinds of governments gives them the idea that politics is a most profound business. Then to be told that all their problems have a common origin in the capitalist system of society and that the solutions lie in the abolition of capitalism, leaves them somewhat bewildered and suspicious. Like a woman who, on entering a shop to buy a certain commodity, finds it on sale at a price so much below her anticipations that she suspects that it must be faulty and refuses to buy.

The socialist declares that the workers have it in their power to build a society wherein the wealth produced shall be freely available to everyone without the need to buy, sell or exchange everything that is required. To imagine themselves having access to the goods that they have worked to produce without having to ask “How much?” or "Can I afford it?” makes many workers smile and shake their heads. They recognise everything as the property of some person or persons. They accept without question the fact that goods are only available to them when they can afford to buy. The proposal that there can be a condition of things where the institution of buying and selling does not exist, makes them look for a flaw.

One can well imagine children, having grown accustomed to the practice of producing a ration book, a coupon or a permit before a purchase can be made, looking askance at any proposal that may suggest that such coupons and permits be no longer necessary. All the arguments advanced in support of a rationing system when it was introduced would then be trotted out against those who advocated its abolition, and by the very people who stood to gain by the change.

But one cannot imagine adults of today opposing the abolition of a rationing system. They have recent recollections of the days before rationing and a return to those conditions would not seem at all strange to them. Having experienced a certain condition they would know that it is practicable.

A number of those workers who pooh-pooh the idea of making the wealth produced available to the producers, are men and women who have served in the army, navy or air force. At socialist meetings they will ask in a surprised tone, “Do you mean that we can just walk into a place and eat without paying?”, “Do you mean that we don’t have to pay rent? ”, “Are you suggesting that we can go into a shop and get a suit of clothes and walk out without paying?”, "How will the boot repairer or the bus driver or the canteen waitress live if we do not pay for the goods that we have?”

Yet, quite recently, these ex-service people have lived in conditions wherein they did not have to put their hands in their pockets and produce money in order to eat, dress and sleep.

What happens when the soldier wants his boots repaired? He takes them to the unit cobbler. And when the unit cobbler wants a meal he goes to the cookhouse. Does he pay for his dinner? Of course not. Neither does the cook pay for the battle dress suit that he gets from the quartermaster’s stores. The army lorry driver does not pay for the petrol that he draws from the petrol depot or for the spares and tools that he uses. And when he drives his truck on a recreational journey, do his passengers pay a fare? Not likely. The storeman does not charge for the blankets that he issues, neither does the medical officer charge for his services. If the service man was asked to pay rent for his billet, barrack room or bunk he would regard the idea as preposterous. Despite this "non-payment” arrangement, or because of it, the whole military organisation is effective. Men do not eat greedily when they do not have to pay for their meals. Soldiers do not obtain umpteen pairs of boots just because they do not have to pay for them. In fact they often regard one of the two pairs with which they are issued as an encumbrance. Requirements are satisfied as far as stocks and stores allow.

We are not suggesting that the army form of distribution is an example of socialism in operation. Far from it. The goods that are available to the soldier have been bought. They were produced, as are all goods where the capitalist mode of production prevails, for the purpose of being sold or exchanged with a view to a profit being made. Having been through the buying and selling process they are finally placed at the disposal of the army and made accessible to the troops. All things are not freely available. In fact army life is notorious for its lack of variety and its uniformity. We use the illustration to show to those who are unable to appreciate the possibility, how goods produced for use could be distributed without having to pass through a market as far as the actual consumer is concerned.

Men and women in the armed forces produce a variety of services. They cook and cut hair, repair boots, drive trucks and lorries and sweep out barrack rooms, etc. Each in turn takes advantage of the service provided by others without thought of making payment. It should not be difficult to visualise a society where such procedure prevailed. Goods and services would be produced as they are today. The difference being that many who now are engaged in socially useless tasks and those who are not engaged in production in any shape or form, would then contribute their share of effort, thus making the task lighter for all. All the things produced, food, clothing, houses, transport facilities, entertainment, furniture, etc., all the things necessary to make life comfortable, would then be at the disposal of everyone, according to their requirements.

People could eat by entering the appropriate building, sitting down, and being supplied with food just as the soldier is supplied in his cookhouse. Or they might prefer to collect their foodstuffs and take them to their dwelling place to prepare and eat them. Such details as how people will prefer to eat, in public halls or in private dwellings, we are unable to forecast. We cannot attempt to map out in advance the detailed plans of organisation of a future society. Society is not a piece of architecture, it grows like an organism, and organs develop as the need for them arises. The prevailing conditions will determine such details in a socialist community.

The same applies to the distribution of other goods. Just how clothing will be distributed we cannot say. It may be in like manner to the quartermaster’s issue or it may be by mail order or by distribution from shops as today except that the payment business will no longer exist.

With travel it is easier still to visualise. It should not be difficult of comprehension to realise that one could board a bus, a train, a coach or an aeroplane, travel to one's destination and alight without the necessity of paying a fare. In all these instances the collectors of money will he freed from those jobs and made available for a more useful contribution to the social effort. They can be free to assist in the production of more goods or the rendering of more and better services.

The socialist does not advocate such a system of society just because it would be nice to live that way. He recognises that the present system of producing things in order that they may be sold, and that someone may make a profit out of the process, is the cause of all working class problems. From this root cause arises the poverty of the workers with its attendant problems of housing, malnutrition, overwork and unemployment, economic insecurity, crime, etc. Also from the same source comes the greatest of all catastrophes, War. To eliminate these evils it is necessary to remove the cause. So what must we do? If the cause is private ownership with its production for sale, what stands in the way of abolishing this condition? Private ownership. Only things that are owned by someone can be sold or exchanged. When goods are produced they are not made available to the producers. They remain in the hands of those who own the tools and machinery which are used to make them. By virtue of their ownership these people have the right to say what shall be produced, how much shall be produced and how the goods and services shall be distributed. The whole of the structure of present day society is directed towards maintaining this order of things. The majority of the workers accept this system, governments administer it, police, judges and jailers enforce it, soldiers, sailors and airmen fight for it, and the owners of the land, mines, factories, transport systems, workshops, etc., thrive on it. Only the socialist challenges it

Many workers try to find ways and means of remedying the evil effects of this system without even realising the fundamental cause of these evils. To them it seems a very complicated affair, requiring complicated plans. To them the simple socialist proposition of converting the means of production from private or state ownership to common ownership, and thus making all the wealth produced freely available to everyone according to their needs, is difficult of comprehension. But there is no problem thrown up by society that does not have its solution portrayed in that society. If we seek an example, a lesson or an illustration of a future social development we can always find it in our present circumstances.

To those who boggle at the idea of having the needs, comforts and luxuries of life made available to them; to those who take fright at the idea of a society without goods for sale, we would say this: Our proposals are not the result of a dream. They are the product of a scientific study of social development and a recognition that socialism is the next stage in that development, not merely because we wish it but because it is inevitable if society is to continue. There is nothing difficult or incomprehensible about socialism once you cease to regard it as too simple to be true or as an idea of men who seek to trick you. All that is necessary is for you to give up seeking arguments in favour of maintaining the system that keeps you in subjection. Give a little earnest thought to the socialist case in a sympathetic manner. We know what the result will be. Then bring your actions into line with your ideas and the job of establishing Socialism is as good as done. 

W. Waters

The above article appeared in the February 1948 edition of the Socialist Standard.

Listen ecologist . . . (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

You are right to argue that the choice of technology to generate electricity should be a matter of public discussion and democratic social decision and not left to capitalist enterprises or government bureaucrats. Where you go wrong is in believing (or behaving as if you believed) that this is possible within the framework of existing capitalist society.

The economics of Electricity

Capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a minority, either privately or through the state. It exists not just in the West but, in the form of state capitalism, in Russia, China and similar countries. Under capitalism production is carried on to make a profit. Capitalist firms and states compete to sell their goods profitably. If an enterprise can produce its goods cheaper than its competitors it can make an extra profit until they too introduce the cheaper method. There is thus a stimulus under capitalism to continually introduce cheaper methods of production.

Most industry today is electric-powered so an important element in the cost of goods is the electricity used in their production. One State can win a competitive edge over its rivals if it can cut down on the costs of generating electricity. Because of the huge investment costs involved in constructing a network of generating stations, this has fallen in most cases on the state. The power stations are run as state-capitalist enterprises to enable private and state industries to compete profitably on world markets. Decisions on the technology to generate electricity are constrained by this capitalist framework. State-run power stations, just as much as private enterprises, are subject to the law of profit.

Nuclear Power

At the moment (apart from hydro-electricity) there are three main methods, all based on raising steam to turn giant turbines: burning coal, burning oil (or natural gas), and splitting atoms of uranium. All three are open to criticism from an ecological point of view. Instead of being literally burned up into useless gases, the limited coal and oil resources of the planet would be more rationally used as raw materials for the manufacture of plastics. The dangers to the environment of using nuclear fission, in particular the disposal of the radioactive waste, are now generally known as a result of your protests.

But environmental considerations only enter marginally (to the extent that other capitalist interests might be harmed by the pollution) into decisions about which method to use. The prime consideration is cheapness, the competitive position and profits of enterprises which consume the electricity. The cheapest method at the moment is to use oil, but strategic considerations (security of supply) and estimated price trends over the coming years, have led those who run the power stations to turn to nuclear fission.

Despite what is suggested by some of you, atomic power is an obvious future source of energy, preferably in the form of nuclear fusion (the fusing of atoms of light elements such as hydrogen or helium) rather than fission (the splitting of heavy elements like uranium). Nuclear fusion, using atoms of heavy hydrogen which exist in plentiful supply in the oceans of the world, promises virtually limitless energy which would be “clean”, i.e., without the dangers of radiation associated with nuclear fission. But the technical problems connected with its use have not yet been overcome and, given the limited funds now made available for research, are not expected to be for about twenty years.

Nuclear fission is a different matter. On the evidence, the long-term environmental effects of using it would outweigh any short-term advantages in releasing coal and oil for other uses. But nuclear fission reactors are already in use and more will be built as time goes on since they promise a cheaper and strategically more secure method of generating electricity than does oil. As long as capitalism continues this will happen, despite your protests, peaceful or otherwise. It is the logic of capitalism, its law of profit, which dictates this and which all governments must apply or risk hampering the competitiveness of goods produced in their countries.

A single-issue Campaign?

But are the dangers of nuclear fission a sufficient reason for singling it out for particular opposition? We say “no”, for the following reasons. The two alternative methods—burning coal or oil—are also open to objection from an ecological and environmental point of view so that a mere moratorium on building nuclear power stations (or even closing down existing ones) will not stop pollution of the environment nor waste of the world’s non-renewable resources. Single-issue campaigns of this sort divert attention from the need to get rid of capitalism before anything meaningful can be done to tackle the problems of the environment.

Some objections you raise against nuclear energy are to the use to which it is put or might be put in capitalist society. That it can be used to make weapons of mass destruction, or could fall into the hands of some terrorist group, only makes sense in the context of capitalism. If the world were not divided into capitalist states where military strength is a factor in economic competition not only for markets but also for sources of raw material and trade routes, there would be no need for armed forces or weapons of destruction, whether nuclear or “conventional”.

If you object to nuclear energy on the grounds that it is employed to manufacture nuclear weapons then logically you should be struggling, as we are, to end the society which perverts science in this way.

World Socialism

So what is our alternative? It is world Socialism. Already a number of writers on ecology realize that there are no national solutions to the problems of the environment, pollution and waste. The planet forms a single ecological system so it is only on a planetary scale that ecological problems can be solved. Unfortunately, this world consciousness does not go farther than demanding a world government or world bodies to deal with environmental problems, without changing the capitalist basis of society. This is why the solutions they propose can at best only be palliatives; they deal with effects while leaving the cause—the ownership of world resources by a section only of mankind and the production of goods to be sold with a view to profit—intact.

Only when freed from the vested interests of capitalism, can mankind deal rationally with the question of its relationship to the rest of nature. The production of wealth would then be under democratic social control and would be geared not only to satisfying, in accordance with the principle “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, mankind’s material needs but also to protecting the environment and sensibly conserving resources.

What could be done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s resources can be sketched (we emphasize that this is not in any way a blueprint). The burning of coal and oil could be phased out and, in addition to the development of clean nuclear power, alternative sources of energy such as water, winds, tides, the earth’s heat and the sun’s rays could be properly investigated. Coal and oil could rather be used as raw materials for manufacture. The sea, as well as much more of the land, could be farmed by methods which fit in with the balance of nature.

Such a world plan presupposes that commercial and nation-State interests have been swept away and that all the world’s resources, man-made as well as natural, have become the common heritage of all mankind. In short, world Socialism. This is why we concentrate all our efforts towards the spread of socialist consciousness without which Socialism cannot be established. Socialism can only be established when working people want and understand it and take the necessary democratic political action to achieve it. We feel that this is a much more worthwhile activity for you who are concerned about the environment than negative and ultimately futile protests at the effects of capitalism. We invite those of you who want to know more about our viewpoint to contact us.

Adam Buick

Forthcoming Pamphlet: An Urgent Appeal (1978)

Party News from the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have prepared for publication a new edition of our pamphlet “Questions of the Day”. The previous editions of this work have been extremely popular because of its many chapters on a range of subjects. The new one contains freshly-written additional chapters on inflation and unemployment, left-wing organizations, the women’s movement, and China. “Questions of the Day” is packed with material vital to every worker.

Most members of the SPGB and readers of the Socialist Standard will regard its reappearance as an important event. It depends on one thing: we need money.. The printer’s bill will be £1,500. Our experience has always been that when we ask for money for something like this, it is quickly provided by socialists. We are sure that will be the case on this occasion.

Please send your contributions to the Treasurer, “Questions of the Day”, Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4.

Letter: Are Unions Useless? (1978)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are Unions Useless?

From time to time through the columns of the S.S. you have made the following points:-

1. You warn workers to beware of reforms and illusions.
2. You acknowledge the importance of trade union organisation for the defence of wages and working conditions.
3. You state that taxes is not a working class issue.

Here are my views; would you please comment on them.

1. I agree that workers must become aware of the uselessness of reformist action, which leads me to
2. I believe that the trade unions are as much a part of the state as the DHSS or the Housing Department. Like them they are reformist in as much as they can only secure for the worker that which capitalism will allow. The unions are also a hindrance to the workers’ material advancement and political awareness due to their allegiance to the Labour Party and the concessions they give this capitalist party, on behalf of the workers, by agreeing to and helping the workers to swallow pay restraint etc. They also foster among the workers the notion that people can be led to socialism (the leaders being the TUC and the Labour Party). They would have us believe that the only barrier to socialism is the Conservative party and Idi Amin.
3. You hold the view that wages are a working class issue (hence your support of the unions on this); then how is a tax cut any less a wage rise than say the equivalent amount on your hourly rate?

George McCabe
Glasgow.

Reply

We agree entirely with much of what you say; for example about trade union support given to the Labour Party and Labour government, and the workers’ belief in leadership, but not withstanding all the erroneous policies of trade unions it is not true that union organization cannot serve a purpose useful to the workers.

While it is true, as you say, that trade union action is limited by the conditions of capitalism, that does not mean that the wages and conditions resulting from the struggle are simply what the capitalists would like them to be. If workers gave up organization and struggle entirely their standard of living would certainly be worsened. In Marx’s colourful words ’’they would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation”.

When you equate a wage increase with a tax cut you overlook the fact that the worker’s standard of living (the purchasing power of his take-home pay) is the result of the struggle; again quoting Marx, “the respective powers of the combatants”.

This was dealt with in the Reply Taxes and Labour in the January issue.

Editors.

Obituary: Jim Ryder (2020)

Obituary from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Passing of a Comrade

It is with sadness that we inform you that one of our New Zealand comrades, Jim Ryder, has passed away. 

James Alan Ryder (known as Jim) was born in Liverpool July 18 1931, and died October 25 2019.

He spent a good part of his life as a merchant seaman, and having visited New Zealand many times, decided to settle here in the 1970’s.

Jim, who became involved with and joined the World Socialist Party NZ, looked forward to attending the Party meetings and participating in spreading the Socialist message at every opportunity – a comrade who lived his life as a true Socialist.

As a seaman, based in New Zealand, he was on ships which frequented the Port of Tauranga (in the Bay of Plenty) and sailed to Australia and I believe Japan, until his retirement.

His home/work for those trips was on the Tasman Venture or Tasman Enterprise – two ships owned by Tasman Pulp and Paper NZ, and operated by the Union Steamship Co of NZ.

He was a good friend who would give you the shirt off his back – always happy, always singing, a typical Scouser. Jim loved his dogs and loved having a beer with his friends.

In retirement he lived in Auckland and then the seaside town of Whangamata, where he passed away.

He instructed his friends in Whangamata to have his ashes put into two urns, one to join his son in Liverpool, and the other to be taken out to sea.

Maurice Gribble, on behalf of the World Socialist Party (New Zealand)

50 Years Ago: Slaughter in Vietnam (2020)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists look at war in a fundamentally different way from people with other political persuasions. We contend that war in the modern world is caused by the workings of capitalism with its struggles over trade, investments, oil and other resources.

The workers of the world have an identity of interests and have nothing at stake in the thieves’ quarrels of their masters. The working class owns no country. None of the resources are theirs; they have nothing to fight for and everything to gain by uniting to end the system that enslaves them and produces wars and other terrible problems.

Supporters of Trotskyism and the so-called Communist Party support war and take one side or the other, thus lending themselves to the shedding of working class blood for the profits of the capitalist class East or West.

In the case of Vietnam these people seek Victory for the Vietcong and line up behind the nationalist aspirations of developing Vietnamese capitalism.

If it could be shown that Vietnam was an exceptional incident to an otherwise peaceful and humane capitalism and if all that needed to be done was to end this war and all would be well in the world, all the talk and press comments about “this senseless war” might have some point. The fact is that no argument can be advanced condemning the war in Vietnam which would not be equally valid for the first and second world wars, for Korea and all other 73 conflicts that have taken place in the last twenty years. War is a normal condition of capitalism. An article in US. News and World Report (August 28, 1968) shows there have been no less than 128 wars since 1898 and that 57 per cent of these have taken place since the last world war. It must be clear from this that a particular war is an effect which cannot be dealt with in isolation. What we are confronting is a society that produces wars.

(Socialist Standard, February 1970)

Editorial: Green Capitalism – A Contradiction In Terms (2020)

Editorial from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The failure of the UN climate change conference in Madrid in December was predictable. It is now well established, and accepted by most, that the incremental increase in average global temperature that’s been going on for decades – and its long-term consequences of rising sea levels and more extreme weather – is mainly due to the past and present burning of fossil fuels releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As long as this continues, so will the slow but steady increase in global temperature.

This rise can only be countered, let alone stopped, by using other sources for generating energy that don’t release carbon dioxide and, to a lesser extent, by finding ways to reabsorb it and certainly not by destroying natural ways that do this like the Amazon and other rainforests.

If there is a known solution, why is it not being applied? Basically, it’s because we are living in a capitalist world, divided into rival states, where production is in the hands of competing, profit-seeking enterprises. Each state, claiming to represent a ‘nation’ but actually representing its ruling class, asserts ‘sovereignty’, ie exclusive political control, over a part of the globe and the natural resources it contains.

This was crudely, but honestly, stated by President Bolsonaro of Brazil who told the UN General Assembly in New York in September that the Amazon rainforest was not ‘the heritage of mankind’ but belonged to Brazil, implying that Brazil could to do what it wanted with it, including burning and chopping it down to make way for profitable mining and ranching, even if this would eventually harm other states, let alone humanity.

Brazil is not alone. All states claim that the resources within their frontiers are theirs to do what they judge best with. This is why the states which have coal, oil and gas reserves on their territory are holding up anything that would reduce their profits from exploiting their fossil fuel resources, whether for export or as the cheapest source of energy for their internal needs.

They are only defending their sectional interest as all states do. Whereas within a country there is a body – the state – that can if need be force recalcitrant profit-seeking enterprises to respect the general interest of the capitalist class there, on the world scene there is no such body. The UN is just a talking shop. There is no means of forcing fossil fuel rich states to toe the line. And they are not going to voluntarily undermine their competitiveness by using more expensive ways of generating energy when a cheaper source is to hand.

This was underlined by a report from the International Energy Agency the same month as the talking shop in Madrid that ‘coal will remain by far the biggest source of power supply worldwide in 2024 … because of demand for cheap energy in Asia’ (Times, 17 December). Being relatively cheap there, coal use in India is expected to grow by almost 5 percent a year for the next five years while Bangladesh is building five large new coal-fired power stations.

The threat of global warming is a global problem that can only be dealt with by planned action on a global scale, but capitalism’s vested interests and profit considerations are preventing this. The only framework allowing planned action is a world without borders based on the common ownership of its natural and industrial resources. That’s what those rightly concerned about the dangers of global overwarming should also be working for.

Nativism: Covert Racism (2020)

From the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are prominent politicians around the world who propagate a fallacious theory on immigration and, when extremists embrace such ideas, those politicians wash their hands of any culpability. The fear of immigrants is magnified by lies and language. Fear of migrants brings in votes for politicians. Politicians feed on the fear. Fear of migrants brings in viewers and readers for the media. Yet multiple studies have found that people who have direct contact with immigrants have much more positive views about their work ethic and supposed reliance on welfare, and are much more open to increased immigration.

Conspiracy theory

There is a conspiracy theory pervading the far right. It is centered on the idea of white genocide with the belief that ‘Western, Christian’ culture is under siege by immigration from non-white countries, resulting in a replacement of white people via demographics, i. e, foreign-born out-breeding the native-born. This is despite numerous studies dismissing such paranoia. The Great Replacement Theory claims that a white Christian European population is being systematically replaced by non-European, non-white, Muslim immigrants. Renaud Camus, credited as the originator of this pernicious theory, cites Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘rivers of blood’ speech as an influence on his thinking.

Hungary recently hosted an international summit on demography attended by delegations from dozens of countries. The fear of rising populations in other parts of the world was the dominant theme during the summit. Boosting native birthrates was a priority for the long-term development of their countries. Procreate or face extinction was the message concerning their shrinking population.

Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, said it was conceivable that his country, due to low birthrates and emigration of Hungarians to EU states further west, could simply disappear, explaining to the conference: ‘If Europe is not going to be populated by Europeans in the future and we take this as given, then we are speaking about an exchange of populations, to replace the population of Europeans with others. There are political forces in Europe who want a replacement of population for ideological or other reasons’.

His minister for family, youth and international affairs, Katalin Novák, said ‘Europe has become the continent of the empty crib whereas in Asia and Africa they face demographic challenges of the opposite type.’ The Hungarian government doubled family spending between 2010 and 2019, with the goal of achieving ‘a lasting turn in demographic processes by 2030”’. Fertility rates have gone up from 1.2 to 1.5 children per woman, according to government figures. This is still far from the 2.1 figure the UN says is the number required for a sustainable population. This year the Hungarian government introduced a 10m forint (£27,000) interest-free loan for families, which does not have to be paid back if the couple has three children.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott saluted the Hungarian leader for having ‘the political courage to defy political correctness’. Abbott said dying populations, not climate change, were the biggest threat to western civilization.

Shooters

The manifesto of the Australia-born Christchurch shooter in New Zealand was entitled ‘The Great Replacement’ and began with: ‘It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates.’

The El Paso shooter said in his text, ‘This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion’.

In the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the shooter’s social media posts revealed he was punishing Jews for, as he saw it, inducing the death of whiteness by orchestrating immigration.

Six weeks later another shooter murdered a woman and wounded several more at a synagogue in Poway, California, leaving a manifesto that blamed Jews for ‘funding politicians and organisations who use mass immigration to displace the European race’.

Fear of the ‘great replacement’ was echoed in the chants of ‘You will not replace us,’ and ‘Jews will not replace us!’ in the white supremacist march in Charlottesville.

In the USA, Fox News airs reports about Hispanic immigration at the Mexican border in terms of ‘invasion’ or as Fox TV host Laura Ingraham put it, ‘replacing the current American population, or swamping the current American population, with a new population of people.’ In the UK, that media demagogue Katie Hopkins expresses much the same sentiments. ‘Do you think that happened by chance or by design to keep the London mayor in Muslim hands. Our capital city, our capital city, your capital city is run by a Muslim mayor who has a Muslim police association, a Muslim housing association’.

This view is also reflected by Spectator associate editor, Douglas Murray, who claims that ‘Europe is committing suicide’ by allowing Muslim immigration. He warns of ‘white Britons’ becoming a minority in ‘their own capital city’ and claims London has become a ‘foreign country’ because of so many black, Asian and mixed-race Brits – no matter if they’re born there – living there, arguing: ‘London is now less than 50 per cent white British. It is not healthy for the native population to be a minority in their own capital’.

Racism and nationalism exists because capitalism produces endemic problems in employment, housing, and welfare. The working class suffer the misery of these problems but they do not understand their cause. They are, therefore, ready to be persuaded to blame the problems onto scapegoats, whether immigrants or any other minority that can be readily identifiable. Racism and nationalism are issues which working people must deal with as an obstacle to their progress to a sane social system.

Socialists sympathise with the suffering of our fellow-workers of whichever ethnicity and we ask them all to set aside their nationalism, their religious bigotry, their ethnic hatred and racism and to join together to put an end to the real problem – capitalism. The Socialist Party appeals to our fellow workers to unite, irrespective of nationality or colour, to defeat racism and nationalism. We are opposed to all restrictions on the free expression of ideas and do not support suppression of opinion, no matter how false or distasteful we believe that opinion to be. In our view, the way to counter irrational racist conspiracy theories is in the open unfettered discussion.

ALJO

Wood for the Trees: History as Drama (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent film Le Mans ’66 represents an addition to the long tradition of transforming historical events into entertaining dramatic film narratives. Given that its centrepiece is one of the many famous races held at the Le Mans motor racing circuit it already has a built in dramatic edge but the film focuses mainly on the relationships between the people who had the imagination, power, courage and knowledge to change motor racing history.

For decades the Ferrari motor company was dominant in this form of motor racing where performance has to be matched by engineering consistency and endurance. These were thoroughbred cars where no expense was spared – both on the track and in its road cars. They were the cars for the rich elite to show off their wealth, and status and success at the race track was seen as essential in maintaining this image. In contrast to this the American car industry specialised in the ‘mass production’ that would bring down prices and so make cars accessible to most everyone. Primary among these was the Ford motor company and Henry Ford himself is usually identified as having instigated the alienated assembly line manufacturing process.

The film opens with Henry Ford’s son expressing a frustrated desire to give his cars a much more performance-oriented sexy image. To acquire such engineering credibility he was advised that winning the world’s most prestigious motor race (Le Mans 24hr race) would be the most assured way of entering the performance market. To do this Ford initially attempts to buy the cash-strapped Ferrari Company but its owner Enzo Ferrari finds a better deal with Fiat and in refusing Ford’s offer he insults the American company and its CEO. Furious at this Ford instructs his employees to construct their own car to win the Le Mans race. The film follows the technological and social implications of such hubris in terms of the antagonism between the personalities that were essential to its realisation. The conflicting traditions of capitalist production in America and Italy and their respective corporate hierarchies together with maverick designers and drivers, their egos and comradeship combined with the aesthetic of speed all converge to make this movie entertaining and informative.

The result was the famous Ford GT40 racing car which was a winning combination of British design (Lola) and Ford’s 427 racing engine tuned by Carroll Shelby and driven by hot-tempered Brit Ken Miles. The traditional trope of the soulless big corporation trying to keep control of the free spirits of the drivers and engineers is used to entertaining effect by emphasising that the only way to achieve their goal was somehow to synthesise the incompatible realities of capitalism and freedom. We can only speculate as to the number of examples of other such attempts in numerous walks of life that have failed to hold together under similar inherent contradictions – but then nobody would want to make a film about failure.

This is, of course, one of the flaws in any attempt to make drama out of history. Not that history is without drama but to condense events into a story with structure and meaning must always involve being selective, depending on who’s telling the story as much as with its subject. Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and countless other authors have not been inhibited in using historical events as the background to the stories that they wish to tell. It has become the job of many historians and archaeologists to try to unravel the myths and legends that have become so inextricably linked with our understanding of the past. Indeed many within those professions were themselves initially attracted to history by those same legends and myths.

Most of us enjoy a story where the ‘underdog’ or ‘maverick’ individual overcomes the conditioning and control of the powerful. Many are unaware of the political implications of this desire to escape the dead alienating prison of capitalism and can only express it by vicariously enjoying the escapism provided by drama. The heroes of the past express our anger in a positive way rather than the everyday negativity of conforming to tribalism, prejudice and competitiveness because of fear and political ignorance. Humankind has always loved to discover and/or impose patterns on existence. Dramatic stories provide meaning and structure to the chaos of life but this need we all possess must not be allowed to eclipse or disguise other more uncomfortable perspectives. We are all aware of such travesties of history in films like: Birth of a Nation, Quo Vadis, Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven. Such movies emphasise the danger of conflating history and drama especially because they are aesthetically pleasing with a good story, good acting and great scripts. Stories are used to obfuscate historical truths as often as they can illuminate them — the next time you read the legend ‘what follows is based on real events’ at the beginning of a film always bear this in mind.

Wez