A Proud Distinction (1904)

From the September 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Adulteration is a legitimate form of competition.”—John Bright.

The proud distinction of having beaten all previous records in the fine art of butter adulteration probably belongs to a Burnley grocer, who succeeded in selling as butter a composition in which there was only 1 per cent of the genuine products of milk. All the rest was "foreign fat.” There were previous convictions, and he has had to pay heavily for his final proficiency. A contemporary referring to the case cannot help asking “Why the 1 per cent.?” Is it chemistry or is it conscience which demands it ? —“The Co-operative News.”

Capitalism and Food: Consuming Hunger (2018)

From the September 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under capitalism, we recognise a huge mistake among those wanting to see changes for the better — not that positive changes are undesirable but simply that tinkering with a mechanism (or machine) that has been invented or created erroneously can't be the best way to fix the problem. Anyone drawn to the idea and principles of socialism will not be looking to 'fix' any problem caused by capitalism, whether technological, scientific, or whatever, but will be wanting and seeking, because it's obviously necessary if the planet is to remain a viable planet for survival, the end of capitalism.

 There are currently about 7,500,000,000 inhabitants of this one small planet Earth — a world we supposedly share — although some slices are considerably larger than others. The rifts we can observe around the world manifest themselves in many contrasting ways — differences of thinking both locally and globally, between urban and rural, between generations, rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors — because of how various versions of a system have been implemented and developed over the generations.

 The history of London's sewerage system beginning in mid-nineteenth century is a case in point. Before the population reached nearly 4 million, night soil was collected and carted out to nearby farms and plots, recycling natural fertiliser to enrich the growing food. The natural way, done since time immemorial and still continued on large parts of the planet today. But as the city grew and encroached further on the countryside it became unviable to continue with this system and so began the gradual fouling of the city's water system by the sewers leading from all parts of the city into the Thames, containing not just faeces but all manner of waste including toxic run-off and emissions from factories. Within a few short years the river lost its fish, especially its salmon, and the poisoning of the water saw several cholera epidemics over the years killing thousands, both poor and rich, and the smell was often so bad that Parliament would take a few days off until the weather cooled down somewhat. Time went by and the 'fix' was to dredge a section of the river, to send the filth further away from a populous area. Not to cure the problem but to pass it on and export the technology worldwide.

 Globally there are millions of small farmers who currently still do farm the natural, organic way. La Via Campesina, founded in South America and now spreading around the planet, and in India millions of individual farmers of small plots produce food this way and whilst they are productive they are also fighting an ongoing battle with the huge transnational agricultural companies whose priorities are profit and growth. Governments are onside with the multinationals and are doing their utmost to reallocate the land and drive millions more onto the fringes of mega-cities to scratch a living as best they can.

 Now, why aren't more people aware of this rift, vast as it is? I suggest it is as a result of another enormous rift in societies the world over — urbanisation. It has been happening for generations at different rates in different parts of the world. But why? Simple personal choice or some other force? Whether the closing of the commons in England some centuries ago or the current acquisition of land in South America, Asia and the like by government decree and international land grab, most individuals and families will move to urban environments for the hope and the chance of work after being deliberately deprived of their livelihood.  

 One example, described by Devinder Sharma and quoted by Colin Todhunter who writes extensively about India and agriculture, tells it as it is:

    'India is on a fast track to bring agriculture under corporate control … Amending the existing laws on land acquisition, water resources, seed, fertilizer, pesticides and food processing, the government is in overdrive to usher in contract farming and encourage organized retail. This is exactly as per the advice of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as the international financial institutes.'

 Todhunter has also pointed out that, in return for up to ￡90 billion in loans in the 1990s India was instructed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies and run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops to earn foreign exchange. According to the World Bank’s lending report, based on data compiled up to 2015, India was easily the largest recipient of its loans in the history of the institution. To push through the programme, hundreds of millions are to be shifted out of agriculture.

 These facts, this knowledge, these truths must be understood in order to convince enough people globally just what the food system has become within the global capitalist system and just what it is doing to our soil. It is poisoning it and degrading it of nutrients and therefore poisoning and degrading  our food — and that includes all our food from vegetables, grain and fruit to our beer and wine, and all things made from them, processed and manufactured. And what is it doing to many of its people around the world if not negating their existence?

 How vital it is to present this case especially to those who are far removed from any food production, ie farms, orchards, rivers. I recall two generations ago a child of 3 years old being taken from an inner London borough to live on the edge of a village in the Kent countryside and his reaction to a walk on a wet day along the edge of a muddy ploughed field, 'erghhh, shit, shit!' It may seem so obvious but growing numbers have been separated from this for so long their awareness has been lost to such things. Milk and eggs come from the supermarket, not from cows and hens.

 Herbicides, pesticides, seed provenance, genetically modified organisms, contaminated water, chemical-laden soil, animals in unnatural conditions and filled with hormones, antibiotics, fish from highly contaminated rivers and seas full of plastics – there are numerous studies across continents revealing the levels of chemical contamination in our blood and urine. It seems no-one can expect to be without some level of contamination from what we eat and drink however hard one tries.

 When food has to be sold for profit what is the chance of finding the healthiest food from natural soil?

 This, too, has to be understood. 'Free Markets', the neo-liberal concept, which are anything but free for consumers, mean the freedom for huge corporations to do what they want, how they want, produce what and where they want, import and export whilst, at the same time, evading tax obligations and transferring profits to offshore havens. Plus they are allowed to freely pass on externalities to society in general and the public can freely inhale contaminated air and drink contaminated water and eat poisoned food. They pay with dirty environments and poor health. 'Free Markets' are global. Sad to say, we have all become victims of faux-globalisation. What some of us meant by globalisation before the term was stolen was, in fact, a huge positive indicating a return to the global commons, cooperation not destruction.

 The problems caused by capitalism because of this mechanism of 'externalities', passing on the negatives to society to clear up and deal with (or suffer the consequences), were/are not accidental in the main, just part and parcel of capitalism's policies. It cannot be denied now that the carbon footprint of the rich nations are excessively more than the planet can bear. It's also obvious that if we continue as now we simply hasten the demise of the global environment and humanity. There is no fix. Our task is to explain the world order, explain and change.  Socialism has no borders. It is essentially global. It cannot be otherwise. There are no fixes and no national solutions. 

 The People's Agreement adopted in Cochabamba a few years ago expresses the sentiment very well:

   ‘Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
    It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings.
   And for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings.’

Janet Surman

Obituary: Florrie Evans (1984)

Obituary from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Florrie Evans, who died recently in her eighties, was best known for her work behind the scenes at Head Office. Under the Rules of the Party, all branches must receive written reports of the weekly proceedings of the Executive Committee. They also receive Agendas and reports of Annual Conference and Delegate Meetings. This facility has been extended to members of Central Branch, Groups and Parties overseas. In addition there are many special reports and other documents to be typed and circulated. It could not be otherwise in a democratic organisation such as the SPGB, where the fullest information about all aspects of the Party's work must be readily available to the membership. This entails a tremendous amount of clerical work which is not very glamorous, perhaps even dull. Unlike speakers or writers, such clerical labours go largely unnoticed, and if anything are taken for granted.

Until recently Florrie, among others, devoted herself to this work with faultless efficiency. Among other jobs she was assistant General Secretary, and held the post for some years. She was also secretary of the Camden branch until a few months before her death, typing and duplicating the numerous statements, some of them quite lengthy, which the branch circulated throughout the Party.

The Party simply could not function efficiently without comrades such as Florrie. We owe her a debt of gratitude for her 50 years of total dedication to our Movement. We can only repay her by working harder to achieve our objective—socialism.

Jim D'Arcy

A Mirror for Socialism (1985)

Book Review from the September 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gilbert Rozman: A Mirror for Socialism: Soviet Criticisms of China. Tauris. £24.50 

In 1960, after some years of increasingly bitter argument, Russia and China put an end to their alliance and became openly antagonistic. The border dispute between them eventually broke out into actual fighting, and their "foreign policies" went in very different directions. The ruling class in each country had to justify the way in which a former staunch ally had become an implacable enemy. Chinese writers spoke of Russia as "social-imperialist" and "state capitalist", though without fully exploring the implications of this latter expression. Russian writings on China are the subject of Rozman's book, the main thesis of which is that these writings are as much concerned with Russia as with China

Nearly all the work surveyed is available only in Russian. It is aimed, then, not at a world audience but at educated Russians, and so tends to focus on aspects of society which are most meaningful to them. Charges that China is bureaucratic, over-centralised and militaristic no doubt strike a chord in the hearts of many Russian readers. Given the impossibility of discussing shortcomings of Russian society in the official media, polemics on China provide an opportunity for coded discussion of how things can go wrong in an allegedly socialist society.

Rozman in fact discerns two main groups of writers, based at different research centres. The orthodox group emphasise centralism and a strong "Communist" Party, and reject any material incentives or further expansion of the private economic sector. The "reform" group are more interesting, partly because their work on China is more detailed and better researched. But in addition it is possible to extract from their writings a kind of agenda for reform in Russia, involving: defence of individual rights, no forced collectivisation, far less censorship, emphasis on merit in appointments to important posts, and a scaling-down of military expenditure. This programme is hardly going to have the current rulers quaking in their fur-lined boots.

Another interesting point which emerges from Rozman's discussion is how similar Russian criticisms of China are to Western "anti-communist" criticisms of Russia. So it may be a bit disconcerting to read Russian attacks on China as dictatorial, exploitative and totalitarian, but these labels are not in the least original.

The content of the Russian criticisms are mostly pretty predictable and unilluminating. One point worth mentioning concerns the Cultural Revolution of the late sixties (which the Russian writers all see as an unmitigated disaster). One writer claims that China's "national bourgeoisie" (descended from the pre-1949 private capitalists) benefited from the Cultural Revolution in that their wealth was left untouched and they were not subjected to the same kind of violence as many workers and peasants. Since Mao's death, the ex-capitalists have had more property returned to them and have generally done very nicely.

Of course, none of the Russian critics go so far as to claim that China is a state capitalist country. In view of the obvious similarities between Russia and China, this would be just the kind of revelation that the Russian ruling class do not want the mirror to produce.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: How to defeat apartheid (1986)

Editorial from the September 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fundamental need of the world capitalist class is to exploit the wealth-producing working class. They are empowered to legally rob us (for they make the laws) and that robbery is the source of all profit. The worker is to the capitalist not a fellow human being but a wage slave to be used until every drop of profit is squeezed out. It is within the context of that ruthless social system that apartheid must be comprehended.

Apartheid is legalised and politically organised racism. It is a legacy of the colonial ideology of the European plunderers who traversed a planet looking for resources to appropriate and humans to enslave economically. The essential feature of apartheid is that the white people of European descent (Dutch Afrikaaners and British) are inherently superior to the black people of African origin. Biologically, anthropologically. genetically and historically there is not a scrap of evidence in support of this racist mythology The defender of apartheid is intellectually as ignorant as socially arrogant.

Racism has been of considerable use to the South African ruling class. They have used it as a means of monopolising power in southern Africa to the exclusion of the African majority. No black worker has the free right to vote, to assemble freely, to oppose racism openly or to travel without restriction beyond the confines of the slum reservations. The gross evils of apartheid have been chronicled fully, especially of late, and there can surely be no worker with eyes to see and ears to hear who is not aware of the atrocities which have been perpetrated in the name of superior white civilisation.

So, what is to be done about apartheid? Before addressing that question. let us consider who it is that must do it. There are two classes in society — the robbers and the robbed and there can be no collaboration between them. At present the robber class — the international capitalists — have turned against apartheid. They have done so firstly because such overt tyranny is bringing them into disrepute and the capitalists do not like excessive.,Nazi-style class rule: they prefer it to be done more subtly. Secondly, the very high profits made by apartheid's capitalists contrast with those of other capitalists who have to deal with trade union organised labour, so many capitalists resent the advantage of their racist competitors and want to move in on the South African market. Thirdly, and most importantly, the majority of capitalists are economic rationalists and do not favour institutionalised racism: they wish to exploit any worker of any colour in any place and do not want to waste opportunities to profit from black skills and energies because of obsolete racist barriers. The multinational Anglo-American Corporation, which makes huge profits out of South Africa's valuable mineral resources, has held this view for several years. So the international capitalists are putting pressure on the apartheid ruling class to put their house in order. This is not a moral attack against racism (capitalism knows no morals which cannot earn dividends) but one based on the needs of their system.

Economic sanctions against South Africa have been called for. This means that capitalists are being asked to boycott trade with the apartheid capitalists and if sanctions are imposed by governments it will be illegal to do business with South Africa in certain fields. Thatcher, with all the disingenuity of a fellow-travelling racist, says that she opposes government-imposed sanctions but will allow "voluntary" sanctions. This, she says with a straight face, is because she does not want to hurt the black South Africans. Thatcher's opponents in the administration of British capitalism (Kinnock. Owen and the rest) insist that the government must impose sanctions. Interestingly, many of the loudest voices who are now crying with indignation about the need for sanctions did absolutely nothing to impose them against racist South Africa during their course of the last Labour government. Sanctions were imposed in the 1960s when what was then Rhodesia persisted in its racist administration of capitalism. The tactic failed. The failure reflected the hard fact that governments cannot control the market: if there are profits to be made the capitalists will find a way of breaking sanction laws. It must be added that companies like Lonrho which did so were never taken to court by the then Labour government. and there is evidence that sanctions were evaded with the knowledge, if not the collusion, of that government.

It is unlikely that sanctions against South Africa would have much effect. For example capitalists in India, formally committed to sanctions, can simply export commodities to Sri Lanka from where they can easily be reexported to South Africa. Nominally independent countries like Zimbabwe, which is in fact dominated to a great extent by multinational capital, could easily be used by British or US companies to trade with South Africa. The capitalists have their own economic incentives to replace apartheid with a system of exploitation in accordance with international norms but it is foolish to trust the bosses to fight racism and we would be limited in our aim if "business as usual" was all we could wish to achieve.

This returns us to the question: what is to be done about apartheid? The answer is that the struggle against apartheid cannot be separated from the struggle for the emancipation of workers everywhere. This does not depend on the summits of ruling class sloganisers but on the active and conscious political movement of workers ourselves, divided neither by colour or country.

The power of South African capital depends on the weakness of workers in that country. The organisational efforts of our fellow workers in COSATU (many of them now in prison) are worth much more than the praise of nationalist would-be rulers. In South Africa as elsewhere, the demand for political rights must be in opposition to any new ruling elite. Workers in South Africa will learn to reject the limits of the system. They will see that while production for profit remains (under private or state supervision) there will be no end to oppression, that only the defeat of capitalism will end the basic problems of all workers.

The division in South Africa is not simply racial: there are plenty of poor white wage slaves, just as there are black capitalists elsewhere in Africa. Colour is neither the problem nor the solution. Class is the problem — establishing a classless, propertyless, stateless system of society is the practical solution. To reform capitalism is not enough: to build Brixtons for South African workers instead of Sowetos is simply to exchange one condition of poverty for another. The wealth producers have suffered for too long: we do not want better, but only the best. In order to achieve that we must disarm our rulers politically — deny them the right to coerce us — and dispossess them economically — deny them the right to legally rob us. That is revolutionary socialism and united under its aim our brothers and sisters in South Africa, with workers everywhere, will win.

A Tired Formula (2018)

Book Review from the September 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People. By Danny Katch (Haymarket Books, 2017.)

This is the follow-up by US satirist Danny Katch to his Socialism . . . Seriously. It is trailed as a ‘sharp-witted indictment of our broken political system and a vision for a socialist alternative that is truly by and for the people’.

This is half-true in that it is indeed perceptive and funny in parts and recognises well enough many of the issues facing a Trump-led America, issues that are replicated to varying degrees in other countries too. But the vision is blurred and is ultimately a prospectus for a state-run capitalism that aims to build on the popular support generated by Bernie Sanders, but which could be expressed through the creation of workers’ councils or soviets. This, of course, is really the tired old formula of the Bolshevik coup in Russia of 1917, a formula more long-lived than Angel Delight or Pot Noodles but ultimately less successful than either.

The problem with this political approach has essentially been twofold. Firstly, the idea that the socialist revolution can be created by a minority vanguard party of professional revolutionaries that can lead the masses to the promised land (though it is noticeable Katch goes a little light on this in full realisation that talk of people power and democratic action is likely to resonate more with his target market). 

Secondly, that what is advanced as ‘socialism’ is really a set of radical reforms of capitalism that the vanguard leadership know can never be enacted within the existing system, and which they hope will then pave the way for mass unrest and their minority coup. This then can bring about the dictatorship of the vanguard party running a nationalised ‘siege’ economy. 

Sadly, as history has shown on many occasions, there’s nothing remotely funny about that at all . . . and the anti-Trump forces in the US would have to be desperate indeed to even consider it.

Dave Perrin

Obituary: Sally Morrison (1987)

Obituary from the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to report the death, after a long illness, of Comrade Sally Morrison of Boston. USA.

While in good health. Sally was a loyal and valuable worker in the socialist movement, always ready to do the chores behind the scenes. She offered hospitality to visiting comrades, sold literature. distributed leaflets at meetings which she attended in all weathers, and despatched socialist literature from the American Party's headquarters. As in the case of so many comrades, the amount of work she did was not apparent until she could no longer do it.

We offer our sympathy to her husband Harry, another WSP stalwart, who is currently working on a book, due to be published next year, on the works of GB Shaw which will contain quotations from socialist literature and references both to the SPGB and the WSP of America.

Nothing to worry about, claim farmers (1989)

From the September 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

By now most of us have got used to various organisations declaring designated days, weeks or even years that are devoted to highlighting some problem or other. Events such as No-Smoking Day. TUC Health and Safety Week and UN Year of Peace.

However, this year a problem is not being brought to our attention. In fact quite the opposite. This year the National Farmers Union are trying to convince us all that a problem does not exist. This is "British Food and Farming Year" and down here in Wiltshire they are celebrating in style. Every month there are two or three events, not to mention all the coverage in the local media. All this is going to cost the NFU a lot of money but they regard this as required "to fund a major advertising and public relations campaign to ensure that the message reaches the widest possible audience and creates a massive impact". At a time when more people are questioning the effects of capitalism on the food we eat and on the environment we live in, the NFU are hoping to convince us that ". . . a sea of fiddles, hand-outs, corruption, environmental destruction and food poisoning" simply does not exist.

Of course for the NFU some problems are real. Like how to keep the profits coming in at a time when food prices should be tending to fall due to "over-production" This problem is to be countered by paying farmers to take land out of production, by having quotas for the amount of food produced, and by simply destroying food or storing it in huge quantities. According to NFU President, Simon Gourlay: "It infuriates me that there is still talk about excessive profits. In most sectors the return on working capital would give an industrialist nightmares". Meanwhile millions of people starve to death every year or suffer preventable disease as a result of malnutrition.

The wage slaves working on the farms won’t be celebrating, as Ivan Monckton explains in the April edition of The Landworker:

  We have nothing to celebrate. We are still at the bottom of the wages heap, still having to cope with a far lower level of services. still living in many cases in the poorest housing, still suffering from an appalling health and safety record and still treated as mere chattels by those who would have us all believe that the thing closest to their hearts is not their wallets but the preservation of the countryside and its rural communities.

By its very nature capitalism is incapable of solving these problems. The answer is really quite simple. The land should belong to all and food be produced to eat and not for sale with a view to profit. Now that will be something worth celebrating.

Mike Tavener

What’s wrong with the unions? (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who said:

  When British industry is successful, we have near full employment, rising wages and salaries, and expanding social service . . . For Britain to provide a rising standard of living for all its people there must be a modern, efficient and competitive manufacturing base. Only manufacturing industry has the potential to keep our trade with the rest of the world in credible balance. Without this essential balance, economic growth will inevitably be slow or stagnant?

Was in Margaret Thatcher or Neil Kinnock in a party political broadcast? The President of the CBI? The Governor of the Bank of England? A Daily Telegraph leader berating a group of “greedy" workers engaged in industrial action? It was, in fact, Ron Todd, General Secretary of the TGWU. and Ken Gill, General Secretary of MSF. writing in a joint pamphlet Making Our Future. Manufacturing in the 1990s.

The Transport and General Workers Union remains Britain's largest union with a membership of over one-and-a-quarter million at the end of 1989. The T & G is made up of 14 trade groups ranging from Docks and Waterways to Textile, Food, Drink and Tobacco to Administrative, Clerical, Technical & Supervisory Staff. The ACTS personal organiser (filofax) contains a simplified guide to the T & G. In it, Ron Todd writes:

  For the TGWU the aim of a just and fair society has not changed in 100 years. What has changed is our understanding of what is fair. Justice today means the right for all who want to be able to sell their services for a good decent wage, in a safe working environment, and for those who cannot work to be treated as human beings.

Them and Us
So there we were. Monday morning, nine ack emma. Sixteen individuals whose last experience of a classroom learning situation was donkey's years ago. Sixteen individuals glance apprehensively at each other with the uncomfortable expression of those caught in the no man's land between workers and management.

Sixteen relatively new shop stewards on their induction course. As the tutor walked slowly into the hall the collective nervousness disappeared to be replaced by a frisson of anticipation. It was difficult to control the desire to leap up and chant in unison “Norman Willis, TUC! Norman Willis, TUC!" The prospect that the next three days would initiate us into the secrets of trade union power that the media is always going on about, and the passing on of the knowledge that would access us into the band of activists able to withdraw the labour of their members at the wave of a rule-book, was a giddy one. The reality, that trade unions are a product of the class struggle which is a component part of capitalism, was a constituent sadly lacking from an induction course that turned out in the end to be an indoctrination course.

The emphasis in this type of union course is concentrated on the practical skills required by a shop steward in the day-to-day industrial struggle—handling grievances, the internal organisation of the union, health and safety, and issues involving law. Role-playing exercises in grievance disputes and wage negotiations assume a them-and-us attitude. However, the them and us as presented by the union is not that of the capitalist class and the working class. It is not presented as the economic division between the minority who own and control the factories, the land, transport, communications, banks and shops and the majority working class who are forced to sell their labour power in order to live. It is presented as a division between management and workers.

If you have no alternative but to sell your physical or mental ability to work, your labour power, then whether you be a fitter/welder or finance director of a multi-national company, you are a member of the working class. The working class—us—is engaged in a battle with the capitalist class on two fronts, the economic and the political. The economic power which the ruling class enjoys derives from its grip on political power. The ruthless pursuit of profit, inherent in capitalism, requires that workers should group together in order to protect themselves from the worst excesses of capitalism.

It does not require that workers allow trade unions to be run by those who profess that capitalism can be reformed or restrained in favour of the working class. The trade unionist fixation with the pursuit of “a good decent wage" remains a forlorn objective when there is a world to win. The transition from a society based upon production for profit to a moneyless, wageless. classless, stateless society— socialism—requires concerted political action on the part of the working class.

Working with capitalism
In 1983 the TUC published a pamphlet Hands Up for Democracy, designed to "set the record straight” and "answer some of the grossly misleading anti-union propaganda which has become increasingly common in recent years". It says:

  In the real everyday world we live in, more and more people see a trade union as their best chance of security—an insurance policy, or even a passport to a better way of life. Most people don't have very much power. Big decisions always seem to be taken by someone else. Unions are the way ordinary people try to turn the they into we, to claim for themselves some of the power over the decisions that shape their lives.

The pamphlet goes on to list some of the things trade unions are involved in. These include “working with employers to increase productivity, to sort out problems of work and to make industry more efficient". The aims of trade unionism as seen by the TUC are "to build a better future" and to see “successful industry competing in world markets".

The prevailing ideas in society are those of the ruling class. The continuation of capitalism is dependent upon the support of the working class, those who run capitalism on behalf of capitalists but who derive the least benefit from a society based upon production for profit not use. Trade unions pay no small part in upholding and re-inforcing capitalism's contention that there is no alternative to a society where there are wage-earners, employers and industries competing on world markets.

Many trade union members and officials would, no doubt, be shocked at the suggestion that they are actively supporting capitalism. For do they not profess themselves socialists? In the A-Z of Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations (Sphere. 1986) Jack Jones, a former TGWU General Secretary, wrote:

  The trade union movement, while working within a capitalist economy to do the best for their members, has traditionally espoused policies aiming at the extension of public ownership and control or the replacement of private by public ownership and control, usually described as nationalisation.

Maybe. But what has nationalisation to do with socialism? It is just state capitalism

Despite the cosy relationship with capital—private or state—that trade union bosses try to foster, the ruling class has a greater awareness of the social relationships inherent in capitalism than does the working class. Over the last decade, there has been almost annual legislation designed to weaken the position of trade unions.

Yet the need is not for better-educated trade union members, shorter hours or more wages. The need is for socialism. As Marx told the British trade union leaders of his day in an address to the General Council of the International Working Men's Association in 1865:

  Trades Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerrilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wages system.

Dave Coggan

This Month's Quotation: G. D. Herron (1941)

The Front Page quote from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The ignorance of the working-class and the superior intelligence of the privileged class are superstitions—are superstitions fostered by intellectual mercenaries, by universities and churches, and by all the centres of privilege."

G. D. Herron

(Published in Upton Sinclair's "Cry for Justice,” Page 730)

This Month's Quotation: Benjamin Franklin (1941)

The Front Page quote from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "What vast additions to the conveniences and comforts of life might mankind have acquired, if the money spent in wars had been employed In works of utility.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

How long will the slump last? (1991)

From the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite Chancellor Lamont's predictions, the British economy still shows no sign of recovery from the recession. Indeed, the picture is a gloomy one with world slump conditions becoming apparent as the economic downturn in Britain is mirrored in a number of other leading industrial nations. Among others, the United States, Canada, France and even Japan have all recently seen industrial production fall and unemployment rise.

In Britain, the CBI has been reporting falling confidence, orders and output. The construction industry is predicting a total loss of up to 250,000 jobs (Times, 5 August), and motor manufacturing—always a good indicator of the overall health of the economy—is in dire straits. Sales have fallen dramatically and there are widespread redundancies in the offing, with the large Ford plant at Halewood already operating a three-day week. Across much of the South the condition of the formerly booming high-tech “sunrise'' industries is more suggestive of a sunset, with thousands of redundancies and increasing numbers of factory closures. The official unemployment statistics, while grossly underestimating the real situation, are indicating that the 3 million figure will be reached before too long, possibly early next year. In the first quarter of 1991, capital investment in the UK was down by 9.8 percent (Sunday Times, 28 July) and there appears to be little sign of real improvement.

Bad though the situation is, it seems that none of the capitalist political parties think they have much by way of a solution. It now seems a very long time since the Labour Party advocated government intervention and large increases in state spending to create full employment, or since Mrs Thatcher promised the British economy a good “shake-out" after which it would be leaner, fitter and more successful for years to come. Indeed, while Keynesianism seems as dead and buried as its founder, the Monetarist doctrine which attempted to supersede it as the cure-all for the nations ills rarely now gets mentioned outside of the more eccentric university economics departments.

During the last slump in the early 1980s things couldn’t have been more different. Monetarism was in the ascendant, with the Prime Minister, Chancellor and their leading economic advisers all followers of this spurious faith, arguing that if increases in the price level could be kept to a minimum, then the market would deliver economic growth and increasing employment without too much assistance from the state.

Labour’s void

At the other end of the capitalist political spectrum, the Labour Party was showing a renewed faith in Keynesian-style expansion, while bitterly opposing the Tory governments attempts to cut government spending in real terms. Labour’s disastrous 1983 General Election manifesto (dubbed by Labour MP Austin Mitchell “the longest suicide note in political history") stated gloriously:

   We will expand the economy by providing a strong and measured increase in spending . . . more spending means that the economy will begin to expand: and growth will provide the new wealth for higher wages and better living standards, the right climate for industry to invest, and more resources for the public services . . . economic expansion will make it possible to end the waste of mass unemployment.

In one sense it was touching that the manifest failure of these policies when implemented in 1974-5 under Wilson and Healey did not deter Labour from promising to have another attempt. But by this time Keynesian nonsense about an increase in state spending boosting the economy and reducing unemployment (when representing in fact merely a re-arrangement of spending power within the economy between the state and private sectors) was unlikely to fool the electorate.

Though there are still some unrepentant Keynesians in the Labour Party (and some in the Tory Party, too) Labour has now moved away from such cumbersome commitments, content in its political void and happy to criticise the supposed failings of others without bothering to offer anything substantially different of its own. The Conservative Party, likewise, had already long abandoned any hope it may once have had of reducing unemployment and stimulating growth through its own efforts at manipulating the capitalist trade cycle. Now they can only hope that better days are around the corner, waiting for the turnaround in the economy like a beached whale waiting for the tide to come back in and rescue it.

No solution

The impotence of the various parties of capitalism when confronted with the system’s unpredictable trade cycle has been clearly exposed by a long scries of past failures. Faced with ever-recurring capitalist crises and slumps, they have tried protectionism and free trade, increased government spending and reduced government spending, fixed exchange rates and floating exchange rates, imperial preference and the Common Market, nationalisation and privatisation—and all to no avail. The underlying problem has remained—because it is built-in to the system.

The unplanned nature of its production means that capitalism will always periodically plunge headlong into slump. Over-investment in key industries inevitably occurs because of the never-ending drive towards capital accumulation, leading to falling rates of profit and overproduction of commodities for the market. As a result, the human miseries of redundancy and unemployment intrude into the lives of those most vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the market economy. They, of course, are the people currently paying a price Chancellor Lamont says "is well worth paying".

But it is not simply that the politicians are deliberately callous when some reformist solution to the problem is there for all to see and for them to take up. In reality there never has been a solution to capitalist slumps and, given the anarchic nature of the capitalist system, it would seem that the best Major and Lamont can presently hope for is that the recession is not exacerbated by the type of financial crash that occurred in 1929. But the recent scries of financial scandals coupled with the fall in the Nikkei Index in Japan from nearly 39,000 points to just over 23,000 in less than two years (knocking more than £1,000 billion off the value of quoted shares) suggest that things are not looking too good on that front either.

The capitalist system has always been at the mercy of such factors and only a fool could predict that “the resumption of growth should not long be delayed" (Chancellors Budget Speech, 19 March). Though the slump will end sometime—after which the cycle will come round all over again—it will surely have demonstrated once and for all the complete inability of the political parties and governments of capitalism to control their own economic system, and will have exposed the so-called “triumph of capitalism" for the hollow sham that it is.

Dave Perrin

50 Years Ago: Gandhi and the Millionaires (1992)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the time of Gandhi’s arrest several British newspapers made much of the close association between Congress leaders and wealthy Indian capitalists, the Daily Express had the following:—

  Just as ten years ago German industrialists decided to finance Hitler for their own ends, so to-day it is largely great Indian capitalists who stand behind Congress.
  Men like the Birla brothers, great mill owners, and Walchand Hirachand, chairman of the £1,700,000 Scindia Steam Navigation Company, see India freed from British control, as the industrialists' paradise, with high tariff walls.
  Some rich Congressmen would like to do a business deal with Japan, too. It is against such tendencies that two new leaders have now sprung up, who are putting Congress through the greatest crisis of its career.

(Daily Express, August 6th, 1942.)

The Evening Standard (August 4th) said: “There was surely never a quainter contrast in political associates than that between Gandhi and his host for the Bombay meeting of Congress, Ghanshyam Das Birla, the millionaire of big business . . . Now and then their friendship has been criticised by Indian Socialists." This is fair comment. A political movement which claims to represent the interests of Indian workers and peasants has got to explain why it receives financial support from Indian big business, the exploiters of the Indian toilers; but why does this apply only in India; why not nearer home? What about big business influence in British political parties? And why should Indian workers be impressed by advice from millionaire controlled British newspapers, or from politicians who likewise find close associates in the ranks of the captains of industry?

[From “Notes By The Way”, Socialist Standard, September 1942.]

Barbarism stalks Brazilian youth (1993)

Artwork by George Meddemmen.

From the September 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Early on Friday 23 July gunmen opened fire on a group of street children sleeping near Canderlaria Church in the heart of Rio de Janeiro's financial district. The attack left seven dead and many wounded and was the latest stage in what has become known as Brazil’s "war on children". Human rights organizations estimate that there have been an average of two killings a day this year (Independent, 27 July). The latest killings horrified many Brazilians who until recently showed little sympathy for those children forced to beg and steal in order to survive. Few were surprised when a survivor of the attack identified three local policemen as participants in the massacre.

Renewed publicity about the plight of Brazil's street children shows that despite the outrage and concern voiced by many in recent years the problem will not go away until its root causes are understood and then removed. It is working-class poverty caused by the property relationships within capitalism which drives young Brazilian workers onto the streets, and reduces their lives to a desperate scramble for scraps of food and a little cash.

Mass inequality
The problems are particularly acute in Brazil as it is one of the world’s most unequal nations. The urban poverty seen today was created by the rapid industrialization and urbanization of the country during the last forty years. This crash programme of urbanization reached its peak during the twenty-one year military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. The programme turned Brazil into a country of migrants as working-class and peasant families were uprooted in search of wage-labour, land, health or survival. Many were driven from their land by land-grabbers, cattle-ranchers, hydro-electric power projects, drought or environmental devastation. Brazil now has one of the most extreme concentrations of land ownership in the world, and the powerful landowner lobby has always managed to further its interests through the Brasilia government. A group of architects in Sao Paulo produced a report in which they astutely noted that:

   "the military wanted people to move to the cities where they were more easy to control and could provide the cheap labour needed for the Generals' industrialisation programme. The network of cities reflects the military government urban project. Its key concept is national integration to complete the occupation and unification of the country as a capitalist urban-industrial territory." (Sao Paulo: Crisis and Change, 1991).

Most of those who flocked to the cities made their homes in the burgeoning favelas (shanty-towns). They merely swapped rural poverty for its urban equivalent. Thirty years ago Carolina Maria de Jesus wrote a book titled Beyond All Pity (published in the UK by Earthscan, 1990) describing daily life in a favela:

   "More new people arrived in the favela. They are shabby and walk bent over with their eyes to the ground as if doing penance for their misfortune of living in an ugly place. A place where you can’t plant one flower to breathe its perfume . . . the only perfume that comes from the favela is from rotting mud, excrement and whisky".

Today seventy five percent of Brazil’s 150 million population live in cities and there are twenty cities with more than one million inhabitants. It is a commonplace to say these cities sprawl unplanned. The architects from Sao Paulo disagree:

  "Far from representing the absence planning the periphery model (of favelas) corresponds to a strategy of maximum capitalist accumulation. It enables the settlement of large contingents of people in areas that are bare of everything, reducing to a minimum the need for investment in housing and infrastructure either by the public or the private sector."

Poverty has worsened for Brazil’s working class in recent years as a rigid austerity programme imposed by the government, coupled with recession, has lead to drastic cuts in public spending, wage-cuts and redundancies. Things aren’t so bad for the capitalist class as the concentration of wealth has increased. The richest 10 percent own over half the national wealth, whilst the poorest 10 percent own less than one percent. An official survey in 1988 showed that 54 percent of Brazilian children and adolescents live in families earning less than US S35 per month. The lack of work and the social pressures of poverty such as overcrowding, domestic violence etc have forced literally millions of children onto the streets.

Survival first priority
It has been estimated that there are approximately seven to eight million street children in Brazil (Brazil: War on Children, 1991) though of these only a minority have no contact with their families. For those abandoned or orphaned, home is often a park bench, a shop doorway, a scrap of wasteland or a damp tunnel. Huddled in groups for safety their first priority is survival — finding food. They scavenge city waste dumps, shine shoes, mind parked cars or sell lottery tickets. Others steal from shops, mug tourists, commit burglaries in desperate efforts to make ends meet. A young boy interviewed by World In Action said "we steal watches, necklaces. We don’t have anything to eat. We don’t have anywhere to sleep — that’s why we steal".

Facing discrimination and outright hostility from much of society many street children turn to drugs in a bid to escape the nightmare that is their life on the streets. A survey of street children in Sao Paulo showed that out of 119 children aged between 6 and 17, 45 percent were classified as "heavy drug users" using up to three different drugs a day. Glue-sniffing is the most popular. A young prostitute in Salvador said, "I sniffed a lot yesterday and then I dreamt of a school where we could learn ballet, the capoeira dance, reading and writing. School is the best thing in the world. I’m always dreaming about it". Sadly she has little chance of such schooling in a country where most of the education budget is directed towards the universities where the students come from high-income families.

Fagin rides again

Many children work in gangs managed by modern-day Fagins who appropriate a share of the childrens’ spoils. Some offer the kids the only support and affection they receive. However, more usual are regular beatings and even murder if the children aren’t "productive" enough. The police too like to take a share in any money gained from muggings and often demand objects such as stolen watches.

Child prostitution is widespread and growing. A Brazilian Congressional Inquiry recently reported that there are about half-a-million child prostitutes in Brazil — more than in any other country except Thailand. According to Dulce Acioli from the Movement for the Promotion of Women, girls as young as seven and eight are working as prostitutes in Belem. Many other girls vanish without trace. Every month about 150 girls are registered as missing with the authorities in Rio Branco alone. It is believed that many of these girls end up working as prostitutes in mining areas (Guardian, 29 June).

The public response to the explosion in the numbers of street children has at times been savage and brutal. As Jan Rocha says in the introduction to Gilberto Dimenstein’s book Brazil: War on Children:

  "Brazilians are warm and hospitable and they love children, but most of them do not see street children as children. What they see in these ragged, dirty kids, drugged or lively, happy or sad, is a threat. A threat to their property, a threat to their lives. That is why a few years ago in the centre of Sao Paulo a lawyer savagely kicked and stamped a thirteen year old boy called Jesus to death when he grabbed a woman's gold necklace, a crowd stood round watching and egging him on. Only two young office girls protested at the brutal act."

The general feeling of economic insecurity among the population creates the perfect environment for the growth of groups claiming to dispense justice. For many years death squads have waged a silent war of extermination on the backstreets against petty criminals. Many death-squads are made up exclusively of police officers, such as the one implicated in the recent Rio de Janeiro atrocity. Others consist of hired gunmen paid for by local businessmen and shopkeepers. Sadistic torture is often a precursor to a bullet in the head. Bodies are often found with genitals severed, eyes poked out, burnt with cigarettes and slashed by knives. Many death-squad members have enjoyed considerable public support. Ivanildo Freitas one of the most famous "justiceiros” (avengers) is believed to have murdered seventy-two people. Following his arrest in 1984 people demonstrated on his behalf in the centre of Sao Paulo. Freitas said from prison: "An exterminator is not a criminal. A criminal rapes, steals, and even kills his own father. I think I am a kind of Representative of the people." Another "justiceiro" known as Esquerdinha even ran as a candidate for the Christian Democrat Party in local council elections saying: "I think it is my duty to help the community by providing greater security to a people who have been trodden on by these criminals" (Brazil: War on Children, 1991).

Thankfully recent events seem to show greater tolerance and more understanding of the plight of the street children. July’s shooting in Rio horrified many Brazilians and hundreds of protesters rallied in support of the murdered seven children (Independent, 28 July).

Psychological scars

This silent war against Brazil’s street children has left its psychological mark on the children too. Many expect to die violent deaths before they reach adulthood. A thirteen-year-old street girl from Recife said: "It is our destiny. Nothing can change this. We are on the street. We arc already dead." One boy, known as Rusty, tragically prophesied his own fate: "My life is like the wind. Nothing can stop it blowing away.” (Brazil: War on Children).

There are few opportunities to escape the poverty, homelessness, violence and drug-abuse of the streets. A few charities run hostels which offer temporary sanctuary to a few children, but they can do nothing to change the economic forces which push young people onto the streets in the first place.

Socialists welcome the recent protesters of Rio who marched with banners proclaiming "street kids are our kids" and hope that no more will some of capitalism's most desperate victims be scapegoated as the cause of the problems obvious to all. Capitalism will, however, continue to force new generations of children onto the streets until such a time as we take the appropriate political action to abolish it.

Peter Owen

The Death of Stalin (2018)

Film Review from the September 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Death of Stalin, 2017. Director: Armando Iannucci.

Based on the French graphic novel, La Mort de Staline, this is a dark satire which grimly exposes the tortuously tedious and hypocritical nature of Stalin’s regime during ‘The Great Terror.’ Director and co-writer Armando Iannucci builds on his already strong pedigree in this genre, having made the BBC TV political sit-com series, ‘The Thick of It,’ amongst other satirical productions; most recently a successful political series, ‘The Veep’, which aired on US cable network HBO. All of which has led him to be dubbed: ‘the hard man of political satire.’

 Iannucci’s treatment of Stalin and his henchman has echoes of the lampooning of Hitler by Mel Brooks in his 1983 film, ‘To Be or Not to Be’, but Iannucci is more unremittingly hard-hitting than Brooks. As a result a number of former Soviet Union countries have banned the film, including Russia, where the Culture Ministry cited the desecration of such national symbols as the Soviet hymn and the insulting portrayal of Field Marshall Zhukov, hero of the Red Army, as a bumbling idiot.

 The film has an impressive cast to deliver a master class in political satire through a series of show-like set pieces and lively dialogue and superb comic timing; a particularly poignant example of which is the denunciation by Molotov (Michael Palin) of his wife in the name of party dogma. The stage is set when Stalin suffers a brain hemorrhage and collapses in his study where he remains unconscious on the floor whilst The Council of Ministers assemble, already plotting against each other. 

 This dark burlesque of political intrigue and back stabbing between the main contenders for power – Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Molotov (Michael Palin), Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) and Secret Police Chief Beria (Simon Russell Beale), provide the foreground; whilst the gruesome aspects of mass murder, torture and executions provide the backdrop. A delicate balancing act between comedy and horror.

 As the balance of power see-saws between the protagonists, the gruesome realities of Stalin’s reign are laid bare. The strong performances of the central cast, plus characters such as Field Marshall Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) and Stalin’s alcoholic son, Vasily (Rupert Friend) and daughter Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough) - coupled with Iannucci’s attention to historical detail - makes this an impressive production.

 Khrushchev, as the eventual winner in the power grab, ushers in a less bloodthirsty period in Soviet history, but still far from the hopes and dreams of the heady days of the 1917 Revolution. One glaring reason for the rapid disintegration of these communist ideals into a pernicious version of state capitalism is that you cannot have socialism in one country; a fact soon recognised by the leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin. Perhaps the more compelling lesson is the importance of scrupulously adhering to democracy in the pursuit of socialism, else to risk careering headlong into another version of ‘The Great Terror.’

Tim Hart