Correction (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The January editorial “Class Struggle–Back on the Agenda” stated that the working class is currently dominated “by defensive reformist ideas and reformist institutions such as trade unions”. This was a type-setting mix-up and should have read “by reformist ideas and defensive institutions such as trade unions”. We apologise for this error.

Socialist Election results (1997)

Party News from the May 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 5 Socialist Party candidates polled a total of 1359 votes.

The individual results were:

• Easington 503
• Glasgow Kelvin 102
• Jarrow 444
• Livingston 213
• Vauxhall 97

50 Years Ago: The taming of the TUC (1998)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

What has happened to the trade unions, to their national platform the T.U.C., and to their political shadow the Labour Party? Where now is the trade union army that fought the general strike in 1926? In what dump have they parked their rusty weapon, the strike? Where are the Reds of yesteryear, and who are these men and women with their generous sprinkling of O.B.E.s, Knighthoods and Peerages who at Margate earned from the discerning observer of the Manchester Guardian (10/9/48) the tribute that “once again the T.U.C. has shown the moderate good sense that often seems to surprise its own leaders as much as the critics”?

How are we to account for the incontestable and remarkable fact that the workers—to whom the T.U.C. is supposed to give guidance and inspiration—got from it little but gloom, austerity, wage-freezing, and appeals to work harder; while the capitalist press and financial circles are congratulating themselves that it was a very successful congress from their point of view!

The long years of muddled thinking have to be paid for and there is no easy way out. Backing the Government in running capitalism means stultifying the trade union movement and spreading apathy and despair; with the certainty that at the end of the road, even if the present production crisis is eased for a time, there will be new crises and new and larger wars. The alternative is the seemingly slow but in fact the only way, the way indicated by the Socialist Party at its formation, that of working for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. There are no short cuts and there is no other way.

(From front page article by ‘H’, Socialist Standard, October 1948)

Socialists and the coming election (1991)

Party News from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party is currently considering putting up two candidates in next year’s Genera) Election, one in London and possibly one in the Greater Manchester area. A meeting is being held in London on Wednesday 11 December to finalise plans to contest the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, at present held by Labour frontbencher Frank Dobson: all members and sympathisers who can help are invited to attend (for details see Meetings Page).

To pay for the deposit and mount a credible campaign, including making full use of the postal distribution of the candidate's address, we need at least £2000. At the moment the amount standing in our Election fund is £697. Readers wishing to help us reach the targetted amount are invited to send their contributions (made payable to "the Socialist Party of Great Britain”) to: Election Fund, the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7 UN.

Blogger's Note:

The Party didn't end up contesting a seat in the Greater Manchester area at the 1992 General Election but they did contest the Holborn & St Pancras seat in London. A write up of that election campaign appeared in the May 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB Meetings (1991)

Party News from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letters: Two leaflets (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a Libertarian Socialist I send you an “Open letter— Alliance & Solidarity for a New Left/European New Left”, that is a translation (bad I’m sure) into English of an idea that started in Portugal during the last European Elections. Let me know what you think:

“—MAY 68— PARIS/FRANCE —APRIL 74/75— LISBON/PORTUGAL —CUBA/NICARAGUA and after?

For some the Left is dead, for others, the Left is the ‘Third Way’. But the reality is that we don’t know what’s meant by being ‘Left’. What do we stand for? What sort of Left in Europe for the 2000s?

It’s time to re-invent, to re-think, the Left, and in ‘Alliance & Solidarity’ to rebuild a New Left/European New Left.

For us the New Left will be a project for a new society, more democratic and alternative, socialist, libertarian and Ecologist/Green .A more free and less consumerist society.

This project must come from local community experiences, and not from ready-made theories. It must be a project capable of changing relations between human beings; producers; consumers; development— environment; sex—religion; working relations—leisure; racism—culture; nation state, etc. A project with new experiences for new communal relations and relations between peoples and countries.

There are no ready-made answers, neither will the answers be for sure. But in ‘Alliance & Solidarity’ with the contributions of all interested, Socialists, Libertarians, workers’ co-operatives, ecologists, green activists, lesbian/gay movement activists, New Age groups; trade unions, etc. we can rebuild step-by-step a new project, the New Left/European New Left.”

Emmanuel, 

Bracknell, Berks

Reply: 

The Old Left with its project for state capitalism has certainly failed but we don’t think what you propose is the answer. Certainly, all the groups you mention have an interest in getting rid of capitalism—and so, if only they knew it, of establishing a socialist society of common ownership, democratic control and production directly for use—except the New Agers (though perhaps they too will find what they’re looking for in socialism). But before bringing together various disparate interest groups, some of whose demands can be accommodated within the context of capitalism, we would need to be clear on the goal aimed at. We would need to be clear what the more free, libertarian and democratic and less consumerist society respecting ecological principles that you rightly want can only be achieved on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s productive resources. This understood, it would follow that all our political efforts should be exclusively directed to achieving that goal.

Editors.

* * *

Dear Editors,

The enclosed “Election Leaflet” represents a fictitious attempt by a World Wide Free Access Party in support of an equally fictitious candidate for Parliament. I was inspired to write this because of the recent correspondence in the Socialist Standard regarding changing the name of the Party. This leaflet is a fallout from it:

“Many voters will be learning about Free Access for the first time as a political force although the practice of Free Access is as old as mankind itself, in fact it worked inside every family in the past and so it does today. Whenever did you hear of parents selling food to their children or making them buy it from them? Never. That’s Free Access at work.

This long history of Free Access has been further developed by small groups all over our planet and advocated by poets and philosophers down the ages. Indeed the use of money as a total exchange unit is a comparatively modern thing, societies getting along without it for thousands of

years and, if using it at all, only sparingly.

World Free Access! What does it mean? Will it work today?

1. No, it can’t work because firstly it must be mentally accepted, then it will work.
2. It requires no leaders. They tend to freeze the mind. Free Worlders have no leaders and don’t need them—we know what we want.
3. We just need to be able to produce abundance for all—we can, right now!
4. A moneyless, frontierless world society will release a mighty flood of hitherto unproductive labour. No armed forces or armaments, no banks, no insurance, no income tax, no ticket collectors or travel costs, no customs, etc.
5. The rape of the planet for profit leading to global warming and danger to all life will cease instantly.
6. Numerous wars, always raging somewhere, will cease.
7. The elimination of life on earth will no longer be a possibility.”

Sam Levitt, 

London NW3

Reply: 

Your leaflet is certainly better than the one from Portugal. We will let readers judge for themselves whether separating the concept of socialism from its history and the class struggle doesn’t make it sound a bit insipid.

Editors.

Beware: war propaganda (2002)

From the October 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has already started. The propaganda, that is, for the next war over who shall be in a position to dominate the Middle East and its oilfields. Modern wars require a certain degree of support amongst the population of the country going to war. But since people are less likely to support a war for mere economic or geopolitical reasons a warring state has to present its war as one for some more “noble” cause.

So, Bush and his side-kick Blair are not coming out and saying that their concern is to overthrow the regime in Iraq under Saddam Hussein as it could pose a threat at some later stage to the current domination of the Middle East oilfields by the Western powers. They claim that their war would be one to “free the Iraqi people from oppression from an evil dictator” and to “remove a threat to world peace”. Don’t believe a word of it. They don’t.

As the war propaganda campaign has already started, now is the time to expose the aims and techniques of such propaganda. Last year a Belgian historian, Anne Morelli, brought out a book in which she set out again, with more recent examples, the “elementary principles of war propaganda” as exposed by the pacifist Arthur Ponsonby in his 1928 book Falsehood in War.

We reproduce below the 10 principles with Morelli’s introductory comments. In virtue of the tenth principle, we expect to be included by the pro-war media as amongst those supporting Saddam. But we are no more pro-Saddam than we are pro-Bush or pro-Blair. We are anti-capitalism and its wars, which are always fought for capitalist interests such as sources of raw materials, markets, trade routes, investment outlets, and strategic points to protect these.

* * *

1. “We don’t want war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already pointed out that, before declaring war or when they are making the declaration of war, the statesmen of all countries, at least in modern history, always solemnly proclaim that they did not want the war. War and its train of horrors are rarely popular a priori and it is thus good taste to present yourself as a lover of peace.

2. “The opposing side is solely responsible for the war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already noted the paradox in the First World War, which could also no doubt be found in many previous wars: each side proclaims that it was forced, to declare war to prevent the other side from putting the planet to fire and sword.

3. “The enemy has the face of the devil”

You can’t hate the whole of a human group, even when it is presented as the enemy. It is thus more effective to concentrate hatred of the enemy onto the opposing leader. The enemy thus has a face and this face is evidently odious. War is not carried on against the “Boshes” or the “Japs” but more precisely against Napoleon, the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, Nasser, Gaddafi, Khomeiny, Saddam Hussein or Milosevic. This odious bogeyman disguises the diversity of the population they lead, amongst the ordinary citizen might find a counterpart to identify with.

4. “We are defending a noble cause not particular interests”

Wars generally have as their motive a desire for geopolitical domination, accompanied by economic reasons. But such motives for war cannot be admitted to public opinion. Modern wars, however, are only possible with the consent of the population, if only because parliaments have in principle to give their agreement to war being declared. This consent is easily obtained if the population thinks that their independence, their honour, their freedom, or their lives, depend on the outcome of the war and that the war is the bearer of indisputably moral values. Propaganda has therefore to disguise certain aims and get other aims believed in.

5. “The enemy knowingly commits atrocities; if we blot our copybook it’s involuntarily”

Stories about atrocities committed by the enemy are an essential element of war propaganda. Obviously this doesn’t mean that atrocities don’t take place in wars. On the contrary, assassinations, armed robberies, burnings, looting and rape seem rather to be — unfortunately — current in all war situations and the practise of all armies, from ancient times to the wars of the 21st century. What is specific to war propaganda is getting people to believe that only the enemy is in the habit of doing these things, while our own army is at the service of the population, even the enemy’s, and is loved by them. Deviant criminality becomes the very symbol of the enemy army alone, composed essentially of bandits without law or faith.

6. “The enemy is using unauthorised arms”

This principle is a corollary of the previous one. Not only do we not commit atrocities but we make war in a chivalrous way, respecting the rules — as if war was a game, certainly tough but manly. Obviously this is not the case of our enemies, who refuse to abide by the rules. In reality, the outcome of wars can depend on the strategic skills of the generals or on the motivation and courage of the participants but also — mainly? — on the clear superiority of the arms of one of the sides.

7. “We suffer very few losses, the enemy’s losses are enormous”

With only rare exceptions, humans generally prefer to be on the winning side. In the case of war the support of public opinion depends on the perceived results of the conflict. If the results are not good, propaganda must hide our losses and exaggerate those of the enemy.

8. “Artists and intellectuals support our cause”

Propaganda, like all forms of advertising, is based on emotion. It is the lever used permanently to mobilise public opinion; it can even be said that propaganda and emotion have always been of the same nature. However, to arouse emotion you can’t rely on civil servants. You have to call in either advertising professionals — which the Kuwait lobby did in calling in Hill and Knowtown who concocted for them the touching story of babies torn from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers—or to artists and intellectuals, who are professionally trained to arouse emotions.

9. “Our cause has a sacred character”

If our cause is sacred we are obliged to defend it, if necessary with arms. But this sacred character can be taken either in a literal or a broader sense. Taken literally, this would mean that, if the cause is religious, the war is a crusade from which nobody can opt out. And in fact the religious argument has been used in war propaganda. Pithy formulations such as Gott mit Uns, In God we trust, or God save the Queen will be recalled which often accompanied the combatants and still do.

10. “Those who question the propaganda are traitors”

Lord Ponsonby had already noted that any attempt to cast doubt on the stories of the propaganda services is immediately considered as a lack of patriotism or rather as treason.

(Translated from Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre by Anne Morelli, Editions Labor, Brussels, 2001)

December's "Done & Dusted"

A late one this month. It happens.

Cue cut and paste . . . 

What is now a regular feature on the blog . . . okay, you've already read this bit before so I'll scrub the rest of this paragraph. (Note to self: come up with some new schtick for next month's "Done & Dusted".)

Here's a list of the Socialist Standards that were completed on the blog in the month of December 2023. Slowly but surely the digitization of the Standard is *cough* nearing completion. If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say it will be finished by the end of 2024  2029. Famous last words, and all that. 

They are broken up into separate decades for the hard of hearing.

December's "Done & Dusted"

December 1930

December 1932

December 1936

October 1954

November 1954

December 1954

December 1961

December 1967

December 1971

December 1972

December 1979

December 1995

December 2001

December 2003

December 2005

December 2009

December 2010

December 2022

December 2023

Another 19 down. 

At some point in the future I need to tot up the total of how many Socialist Standards there are still to be completed. It'll be in the hundreds but it'd be nice to get a gist of where I'm at on the digitisation of the Standard project.

Voice From The Back: Pollution and profits (2010)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pollution and profits

Every vote-seeking politician in the world waxes eloquent about the urgent need for a curb to be placed on global emissions. They fly hither and thither across the world addressing congresses about their deep concern for the planet’s future. Behind these vote catching antics however lies a more pressing problem – how to compete against international rivals in obtaining a larger share of the profits. At a recent meeting in Singapore those politician showed where their real priorities lie. “A key element of the international plan to address climate change is in jeopardy after several of the most powerful nations failed to confirm a previous commitment to halve gas emissions by 2050. The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum, which includes the US, China, Japan and Russia deleted their commitment from the final version of the official communiqué issued after a two-day meeting in Singapore. …Most climate scientists believe that a 50 per cent reduction in global emissions by 2050 is the minimum needed to have a chance of avoiding catastrophic change.” (Times, 16 November) For some national governments to reduce industrial pollution could be economic suicide. Their costs would go up and they would not be able to compete with other nations that had not reduced their pollution. Inside capitalism in the battle between less pollution or more profits there is only one winner.

Capitalism in action

The case for a transformation of society from one of class division to one to one of social ownership was made very powerfully by two recent press reports. Here is how the present class division favours a tiny minority. Take the example of John Paulson, a hedge-fund manager in New York. “His firm made $20 billion between 2007 and early 2009 by betting against the housing market and big financial companies. Mr. Paulson’s personal cut would amount to nearly $4 billion, or more than $10 million a day.” (Wall Street Journal, 15 November) At the other end of the class division we read of this. “According to the FAO, the number of malnourished people in the world rose to over 1 billion this year, up from 915m in 2008. Economists at the World Bank reckon that the number living on less than $1.25 a day will rise by 89m between 2008 and 2010 and those on under $2 a day will rise by 120m..” (Economist, 19 November) Some people trying to survive on a couple of dollars a day while some useless parasite rips off millions, don’t you think we need a new society?

The next war? 

Capitalism is an explosively competitive society. We have had two world wars. One was supposed to be “the war to end all wars” the other was supposed to be a “war for democracy”. That was all nonsense of course. War inside capitalism is the logical outcome of competition for sources of raw materials, trade routes. markets and spheres of political dominance. Where is the next powder keg of competition? No one knows, but here is a possibility. “At the crossroads between east and west in the desert nation of Turkmenistan, a quiet battle is under way for natural gas, oil and influence, and the U.S. and Europe are losing out to China and the Muslim world. There’s a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world’s fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there.” (TIME, 29 November) Socialists are as clueless as everyone else about where the next conflict will arise. What we are certain about is that thousands of men and women will die in conflicts in the future over their master’s quarrels. We are also certain that only world socialism can stop such a tragedy.

 

It must be obvious

“Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests. The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid. It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy. They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to “create stress”. The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.” (BBC News, 14 December) Of course think tanks, because they are servants of capitalism see everything in terms of pound notes, but even they must see that all useful work and a lot of useless work is carried out by the working class. The owning class produce no wealth whatsoever. All they do is consume wealth.

Pathfinders: Top of the Pop Charts (2010)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

While the Cop15 delegates were largely copping out at Copenhagen recently, one fairly relevant aspect of the world’s dire whether forecast (that is, whether we survive or not) scarcely rated a mention, which was the question of global population. This oversight was duly noted by the Chinese delegation (China Daily, 10 December) which, possibly anxious to offset western criticism of their tactics at Copenhagen, seized the opportunity to justify the country’s unpopular and repressive One Child Policy as a positive contribution to global emissions reduction. The news report quotes research by postgraduate student Thomas Wire of the London School of Economics: “Each $7 spent on basic family planning would reduce CO2 emissions by more than one ton whereas it would cost $13 for reduced deforestation, $24 to use wind technology, $51 for solar power, $93 for introducing hybrid cars and $131 electric vehicles.” Such research will no doubt bolster China’s already unparalleled enthusiasm for reducing its, and other countries’ populations, either by birth control or firing squad.

There’s no question that population growth is going to pass the carrying capacity of the planet at some point. The world is currently pushing 6.8 billion people and if you go to the website of the Optimum Population Trust at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/ you can watch the ticking counter go up at the rate of two per second. David Attenborough, a patron of this trust along with Jane Goodall, James Lovelock and other notables, takes the same doomsday view (Horizon Special, BBC1, repeated 5 January) as that other famous patron and author of the 1968 book The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich.

Socialists have often criticised Ehrlich’s view in the past, in particular his claims, written prior to the flowering of the Green Revolution of the 1970s, that population had already outstripped food capability and that hundred of millions would starve to death. But as food yields have gone up, so have populations, and the argument is not going to go away. Global population by 2050 is estimated at between 9.2 and 10.6 billion (http://www.un.org/popin/), with most of the growth occurring in the least developed countries, while in developed countries there is a steady decline in fertility and death rates. Population is likely to be a factor in the resource wars we can expect to see in the next century.

Ehrlich, the Trust, and David Attenborough in the Horizon programme all argue the same simple view, that the population growth rate can be slowed or reversed by just two factors, contraception and education. This view has the benefit of being uncomplicated by questions of culture, politics or religion and thus palatable to the broadest audience, but is it true? Yes, says John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health at University College, London, who argues that conventional wisdom, which says that couples in poorer societies actively plan to have large families to compensate for high child mortality, to provide labour, and to care for parents in their old age, is wrong. According to Prof Guillebaud, half of all  pregnancies worldwide are accidental conceptions rather than insurance policies, and demand for contraception increases when it is available, regardless of a society’s wealth or child survival rates: “The evidence is clear within a wide variety of settings that – despite no prior increase in per capita wealth or child survival or other presumed essentials – demand for contraception increases when it becomes available, accessible, and accompanied by correct information about its appropriateness and safety.” (http://www.optimumpopulation.org/releases/opt.release26Mar09.htm).

One wonders how the professor knows that fifty percent of all children are accidents, but population growth rates do indeed seem to correlate roughly in inverse ratio to the rate of birth control, if one compares figures (see [Dead Link).

However, to imply from this that the issue is simply a practical ‘numbers game’ with no ethical or political dimension is a bit contra-perceptive. The UN estimates that over 200 million women worldwide lack access to effective contraception, but it is not necessarily because it is unobtainable, but because religion opposes it or men refuse to use contraceptives. Globally it is women who take responsibility.  The number one method of contraception worldwide is female sterilisation, IUDs are second, the pill third, and male condom use is number four, and mostly confined to Europe and Japan. Meanwhile, as is well known, the Pope and his ilk have been going around sub-Saharan Africa helpfully telling locals that condoms spread AIDS (TimesOnline, March 17, 2009). Thus at the least there are gender and religious issues to be addressed.

And let’s get population numbers into perspective. It used to be said you could fit the world’s population comfortably onto the Isle of Wight. Well, times have changed, and one enterprising commentator has recalculated this figure to show that, as of October 2007, you would have to add in the Isle of Man, as well as Jersey and Guernsey (http://www.ampneycrucis.f9.co.uk/PARK/Population.htm). As of 2010 you would need to start on the Scottish islands as well. But the basic point remains the same – humans don’t take up that much space by themselves. It’s what they do with the rest of the space that counts.

And that is a political issue, because rich countries demand far more space and resources than poor ones, and rich people far more than poor people even within rich countries. Carbon emission footprints also increase in lock-step with income, not population. Though population growth is clearly not sustainable long-term, it is made a much worse problem because of the disparities in wealth and consumption that capitalism causes.

Paddy Shannon

Masters of War (2010)

From the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You can fool all of the people some of the time … and some of the people all of the time … but …

The US occupation forces in Afghanistan have learned a particular lesson from the disaster that is Iraq, and they have learned it big time. In the first, largely contracted out war in history, US and other foreign civilians were brought in to carry out just about every task, from the mundane to those viewed as ‘front-line’. A direct consequence of this strategy was millions of unemployed and very disgruntled Iraqis, a large percentage of whom became active or passive supporters of the forces of insurgency/resistance against the perceived injustices of the occupation. In the corporate boardrooms of US War Machine Inc. the alarm bells were ringing; costs (dead bodies and bodies with bits missing) were eating into public opinion and support for the corporations’ products (perpetual war and war materials/services) was declining and, potentially, could severely impact their bottom lines. A slight shift in strategy was called for.

Afghanistan, in recent times, has never really been a nation state; it is an area of the world that is a patch-work of tribal fiefdoms that shift in and out of local alliances at the whim of chieftains or as balances of power dictate. In order for US and NATO forces to function, in what they like to call the ‘Battlespace’, they have to factor these tribal leaders and their shifting alliances into their planning. The logistics for any invader/occupier of this land are daunting in the extreme. It is a wild, unforgiving place peopled by proud, largely unconquered tribes with very long memories who do not take kindly to uninvited foreigners trying to lord it over them. Ameliorating some of that hostility would enable more focus on the ‘flagged-up’ enemy, al-Qa’ida and their Taliban associates.

As the conflict dragged on and soon to be president of US War Machine Inc. Senator Obama announced that, in his opinion, it was a ‘war of necessity’, the strategic planners came up with an ingenious ploy that would give gainful employment to Afghans, put money into their pockets and just might persuade them to view the occupiers of their lands in a sufficiently different light that they would stop shooting at or blowing up corporate assets and personnel. The name of this new strategy – ‘Host Nation Trucking’, and it works something like this . .

Take a gaggle of well connected, powerful and non-too-scrupulous ‘business men’ and award them six trucking contracts currently worth $2.2 billion. People like the Popal brothers, owners of the huge Watan Group, both convicted whilst in the US of dealing in heroin and cousins of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Or Hamed Wardek, owner of NCL Holdings and son of current Afghan defence minister, General Abdul Wardek. NCL includes such luminaries as ‘legendary former CIA case officer and clear-headed thinker and writer’ (says Senator John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, October 2009) Milton Beardon on its advisory board. Or Asia Security Group, owned by Hashmat Karzai, another relative of the president. (Aram Roston, ‘How the US Funds the Taliban’, The Nation, 30 November) These companies already have a well oiled model for doing business along the ancient trading routes and in the minefield that is present day Afghanistan – each has an armed ‘private security division’ and field agents who buy-off attacks by fractious warlords along any route. In this way US and NATO troops should get everything from ammunition to toilet paper supplied to even the their furthest-flung outposts with fewer inconvenient disruptions.

That was the theory behind the plan and in reality it mostly works pretty well. The US Defense Dept. throws huge quantities of dollars to the contractors, who in turn buy off the warlords who control those routes that pass through their territories. Many of these warlords are associated with the Taliban or are the local Taliban commanders, so extensive funding finds its way into Taliban coffers. Even the Taliban, who are the supreme warlords in control of the south of the country, are not immune from getting in on the action directly. Pay the premiums for their ‘insurance’ and it is sufficient for just two of their escorting ‘technicals’ to ensure the safe passage of any convoy through any stretch of hostile territory, which in reality is everywhere. Fail to pay up and the consequences are guaranteed to be devastating and deadly. Drivers can be picked off by snipers and rocket propelled grenades will blow the vehicles to pieces. One US owned firm, Four Horsemen International, has so far refused to pay and has tried to take on the Taliban with its own security teams; their convoys are attacked on almost every mission and the price in lives has been high. At some stage, no doubt, they will have to follow other security firms and do what they must in order to survive. An indication of premium rates can be gleaned from the following: per truck, per section of territory under a particular warlord = approx. $800, although it depends on what is being carried. Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar is about 300 kms, the local warlord, Commander Ruhullah, levies around $1,500 per truck and for military supplies this is the only route to the south, to Helmand and the Taliban heartland. The NCL company alone is billed $500,000 per month for ‘services’ rendered en-route through Ruhullah’s turf, an indication of the scale of business.

Throwing money at a problem to make it go away has been elevated to the level of a doctrine within the US military, which goes under the title of ‘Money as a Weapons System’. To give some perspective, the $2.2 billion, two-year effort to hire Afghani trucks and truckers represents around 10 percent of that country’s GDP and although firm figures are hard to come by it is estimated that between 10-20 percent is finding its way to the Taliban. The regime in Kabul has recently increased the wages of its police and army by $45 to around $125 per month, far less than the Taliban pays its fighters, so why work for that lot when the ‘firm’ down the road is offering a better deal? No surprise then that the effective strength of these two organisations is around half of the claimed 90,000 for the police and 95,000 for the army, or that the power and influence of the Taliban continues to grow. They have their very own milch cow with a seeming never-ending stream of greenbacks. US spin would have us believe that it is drugs money that funds the Taliban in direct opposition to their actions when in power. Under Taliban rule poppy/opium production was almost eliminated; by contrast, since the US invasion and the re-establishment of the warlords, production is at an historic high. None the less, this is the lie fed to the US public rather than revealing the truth which could well swing public opinion so strongly as to imperil the very profitable merry-go-round that is the conflict in Afghanistan. Better to keep the mushrooms in the dark than let them see the light of truth!

Step back for a moment and look at it this way; the US military, possibly the world’s ultimate ‘service provider’, is a gigantic consumer of goods and services. Its top people are highly paid executives who are guaranteed lucrative positions in supplying corporations when the time comes to move on. Working with their associates in government they benefit from continuing conflicts/wars that use up existing stockpiles/services which then need re-stocking from their appreciative suppliers. Prolonging the production run of any particular product or model is a well-proven policy for squeezing the last drop of profit from any venture. So it follows that in the context of modern, contracted-out warfare any strategy that strings out a conflict will mean more profits in the pockets of those corporations, organisations and their stock-holders who agree to play it by the rules of the capitalist system, and that includes Messrs. Taliban Associates Inc. In this lethal capitalist game, it is mostly the workers, the cannon-fodder on each side of any conflict who pay the supreme price; the elite, whether they wear the pin-stripped suits of corporate boardrooms or the black turbans of a Taliban leader, largely escape the extreme consequences of these policies.

The average US citizen thinks that it is ‘their’ money that’s paying for ‘their’ military to fight a war in Afghanistan that will protect ‘their’ homeland from another 9/11 or some crazed mullah with a suicide atomic bomb under his jacket. Fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. The media has convinced them that it is a price worth paying, and anyway, aren’t there tens of thousands of good US households that, directly or indirectly, depend on defence company salaries to pay the mortgage? If they ever wake up to the fact that it is also ‘their’ money that is paying for the munitions that kill their sons and daughters and is providing the Taliban with much of what it needs to carry on its campaign indefinitely, to the benefit and enrichment of all the stakeholders in the business of war and conflict, might they not get very angry? Might they not rise up against the Masters of War and their corrupt system? Don’t hold your breath!

‘You can fool some of the people . . .’ Was this saying concocted by some US president or other to convince his people that they are really too smart to have the wool pulled over their eyes by a system devised to enrich the few whilst keeping the majority in bondage? How else to explain the predatory economic ways of the world and the widespread apathy towards them in the so-called ‘world’s only superpower’ and its war-mongering allies?

'… you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.’

Oh, yeah!

Alan Fenn

Cab-ride to Capitalism: Servitude For the Majority (2010)

From the January 2010 issue of the Soci

alist Standard

It only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in capitalist society

Everyday taxicab rides may appear to be lacklustre experiences that are quickly forgotten. However, this might not always be the case. Sometimes our views of events may become clouded and we cannot see things for what they really are. However, after taking many cab-rides in an urban city, I began to see things in a different way. On one of my jaunts in a taxicab I decided to investigate what it is that made people come to developed capitalist countries from less developed parts of the world.

In speaking to a cab driver, who left Ethiopia to come to Canada, I found my answer. I asked, “do people tend to be more happy in Western societies than in Ethiopia?” He answered that, “Ethiopia was a poor country.” In his words I could see the influence capitalism now had on his life: he equated how much money one has to how happy they are in life. This is reminiscent of one of the trademark idioms of capitalism that money can buy happiness. This is now disputed even by some who are otherwise supporters of capitalism, but if it were wholly refuted then this could undermine the entire capitalist system. Unfortunately, many people do believe that money can buy happiness in the owning class and force those who do not make as much money into the service industry, which in its very nature seeks to serve the owning class.

Your life is influenced by where you are born

Your life is partly determined by where you are born. For example, if you are born in Ethiopia then your life will be determined by Ethiopian standards and culture. In the United States, Canada or the UK your life is determined by a more developed capitalist system. Someone may come from Ethiopia to experience the “freedoms” countries like these employ, but there is another factor at work here: class. It is easy to show that the system boasts of false promises: Sally wishes to go to university, but Sally’s parents cannot afford to pay for it because in the capitalist system one must pay for everything. Sally’s life path has now been influenced by what class she was born into. Therefore, what the Ethiopian will notice is that “freedoms” have a price and are largely determined by what class one is born into.

Along the same lines, immigrants often receive low paying work in the service industry once they enter the developed capitalist system and they can never afford the education to gain higher paying jobs. As a result they stay in the service industry their entire lives, being some of the most lowly-paid members of the working class of wage and salary earners. It is education and money that allows one to move up in a capitalist society but even if one is to move up the ‘social ladder’, it is only usually to a less badly paid section of the same subservient class.

Finding and maintaining a job is difficult enough for people in poor countries and therefore receiving an education is but a luxury. In fact, the cab driver I spoke to said that he was working to make sure that his daughter would be able to go to university. He has to spend his years driving a car all day long so that his daughter will not have to do the same job and will have a better future. If someone cannot improve their station in life because they have no money to begin with, they also cannot afford to improve their station through higher education. This means that they are left work for the class that owns and controls society. This is because capitalism is not really based on merit, but on how much money one has. This is irrational as merit should never have a price, it should be free and depend on nothing but itself.

The capitalist system is marketed on its promises of equality and freedoms through purchasing power. Prospective immigrants are given rhetoric about how capitalism makes anything possible – if one has money. However, nothing appears possible, let alone free and equal about the owning class being served daily by an exploited working class, who are actually the majority and whose freedom is rationed and limited by their pay packets and salary cheques.

Moreover, how successful you will be in life is largely determined by what class you are born into, and is out of your control. The cab driver from Ethiopia realised that he, or his daughter, would not be able to influence society in a poor country because all of the rich capitalist countries such as those in the G8 are the most influential and have the highest standards of living. However, even though he came to one of these developed capitalist countries, he will almost inevitably remain in the service industry for the rest of his life. This is because capitalism is not based on talent or merit like a truly equal system would be such as socialism where everyone would have an equal opportunity to pursue their true interests in life. In capitalism, your success typically still depends on how rich a family or area you are born into and what kind of a reputation it has. If you are unlucky and are born into the majority, the working class, it is likely that you will remain there to serve the upper class for the duration of your life.

Capitalism Promises Freedoms, But for Who?

It is taught in school that capitalist countries are mosaic countries, small units of various cultures existing within a larger schema or government. This view is marketed so that potential immigrants will not have to leave their customs behind and still be able to reap the so-called rewards of capitalist society. In reality, what exists is a melting pot where these cultures are eventually assimilated. The opposite of a mosaic, melting pot, a term with a negative connotation, is often used to describe societies experiencing large-scale immigration from many different countries that seem to “melt” into the existing society. For example, Muslims are being assimilated into Western culture by way of developed capitalism. Only those who assimilate into the capitalist system are able to experience the “freedoms” it promises, but at often cost to their culture. It follows that people who come to developed capitalist countries work to serve the needs of the majority, who are of a different culture, often by forgoing their own so that they might fit in the prevailing market-driven norms.

Two of the most prominent examples of the melting-pot theory are the African Americans who were enslaved by white people through trade and the Native Americans who were wiped out, enslaved or displaced during European colonization. Though these cultures, mainly the African Americans, regained somewhat of their dignity many years later, they still lost the connection to their homeland, lost their culture and were forced to “melt” into the capitalist system.

The natives of North America are an example of not only assimilation to benefit the capitalist class but of the deception of such a system. The natives did not have money or a use for money until the European settlers arrived. These initiated trade and the natives would work hard to gather furs. They would sell their furs, specifically beaver pelts, which were very expensive items in European society at the time. In return they would receive trinkets such as forks as well detrimental items like firearms and liquor. Further, the economy that was run during colonization was one that the Europeans implemented and operated themselves, i.e. capitalism. Also, when the natives finally became wary of the situation, they lost their land. Treaties for land exchange were deceitfully created in a language foreign to them so that they could not have possibly known that they were signing away their land. They were taken advantage of and most importantly, lost their autonomy and freedom. Additionally, the native clans that do remain in North America are being assimilated, or waiting to be assimilated, into society. One way where this can be seen is through the media impact on younger generations who are lured into Western society with its market-driven imperatives and away from their cultural heritage.

Servitude

It seems almost unbelievable to think that servitude exists today in a society that is supposed to be ‘meritocratic’. This is because it is unnecessary that there should even be a servant class in society at all, even if the modern form of slavery is wage slavery.

There is no doubt that if one were to ask the Ethiopian cab driver if he would drive a cab all day if he didn’t have to, he would say no. The majority of people work unsatisfying and unchallenging jobs in the service industry and this is not necessary. It is socially demeaning and it is servitude, plain and simple. Capitalism has wrought its negative influences on the African Americans and North American natives. These people were exploited and subordinate classes until they melted into the capitalist society causing social alienation and loss of cultural identity. Further, those that work in the service industry today are not far off from these fates. Their lives may be better now that they can purchase “freedom” but it is at a great cost to their dignity as they spend their lives in servitude based on the amount of money they (do not) have instead of what talents they possess. Moreover, it only takes a cab ride in a city to see which class has the most power and influence in a capitalist society and chances are it isn’t the class of the Ethiopian behind the wheel.

Jessica Fordham 

(Socialist Party of Canada)

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2010)

From the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pieces Together: Another Labour failure (2010)

The Pieces Together column from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Labour failure

“Labour’s strategy for tackling poverty has reached the end of the road and Britain risks a return to Victorian levels of inequality, according to a major two-year study seen by The Independent. With 20 per cent of the population still stuck in poverty, the report calls for sweeping reform of the tax and welfare systems under which higher earners would finance more generous, universal benefits. The £43,888-a-year ceiling on national insurance contributions (NICs) would be abolished, so people earning more would pay NICs at 11 per cent on all their income above that level, instead of the current 1 per cent. The study, by the Labour-affiliated Fabian Society and Webb Memorial Trust, argues that Gordon Brown’s ‘quiet redistribution’ of wealth now lacks public support – and declares that one of the reasons is Labour’s tough language about benefit fraud and claimants.” (Independent, 30 November)

Ten wasted years

“Poverty has been rising in the UK since 2004 and is now at the same level as the start of the decade, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says. The group said that issues of unemployment and the repossession of homes had become more acute before the recession started. … The report, produced by the New Policy Institute, found that two million children lived in low-income, working households. This was the highest figure since the Foundation started collecting records. ” (BBC News, 3 December)

The other 1 percent

“According to consultants AT Kearney, the richest 1pc in the UK hold some 70pc of the country’s wealth. That there is this divide between rich and poor is not exactly new – but the scale of it, and the likelihood that it is not being narrowed by the financial crisis, is a big worry. Indeed, according to the report, in the US the amount of financial assets owned by the richest 1pc in the US is far, far lower at 48pc, and only 34pc in Australia. This must, to a large degree, be due to the fact that the UK set itself up in recent years as a haven for the super-rich, with its relatively generous rules on capital gains tax, because the income tax system itself is rather more redistributive than in the US. But the Kearney report is interesting because, unlike the traditional measure of inequality, the gini coefficient, it focuses not on income (the flow of money) but on actual substantive wealth (the stack of it that sits beneath us).” (Daily Telegraph, 25 November)

Letter: Debt (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

The prophetic words that capitalism would create its own gravediggers can be interpreted in many ways. It may be understood to mean that, as a result of exclusion from the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, a growing number of the population will rise up, enlightened and intellectualised, and revolutionise its dynamics to alter our direction, aims and desires; we hope towards socialism.

It could also be interpreted to mean that through its failings, inefficiencies and uneconomical ways, that it may self-destruct, that it becomes apparent to all, impossibly illogical even, that it must without doubt be surpassed in face of any remnant of opposition that may linger in the nooks and crannies of its many alleyways.

It may be bits of both of these. It is probable that it is bits drawn from the many other facets of life within capitalism. No doubt.

What is becoming increasingly apparent is that its very ‘rules’ if we may call them that, are losing the ability to defend and provide justification for its continuance. One such that has been discussed at great length, possibly more so than at any other time, is that of debt. We are told that our nation’s debt is of such magnitude that we should all prepare for many hard years ahead. That we will prevail over this debt but only by taking hard choices, there will be no easy option and many may suffer, but together we will defeat debt.

Now, if we can just for the moment try not to conjure up the image and inevitable analysis of ‘debt’ becoming an outside ‘alien’ thing, out of our sphere of control – rather absurdly in much the same way that wars or terrorists are often spoke of – and consider their grand solution to it by seeking to increase its availability, we may welcome its arrival and the simple opportunity that it provides.

We can now talk of debt as a bad thing – as a sign of failure. All of us wish we had less of it. Yet it remains of central importance to us; we are told the system cannot do without it, and it cannot. We can explore the idea that as it fails, inevitably and repeatedly, that debt can no longer provide a means to progress. We could say that its day has come and it has had its day. It would appear an easy argument to win: debt is bad therefore do not enter into it. Would this argument be entered into it would surely prove difficult to disprove. If debt, as it surely does, represents in their language a ‘fault’ of capitalism then let us explore it further. In no time at all it would lead into a cul de sac for it seems in their own words as far as debt is concerned ‘There Is No Alternative’. So what – we might then ask – is on offer?

Damian  McCarthy (by email)

Reply:

It is true that defenders of capitalism get themselves into a glaring contradiction over debt, blaming the crisis on too much debt and then advocating creating more debt to try to get out of it. But a distinction needs to be drawn between the “National Debt” and the personal debts of individual workers. The so-called “national” debt is what the capitalist state owes its creditors, who are mainly other capitalist institutions of one kind or another. As you point out, its size is now being bandied about as an excuse to justify even more austerity for the working class. But this is only an excuse for what they always want to do anyway. If it didn’t exist, they’d find some other excuse. Its size is their problem, not ours. We can, however, use it, as you suggest, to bring out the contradictions of capitalism. If all capitalism has to offer is more austerity in a world of potential plenty, let’s get rid of it.

Editors.