Cross-posted from the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog
From the online magazine Digital Journal.
Some believe that the recent financial meltdown was caused by free markets and capitalism, which has drawn many people to look at the alternative: Socialism. The Socialist Party of Canada wants to define what socialism really means.
At several demonstrations in Toronto, this journalist has come across a lot of members of the Socialist and Communist Parties of Canada. The representatives hand out information on certain events occurring and their stance on the issue. It was time to finally speak with the party and understand their points of view.
The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) distinguishes itself from the left-leaning parties, such as the Liberal Party, the Green Party and the New Democratic Party, by not representing the “capitalist class” and not being “managers of the capitalist system.”
On Thursday, Digital Journal had the opportunity to speak with Socialist Party of Canada representative and content contributor to the publication journal Imagine, John Ayers, to discuss the idea of socialism, what the party’s views are in terms of foreign policy and the current political establishment and system.
According to dictionary.com, socialism is defined as: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.”
However, Ayers feels that socialism and communism have been misunderstood due to the media and various governments around the world that call themselves socialists but do not represent the idea or have the vaguest notion of what it actually is.
About the party
The first Socialist Party of Canada began in 1904 and ended in 1925. The second SPC began in 1931 and continues to this day and is part of the World Socialist Movement.
“We have an idea, which when implemented by the majority worldwide, will end all war, all poverty, all inequality and provide everybody with the needs they have.” said Ayers. “Capitalism can’t do that, which is obvious right now.”
Even though the party does not have the proper funds to operate on a level as the main political parties, Ayers says that the party is mainly operating on an educational basis by publishing brochures, pamphlets and other methods to get out the proper information.
“Our electoral system is based on whoever has got the most money wins and we have to a lot of money, we don’t have a lot of money,” notes Ayers. “Right now we’re basically an educational phase.”
What will happen if the SPC gets elected? First the voters must understand what their view of socialism is. Ayers calls the ideology of the SPC as “scientific socialism” as they study the work of Karl Marx and use his economic theory as a basis of socialism but “don’t take his work as gospel.”
Socialism and ideas
The quintessential question is then: What is socialism? Ayers explains the following:
“Socialism is a society based on the common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. Managed democratically in the interest of all mankind. That necessarily means an end to the class system, to money, to employment, to wages and necessarily means a society based on voluntary labour and free access for everybody to all goods produced. It is a production for use and not for profit.”
Ayers adds that this idea has never been practiced and certainly the Green Party, NDP and those who say they are socialists are not because they don’t have the same idea of socialism and communism due to their attempts of trying to be popular and “putting a happy face on capitalism.”
If elected, the SPC would use parliament and legislative powers to end the private property and state systems. In place of it, voluntary labour would be implemented and power would be given to local and production councils, which would be democratically elected and ultimately be the foundation of socialism.
“Most of the stuff won over the past 50 years are disappearing such as the health care system, proper wages, etc.,” notes Ayers. “The only thing we promote is establishing a socialist society. Promoting capitalism can never work and benefit the working class.”
Foreign policy and war
Remembrance Day was on Thursday and it was only fitting to understand the party’s stance on Canada’s foreign policy and war. Ayers says the party’s foreign policy would be to “join the hands with socialist parties around the world,” which would result in no war and nothing to fight over because “wars are fought over economics.”
War, according to Ayers, is a struggle between two capitalist classes and their attempt to gain control over strategic and trade routes. However, in the end, says Ayers, “humans don’t need wars” because we’re the ones who get killed and “it solves nothing.”
“Once we’ve established socialism,” says Ayers, “all of this is gone. The military complexes are gone.”
The current state and can the government change?
According to Ayers, ultimately nothing is going to change. The SPC representative cites Toronto mayor-elect Rob Ford as an example because he is someone who is not going to change the system but ran on a campaign promise of ending the gravy train and changing the corrupt city hall.
In the end, says Ayers, the municipal government is going to get bigger and make union workers poorer. Although one public official can “tweak” little things in government, if you want real change then you have to “remove it entirely” in order to have a “society that is viable, equitable and worth living in.”
The current system does not give people freedom or the freedom to travel: “If you don’t have money for a bus ticket, you can’t go anywhere. But people with billions of dollars can travel anywhere and have their voices heard easily.”
“It’s the system itself that creates war, poverty and global warming,” says Ayers. “The government, managers of capitalists, have done absolutely nothing.”
Monday, December 20, 2010
Ireland in recession (2010)
The only flourishing industry in Ireland now seems to be economic punditry.A fellow socialist recently sent me an economic article critiquing the contrasting financial approaches of the various governments in Europe to the current crisis. It wasn’t the first article that I’ve read on this subject! Ever since the storm broke in autumn 2008, the media in Ireland has filled the airwaves/newspaper pages with an endless procession of economists commenting on various aspects of Ireland’s severe economic situation and either second guessing the government’s decisions on various policy matters or attempting to persuade the people that they have much cleverer solutions to ‘our’ problems. Part of my weariness with all this analysis stems from the fact that as a socialist I know booms and slumps are an inevitable part of the economic operation of capitalism and there was clearly an unsustainable boom occurring in Ireland over the years 2004 to 2008. So now we have the consequent contraction which is just going to have to be endured as long as capitalism governs our lives.
In fact, the only flourishing industry in Ireland now seems to be economic punditry and whether you open a magazine, turn on the TV, listen to the radio or surf the net for news, you won’t have long to wait until you encounter the predictions of economists mainly drawn from either academia or the financial institutions or on some rare occasions, the trade unions. Because Ireland’s situation is deemed so critical, we even have Nobel prize winning economists from the United States commenting on us, while just a few years ago we wouldn’t have merited any attention from them as they’d probably have been pre-occupied with China.
In fact one popular media economist, David McWilliams, currently has a travelling roadshow where he tours the country, filling halls and theatres with his views. As the publicity blurb for his ridiculous ‘Outsiders’ tour goes “McWilliams believes Ireland’s political and social divide is not so much about rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, but about Insiders and Outsiders”. This strange mixture of showbiz and economics has climaxed in a ‘Kilkenomics’ festival held in Kilkenny in late November where stand up comedy will be interspersed with economic analysis. On its website one of the topics listed for discussion is to be ’23 Things they don’t tell you about Capitalism’. As the man said, you couldn’t make it up!
What’s tiresome about all the contributors to this public debate, is that in spite of furious argument over some superficial points, essentially they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. Corrective action is needed to deal with Ireland’s soaring debt and it’s only the time scale (whether it should be over 4 or 6 years) and the areas of public spending to be excluded from cuts (such as old age pension) that are in contention. It is now anticipated that a general election is only months away and it’s noticeable that the main opposition parties have moderated their criticism of the government’s budget approach; they know full well that room for manoeuvre is extremely limited and if elected (which seems very probable at the moment) they will be implementing the hair-shirt budgets over the next four years.
To give some background, it now seems accepted that whatever reality lay behind the Celtic Tiger had by about 2003/2004 been replaced by an old-fashioned, foundation-less credit boom based on the expectation that property (both residential and commercial) was destined to appreciate at a significant level beyond any other type of investment. This led to a frenzy of construction, some clearly insane even to non-socialists, where perfectly functioning warehouses, hotels and office blocks were demolished so their footprint could be used for even more profitable apartment blocks and fancier hotels.
By 2006 the unsustainability of what was happening began to be widely commented upon in everyday life though this didn’t seem to flag any warning bells with Brian Cowan, the then minister of finance, subsequently promoted to Taoiseach (Prime Minister). The crash has highlighted a structural weakness in Irish politics whereby that opaque interaction between the politicians and leading business people (particularly property developers) masked the rationale for economic decisions. By 2008, a huge proportion of Irish government revenue was attributable, directly or indirectly, to the construction sector in terms of which has now all but vanished. This has left an almost twenty billion euro gap between the government’s annual income and expenditure. The problem has been exacerbated by the government’s initial decision to give a very wide ranging guarantee to all the main banks’ creditors. As the scale of loses (fifty billion and counting) has turned out to be much greater than anticipated, this has increased Ireland’s need to borrow. Whether the government naively underestimated the risks from this banking strategy or was responding to the pressing needs of some well-connected business people has been hotly debated since.
The predominant response to date in Ireland has been a fearful resignation rather than any outright ‘resistance’ as has intermittently been seen in the strikes and demonstrations of France and Greece. Partly this is due to an apathy to the potential power of real politics, that has been engendered amongst great swathes of the electorate, resulting from so many broken promises by reformist parties over the years. Unemployment has risen sharply and emigration as a social phenomenon has returned. A reduction in living standards is seen as inevitable in the medium term. There has been a deliberate divide and rule strategy employed by the ruling class with a vociferous campaign, championed by the media outlets controlled by the media tycoons Tony O’Reilly and Denis O’Brien, waged against public sector worker to separate them from private sector employees.
That is not to say that people are not angry about the situation and the heavy penalties and burdens they are now expected to bear as a result of reckless and profligate activities of bankers and developers. What is perceived to be most galling is how when the senior executives in many financial institutions knew that the balloon was going up, they negotiated or arranged legally watertight generous exit packages for themselves, without a care for the consequences to the mass of the people. It certainly has raised questions about the ‘fairness’ of the system which is a clearly welcome development for socialists. Of course some of the discontent is mis-directed, with talk of betrayal by the government, when the recession is an inevitable part of the capitalist cycle albeit in this exacerbated by the greed and incompetence of the local ruling class.
The power of capitalism over people has never been more nakedly exposed. The government’s daily mantra is the need to restore confidence in Ireland’s position to ‘the market’ when we know ‘the market’ is fundamentally that very small number of people who control multi-billion financial investment decisions. So each government action is quantified as to whether it has reassured the markets (which we’re constantly told is a good thing) or has caused uncertainty (‘a very bad thing’) as the more uncertain the markets are, the greater the interest rate Ireland must pay on the loans it needs to raise. The fact that it’s naturally in the market’s interest to either doubt, or at least feign doubt, about Ireland’s economic outlook in order to justify higher loan charges is never commented upon which shows the whole deal is really a gigantic scam. Perceived wisdom is that it should be easier to make socialists in a recession when the shortcomings of capitalism are more evident. This capitalist recession will eventually end and the Irish economy at some time in the future will inevitably return to growth. If there are more socialists in Ireland at that future time, then at least one positive outcome will have resulted from this sorry and preventable mess.
Kevin Cronin
How I became a socialist (1976)
We have received the following from a reader of Varldssocialism in Sweden and publish it for the similarity between experiences of pseudo-revolutionary organisations there and in Britain.In the early sixties a "radical" consciousness arose among some of the students in the industrialized countries. The Cuban revolution had taken place and the struggles in South Vietnam escalated. The Berlin wall was built. From the late fifties, I had more or less been attracted by the idea of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" and sympathized with Russia and the other "socialist" countries. I accepted all catchwords uncritically and started subscribing to propaganda magazines from these countries. I sympathized with the Communist Party of Sweden and subscribed to My Dag (New Day), the party’s newspaper. Encouraged by a workmate, I became a party member at the beginning of 1962. Since no theoretical studies were pursued in the party at that time, the majority of the membership were profoundly ignorant theoretically. Perhaps one would have remained ignorant even if studies had been pursued. Everything told by the party leadership was accepted, and naturally one thought it was awfully "revolutionary" to distribute reformist election propaganda before every election. The party encouraged the membership to participate in the pacifist Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, and many of us took part in the Campaign’s Whitsun marches.
For a time I was also a member of the party’s youth league, Democratic Youth, who mostly pottered with hobbies and boycotts against South African goods. I belonged to the more inactive members in the party, at least at the beginning. Gradually I undertook the task to collect the members’ subscriptions in a dwelling-house area. On May Day we always would march in the demonstrations of the Social-Democrats and the Trade Union Federation. I travelled as a tourist to all European "socialist countries" except Albania. To the so-called Baltic- Sea Week in Eastern Germany I travelled several times, and I thought it was awfully remarkable. And what did I learn? Not a jot! In the mid-sixties, the antagonism between the two "communist" giants Russia and China had been sharpened. Throughout the world new "communist parties" were founded, which supported China and her European ally, Albania. In 1966 the so-called cultural revolution was introduced in China. I began to think it was good that the people over there fiercely attacked the domestic bureaucrats and also the bureaucracy and "revisionism" in Russia and other "Communist" countries. But since I was still ignorant, I swallowed the Chinese party’s lies about Lenin’s and Stalin’s Russia as a real socialist example.
Shortly after the party’s change of name to Left Party Communists at their congress in 1967, I resigned my membership. Instead I joined the Communist League Marxist-Leninist (KFML), a Maoist organization that was founded at their midsummer conference the same year. Now I regarded myself as a real revolutionary. I participated in so-called Marxist studies, which among other things consisted in learning to rattle off a lot of Mao Tse tung quotations by heart. I went about about selling Ghiston (The Spark) and Marxistiskt Forum (Marxist Forum), periodical of the KFML. I undertook the task as cashier and secretary of a local branch. Later I also joined the Swedish Clarte League, a Maoist students’ league, and the United NLF Groups, supporters of Viet Cong.
In May 68, students and workers revolted in France. This even influenced young people in other countries. Here in Sweden the so-called occupation of the Students’ Association building in Stockholm took place. Within KFML, Clarté League and the NLF movement an opposition had emerged during the spring, partly the « rebel movement » and partly the so-called appelianism. The "rebel movement" was strongly influenced by the Chinese cultural revolution, and was a spontaneous reaction to the stalinist bureaucracy within KFML, Clarté League and the NLF movement. They developed into a kind of fanatical, religious sect, where they tortured each other and read aloud from the red book of Mao Tsetung quotations. After a couple of months their movement was dissolved.
Appelianism derived from the Communist Working Circle, a Maoist group in Denmark. Its chairman is Gotfred Appel. Their "theory" is that the capitalists in Europe and North America take super profits from the countries of the third world and use these profits to bribe "their" workers. Therefore they thought that posturing with reform struggle was to waste time. Instead one should try to induce the workers in North America and Europe to support national « liberation movements » in the third world thereby they would become class-conscious and be secured on the side of Leninism, they hoped.
Since I was still equally ignorant, I thought this sounded reasonable and left KFML, Clarté League and the NFL movement at the beginning of 1969. Now I had at last learned something, namely that reform struggle could not be something for a socialist organization to potter with. In late summer 1971 a number of persons broke away from one of the appelianist organizations and formed the Manifesto Group. They started publishing a journal called Hammaren och Skaran (Hammer and Sickle), which also appeared in English. The group I belonged to, mostly consisted of older ex-members of the Communist Workers’ League of Sweden, which had been founded in 1956 by a group that broke away from the Communist Party. It ceased to exist in the mid-sixties.
As a result of personal antagonism, our group broke with the other two appelianist groups and started a close co-operation with the newly formed Manifesto Group. We studied some material from the Progressive Labor Party, an American organization which had broken with Maoism but still clung firmly to Stalinism. They now claimed that capitalism had been "re-established" in China. Further they rightly claimed that the NLF of South Vietnam did not fight for anything but capitalism. Otherwise, they were incorrigible reformists. We also read Gorter, Pannekoek, Ruehle, Mattick, Kollontay and Others.
At the beginning of 1973 we got in touch with Varldssocialism (World Socialism) and read some SPGB material. We agreed with much of what SPGB said, but opposed parliamentarism. We had been influenced by the Dutch and German left communists, who in the twenties fiercely criticised Lenin’s policy. We had now approached some sort of council-communist outlook, the foremost characteristic of which is anti-parliamentarianism and advocacy of workers’ councils. However, we soon relinquished the council idea, and began to question organizations and programs on the whole. At this point the majority of our group broke with the Manifesto Group which was now charged with "syndicalism" and "anarchism". However I myself left the "appelianist" group and joined the Manifesto Group, which was soon dissolved and stopped publishing Hammer and Sickle. Instead we began to publish a series of pamphlets, which formostly carried situationnist, but also council-communist stuff. Some titles we also publish in english.
We now almost understood what socialism (communism) really meant. We understood that the Russian, Chinese and all other revolutions in reality had been capitalist. We also understood that a socialist revolution could only be worldwide. However, later the "organization" even began to question Marxism and claimed that conceptions like socialism and revolution were meaningless. They also claim that the class conception is meaningless and that- the working class will never carry socialism through. They mean that every individual should instead concentrate upon trying to get out as much enjoyment as possible from life. I agree with this, but capitalism sets up very limited bounds to how much "enjoyment" people can reach.
I think their view is a manifestation of defeatism, therefore I have now stopped working for this group. I have changed my mind concerning parliamentarism, and now sympathize entirely with the World Socialist Movement, the only movement that stands for SOCIALISM, the abolition of the wages system! I now understand that neither social-democracy, Leninism-Maoism-Stalinism, Trotskyism, Appelianism, Anarchism, Syndicalism or Situationism can be an alternative to capitalism. After fifteen years of ideological confusion, I now understand what socialism really means and hope to be make a contribution for it.
Y.E.H.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Cooking the Books: Currency wars (2010)
“More than a dozen countries”, the (London) Times (11 November) reported, “have been intervening in the foreign exchange markets to weaken their currencies and protect exporters, raising fears of a rerun of currency wars that damaged the world economy in the 1930s.”The 1930s – that’s the spectre currently haunting those in charge of trying to run capitalism. Then, faced with the contraction of world trade, states tried to grab as much as was left by resorting to protectionism, export subsidies and devaluations. The conventional wisdom is that this only made things worse, deepening and prolonging the depression.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO), and its predecessor GATT, have made it difficult for states to adopt protective tariffs and export subsidies. So, all that’s left, to try to get the better of their rivals (and it’s a war of each against all), is to devalue their currencies.
Strictly speaking, since the collapse in 1971 of the Bretton Woods agreement, which had laid down fixed exchange rates between currencies, the sort of formal devaluation that the Labour governments of the 1960s were forced to carry out no longer occur. Currencies now “float”, which means that their exchange rate with other currencies is determined by supply and demand on foreign exchange markets.
Normally (if there’s a level playing field) what would happen is that the more a state exported the higher would be the demand for its currency due to those buying the exports having to acquire some to pay for these. This would lead to the currency’s exchange rate rising; which would make its exports more expensive. Similarly, a state with a balance of trade deficit would find its currency’s value fall; which would make its exports cheaper. So matters would be more or less self-regulating.
That’s the theory. The real world is rather different, since governments can influence the exchange rate of their currency by affecting the supply and demand for it. If they want to keep its exchange value low (so as to encourage exports by making them relatively cheaper) they can increase the supply on foreign exchange markets by themselves selling more there (printing more if necessary). Which is what has been happening:
The US points the finger at China but China is not the only state trying to grab a bigger share of world trade in this way. One of the main reasons why Britain didn’t join the euro was that this would have prevented it letting the pound float downwards to encourage exports. The US too has recently been increasing the supply of dollars (via “quantitative easing”) with this end partly in view as a means of putting pressure on China to upvalue the yuan.
The matter was the main item of the agenda of the G20 summit in Seoul in November, but all that was agreed was to adopt a pious declaration condemning “competitive devaluations” and wishing for “market-determined exchange rates”. Some sort of agreement may eventually be cobbled together. But maybe not. The competitive struggle for profits built-in to capitalism has already prevented agreement on a further round of tariff reductions, let alone on what to do about the threat of climate change.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Build It Now? (2007)
Book Review from Issue 21 of the World Socialist Review
Build It Now: Socialism For The Twenty-First Century by Michael A. Lebowitz
Marx wrote: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by them- selves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”[1]
The circumstances encountered by those of us striving to build a socialist majority in the North today include a population made up almost entirely of people who have never known any form of society except for capitalism. Arguably, this is the greatest obstacle to building a socialist majority here in the United States, and has been so for many generations.
But in Venezuela, this obstacle does not loom quite so large. In a speech made on Dec. 15, 2006, Hugo Chávez claimed that the indigenous peoples in Venezuela had “lived in socialism for centuries,” and called them “the bearers of socialist seed in our land.”[2] (According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, about two-thirds of Venezuelans have some Indian ancestry.) In other words, the constituency who voted overwhelmingly for Hugo Chávez in 2006 is made up, in part, of people who can still remember another way of life. A case can certainly be made that the “circumstances directly encountered” by people striving to build a socialist majority in Venezuela are more propitious than what we Americans are used to.
Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century gives us a fascinating look at contemporary Venezuela. Its author paints a picture of “a country which at the time of this writing embodies the hopes of many for a real alternative to capitalism.” (Introduction, p 10). Since most readers of this journal understand that the only two possible “real alternatives” to capitalism are socialism or barbarism, in this review I would like to address the question: “Is Venezuela under Hugo Chávez actually on the road to socialism?”
Lebowitz is a Marxist writer based in Caracas, and in Build It Now he makes many worthwhile points. One is that, once you understand the nature of capitalism, “you can no longer look at capital as this wondrous god providing us with sustenance in return for our periodic sacrifces. Rather, you understand capital as the product of working people, our own power turned against us.” He makes the case that we must “go beyond capitalism” if we want to end the exploitation of the working class; and states (p. 30):
He suggests (in Chapter 2 and elsewhere) that this world can be built in Venezuela with the support of Chávez’s government. Lebowitz asserts (pp. 98 –99) that if the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez encourages “radical endogenous development,” e.g., “preparing people for new productive relations through courses in cooperation and self-management,” (which would be possible only for a government “prepared to break ideologically and politically with capital”), that can be seen as a step towards socialism.
Socialists have sometimes called government “the executive committee of the capitalist class.” For that reason, the World Socialist Movement does not envision any role in socialist society for government per se, but anticipates that the men and women living in socialism will devise some method of managing affairs, with the necessary administrative authority but no coercive power.
One must ask, can a government “prepared to break ideologically and politically with capital” exist in the present world? Can a socialist nation exist, surrounded by capitalist nations on all sides? Certainly, it must be pointed out, contemporary Venezuela is not an example of a socialist society. Although Lebowitz may have asserted, “We see that… our unity and the common ownership of the means of production make us all the beneficiaries of our common efforts,” there is really not, at this moment, common ownership of the means of production anywhere. (If there were, there would also be common ownership of the goods and services produced, which would imply free right of access to these things — but, as of this writing in 2007, Venezuelan citizens do not enjoy free access. It remains a goal to be achieved.)
On the other hand, this is not to say that they have not taken a step in that direction. “Radical endogenous development” could include building a socialist majority. Chávez has stated that as his intention. If that should happen, then a global Socialist Revolution would have a real chance of beginning in Venezuela.
“Socialism” with a qualifier
I want to take a moment here to talk about words. When Lebowitz speaks of “Socialism for the Twenty-First Century,” does he mean the same thing by “socialism” that Hugo Chávez does? Does either of them mean the same thing that we do? Over time, words change their meanings. When I was a child, for example, all wristwatches had faces, and when you said “watch” the concept called up was a circle of numbers with 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom. Since the advent of digital technology, “watch” no longer has that meaning. Now, if you want to refer to that kind of watch, you have to add a qualifier: “analog watch.”
In order to call up the concept of “socialism” as Marx used it in the 19th Century, it is also now necessary to add a qualifier. The qualifier is “non-market.” Without that qualifier, the word “socialism” means many different things to different speakers. Because I want to be crystal clear about what I mean by “socialism” in this writing, I will make a distinction between “non-market socialism” and “market socialism” (although I am aware that most people do not add "market" any more than people who wear a digital wristwatch add "digital").
Socialism is not a market economy. It is (as developed in Engels's Socialism, Utopian & Scientific) a society where money has become superfluous because the means of production are completely under social control. All labor is voluntary, everyone has free access to whatever goods and services are available.
Without importing goods from other nations, the people of Venezuela could never maintain an acceptable standard of living. No country in the world has all the raw materials necessary to do that, within its own national boundaries. Therefore, even if a socialist majority were to be created in Venezuela under Chávez, as long as there is a global capitalist economy, it could not establish non-market socialism. It could not become either moneyless or classless.
Perhaps Lebowitz has lost sight of this — or perhaps he believes that this aspect of Marxian socialism is not to be present in the Twenty-First Century version. He emphasizes, “I am convinced that worker management is the only real ultimate alternative to capitalism,” (p. 74), which implies he has forgotten that when the means of production are under social control, there is no more class of workers, and no more class of capitalists either. There are just people, all equal members of society.
Venezuela needs a money economy now to trade even with neighboring Latin American countries, let alone with giant imperialist states like the US; so, when one refers to “socialism” in Venezuela under Chávez — or in Cuba under Castro — what is really meant is “market socialism,” in which money is still used to regulate the exchange of goods and there is no common right of access. Moreover, the government of a “market socialist” economy (think: Cuba) is forced to exert coercive authority over people from time to time.
Will a conscious, political socialist majority in Venezuela put up with this? Or, freed from the logic of capital, will they take the next step and demand free access to what they produce?
Hope for a real alternative
I think there is reason for optimism, and I applaud Lebowitz for his careful and insightful development of the situation in Venezuela. Certainly, there is hope for a real alternative to global capitalism resulting from the circumstances described in Build It Now.
Hugo Chávez himself, shortly after his election last year, called on his followers to dissolve their existing parties and to form a new “United Socialist Party of Venezuela,” which would provide a forum for discussing how to “construct socialism from below.”[3] The material conditions in the world are ripe today for a global Socialist Revolution, except for the lack of a majority of people who understand that non-market socialism represents a viable alternative to capitalism and are willing to commit themselves to making it work. Capitalism has wrought so much havoc on the ecology of Earth that the welfare of all human beings — capitalists as well as workers — is threatened. Not just the working class, but all of humanity, need to stop the engine of capital, if we are to survive.
The revolution has to start somewhere, and the indigenous Venezuelans who elected Chávez may yet set an example for the rest of the planet.
Build It Now: Socialism For The Twenty-First Century by Michael A. Lebowitz
Marx wrote: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by them- selves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”[1]
The circumstances encountered by those of us striving to build a socialist majority in the North today include a population made up almost entirely of people who have never known any form of society except for capitalism. Arguably, this is the greatest obstacle to building a socialist majority here in the United States, and has been so for many generations.
But in Venezuela, this obstacle does not loom quite so large. In a speech made on Dec. 15, 2006, Hugo Chávez claimed that the indigenous peoples in Venezuela had “lived in socialism for centuries,” and called them “the bearers of socialist seed in our land.”[2] (According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, about two-thirds of Venezuelans have some Indian ancestry.) In other words, the constituency who voted overwhelmingly for Hugo Chávez in 2006 is made up, in part, of people who can still remember another way of life. A case can certainly be made that the “circumstances directly encountered” by people striving to build a socialist majority in Venezuela are more propitious than what we Americans are used to.
Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century gives us a fascinating look at contemporary Venezuela. Its author paints a picture of “a country which at the time of this writing embodies the hopes of many for a real alternative to capitalism.” (Introduction, p 10). Since most readers of this journal understand that the only two possible “real alternatives” to capitalism are socialism or barbarism, in this review I would like to address the question: “Is Venezuela under Hugo Chávez actually on the road to socialism?”
Lebowitz is a Marxist writer based in Caracas, and in Build It Now he makes many worthwhile points. One is that, once you understand the nature of capitalism, “you can no longer look at capital as this wondrous god providing us with sustenance in return for our periodic sacrifces. Rather, you understand capital as the product of working people, our own power turned against us.” He makes the case that we must “go beyond capitalism” if we want to end the exploitation of the working class; and states (p. 30):
The society to which Marx looked as an alternative to capitalism was one in which the relation of production would be that of an association of free producers. Freely associated individuals would treat ‘their communal, social productivity as their social wealth,’ producing for the needs of all.The chapter entitled “The Knowledge of a Better World” contains some of the key points in the book. Lebowitz tells us:
Knowing where we want to go is a necessity if we want to build an alternative. But, it is not the same as being there. We live in a world dominated by global capital, a world in which capital divides us, setting the people of each country against each other to see who can produce more cheaply by driving wages, working conditions, and environmental standards down to the lowest level in order to survive in the war of all against all. We know, too, that any country that would challenge neoliberalism faces the assorted weapons of international capital — foremost among them the IMF, the World Bank, and imperialist power… We need to recognize the possibility of a world in which the products of the social brain and the social hand are common property… For this reason, the battle of ideas is essential.It is easy to find inspiration in the following words, that Lebowitz addressed, in 2005, to a National Conference of Revolutionary Students for the Construction of Socialism in the Twenty-first Century, in Mérida, Venezuela:
We need to remember the goal. If you don’t know where you want to go, then no road will take you there. The world that socialists have always wanted to build is one in which people relate to each other as members of a human family, a society in which we recognize that the welfare of others concerns us; it is a world of human solidarity and love where, in place of classes and class antagonisms, we have “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” (pp. 64-65)So, how can we build this world?
…We see that our productivity is the result of combining our different capabilities and that our unity and the common ownership of the means of production make us all the beneficiaries of our common efforts… (p. 66)
All of these characteristics and relations coexist simultaneously and support one another in the world we want to build. Democratic decision making within the workplace (instead of capitalist direction and supervision). Democratic direction by the community of the goals of activity (in place of direction by capitalists), production for the purpose of satisfying needs (rather than for the purpose of exchange), common ownership of the means of production (rather than private or group ownership), a democratic, participatory, and protagonistic form of governance (rather than a state over and above society)… (p. 66-67)
He suggests (in Chapter 2 and elsewhere) that this world can be built in Venezuela with the support of Chávez’s government. Lebowitz asserts (pp. 98 –99) that if the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez encourages “radical endogenous development,” e.g., “preparing people for new productive relations through courses in cooperation and self-management,” (which would be possible only for a government “prepared to break ideologically and politically with capital”), that can be seen as a step towards socialism.
Socialists have sometimes called government “the executive committee of the capitalist class.” For that reason, the World Socialist Movement does not envision any role in socialist society for government per se, but anticipates that the men and women living in socialism will devise some method of managing affairs, with the necessary administrative authority but no coercive power.
One must ask, can a government “prepared to break ideologically and politically with capital” exist in the present world? Can a socialist nation exist, surrounded by capitalist nations on all sides? Certainly, it must be pointed out, contemporary Venezuela is not an example of a socialist society. Although Lebowitz may have asserted, “We see that… our unity and the common ownership of the means of production make us all the beneficiaries of our common efforts,” there is really not, at this moment, common ownership of the means of production anywhere. (If there were, there would also be common ownership of the goods and services produced, which would imply free right of access to these things — but, as of this writing in 2007, Venezuelan citizens do not enjoy free access. It remains a goal to be achieved.)
On the other hand, this is not to say that they have not taken a step in that direction. “Radical endogenous development” could include building a socialist majority. Chávez has stated that as his intention. If that should happen, then a global Socialist Revolution would have a real chance of beginning in Venezuela.
“Socialism” with a qualifier
I want to take a moment here to talk about words. When Lebowitz speaks of “Socialism for the Twenty-First Century,” does he mean the same thing by “socialism” that Hugo Chávez does? Does either of them mean the same thing that we do? Over time, words change their meanings. When I was a child, for example, all wristwatches had faces, and when you said “watch” the concept called up was a circle of numbers with 12 at the top and 6 at the bottom. Since the advent of digital technology, “watch” no longer has that meaning. Now, if you want to refer to that kind of watch, you have to add a qualifier: “analog watch.”
In order to call up the concept of “socialism” as Marx used it in the 19th Century, it is also now necessary to add a qualifier. The qualifier is “non-market.” Without that qualifier, the word “socialism” means many different things to different speakers. Because I want to be crystal clear about what I mean by “socialism” in this writing, I will make a distinction between “non-market socialism” and “market socialism” (although I am aware that most people do not add "market" any more than people who wear a digital wristwatch add "digital").
Socialism is not a market economy. It is (as developed in Engels's Socialism, Utopian & Scientific) a society where money has become superfluous because the means of production are completely under social control. All labor is voluntary, everyone has free access to whatever goods and services are available.
Without importing goods from other nations, the people of Venezuela could never maintain an acceptable standard of living. No country in the world has all the raw materials necessary to do that, within its own national boundaries. Therefore, even if a socialist majority were to be created in Venezuela under Chávez, as long as there is a global capitalist economy, it could not establish non-market socialism. It could not become either moneyless or classless.
Perhaps Lebowitz has lost sight of this — or perhaps he believes that this aspect of Marxian socialism is not to be present in the Twenty-First Century version. He emphasizes, “I am convinced that worker management is the only real ultimate alternative to capitalism,” (p. 74), which implies he has forgotten that when the means of production are under social control, there is no more class of workers, and no more class of capitalists either. There are just people, all equal members of society.
Venezuela needs a money economy now to trade even with neighboring Latin American countries, let alone with giant imperialist states like the US; so, when one refers to “socialism” in Venezuela under Chávez — or in Cuba under Castro — what is really meant is “market socialism,” in which money is still used to regulate the exchange of goods and there is no common right of access. Moreover, the government of a “market socialist” economy (think: Cuba) is forced to exert coercive authority over people from time to time.
Will a conscious, political socialist majority in Venezuela put up with this? Or, freed from the logic of capital, will they take the next step and demand free access to what they produce?
Hope for a real alternative
I think there is reason for optimism, and I applaud Lebowitz for his careful and insightful development of the situation in Venezuela. Certainly, there is hope for a real alternative to global capitalism resulting from the circumstances described in Build It Now.
Hugo Chávez himself, shortly after his election last year, called on his followers to dissolve their existing parties and to form a new “United Socialist Party of Venezuela,” which would provide a forum for discussing how to “construct socialism from below.”[3] The material conditions in the world are ripe today for a global Socialist Revolution, except for the lack of a majority of people who understand that non-market socialism represents a viable alternative to capitalism and are willing to commit themselves to making it work. Capitalism has wrought so much havoc on the ecology of Earth that the welfare of all human beings — capitalists as well as workers — is threatened. Not just the working class, but all of humanity, need to stop the engine of capital, if we are to survive.
The revolution has to start somewhere, and the indigenous Venezuelans who elected Chávez may yet set an example for the rest of the planet.
Karla Rab
Footnotes[1] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
[2] “Chávez Calls or United Socialist Party of Venezuela" by John Riddle< Socialist Voice, December 2006.
[3] “Chavez Calls for United Socialist Party of Venezuela,” by Gregory Wilpert; retrieved from
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Editorial: The revolution begin . . . again (2010)
In 1855, riots broke out in London’s Hyde Park in protest over a Sunday Trading Bill. Karl Marx was there and the next day declared that he did not think he was exaggerating in saying that “the English Revolution began yesterday in Hyde Park”. Marx did not begin, but nor did he end, a long history of embarrassingly premature predictions of the demise of the British ruling class.
On Wednesday 10 November, a demonstration, long planned and organised jointly by the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, took place in central London to protest against the government’s cuts in education funding. The demonstration was expected to be the usual poorly attended, tame and boring affair – marching from one spot to another, waving placards, and chanting slogans.
The reality was somewhat different. Around 52,000 university workers and students attended, and the demonstration quickly turned into “something resembling a Mardi Gras carnival”, as a reporter for Red Pepper magazine put it. “The young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet blasting and drum beating, all mix[ed] together to form … a fun-filled, party-like atmosphere.” A breakaway from the march, 200 strong according to a reporter from the Guardian, then broke into and occupied 30 Millbank, the Conservative party's campaign headquarters. Once inside, the demonstrators quietly staged a protest – alongside some minor scuffles with the police and a broken window, ludicrously blown up out of all proportion by the mainstream media – and issued some inspiring propaganda:
"We stand against the cuts, in solidarity with all the poor, elderly, disabled and working people affected. We are against all cuts and the marketisation of education. We are occupying the roof of Tory HQ to show we are against the Tory system of attacking the poor and helping the rich. This is only the beginning.”Commentators from both the Leninist and anarchist left predicted that the day marked the beginning of a new politics – another Poll Tax-style rebellion, according to some; a mass revolutionary insurrection a week Wednesday, according to others. Did the English revolution begin yesterday at Tory HQ?
We in the Socialist Party are more cautious. We welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But as human animals capable of rational thought and long-term planning, we must also seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. That means that the working class as a whole must understand the issues, and organise and fight for these ends themselves – by organising a political party for the conquest of state power that will convert the means of production into the common property of the whole community.
As Marx’s fellow socialist Engels came to realise, this would have to involve not “surprise attacks” by minorities, but the “long, persistent work” of socialist education and organisation. If he had known just how long this work would have to go on, he might well have despaired. But the task hasn’t gone away. And it won’t as long as capitalism lasts.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
World poverty: cause and effects (2010)
How should poverty be measured if at all?Part of the measure of statistics is that, however well-meant the goal, there are bound to be flaws and weaknesses. Any individual's subjective assessment of their own poverty will likely be quite different from that of an objective report. Over the years different studies have listed different requirements to be included into what constitutes poverty, but how many of these have consulted with the subjects of the report as to their own assessment of their situation? If poverty is to be eliminated, how it is manifested in different parts of the world, how it impacts differently on people of different regions and particularly its causes need to be thoroughly understood.
“Our aim should be to set the poverty line at a level where people can actually have a standard of living which we would consider morally acceptable,” says David Woodward in a July/August New Internationalist article. The article, based on a report which he co-authored with Saamah Abdallah, (See here.) explains the pitfalls and openings for misinterpretation of such economic-based poverty lines as the well known dollar-a-day as used in measuring the Millennium Development Goals. At least, he says, the dollar-a-day approach put poverty on the agenda 20 years ago – but the discrepancies in interpretation are so wide as to be almost meaningless and could make huge differences in the numbers of people being either included or, worse, excluded. Woodward proposes instead a 'Rights Based Poverty Line' – not based on income but as a starting point for agreed indicators such as economic and social rights, health, education and nutrition. This aims to be a more far-reaching attempt to identify those in need (and to ameliorate their conditions?) – a worthy goal no doubt within the capitalist system and one which will gain the support of many altruistic (dare I add misguided?) folk as they learn of it.
The focus of any of these studies in general is measuring poverty – how many, how much, how little, how widespread? – with little, if any, reference to why it is as it is or how it could be dealt with. If income levels are the problem who's going to agree to raising wages to the necessary level on the scale the studies show to be necessary? If it's social services which are inadequate where is the money to be found to raise them to the required level? No figures are given but it's pretty obvious that any solution in the current structure of the world's order would have to be in monetary terms.
Address the cause or ameliorate the effects?
The question that socialists would wish to see addressed more widely is why should we be expected to declare a position on what is acceptable as a baseline; why should we be discussing minimum adequate shelter, required basic living standards, access to sufficient food, clean water, health care, education and a minimum daily wage? In a world of from each according to ability to each according to need, a world of voluntary work and free access there will be no need to set base lines to keep people from falling below, needs will be self-determined and self-fulfilled with no requirement for money. Yes, we recognise the intolerable level of poverty in the world, the huge numbers with little or no access to clean drinking water, widespread hunger, the appalling lack of health care, deaths from treatable diseases and the millions caught up in wars and occupation not of their making. We recognise all this and more and we recognise the huge numbers of people worldwide who work hard in the belief that they can improve some of the conditions for some of the people. We also recognise that with all the hard work, time and money injected into so many projects over so many years that whilst there may be some temporary amelioration conditions for the majority are actually deteriorating. Our position is clear. We must address the cause not the effects. This is the big discussion that fails to hit the headlines.
The question that socialists would wish to see addressed more widely is why should we be expected to declare a position on what is acceptable as a baseline; why should we be discussing minimum adequate shelter, required basic living standards, access to sufficient food, clean water, health care, education and a minimum daily wage? In a world of from each according to ability to each according to need, a world of voluntary work and free access there will be no need to set base lines to keep people from falling below, needs will be self-determined and self-fulfilled with no requirement for money. Yes, we recognise the intolerable level of poverty in the world, the huge numbers with little or no access to clean drinking water, widespread hunger, the appalling lack of health care, deaths from treatable diseases and the millions caught up in wars and occupation not of their making. We recognise all this and more and we recognise the huge numbers of people worldwide who work hard in the belief that they can improve some of the conditions for some of the people. We also recognise that with all the hard work, time and money injected into so many projects over so many years that whilst there may be some temporary amelioration conditions for the majority are actually deteriorating. Our position is clear. We must address the cause not the effects. This is the big discussion that fails to hit the headlines.
The effects
Statistics may not always be totally reliable, or be biased one way or another, intentionally or not – and they can also put you to sleep – but it sometimes helps to shock us back to reality when we see them presented in an unusual or unfamiliar way. Sometimes it's the seeming impossibility of juxtaposed figures that can bring us to question the accuracy and then recognise all over again the sheer iniquity of the capitalist system. The numbers vary between reports but reveal that 55 percent of India's population, 645 million people, are living in poverty (a new Oxford University study); 51 percent of the world's poor, 844 million, live in South Asia and 28 percent, 458 million, in Africa (the Multidimensional Poverty Index – MPI ); that poverty in eight Indian states exceeds that of the 26 poorest African countries combined; that contrary to the Congress Party-led government's claims that economic growth has been inclusive figures show extraordinarily high levels of poverty among India's castes and tribal peoples; that using the $2 a day household income benchmark India is home to 828 million (75.6 percent of their population) below the poverty line compared with 551 million (72.2 percent) in sub-Saharan Africa. These millions are all individual people – often the same people in different studies – but they add up to an awful lot of noughts and between them they have pretty well nothing to their names.
Statistics may not always be totally reliable, or be biased one way or another, intentionally or not – and they can also put you to sleep – but it sometimes helps to shock us back to reality when we see them presented in an unusual or unfamiliar way. Sometimes it's the seeming impossibility of juxtaposed figures that can bring us to question the accuracy and then recognise all over again the sheer iniquity of the capitalist system. The numbers vary between reports but reveal that 55 percent of India's population, 645 million people, are living in poverty (a new Oxford University study); 51 percent of the world's poor, 844 million, live in South Asia and 28 percent, 458 million, in Africa (the Multidimensional Poverty Index – MPI ); that poverty in eight Indian states exceeds that of the 26 poorest African countries combined; that contrary to the Congress Party-led government's claims that economic growth has been inclusive figures show extraordinarily high levels of poverty among India's castes and tribal peoples; that using the $2 a day household income benchmark India is home to 828 million (75.6 percent of their population) below the poverty line compared with 551 million (72.2 percent) in sub-Saharan Africa. These millions are all individual people – often the same people in different studies – but they add up to an awful lot of noughts and between them they have pretty well nothing to their names.
The cause
Now for the wealthy. The ones on the right side of the tracks. The year 2010 has so far recognised 49 US$ billionaires in India who between them have amassed nearly 31 percent of GDP, four times the global average, which adds up to a staggering $340,900,000,000 (Forbes magazine).
Now for the wealthy. The ones on the right side of the tracks. The year 2010 has so far recognised 49 US$ billionaires in India who between them have amassed nearly 31 percent of GDP, four times the global average, which adds up to a staggering $340,900,000,000 (Forbes magazine).
In summing up How Poor is Poor Woodward recognises that a global poverty line fixed in monetary terms “is too unwieldy and can give wildly inaccurate results” and goes on to state that no improvements in our understanding of measurements of poverty are of any use ”unless effective action is taken not merely for poverty reduction but for a permanent eradication of the blight of poverty in a meaningful sense”. However poverty is measured it is simply another set of statistics revealing effects not causes and is of little benefit to any impoverished persons. To return to my earlier point 'permanent eradication' can only come from the worldwide decision to eradicate the cause, the blight of capitalism. We do have that choice and for the world's vast majority the day can't come too soon.
Janet Surman
Friday, November 19, 2010
"What's Wrong With Using Parliament?"
Via the SPGB's MeetUp Page:
Saturday, 20th November 5pm. Official launch of The Socialist Party's latest publication:"What's Wrong With Using Parliament?",
with an introduction by Stair.
"Stair has had a long interest and involvement with what he may have described at one time as "anti-authoritarian politics".Housmans was one of the destinations he had on his agenda pre-internet on numerous trips to London when further exploring these ideas.
His employment meant he did his "time" in the "retail and service sector" and will talk about his experience of the attitudes and positions of his fellow workers and how some of these observations tie into the question of "how we get from here to there", a classless, wageless, moneyless, stateless society.
This pamphlet comes at a time when many people are questioning the destructive effects of capitalism and also with it a rejection of leaders and the traditional left. This is something that can be encouraged. The aim of the pamphlet is to show that there is another view of social change that may be a "blind spot" with those who get involved with "anti-capitalist", "activist" or/and "anarchist" politics".
Location: Housmans Bookshop
5 Caledonian Road,
Kings Cross,
London N1 9DX
Rich Politicians (2010)
Cross-posted from the World Socialist Party of the United States website
CBS News reports that although the basic pay for members of Congress is $174,000, nearly half — 261, to be exact — are millionaires (there are 535 total members of the House and Senate). Just 1 percent of Americans overall can say the same. 55 members had an average calculated wealth of $10 million or more in 2009.
While the economy has generally faltered over the past two years, congressional members actually saw their collective personal wealth increase by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009.
CBS News reports that although the basic pay for members of Congress is $174,000, nearly half — 261, to be exact — are millionaires (there are 535 total members of the House and Senate). Just 1 percent of Americans overall can say the same. 55 members had an average calculated wealth of $10 million or more in 2009.
While the economy has generally faltered over the past two years, congressional members actually saw their collective personal wealth increase by more than 16 percent between 2008 and 2009.
The wealthiest member of Congress is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose holdings exceed $303.5 million. Rep Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is close behind with $293.4 million, and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) rounds out the top three at $238.8 million. In the House, five Democrats and five Republicans make up the 10 wealthiest members, while in the Senate, six Democrats and four Republicans make up the top 10.
The median wealth of a House member in 2009 stood at $765,010, while the median wealth for a senator in 2009 was nearly $2.38 million.
The most popular company among members of Congress, CRP found, was General Electric, in which 82 current members invested. The second most popular company was Bank of America, which 63 members invested in.
The median wealth of a House member in 2009 stood at $765,010, while the median wealth for a senator in 2009 was nearly $2.38 million.
The most popular company among members of Congress, CRP found, was General Electric, in which 82 current members invested. The second most popular company was Bank of America, which 63 members invested in.
FN Brill
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Things about capitalism (2010)
Book Review from the November 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard
23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. Ha-Joon Chang (Allen Lane)
Three things Ha-Joon Chang doesn’t tell you about capitalism. As a form of society it’s only a few hundred years old. It won’t last forever. And it will be replaced when a majority of the world’s people stop supporting it and organise a better alternative.
23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. Ha-Joon Chang (Allen Lane)
Three things Ha-Joon Chang doesn’t tell you about capitalism. As a form of society it’s only a few hundred years old. It won’t last forever. And it will be replaced when a majority of the world’s people stop supporting it and organise a better alternative.
The author makes no bones about supporting capitalism:
“This book is not an anti-capitalist manifesto…my criticism is of a particular version of capitalism that has dominated the world in the last three decades, that is, free-market capitalism…there are ways in which capitalism should, and can, be made better.”It takes two pages to list the headings of the 23 ‘things’, in no particular order. Four are on the market: no such thing as a free market; free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich; we are not smart enough to leave things to the market and financial markets need to become less efficient. Three are on economics: greater macroeconomic stability has not made the world economy more stable; we are living in planned economies and good economic policy does not require good economists. Three are on the US: it does not have the highest living standard in the world; its managers are overpriced and what is good for GM is not necessarily good for the US. The 13 remaining ‘things’ can be filed under miscellaneous’.
Ha-Joon Chang knows a thing or two about Marx and Marxism. He understands that Marx “argued that the fundamental problem with capitalism was the contradiction between the social nature of the production process and the private nature of ownership of the means of production”. Unfortunately he equates Marxism with central planning, which he says led to the unravelling of ‘communism’ in the late 1980s.
In his concluding chapter the author offers eight mostly disputable points:
1. “The profit motive is still the most powerful and effective fuel to power our economy and we should exploit it to the full.” No – the profit motive applies to and benefits only the tiny capitalist class at the expense of exploiting workers. 2. We should build our new economic system on the recognition that human rationality is severely limited.” No – this is too pessimistic an assessment of human rationality. 3. “We should build a system that brings out the best, rather than the worse, in people.” Yes – capitalism certainly doesn’t. 4. “We should stop believing that people are always paid what they ‘deserve’.” Yes – socialists never started believing that. 5. “We need to take ‘making things’ more seriously.” Yes – a system based on making things is better than one based on making money for the minority. 6. “We need to strike a better balance between finance and ‘real’ activities.” No – we need to get rid of finance as an impediment to real activities. 7. “Government needs to become bigger and more active.” No – government of persons needs to give way to administration of things. 8. “The world economic system needs to ‘unfairly’ favour developing countries.” Yes – but not in the way the author means it. The world socialist system may at first need to favour populations which have the greatest deprivations.
Stan Parker
THAT Student Demo
Cross-posted from the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog
THE REVOLUTION BEGINS...AGAIN
On Wednesday 10 November, a demonstration, long planned and organised jointly by the University and College Union and the National Union of Students, took place in central London to protest against the government's cuts in education funding. The demonstration was expected to be the usual poorly attended, tame and boring affair – marching from one spot to another, waving placards, and chanting slogans.
The reality was somewhat different. Around 52,000 university workers and students attended, and the demonstration quickly turned into "something resembling a Mardi Gras carnival", as a reporter for Red Pepper magazine put it. "The young faces and large grins, combined with incessant whistle-blowing, trumpet blasting and drum beating, all mixed together to form … a fun-filled, party-like atmosphere." A breakaway from the march, 200 strong according to a reporter from the Guardian, then broke into and occupied 30 Millbank, the Conservative party's campaign headquarters. Once inside, the demonstrators quietly staged a protest – alongside some minor scuffles with the police and a broken window, ludicrously blown up out of all proportion by the mainstream media – and issued some inspiring propaganda:
"We stand against the cuts, in solidarity with all the poor, elderly, disabled and working people affected. We are against all cuts and the marketisation of education. We are occupying the roof of Tory HQ to show we are against the Tory system of attacking the poor and helping the rich. This is only the beginning."
Commentators from both the Leninist and anarchist left predicted that the day marked the beginning of a new politics – another Poll Tax-style rebellion, according to some; a mass revolutionary insurrection a week Wednesday, according to others. Did the English revolution begin that day at Tory HQ?
We in the Socialist Party are more cautious. We welcome any upsurge in the militancy and resistance and organisation of our class. But we also know, from bitter experience, that work of an altogether quieter, patient, more political kind is also needed. The skirmishes in the class war must be fought if we are not to be reduced to beasts of burden. But as human animals capable of rational thought and long-term planning, we must also seek to stop the skirmishes by winning the class war, and thereby ending it. This is only possible if the capitalist class is dispossessed of its wealth and power. That means that the working class as a whole must understand the issues, and organise and fight for these ends themselves – by organising a political party for the conquest of state power that will convert the means of production into the common property of the whole community.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Too rich to know you are getting robbed
Cross-posted from the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog
Megamillionaire feng shui master Tony Chan traveling by private jet to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, was picked up by a car-service driver and paid for the trip with his American Express card -- and that car-service driver then used the card number to rack up almost eight hundred thousand dollars in charges over the next few months.
Chan is so rich that he didn't even realize he was being bilked. It was only after a bank-security specialist noticed a suspicious pattern of activity on the card - some of which hit $19,000 in one month alone - and notified authorities that the $794,986 scam was uncovered.
From here.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Pathfinders: Extracting the Miguel (2010)
Extracting the Miguel
When the shift started on August 5 most people had never heard of the San Jose mine, and could barely point to the Atacama desert on a map. By the time the 33 miners were rescued on October 14 the mine was front-page news worldwide and the site tented like Glastonbury with journalists and press photographers.
What happened in between, from the moment the mineshaft collapsed and bottled up the miners in a mile-deep tomb, is a fairytale of capitalism in action, together with feelgood ending.
What happened in between, from the moment the mineshaft collapsed and bottled up the miners in a mile-deep tomb, is a fairytale of capitalism in action, together with feelgood ending.
First, the collapse itself. Maybe somebody’s fault, maybe not. Accidents happen, who knows? The mine was already ‘crying’ rocks from the tunnel roofs so they knew something was wrong, but they went in anyway, being offered double-pay.
"Hopefully this will teach us not to chase money, but to be humble and treasure our friends and family instead," said one miner’s sister. Easy to say afterwards, but sometimes to escape poverty people will take big risks. Will it teach the mine-owners not to chase money but to be humble and treasure their families instead? Hardly.
The film-script almost writes itself. Tom Hanks will be down there, gritty and long-suffering, wearing a large moustache and a fake accent. They have air, but only 48 hours rations, the first rescue attempt aborts after another collapse, and nobody’s going to reach them for weeks, if not months. Can they survive alone, in the dark and fetid heat? Can they keep together and keep sane, against the odds, until the first pilot drillbit breaks through?
On the surface, drill teams work heroically round the clock, effort and money no object. The President is on hand, the Minister for Industry is camping there permanently, the eyes of the world are helicoptering overhead. A bit of science and diagrams to keep us hooked, nothing too difficult. Will they or won’t they make it? We hold our breath.
And then... breakthrough – the first book deals smash through the rock and scatter among the buried men, followed by a blast of cool, refreshing sponsorship offers. Pretty soon every company who can send a product down a hole in the ground is vying to get a piece into the action and five seconds of on-screen logo time. Yes, trauma or triumph, capitalism knows how to extract the most out of any situation.
And then, up they come, designer sunglasses and media contracts in place, a teary-eyed President on hand to drape them in the flag, sing the national anthem and praise God and all things Chilean as his own popularity rating winches through the roof faster than any bullet capsule. These men are made for life, with a thousand job offers to share among them, and all the nightmares and the PTSD to come might even seem worth it.
So, a rousing saga of how humans pull together to pull out the stops when their brothers need their help, a fairytale of our times, the stuff of legend.
It wouldn’t be the stuff of socialism though. Rather than thanking God and their bosses for getting them out, why weren’t they blaming God and their bosses for sending them down in the first place? In a moneyless socialist society those men couldn’t have been economically blackmailed into doing anything so dangerous. It is highly debatable whether socialist extractive industries would be going to such lengths to extract gold or copper, but even supposing they did, and that machines could not be used instead, the socialist approach would be to make the mine safe first rather than to throw technology at the problem afterwards. As Bernard Shaw once put it: ‘it’s better to build a fence at the top of the cliff than a hospital at the bottom.’ But in capitalism, where the private company has to pay for the fence whereas the state has to pay for the hospital, logic functions somewhat differently. With a wage-slave workforce you don’t have to rely on volunteers to walk towards the abyss, and in the event of accidents you can count on victims not being able to afford the kind of lawyers you can buy.
"Hopefully this will teach us not to chase money, but to be humble and treasure our friends and family instead," said one miner’s sister. Easy to say afterwards, but sometimes to escape poverty people will take big risks. Will it teach the mine-owners not to chase money but to be humble and treasure their families instead? Hardly.
The film-script almost writes itself. Tom Hanks will be down there, gritty and long-suffering, wearing a large moustache and a fake accent. They have air, but only 48 hours rations, the first rescue attempt aborts after another collapse, and nobody’s going to reach them for weeks, if not months. Can they survive alone, in the dark and fetid heat? Can they keep together and keep sane, against the odds, until the first pilot drillbit breaks through?
On the surface, drill teams work heroically round the clock, effort and money no object. The President is on hand, the Minister for Industry is camping there permanently, the eyes of the world are helicoptering overhead. A bit of science and diagrams to keep us hooked, nothing too difficult. Will they or won’t they make it? We hold our breath.
And then... breakthrough – the first book deals smash through the rock and scatter among the buried men, followed by a blast of cool, refreshing sponsorship offers. Pretty soon every company who can send a product down a hole in the ground is vying to get a piece into the action and five seconds of on-screen logo time. Yes, trauma or triumph, capitalism knows how to extract the most out of any situation.
And then, up they come, designer sunglasses and media contracts in place, a teary-eyed President on hand to drape them in the flag, sing the national anthem and praise God and all things Chilean as his own popularity rating winches through the roof faster than any bullet capsule. These men are made for life, with a thousand job offers to share among them, and all the nightmares and the PTSD to come might even seem worth it.
So, a rousing saga of how humans pull together to pull out the stops when their brothers need their help, a fairytale of our times, the stuff of legend.
It wouldn’t be the stuff of socialism though. Rather than thanking God and their bosses for getting them out, why weren’t they blaming God and their bosses for sending them down in the first place? In a moneyless socialist society those men couldn’t have been economically blackmailed into doing anything so dangerous. It is highly debatable whether socialist extractive industries would be going to such lengths to extract gold or copper, but even supposing they did, and that machines could not be used instead, the socialist approach would be to make the mine safe first rather than to throw technology at the problem afterwards. As Bernard Shaw once put it: ‘it’s better to build a fence at the top of the cliff than a hospital at the bottom.’ But in capitalism, where the private company has to pay for the fence whereas the state has to pay for the hospital, logic functions somewhat differently. With a wage-slave workforce you don’t have to rely on volunteers to walk towards the abyss, and in the event of accidents you can count on victims not being able to afford the kind of lawyers you can buy.
Still, the prolonged tale and likely success guaranteed global media interest so at least the world had a chance to ignore all the thousands of industrial accidents that happen every year without happy outcomes, all the result of capitalism’s ruthlessly extractive nature, both of natural and human resources.
These 33 miners got out in one piece, and good luck to them, but the carnival of capitalism at the drillhead shouldn’t disguise that basic truth. Most workers don’t get celeb status for their sufferings, they just get shat on and forgotten.
Sludge funds
Meanwhile, what happens if you mix large amounts of rust, quicklime and radioactive trace metals and then add the Danube? Answer, a hell of a lot of recrimination. While the Chilean President has declared in a moment of unguarded recklessness that legislation on deep mining will be tightened up so that accidents like San Jose don’t happen again, over in Hungary there are axes poised over heads as their own mini-Gulf disaster leaves their neighbours seeing miles of red. Mining companies in Europe are apparently notorious for not spending money on double-walling toxic waste as is standard in other industries (New Scientist, 16 October) and there is no legislation in place to make them do it. 8 people died and 100 were injured by this tsunami of red gunk, and it would only have cost the company the price of a second back-up wall to prevent it. But no doubt it was more ‘financially astute’ to let the state provide hospitals for the victims.
These 33 miners got out in one piece, and good luck to them, but the carnival of capitalism at the drillhead shouldn’t disguise that basic truth. Most workers don’t get celeb status for their sufferings, they just get shat on and forgotten.
Sludge funds
Meanwhile, what happens if you mix large amounts of rust, quicklime and radioactive trace metals and then add the Danube? Answer, a hell of a lot of recrimination. While the Chilean President has declared in a moment of unguarded recklessness that legislation on deep mining will be tightened up so that accidents like San Jose don’t happen again, over in Hungary there are axes poised over heads as their own mini-Gulf disaster leaves their neighbours seeing miles of red. Mining companies in Europe are apparently notorious for not spending money on double-walling toxic waste as is standard in other industries (New Scientist, 16 October) and there is no legislation in place to make them do it. 8 people died and 100 were injured by this tsunami of red gunk, and it would only have cost the company the price of a second back-up wall to prevent it. But no doubt it was more ‘financially astute’ to let the state provide hospitals for the victims.
Getting Shafted
October 2010, China: Explosion in Yuzhou mine in central Henan province kills 37 (BBC News, 17 October).
China is responsible for 80 percent of global mining deaths, with more than 2,600 miners dying in accidents in 2009, but major mining accidents in 2010 with dozens of fatalities each have also occurred in Colombia, Russia and the United States, while at least 200 have died in Sierra Leone.
There are no reliable global statistics for mining deaths, but the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM) estimates there are 12,000 fatalities per year.
“A lot of mining deaths aren’t recorded. It is really hard to put a number on it. In a lot of countries, management will go to the widows or family and give them money and make them sign statements not to talk about it”, said a spokesman for ICEM (International Business Times, 11 October).
NB: the good news is that safety standards are slowly improving. Now mining is not considered as dangerous as construction or agriculture, which annually kill more workers.
Paddy Shannon
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Material World: The Caspian Sea: oil and gas versus caviar (2010)
The overwhelming focus of mainstream Western literature on the Caspian Sea and its environs is on their vast oil and gas resources – on controlling them, extracting them, and “getting them out” to the European and world markets. Close attention is always paid to the commercial and strategic competition between the Western powers – mainly the United States and the European Union – and their rivals for control over the Caspian region – Russia, China and Iran.
As for the people who actually live in the region, they get a look-in only insofar as they may assist or impede Western business in this worthy endeavour. Nonhuman species, of course, are ignored completely.
A unique ecosystem
And yet the inland sea that we call the Caspian is a unique ecosystem. It once abounded in wildlife, including many marine species found nowhere else (the Caspian seal, the Caspian gull, etc.). Already weakened by overfishing, untreated sewage, and other human damage, the ecosystem of the Caspian Sea – like those of the Gulf of Mexico, northern Alberta and southeastern Nigeria – is now being rapidly degraded by oil pollution.
Even though oil and gas development is still at a fairly early stage, the worst affected parts of the sea, such as the waters around Baku and Sumgait in Azerbaijan, are already devoid of life. The whole ecosystem is probably doomed. For one thing, the sea level is steadily rising – one effect of the region’s geological instability (as a landlocked water body, its level is independent of that of the world ocean). A rise of 2.5 meters since 1978 has inundated almost 800 rigs. These submerged rigs are a major and ever expanding source of oil seepage.
Recently I translated a series of papers about the Caspian issued by a Russian international relations institute. I was intrigued to discover that the Russian analysts, unlike their Western colleagues, dwell at length on the ecological costs and risks of Caspian oil and gas development.
The caviar factor
It is revealing to consider why this should be so. It does not reflect any general Russian concern with protecting the environment. Russian experts do not seem to worry overmuch about the ecological effects of oil and gas development in Siberia or the Arctic (see MW, September 2007 Socialist Standard). Some factor specific to the Caspian must be involved.
That factor is fish – but above all, sturgeon, and especially its roe, known as caviar. As Bystrova points out:
Crossing the Caspian
The Russian literature especially emphasizes the real ecological dangers of transporting oil and gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan across the Caspian Sea, either by tanker or through underwater pipelines laid on the seabed. Russia itself relies on south-north land pipelines and has no need for trans-Caspian routes. However, Western businessmen and politicians seek to avoid routes into Europe through Russian or Iranian territory, so they fund projects that envision crossing the Caspian very appealing.
Western analysts never seem to mention the environmental problems associated with underwater pipelines. Are they deferring to the enthusiasm of their masters or are they just ignorant? In either case their silence is remarkable, because some of these problems cast doubt on the feasibility of using such pipelines at all. The Caspian seabed is steeply inclined in many places, consists of loose and crumbly material, and is prone to gas releases, eruptions of mud volcanoes, frequent seismic tremors and occasional earthquakes. Any of these events could easily set off a landslide that breaks and displaces a section of an underwater pipeline.
Again, Russian policy experts have no general objection to messing about with geologically unstable land masses. The Yamal Peninsula in northeastern Siberia is every bit as unstable as the Caspian, but that is never given as a reason to stop exploiting its huge deposits of natural gas.
Playing cards
As we see from this example, ecological concerns are not, after all, completely ignored in the game of capitalist politics. Like all other concerns, however, they are constantly reduced to cards in the hands of players in the ongoing competition among sectoral and national sections of the world capitalist class. Each card is played when and only when the player holding it decides that it is convenient and profitable for him to play it. And so it will go on until we gather our strength and intervene, confiscate the cards and close down the game.
A unique ecosystem
And yet the inland sea that we call the Caspian is a unique ecosystem. It once abounded in wildlife, including many marine species found nowhere else (the Caspian seal, the Caspian gull, etc.). Already weakened by overfishing, untreated sewage, and other human damage, the ecosystem of the Caspian Sea – like those of the Gulf of Mexico, northern Alberta and southeastern Nigeria – is now being rapidly degraded by oil pollution.
Even though oil and gas development is still at a fairly early stage, the worst affected parts of the sea, such as the waters around Baku and Sumgait in Azerbaijan, are already devoid of life. The whole ecosystem is probably doomed. For one thing, the sea level is steadily rising – one effect of the region’s geological instability (as a landlocked water body, its level is independent of that of the world ocean). A rise of 2.5 meters since 1978 has inundated almost 800 rigs. These submerged rigs are a major and ever expanding source of oil seepage.
Recently I translated a series of papers about the Caspian issued by a Russian international relations institute. I was intrigued to discover that the Russian analysts, unlike their Western colleagues, dwell at length on the ecological costs and risks of Caspian oil and gas development.
The caviar factor
It is revealing to consider why this should be so. It does not reflect any general Russian concern with protecting the environment. Russian experts do not seem to worry overmuch about the ecological effects of oil and gas development in Siberia or the Arctic (see MW, September 2007 Socialist Standard). Some factor specific to the Caspian must be involved.
That factor is fish – but above all, sturgeon, and especially its roe, known as caviar. As Bystrova points out:
“Even comparatively recently, the Caspian was capable of an annual yield of 500-550,000 tonnes of fish, with the bulk of the catch consisting of valuable varieties (sturgeon, white salmon, etc.). In the 1970s and 1980s the Soviet Union produced 2,500 tonnes of black caviar annually, which was about 90 percent of world output... The biological potential of the Northern Caspian is about $37 billion. This sum is comparable with the value of the enormous hydrocarbon deposits recently discovered in this part of the sea. But while Caspian oil and gas will in time be used up, biological resources, if rationally exploited, are renewable and therefore practically everlasting.”The Russian oil company Lukoil operates in the North Caspian, so Russian hydrocarbon and fishing interests are in conflict here. This makes for a certain ambiguity in Russian policy. Nevertheless, Russia is much more inclined to favour constraints on Caspian hydrocarbon development than are Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, which depend much more heavily on Caspian oil and gas. Iran aligns itself with Russia out of concern for its own fisheries (it has enormous amounts of oil and gas, but not in the Caspian).
Crossing the Caspian
The Russian literature especially emphasizes the real ecological dangers of transporting oil and gas from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan across the Caspian Sea, either by tanker or through underwater pipelines laid on the seabed. Russia itself relies on south-north land pipelines and has no need for trans-Caspian routes. However, Western businessmen and politicians seek to avoid routes into Europe through Russian or Iranian territory, so they fund projects that envision crossing the Caspian very appealing.
Western analysts never seem to mention the environmental problems associated with underwater pipelines. Are they deferring to the enthusiasm of their masters or are they just ignorant? In either case their silence is remarkable, because some of these problems cast doubt on the feasibility of using such pipelines at all. The Caspian seabed is steeply inclined in many places, consists of loose and crumbly material, and is prone to gas releases, eruptions of mud volcanoes, frequent seismic tremors and occasional earthquakes. Any of these events could easily set off a landslide that breaks and displaces a section of an underwater pipeline.
Again, Russian policy experts have no general objection to messing about with geologically unstable land masses. The Yamal Peninsula in northeastern Siberia is every bit as unstable as the Caspian, but that is never given as a reason to stop exploiting its huge deposits of natural gas.
Playing cards
As we see from this example, ecological concerns are not, after all, completely ignored in the game of capitalist politics. Like all other concerns, however, they are constantly reduced to cards in the hands of players in the ongoing competition among sectoral and national sections of the world capitalist class. Each card is played when and only when the player holding it decides that it is convenient and profitable for him to play it. And so it will go on until we gather our strength and intervene, confiscate the cards and close down the game.
Stefan
Greasy Pole: Blunt instrument of justice? (2010)
It did not need George Orwell's 1984 to make us aware that a system of privilege propagates itself through verbal distortions so that war is indeed peace, freedom slavery, ignorance strength and a Ministry of Truth conveyor-belts lies while our security depends on being watched by Big Brother. Consider, for example, this thing called “justice”. This is what people are supposed to “get” from a court if they breach the arrangements which are made to protect the pointedly weighted structure by which the lesser mass of people monopolise life's essentials and prevent access to them by the greater mass, no matter how acute their needs. A few years ago, when it was considered necessary for the long-established but mal-functioning Home Office to be split up there emerged from some part of it a new Ministry of Justice, with a number of Ministers to administer its affairs. What kind of match is there between these exalted personages and the protective concept of justice and how devotedly, effectively, do they nurture it in their work in government?
Reigate's Donkey
Step forward Crispin Blunt, since 14 May this year Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice responsible for, among other matters, prisons and probation. Since 1997 MP for Reigate, notably verdant even among Surrey's leafy constituencies. Educated at Wellington public school and Sandhurst with the inevitable commission in the Army which made him so attractive to the Tories in Reigate after they had de-selected Sir George Gardiner when his Eurosceptic ravings became too strident for them. After Gardiner, Blunt was soothingly reassuring; he was, as the chairman of the constituency Conservative Party put it, “...happily married with two children”. It was almost as if Blunt could have held that seat for as long as he wanted, growing stout and bald and querulous on the back benches – had he not revealed a tendency to become famous for particularly embarrassing gaffes. To begin with there was, even before he had been voted onto the green benches, his dismissive assessment of the local electors he hoped would put him there when he reckoned that “You could put up a donkey as the Conservative in Reigate and it would win” – tested out when Gardiner walked a donkey called Crispin along the High Street there. And after the donkey had duly taken his seat in the Commons his style of claiming expenses was shown to be not of the high standards expected of an officer and a gentleman as, after being told he could not claim for a second home because he lived there with his children he bought a larger place, claiming £16,000 for stamp duty and fees then a total of £87,728 second home expenses which included £417 for the repair of a water wheel.
Parties Inside
Meanwhile there was the work of administering the administration of justice whatever that meant. Somewhere along the line Blunt had become converted to the ideas now being espoused by his boss as Minister of Justice and Lord High Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. The theme of this is the “rehabilitation revolution” which is in fact driven by the need to manage reductions in budgets before any concern for helping prisoners to better cope with life outside the prison walls. In his first speech on the issue, Blunt outraged the tabloids by stating an intention to scrap a ban, imposed under Labour in 2008 after rumours circulated about a wild “ horror-themed fancy dress” party in a prison, on any further “inappropriate events”. Blunt described the ban in unparliamentary terms as “daft” – meaning unhelpful to the kind of “reforming” regime which prisons exist for – in theory at any rate. But in the predictable hysteria about murderers and rapists having obscene fun “at the taxpayers' expense” Blunt's intention was swept away – almost taking him with it under an effectively public reprimand from Number Ten. As a blunder it was on a par with the donkeys of Reigate. And how many more, his friends and enemies asked, would there be?.
Marriage
They did not have to wait long for an event which was more revealing – and thereby more damaging – than any blunder. Blunt's 20-year marriage must have been as comforting to the Reigate Tories as his love of cricket. Victoria Blunt is a daughter of a wealthy American family who abandoned her career as a banker to support him in his political ambitions. “She gave up everything for him” said one acquaintance “She is the perfect MP's wife and would attend every fete and garden party..” But this, as another put it, “...was all built on a lie” – which became clear in August when Blunt abruptly announced that he is gay and was leaving his family to “come to terms with my homosexuality”. In itself this was not particularly shattering but there was more to it for his stated opinions have not been noted for any relaxed attitude towards gays. He voted against giving them the right to adopt and against allowing lesbian couples equal access to IVF treatment. In 1998 he opposed a move to scrap the ban on openly gay men joining the armed forces, pronouncing that “Military ethos has been progressively undermined . Letting overt gays in is another stage in the process” and on another occasion he complained about “a much greater strand of homosexuality which depends for its gratification on the exploitation of youth”. Such views, although without any real supporting evidence, must have convinced many constituency Conservatives that they had chosen the right man to replace the reviled Gardiner.
It may be different now among the lawns and trees as around Westminster sharply dressed civil servants suck through the froth on their cappuccinos while offering the very lowest odds on Blunt being shaken out in Cameron's first re-shuffle. Blunt's wife was said to be “...completely traumatised”. Well, naturally. But did Mrs. Blunt's lucrative time as a banker not teach her anything about the ruthless cynicism essential to finance and commerce? Did her long intimacy with politician Mr. Blunt leave her vulnerably uneducated about the same atrocious features of capitalist politics? Does she now wonder about the nature of this thing called justice and why an exposed practitioner in deceit should have been in a position to inflict it on us?
Ivan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)