Visit to Ukraine (2002)

Party News from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

In December comrades Danny Lambert and Vincent Otter travelled to Kiev in Ukraine, as mandated delegates of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, to meet a group who had expressed a desire to become a companion party of the World Socialist Movement. After expressing gratitude for the hospitality offered, they reported:

“The organisation in Kiev carries the name of International Young Workers and was established in 1993. Since its initial contact with the WSM in September 2000 it has accepted the socialist case. By meeting the comrades and having detailed discussions with them involving many questions and answers, both of us were able to see that the IYW is firmly opposed to all aspects of reformism and, at the same time, opposes vanguardism in all its various forms, such as Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism.

"In addition, they fully support the concept of socialism as a society of common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. They recognise that it must be established on a worldwide basis with the understanding and support of a majority of the world’s population”.

The report has been sent to the other parties in the World Socialist Movement for a decision on accepting the group into the WSM under the name of The World Socialist Party (Ukraine).

Blogger's Note:

Please see this previous post for the background on this duplicitous event.

Voice From The Back: Outdated Marxism? (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outdated Marxism?

A gap of over a 150 years separates the following two quotations, but they surely give the lie to the notion that Marxism is now outdated. “Paris: Junior doctors in France went on an indefinite partial strike in protest at their long working hours. Members of the ISNTH union, which represents 8,000 junior doctors, said they will refuse night shifts or be on call at home until demands are met.” The Times (20 November, 2001) “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers.” Communist Manifesto 1848

The wasteful society

Socialists are always arguing against supporters of capitalism that it is a wasteful and destructive society. A recent item from the Herald (26 November) illustrates our point very well. “Every time a single B2 Spirit stealth bomber makes the gruelling 34 hour round trip from its base in rural Missouri to unload its precision-guided payload over rural Afghanistan half a world away, it costs the American taxpayer more than £2.5m in fuel for the mission. Each laser-guided bomb dropped adds another £50,000 to the bill.”

The fearful society

It is often said by sociologists that social trends that first surface in the USA eventually appear in the UK. If such were to prove true about crime and punishment then the future is very gloomy indeed. According to the journalist Simon Jenkins writing in the Times (28 November) the US have a real problem. “What is known is that America now imprisons a staggering 700 people per 100,000, against 124 in Britain and 89 in France. One in three young black males in American inner cities is in prison or on parole . . . Meanwhile, half a million Californians feel they must live in armed and gated estates.”

Progressing backwards

Amidst the phoney euphoria of the Labour Party’s electoral victory of 1997 the British working class were promised an end to poverty or “social exclusion” as Labour prefer to call it. But what is the reality today? David Plachaud of the London School of Economics in the current issue of the Political Review is quoted in the Guardian (26 November) as remarking: “Child poverty remains higher than it was in 1979.” and “Britain still has the highest child poverty rate of any major industrialised country apart from the United States.”

The unhealthy society

In a revealing article in the Observer (2 December) it was shown that so pathetic is Labour’s running of the NHS that one in eight of the population now have private medical insurance, and that even those without private insurance won’t use the NHS. “Even those without medical insurance boycott the NHS in record numbers. Last year, more than 200,000 people jumped NHS waiting lists by paying for private operations – double when Labour came to power.” The most revealing aspect was the reason put forward for many employers providing health cover. Surprise, surprise it wasn’t the bosses concern for the workers they exploit; it was a commercial one. “Fergus Kee, managing director of BUPA’s UK insurance business, said: “Companies are increasingly recognising the value of medical insurance to get sick employees back to work faster.”

For my next trick

The Rev. Andrew Thompson is concerned about falling Church of England attendances, so he has come up with a super wheeze. He has written a booklet “Gospel Magic” that advocates flaming torches, trick guillotines and disappearing handkerchiefs to get the punters back to church. This has aroused a lot of opposition from more conservative elements in the church but it is difficult to sympathise with them. After all, their main man the Cunning Carpenter was reputed to have been a dab hand at conjuring tricks like water into wine and fish teas for the five thousand.

Bought it fair and square

In last month’s issue we reported that Michael Bloomberg had bought the office of Mayor of New York for $60 million; we were wrong. The official figures are now out and reported in the Times (5 December) – he spent $68,968,185! Even by American standards this is a phenomenal election expenditure for such an office. President Bush spent $193 million on his presidential campaign against Al Gore’s $133 million and Hillary Clinton spent $29.9 million, a record in New York, to become a Senator. Bloomberg spent more than five times his Democratic Party opponent Mark Green, in fact it is reckoned that he spent $92.60 for each of his 744,757 votes. The really staggering aspect of this corruption of democracy is that the Times can report it boldly, under the headline” $69m buys election as Mayor of New York” and that Mr Green’s campaign manager Richard Schrader could say: “He bought it fair and square. By spending a historic amount on television ads, he controlled the airwaves and altered people’s perception of reality.” Capitalism has reduced everything to the cash nexus. Why don’t they just dispense with voting altogether and have an auction for all the offices of power between the capitalists and their puppets? The whole thing has become a farce and has no claim to the term “democracy”.

Capitalism’s facelift?

“All companies must strive to give capitalism a name that doesn’t result in riots. Capitalism is good. But benevolent capitalism is better!” Sir Richard Branson. Yorkshire Post (1 December).

Editorial: Happy New Year? (2002)

Editorial from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Happy New Year” we all said to one another on New Year’s Eve. Even though we meant it sincerely what are the chances of it becoming a reality?

Looking back to the year just passing, 2001 will be remembered for one really major and horrific event (11 September) plus others whose significance is only now dawning, such as the beginning of what appears to be an economic downturn. Is it likely 2002 will be any better?

If you are one of the unfortunate billions living in much of Asia or Africa then the obvious answer is very likely to be no, these being continents where war and famine stalk the land as habitually as the jungle predators. In most of the rest of the world the bulk of the population may not face the same harsh realities of grinding absolute poverty and destitution, but insecurity and fear are never far away. The fear of losing our jobs. The fear of being mugged or attacked. The fear of family break-up and the escapism of drugs and drink which has become a feature of so many lives. In other words, the fear of falling victim to the ruthless, competitive society that is capitalism, with all its attendant social pressures.

This is why 2002 is unlikely to be any better than 2001. Even at a subliminal level, the majority have chosen to put up with capitalism and the misery it causes them rather than seek an alternative to it. They are victims, and as victims they “muddle through” and hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. But as the office joke goes, when the light eventually appears it is only the boss with his torch, bringing more work for those “fortunate” enough to have it.

As socialists, we argue that we should stop being the helpless victims in society, prey to the mercenary forces of the market, and instead get up off our knees.

History shows that capitalism won’t go away if we shut our eyes to it, it will merely attack us all the more mercilessly. That is why unless we do something about it, there will be more recessions, more crime and more terrorist atrocities committed by misguided, power-hungry and disgruntled fanatics. The market system is nothing if it is not relentless.

Because of the problems and suffering it causes, we have to put capitalism out of its misery, and in so doing, we will help lift ourselves out of our own. Nobody else is going to do it for us, that’s for sure – all the leaders and politicians are part of the problem itself not the solution. They are the ultimate representatives of the system that will have to be swept aside if the bulk of the population are to be free of the shackles imposed by money and the market.

But what is the next step as we enter the new year?

The next step is to organise – to organise for change. In groups and meetings and on the internet we need to band together to fight against the reason most of us fell fearful or miserable – the market economy itself and the politicians who oversee its operation. Without this, “Happy New Year” will be the empty platitude it usually becomes every year. If we democratically organise for change, so that we can build a society based on co-operation, respect and peacefulness, then next time we utter that phrase it may, for once, carry some real meaning. Until then, it will be devoid of resonance, and as relevant and useful as the deflated balloons and discarded party poppers are when we trudge back into work when the parties are over.

So let’s do something positive and organise to make 2002 a truly happy new year – and that of course means a year worth remembering for the right reasons, and not, like 2001, all the wrong ones.

The euro and the sovereignty myth (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

The euro debate is a dispute between rival sections of the capitalist class and is of no concern to workers

On 1 January in 12 of the 15 countries of the European Union new notes and coins came into circulation. After a shortish transition period these will replace existing francs, marks, pesetas, liras and the others and the same money—euros and eurocents—will come to be used throughout the whole area.

In terms of capitalism, it will be a historic event. As many people for years (more in fact) have used dollars and cents in a single area will now be using a single currency in another area. And that, of course, is what it is all about from a capitalist point of view. The capitalists of Europe have decided they have a better chance of winning out in the competitive battle on world markets if they get together as a single economic bloc. To do this, they have already created—some time ago now—first, a customs union, then a single market and, now, a single currency. They are still divided on whether to take the next step, a single economic policy which would require a single “economic government”. But some are determined to go down this road and envisage, at the end, a single, federal United States of Europe as a powerful state to rival the USA for world hegemony.

As far as us ordinary workers are concerned, it’s going to have no effect on our wages nor on our standard of living generally. The introduction of the euro will be as neutral—and as irrelevant—in this respect as was the introduction of decimal currency in Britain in 1971. So, there’s no cause to get worked up either way over the issue.

Having said this, it is clear that being able to use the same money throughout the greater part of Europe will remove one of the minor inconveniences that has existed up till now: having to change your coins and notes every time you cross a frontier (and having to pay the money-changers a commission for the privilege). Of course the major inconvenience of having to use money at all to have access to things which should be ours as of right will remain but, as long as the money system continues, it can’t be worse to have fewer currencies than more.

Divided capitalist class

So, joining or not joining the euro is nothing to get upset about. But there are people who do, especially in Britain. You can’t open a local paper there these days without reading a letter from someone complaining about “our loss of sovereignty” or about the disappearance of the queen’s head from “our” money (actually, it could still appear on the coins, but who cares?).

This reflects the fact that the capitalist class in Britain is split on the issue. A section, with capital investments mainly in North America, would prefer Britain to join the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) rather than become irrevocably tied to the European Union. They include the newspaper tycoons, Rupert Murdoch of the Times, Sunday Times and Sun and Conrad Black of the Telegraph, who have not hesitated to use their control of these papers to beat the anti-euro drum to defend their own personal capitalist interests. The Tory Party, too, has also decided to throw in its lot with this section of the capitalist class, perhaps unwisely since this section is only a minority.

The dominant section of the capitalist class in Britain want to join the euro, but they have a political problem. Their representatives, in the Labour and Liberal parties, have for some reason committed themselves to holding a referendum on the question. This was unwise, from their point of view, as this is to subdelegate a decision of vital interest to them to a population of workers that is largely uninformed on the issue and whose heads have been filled over the years with patriotic nonsense for other purposes. It is by no means certain that they would win a referendum, though they might be if they time it right and craft the question carefully and put the media organs they control into top gear. But that’s Blair’s problem.

The main argument put forward by the anti-euro section of the capitalist class is that joining the euro would involve a loss of “our” sovereignty. It may well involve a loss of their sovereignty but the rest of us have no “sovereignty” to lose. Certainly, we have the vote and we can use it to elect politicians to Westminister. But neither Parliament nor the government can control the way the economy works. They can try but if they go against the profit logic of the system they just make things worse. The most they can successfully do is go along with this logic.

What is sovereignty?

Old-fashioned radical liberals like Tony Benn (who, as he said of the Labour Party, is not and never has been socialist) who use the same argument concentrate only on the formal side of things. They emphasise Parliament’s “constitutional right” to control the economy, completely ignoring the fact that experience has shown this to be a purely paper right. The capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which no government or legislative body can over-ride.

So the argument about sovereignty is not really about what the constitution may or may not say. It’s about the effective power that a capitalist state can exercise within the capitalist economy. Capitalism has always existed within a framework of competing states, none of which is strong enough to impose its will on all the others. States, as weapons in the hands of rival groups of capitalists, intervene to further the interests of the capitalists that control them. They do this by using state power to set up protected markets, raw materials sources, trade routes and investment outlets. In normal times their weapons are tariffs, taxes, quotas, export rebates and other economic measures. When they judge that their vital interest is at stake their weapons are . . . weapons. They go to war.

The extent to which a capitalist state can distort the world market in favour of its capitalists depends both on its industrial strength and on the amount of armed force at its disposal. This is why all states are under pressure to acquire the most up-to-date and destructive armaments that they can afford. In the jungle world of capitalism might is right. “Sovereignty”—the margin of independent decision-making that a state has—also depends on might.

Over the years capitalism has become more and more international, more and more globalised. This has tended to reduce the margin of manoeuvre open to states, i.e. has reduced their “sovereignty”. Fifty years ago, six West European states—France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries—realised this and decided to pool some of their economic decision-making powers in order to increase their total sovereignty. In the capitalist world, just as much as for workers bargaining over wages, “unity is strength”. Certainly, this involved the individual states concerned giving up some of their sovereignty but the objective was to increase the collective sovereignty of the members of the Common Market as a whole. Thirty years ago the majority section of the capitalist class in Britain, too, decided that this made sense and joined along with Ireland and Denmark. Since then Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Sweden and Finland have also signed up.

Not our concern

The sovereignty argument is really an argument within the capitalist class as to whether they should give up some of the might of their state to be able to benefit from the greater might of a larger grouping. Tony Benn, the UK Independence Party and the BNP really seem to believe that a capitalist Britain would be better off going it alone. Murdoch, Black and the less stupid Tories are more circumspect. They realise that Britain can’t really go it alone, but has to be associated with some larger grouping. Their argument is about which this should be: North America rather than Western Europe.

The Trotskyists, who feel that they must have a “line” on everything, too, join in the argument, predictably alongside Benn and the Green Party, but also the UKIP and the BNP. They want a capitalist British state to have the full, paper power to pass the reformist programme they dangle before workers.

As socialists, we don’t take sides in this inter-capitalist argument. We don’t support one section of the capitalist class or the other, and we don’t have any illusions about the “sovereign power” of Parliament to pass reformist legislation that can make capitalism work in the interest of the exploited class of wage and salary earners. Capitalism just cannot be reformed to work in this way; so transferring some of the powers of the House of Commons to a European Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg makes no difference.

Whether or not the British capitalist class join the euro is not a working-class issue. Let the capitalist class and their parties and supporters settle the matter for themselves. In the meantime we continue to campaign for the establishment of a world society without frontiers where the resources of the Earth are the common heritage of humanity and are used to produce the things we need to live and to enjoy life for us to take directly. Under these circumstances they won’t be any need for money and both the euro and the pound can join the Roman and Anglo-Saxon coins in local museums.

Adam Buick

Letter: Vanguardism (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vanguardism

Dear Editors,

We in the Socialist Party have often been accused by members of various Leninist parties and groups, from the defunct Communist Party to the nearly defunct Militant Tendency, of being irrelevant, and not being, like them, in the vanguard of the working class.

Certainly we are not “in the vanguard”, have no intention of being; as this could not lead to the establishment of a world socialist society. But what of the so-called vanguard of the working class here in Britain? Have they achieved more with their “transitional demands” and ever-changing reform programmes?

Prior to the last election, a ragbag of Leninist, Stalinist and Trotskyist parties and sects, dominated largely by the thoroughly undemocratic Socialist Workers Party, but also including the also completely dishonest remnants of Militant, came together to form, for electoral purposes (despite most of them claiming that socialism would not be established by democratic means) the “Socialist (sic) Alliance”.

Not surprisingly, despite their boasts and disdain for genuine socialists, they received no more, and often fewer, votes than socialists who advocated socialism and not numerous reforms and demands.

Here in Colchester, the SA fielded no candidate. But in Ipswich, a few miles to the north, they had a candidate, Peter Leech. On a turnout of 57 percent, he received 305 votes (0.78 percent). At the by-election held in Ipswich on Thursday, 22 October, on a turnout of 40.16 percent, Leech managed to come eighth out of nine candidates, with a grand total of 152 votes (0.55 percent).

So much for the vanguard of the working class!

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester

Letter: Afghanistan (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Afghanistan

Dear Editors,

Very little has been heard on the media to counter the general assumption that the Afghanistan war is an example of the result of an inevitable ideological/religious antagonism in capitalism between religions, languages, cultures – in this case Islam and Christianity.

In giving the lie to this theory as the cause of war in capitalism, an early Socialist Party pamphlet on war gave examples of countries or groups of the same and of different religions etc. who had fought both against and in alliance with, each other at different times. If the Socialist Standard could provide such information if could prove very useful in countering such theories at the present time.

W. Robertson, 

Hove, Sussex

Letter: Hypocrisy? (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hypocrisy?

Dear Editors,

Having read your monthly journal, it seems to me the main theme of your articles are the negative criticisms of capitalist and non-socialist processes and organisations. Your articles present themselves as the font of all socialist wisdom, and only you know the answer to the world’s problems. Were it so simple. The problem is not in the economic system, but in the minds of humanity. Those minds are based on egotism, possession, self-centredness, exclusiveness, what can I gain and accumulate, and how much will I be worth in the future, etc, etc.

For nearly a hundred years your comments about capitalism, the Labour Party and governments etc have been in the pejorative vein, and the majority of people couldn’t care less. You go on month after month in the same useless jargon thinking that one day you’re going to change the world. I’m sorry, but human beings have made a mess of their relationships with each other, and this has gone on for 10,000 years. Don’t you realise that the only thing that will change people into a better product, is when they become aware of their selfish-egotistic basis and learn to share with each other, spiritually, socially and materially. In conclusion, I can recall a number of socialists, who had businesses, employed workers and therefore exploited them, and who when they were confronted with this fact, answered that they were living under capitalism and wanted the benefits that could be got from it. How could a socialist, who abhors the capitalist system, exploit and make a profit out of the surplus value extracted from the workers. What blatant hypocrites they were. At least the capitalist does it without having to justify it. To the capitalist it’s a logical, way of life.

But when a so-called socialist does it, this is hypocrisy, par excellence.

J. Gleason, 

London N4

Reply: 

We agree that the problem lies in the minds of humanity, more specifically the working class. They represent the majority, so they are the only ones who can bring about socialism. Socialists don’t blame the capitalist class or governments for the continuation of capitalism. The real enemy is the ideas that workers hold in their heads, although it is true that the capitalist class (and their political or governmental agents) take full advantage of the situation.

Regarding a “number of socialists” who had exploited workers. You later refer to them as “so-called socialists”. Do you mean by this that because they exploit workers they are no longer entitled to consider themselves “socialist”? Or that they weren’t genuine socialists in the first place? Anyway, our case for socialism exists regardless of the alleged behaviour of individual members of the socialist movement. In fact, it makes the case against capitalism even stronger as it highlights the corrupting influence of present-day society.

Before you can convince workers of the need for socialism it is essential to point out, not only that capitalism is not a great system to live under – they realise that, but don’t know what to do about it – but that there is another way of running human affairs. People become self-centred not because they are naturally greedy or selfish, but because they have been inculcated with the capitalist ethos of private property (of which the working class own relatively little) and the need to struggle to maintain what little they have, setting worker against worker. It just goes to show how deeply workers are imbued with capitalism’s values – they choose (albeit unwittingly) to be exploited. They vote for it at every general election.

We don’t offer ourselves as having the answers to all problems, indeed it is to the rest of the working class that we need to turn to for solutions to many questions about how socialism will be organised. If you agree with us about the establishment of socialism (and there is nothing in your letter to indicate otherwise), join us and offer your expertise in assisting us to spread our ideas in the most effective way.

Our case against capitalism is not a moral one – morals are constantly changing – but putting the socialist alternative to workers and it being up to them to do something about it.—Editors.

World View: Poverty entrenchment (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Poverty eradication” programmes in Africa only act to further entrench manufactured poverty

In Africa it has become imperatively fashionable for governments to embark upon “Poverty Eradication” programmes. It is an initiative forced upon them, as usual, by the World Bank and the IMF. And the rapidity with which the programme is gaining momentum is so great that it will be no surprise to see, in the foreseeable future, ministries being created to take charge of Poverty Eradication.

What is “Poverty Eradication”?

It is a term that the “experts” at the IMF/World Bank drawing rooms coined to add to two earlier terms – “Poverty Reduction” and “Poverty Alleviation”. In spite of the semantic differences of the three terms, they are meant to be one and the same and as such they are used interchangeably. By these terms the “experts” in the West and their cronies in the South simply mean helping the poor and vulnerable in society to get out of their poverty. To achieve this goal, they adopt a three-dimensional strategy. In the first place there is what they call “capacity building”. This concerns efforts at reaching out to the poor and sensitising them on their poverty. It stems from an arrogantly elitist and childishly paternalistic notion that the poor do not know that they are poor or why they are poor. So they sink huge sums into organising seminars and workshops during which they try to let the poor “realise their potentials”. But that the organisers are mere parrots repeating their masters’ voice is clearly discerned through the hollow and meaningless phrases they use anywhere in Africa that they meet – “civil society”‘; “grassroots groups”; “gender equality”; “empowerment”; “awareness”, etc.

The second strategy they use is what they call their “social service window”. Under this category such “social services” as erecting waiting sheds at village clinics and health centres; constructing dwarf-walled sheds to be used as classrooms; organising the villagers to dig pits to bury rubbish; periodic clean-up campaigns in and around the market or church or mosque etc, and are what they pursue.

The third component of poverty eradication programmes involves the provision of small-scale loans which they euphemistically call “grants” to groups or individuals. It takes two forms: in cash or in kind. The latter is realised through the provision, on credit, of a milling machine; a kiln (for pottery); a tractor or ploughing services and provision of imported seeds for those in agriculture; or providing biogas facilities to provide household fuel for lighting and cooking, etc.

The kitten gift 

There is a popular parable among the Dagbamba of northern Ghana which is similar to the story of the Trojan Horse. A man wanted to help out a friend who was going through hard times. He gave the poor fellow a kitten so he could sell it when it grew up. The poor man was very happy with the gift but it did not take any length of time for him to realise that the gift was after all a curse. He used whatever little money that came his way to buy milk for the kitten while he himself kept starving.

The poverty reduction/alleviation/eradication scheme tells a similar tale. In the first place the amount of cash and material devoted to the programme is usually appallingly infinitesimal. On the individual level, the amount of money loaned out to a person is always not enough to start a viable business. As such the money soon evaporates into thin air and the beneficiary is now left with the more burdensome task of repaying the loan. I saw this kind of situation myself when as an elected member of the municipal parliament in Tamale (Ghana) in the early 1990s, I organised the women of my constituency into a group. A NGO (the 31st December Women’s Movement) in collaboration with a financial institution in town, approached us with the aim of granting our women soft loans under the Poverty Eradication Scheme. The funds came from IFAD. Ten of our women were to benefit from the programme. However the NGO who were our benefactors would only assist us on condition that the tenth person was one of them (the NGO). Our women agreed. The amount per head was fifty thousand cedis, about US$70.00 at the time.

The whole programme ended with some of the beneficiaries being threatened with court action. None of them benefited from the project.

In Gambia it was recently reported that the micro finance officer, Mr Mohammed Jammeh, boasted that the Social Development Fund which is responsible for poverty alleviation had disbursed 3,022,275 dalasis to 6,129 individuals between 1999 and October 2001. This means that on average each person received less than 500 cedis, the equivalent of about $30. How can one start a business with less than $30?

The story is equally grim with groups or associations who are assisted collectively. Here the funding agencies normally make these groups to contribute an initial amount to which the benefactors add whatever they have to dispose of. The total amount is then used to set up the project – usually kilns for pottery; looms for weaving projects; food processing projects; ploughing services or even tractors, land, imported seeds (cowpea, cotton, cashew, etc). In most cases women are the beneficiaries or target groups. Contrary to the initial hopes that are whipped up by the donors, a good lot of these projects end up as white elephants. Those that get going usually benefit only the leadership of the target groups and the officials of the implementing agencies. But most often than not petty squabbles arise and eventually the projects collapse.

Competitive markets 

Even where a few projects manage to see the light of day, their relative successes are negated by the capitalist globalisation of production and distribution of products. Needless to say the end products of these poor, mostly rural, folk have to compete against goods dumped cheaply from the West. Here again the case of the women at the Nalung Weaving Project in Tamale reveals a lot. These women were trained to weave material for smocks. After the training they were sold looms on credit. Their main input for their business was thread which they could only buy from the capital, Accra, about 500km away. Two problems soon arose. First to sell at a price that would enable them to cover the cost of production meant that no-one would buy as it was seen to be rather exorbitant. Secondly the quality of the thread used, which was even imported, was of an inferior quality and consequently the cloth woven was far inferior to the type produced by the traditional weavers. Added to these was the presence, in the markets, of relatively very cheap second-hand clothes from the West.

In Gambia there is something similar taking place, at the Bakau Women’s Horticultural Project. These women toil morning and evening and produce vegetables. They all harvest at the same time and so prices are very low as a result of glut. Even the onions and shallots they produce are shunned in favour of onions from the Netherlands. No wonder therefore that the women keep marking time economically. As for those who are into cash crops such as cashew, cotton, cowpea, groundnuts etc, the least said about them, the better, considering the pitifully disadvantaged bargaining power of the producers of primary products (in the poor countries) under the current capitalist world economic arrangement.

Wasted energies

One other factor which needs highlighting in this hoax of poverty eradication is the magnitude of human resources deliberately channelled into such unproductive, in fact retrogressive work. Millions of people world-wide are enticed into taking part in this futile venture. Having been made poor by the system, the people, like a drowning man who will cling to a straw, keep flocking to the system only, each time, to be hoodwinked. But more agonising is the fact that people who champion this global ruse are the elite who, most often than not, know they are engaged in an activity which is worthless to the target groups. These elite are the staff of government ministries and agencies (NGOs). They pilfer items and embezzle funds meant for the projects in addition to their bloated salaries. In short they are used as willing tools in the entrenchment of poverty.

Ending poverty 

Experts of development studies are often heard saying that “the poor will always be with us”. That may be why we see the phrases “poverty alleviation”; “poverty reduction” and “poverty eradication” as being the same. Their confused use of terms gives expression to the real nature of the capitalist system – a system of legalised deceit and thievery.

But even what the sentence quoted above, tries to conceal is the fact that these poor that we have with us are growing in number and intensity. As more and more people join the class of the poor, the poverty grows worse and worse. In other words, global poverty is increasing both horizontally and vertically. All this, in spite of the alienation/reduction/eradication propaganda.

Poverty is caused by the unjust economic order prevailing in the world today. The wealth and resources of this world – land, factories, transport and communication, etc – are owned and controlled by a few people, who use these resources to make more wealth. They majority own nothing but their ability to produce. They are therefore forced to work for the few idle owners. These workers are paid wages just enough to keep them alive in order to continue to work.

As long as such production relations persist, more and more people will continue to join the ranks of the poor. For just as the IMF and the World Bank and the West give loans to poor countries in order to get them more into economic crisis, so do the peanuts these institutions trickle down as loans to poor women and groups only serve to deepen their poverty.

The only choice lies in a radical change in the ownership and control of the world’s wealth and resources. There must be collective rather than today’s minority ownership. Control over social wealth must be democratic with all having an equal say in the management, production and distribution of the products of human labour. Under such a system, everybody gets involved in determining what to produce; takes an active part in the production process; and finally has a free and equal access to goods and services. It is only then that poverty will be eradicated (not even alleviated nor reduced – empty phrases). Then there will be no room for some to have more than they need whilst others have less than they need. Attaining such a society is our collective responsibility.

Suhuyini

Anti-immigrant party gains in Danish elections (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Elections are such depressing things. Once again the power to register a desire to change society in a fundamental way was open to the workers (in the shape of their vote) and once again it was squandered on capitalism. Of course it was not going to be otherwise – Danish workers, as elsewhere, are sadly not showing any high degree of class consciousness. The events in the US and Afghanistan have helped put a rotten breath of life into so-called “immigration debate”. And it didn’t exactly help matters when it was revealed one of Saddam Hussein’s generals – responsible for the 1988 gas attack on a Kurdish village – lives in Denmark.

The Danish election was on 20 November . It was a historic election. The turnout was a record; the Social Democrats were massacred, losing power everywhere, for example, for the first time in 82 years there isn’t a Social Democrat mayor in my home town of Aarhus; and the new government is the first “borgerlig” (literally “bourgeois) majority administration since 1926-29. In fact, the Social Democrats are the second largest party now; the neo-liberalists of Venstre have taken over first place.

Rasmussen has been replaced as PM by Rasmussen. (Tweedledum and Tweedledee spring to mind.) Not only did the two main actors have the same name, a lot of TV time was spend looking the lack of differences in the parties’ manifestos. (We say they are fundamentally the same anyway since both seek to administer capitalism.) It is the same spectacle of New Labour being the new Tories. Nyrup Rasmussen, the ex-PM, claimed in one election broadcast – when presented with a 30-year-old quote of his – that he has always stood for regulated capitalism . . . which is true, but at least he didn’t call it socialism.

The Danish Peoples’ Party has become the third largest party, and provides the Venstre/Conservative government with the extra mandates it needs for the “borgerlig” majority. (The Danish Folketing is built up on a complex PR system where posts and policies are negotiated by the parties.) The DPP is a nasty, nationalist outfit. Social Democrats are secretly hoping the DPP will scupper the government. And if you think that sounds like intrigue, what about the Socialist Peoples’ Party mayor who was backed by the DPP and a capitalist . . .

The whole tone of the election has led the Swedish and Norwegian liberals to call for Venstre’s exclusion from the liberal movement. International reaction has been negative too, some going to far as to compare Fogh Rasmussen with Haider. Venstre had put an ad in a national broadsheet about seven Arab boys who raped a 14-year-old girl in Aarhus not so long ago, which was roundly criticised for its suggestion that Arab boys are gang rapists. Immigration and taxation played a large role in the election. The ideas was: Danes pay high taxes; the Welfare State is in trouble, and we have waiting lists and our pensioners aren’t looked after; immigrants come here, do nothing, and get loads of taxpayers’ cash to live the life of Reilly. A few people realised that immigrants are an essential part of the labour force, which was vindicated by the post-election news that the firm Novo Nordisk are seeking qualified engineers in the immigrant population, even promising them support if they require a masters education. (There are too few engineers to cover industry” requirements at present.)

The need for a socialist on the debate programmes, in order to blow such nonsense arguments to bits, was obvious. But there were no socialists, just the sight of Frank Aaen of the Unity Party being foolish. The Unity Party is a ragbag collection of old Trotskyist and Stalinists, who married when the Eastern Bloc collapsed. Anders Fogh Rasmussen (the new PM) was harangued by Aaen. Fogh was quick to reply: “It’s obvious that the only thing you know about liberalism is what you learned at the Party school in Moscow.” It was a devastating hit. Aaen served the Kremlin Empire in his capacity as a leading Communist Party member. Socialists have pointed out that the silly gits who lionise Lenin do the socialist cause enormous harm. Fogh didn’t need to give a serious answer to Aaen – it was enough to use imagery.

There were some positive things. I produced a couple of hundred leaflets which were snatched up, made some contacts, and I sold a number of copies of this journal. An interesting thought to ponder: when the new government fails, as its predecessor did will workers begin to see that no matter which bunch you put in, it is King Capital first and the working class nowhere?

Graham C. Taylor

The White Death (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Common salt is composed of sodium and chlorine of which, it seems, there was plenty locked up in compounds within the basalt rock that formed most of the Earth’s crust as our world cooled from a chemical soup over 3.5 billion years ago. Years of weathering, erosion and corrosion then produced the salt that readily dissolved into masses of water that flowed over and settled, as oceans, in the low-lying areas.

Tiny salt particles have, ever since, been blown from the sea directly onto coastal and adjacent regions of land or have been lifted into the upper atmosphere where they then fall everywhere with rain. Over aeons of time, in dry areas unflushed by regular rainfall, the soil has become sprinkled with minute salt particles extending to a considerable depth.

Unique vegetation has evolved in Western Australia which created a natural “equilibrium” or balance that maintains the ground-water level (water-table) at a depth beyond the salt zone. Native deep-rooted, perennial plants are highly efficient absorbers of moisture, allowing very little rainfall to seep down into the water-table. Native trees have two root systems which absorb both surface and deep groundwater. These are just part of an undisturbed eco-system that produced stability for millions of years.

The clearing of native vegetation and trees for farming and grazing has produced vast areas of shallow-rooted annual crops and pasture which use far less water. Most rainfall now percolates down into the groundwater which raises the level of the water-table. Similarly, in irrigation areas the applied water mostly filters down and lifts the level. As the water-table climbs it dissolves increasing amounts of salt within the soil profile until maximum salinity is concentrated at, or near, the soil surface. Capitalism’s profit-motivated “economic efficiencies” in the timber industry has introduced the disaster of “clearfelling”. Bulldozers uprooting trees, wrecking the understorey, wildlife habitat, soil structure and complete eco-system of vast areas of forest, simply magnifies the problem still further.

The impact of a rising water-table and dryland salinity has far-reaching effects long before the ultimate “White Death” of a lifeless, shining white desert studded with dead trees, is created. Saline water with four feet of the soil surface reduces plant growth. From this point there is a loss of agriculture production, destruction of bush vegetation and native habitat leading to loss of wildlife and biodiversity. Drainage from the soil causes salinity of waterways which affect streams, rivers and water resources in dams and reservoirs . . . eventually making the water unusable. Water plants, aquatic life (frogs, fish, water birds, turtles etc), algae, microbes and invertebrates are destroyed. Rising concentrations of salt damages the soil structure and will corrode the foundations of all infrastructure causing buildings, roads, footpaths, railways, bridges and sewage pipes etc to crumble. Rising water-table also makes land more prone to waterlogging and flooding. The social impact is enormous.

The worst-affected Australian state is Western Australia with 70 percent of total salinity problems. In 1902 the clearing of native vegetation was suspected of causing salinity. This was proved in 1909 and verified in 1924. Despite this knowledge land-clearing increased. The echoes of past capitalist politicians here are heard today when President Bush states, “I am more concerned with the economy than with ecology”, when referring to global warming . . . itself another major factor in the salinity equation.

Seventy-five percent of natural bush in the south-west has been cleared for agriculture of which 10 percent is now salt-affected, which has reduced crops by 50 percent. Over 80 percent of resource water there is salty to some degree and groundwater rises 20-150 cms annually. If allowed to continue 30 percent of farmland will be wiped out, 30,000 kms of road and railway and 27 towns will be ruined by shallow water-table by the year 2050. Many mammals, reptiles, insects, aquatic life and 450 endemic plant species will be lost from one of the most biodiverse areas of the world.

In 1985 a new State government department, CALM (Conservation And Land Management), was created. Syd Shea was appointed executive director. CALM pursued a simple policy of managing the forests for the benefit of the timber industry. Clearfelling was adopted on a grand scale and still continues today. In November 1999 Syd Shea accepted a new post created in the Premier’s office—”Head of Combating Salinity”. This is tantamount to putting a serial arsonist in charge of the Fire Service. Shea is now involved organising “carbon credits” and uses his “ecological expertise” in cracking deals for big corporations.

High technology is being used to acquire facts and statistics on salinity but the shocking details are not being publicised. The information written here was extracted from various official sources. The remedy to salinity is basically simple, groundwater levels need to be reduced (discharged) and rainfall needs to be used more efficiently to prevent recharge. Large areas of farmland need to be revegetated and forest should be allowed to regenerate. Additional proposed engineering and horticultural remedies should be applied immediately.

Capitalism, based upon cost/profit/jobs, which causes these problems, is not equipped to respond to simple need. Balance-sheet profit has always ignored the cost of environmental destruction, which never appeared on the debit pages of the ledger. Landowners are reluctant to lose portions of their land to non-income-producing native vegetation, despite their chance of losing the lot if their unsustainable farming methods do not change. So billions of dollars will be spent over many years on a strategy of compromise. The hunt is on for salt-tolerant fish and plants to farm, alternative deep-rooted crops and pasture and long-term cash-crops of plantation trees to supply the timber industry. It is hoped many areas can be contained and eventually some areas of salinity reversed, other regions are already doomed. But only a socialist society based upon unrestricted need has any chance of lasting success. Speed the day when such political awareness amongst the vast majority of the population will exist.

Ron Stone,

Australia

Minimum wages for us – and maximum profits for them (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the minimum wage of £3.60 (adult) became law in 1998 many of capitalism’s apologists predicted widespread unemployment and bankruptcies galore. No such disasters occurred. On 10 October the rate was increased to £4.10 and the prophets of doom were once more out in force.

Like all reforms of capitalism the minimum wage legislation leaves intact the basic mechanism wherein a small handful live of the surplus value produced by the working class. However even by comparison with previous capitalist reforms this piece of legislation has proved woefully unsuccessful.

In the two years since it was first introduced the Inland Revenue has had to talk to 16,000 companies about non-compliance with the Act. Peter Grattidge, head of national minimum wage operation at the Revenue, reckons that staff have been paid under the minimum wage level in about 40 per cent of cases. The catering trade is notorious for sharp practices, such as counting tips in calculating minimum wage levels.

A recent example of how this reform works in practice is the swank London hotel The Sanderson. The rates for staying at this hotel vary from £210 per night for a double room to £2,000 a night to stay in the penthouse suite, a sharp contrast to the conditions of the cleaners and porters in the hotel. “From next month the hotel is proposing to switch from a shift system to a rate that will be fixed at £2.15 an hour. And rather than giving a guarantee of 38 hours a week the staff will see the minimum cut to 32 hours. A cut in hours might benefit some staff, but their contract commits them to work 48 hours a week if they are needed.” (Guardian, 24 November)

Richard Donnelly

Resistance (2002)

From the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is it possible to imagine a world without resistance, oppression and poverty? What would this world be like?

Can we imagine a world in which resistance would be unnecessary since there’d be nothing to resist—a world without oppression or poverty? Why not? The Earth already possesses enough resources to properly feed, clothe and house every single man, woman and child on the planet. There’s no need for anybody anywhere to go without adequate food, drinking water, health care, housing or education. What, then, might be the features of this new and different world?

First, it would have to be a world in the literal sense. The answer to “global” warming and “world” poverty and the other problems caused by “global” capitalism can only be found within a world framework. So we are talking about a united world without frontiers, no longer divided into separate and competing states. This will save the enormous amount of resources currently wasted on armed forces and arms, that could be redirected into satisfying the basic human needs that are now so scandalously neglected.

Second, all the productive resources of the world should become the common heritage of all the people of the world. They must no longer be owned by corporations, rich private individuals or states. There are already treaties saying that Antarctica and the Moon cannot be appropriated by individuals or states. The same principle should apply to the whole planet, not just to its natural resources but also to the industrial plants and means of transport and communication that humans have built up by their collective labour over the centuries.

Third, appropriate democratic institutions will need to be set up to control the use of this common heritage. World bodies to deal with inherently global questions such as the state of the biosphere and energy supply (as well as, initially, the urgent temporary problems such as world hunger, disease and lack of education that will be inherited from global capitalism). Regional bodies (replacing existing states and respecting cultural and linguistic differences) to organise industrial production. Local bodies to arrange access for people to the things they need for everyday living. Starting with democracy at local level, people will be able to create and maintain a genuinely people-based society.

Fourth, goods will have to be produced, whether globally, regionally or locally, solely and directly to satisfy people’s needs, not as at present to make a profit or for sale on a market. In fact, the whole market system of buying and selling, and the whole wasteful structure of financial and commercial institutions that arise on its basis, must go. As long as the market exists we will be dominated by its uncontrollable economic laws. As long as money exists financial and commercial, not human, values will prevail. So, we’re talking about a moneyless society in which, instead, people would contribute according to their abilities and take, freely as their right, from the common store what they need to live and enjoy life.

A world without frontiers or separate states, a world based on its resources being the common heritage of all humanity, a democratic world governed by what people decide they want and need not by money, profit and market forces, that’s the alternative to global capitalism that would render resistance unnecessary.

University Challenge 2002 (2002)

Party News from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever complained about the Socialist Party never doing enough to propagate the case for socialism? Ever wanted to do some useful, productive work to help spread the ideas of world socialism?

Course you have. And now you have your chance. Twenty minutes of effort on your part is all that is needed to help with the Socialist Party's "University Challenge" 2002 campaign. The campaign is an open invitation to student political groups/societies to hear the world socialist case at one of their meetings. This campaign has been successfully run previously and resulted in a number of very positive discussion meetings, putting the distinctive case for a world of free access in front of interested minds. So this year we want to really try and get as many meetings as possible.

Don't be put off if you don't want to be a speaker yourself — a local speaker can be found. All we need at the moment is for you to contact your local college or university (via their general telephone enquiries) and get the address for the student association or main society's body.

The Campaigns Department has produced a range of standard letters to be sent out to different types of interested student groups (Third World First, Labour Students, Greens etc). These can be Word format from gardner_brian@hotmail.com. You can amend the letter for it to be returned to yourself, or to Head Office, whichever suits you.

Two new pamphlets from the Socialist Party (2002)

Party News from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Principles Explained, which explains what we mean by our object and declaration of principles (see page 18), is now available.

Send a cheque for £1.50, made payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain, to Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Tel: 020-7611 3811.

A Socialist Life is a collection of 28 published and five unpublished short stories by Socialist Standard writer Heather Ball.

It will soon be available for £3. Order from he Socialist Party of Great Britain, to Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Tel: 020-7611 3811.

Greasy Pole: Pornography and Politics (2002)

The Greasy Pole column from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kenneth Clarke was a Front Bench star in the Thatcher and Major governments – Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and all that – but he has now decided that he does not like the members of his own party. A lot of them, he complains, are elderly people who never attend meetings and vote after reading the Daily Telegraph – as if that kind of political self-instruction had not always been worth a hat full of Tory votes. One of Clarke’s aides – Nick Kent – has been more explicit in his dislike of the Tory grass roots: “nasty old people” was his description of the party faithful (who) “cannot be reasoned with”. These outbursts are not accidents; they have been provoked by those nasty geriatrics electing Iain Duncan Smith to the Tory leadership in preference to Clarke and to the fact that Clarke now senses the time has come for him to make another bid for the top job – which cannot be unconnected with a dawning awareness in the party that by choosing Duncan Smith they made a mistake of historic stupidity.

The reasons for Duncan Smith’s victory will be a field for endless analysis, which is probably only waiting for the Tories to lose the next election as decisively as they lost the last one. Perhaps it was in reaction against William Hague, who was notable for what Nick Kent called “a teenage cocktail of tabloid populism and raving anti-Europeanism”. Perhaps it was because, although Duncan Smith had upset quite a few people (like John Major) in the party he had done so for what they considered the right reasons, in contrast to Clarke and Portillo. Perhaps they simply took to Duncan Smith’s soldierly stiff upper lip, his smart suits, his background as an officer in the Guards. They must have forgotten that political leaders are not elected to be well-mannered and expensively dressed. What leaders must be good at is telling lies, twisting arms, blackmailing their supporters, convincing the electorate that a calamitous past was not their fault.

Retreat 

Some months after he got the job, Duncan Smith is plainly failing to turn his party round. He is in deep trouble, with political correspondents openly musing on the likelihood that at the next election the Tories will be reduced the third ranking party, behind the Lib Dems. So Duncan Smith should be looking over his shoulder, organising his retreat, setting up his rearguard or whatever it is they do in the Guards at such times. And to make things a little more difficult there is Clarke in pursuit, declaring that he is reconsidering his refusal to accept a shadow post under Duncan Smith: “Never say never in politics” he said, ” It depends what job and depends on what he (Duncan Smith) expects me to say about the policy of the party”. It might be asked, how Clarke reconciles this with his previous assessment of Duncan Smith as a “status quo” politician, one of the “headbangers” on the issue of Europe, who would send the party into a “lurch to the right”. Politicians are of course skilled at forgetting their former declarations of immutable principle if it will help them get into power. Clarke is not offering to support his leader but to line himself up for the leadership if, with a little help from Clarke, Duncan Smith should be ousted.

Clarke will have learned from history that it will not be that simple, that there will be other hopefuls sharpening their knives, a few of them – like the oily, odious Michael Howard – already well known. Other possible candidates will have to work a bit harder to get themselves known but so did Margaret Thatcher when she beat Ted Heath in 1975, when few people expected a woman to come through to lead the Tory Party, especially one who had been jeered at in the media as the minister who snatched away the schoolkids’ free milk. So step forward, as they say in the gutter press, Theresa May, who sits for the lush Thames-side seat of Maidenhead. It is apparent that she is being groomed for stardom, if that is how to describe being leader of this political rabble. Her publicity drive may or may not be assisted by her having a name very close to that of a celebrated queen of porn. Get onto the internet and search for Teresa (no h) May and you will be viewing some lurid, unreal images of a female who does not appear to be taking part in a dreary Commons debate. As a result Theresa (with the h) May has been invited to participate in some raunchy TV programmes and has received some pretty forthright correspondence meant for her near-namesake. A typical letter ” . . . asked (her) to expose herself in public, to do things with men that most of us wouldn’t consider in the privacy of our own homes, and to force herself into weird, unnatural positions for the camera”.

Porn Queen 

This raises a few questions. How justified is the outrage at being confused with a porn queen and at Teresa May’s way of earning her living? One thing which can be said is that she is perfectly open about what she does, which is some way better than politicians who, if they are at all interested in hanging on to their job, cannot be honest about their work. If they were honest they would have to own up to a persistent catalogue of deception and failure and in the end to their own inability to control, or even affect, the social system which they claim to be able to fashion to our benefit. And what, after all, can we name as pornography and who are the pornographers?

Theresa May is the daughter of a clergyman. She went to Oxford (like Thatcher) then worked in a bank. Her ambitions were clear early on; she was a councillor in Merton, had to go through the mill of contesting some hopelessly solid Labour seats, like North West Durham in 1992 and Barking in a 1994 by-election before, against some strong opponents, she won the nomination for the rock-solid Tory seat of Maidenhead. “Very bright, hyperactive and witty” was how Andrew Roth described her in the Guardian. “Sloane with City flash” was another’s less kind assessment. The parallels between her and Thatcher have been noted; a Eurosceptic, she may see her road to power in carrying on where the mad handbagger left off. In the Tory leadership fight in 2001 she was careful not to be too prominent about her support for Portillo. In any case Duncan Smith did not hold this against her and gave her the shadow job of Transport and Local Government, belabouring the hapless, floundering Stephen Byers.

Bearing in mind that one function of the pornographer is the selling of talents for questionable purpose, how do we assess Theresa May? What does this supposedly vibrant and capable woman have to offer about this society and what it does to people? So far her comments have been preoccupied with blaming the Labour government for policies which are simply a continuation of what the Tories did when they were in power. On 7 November she spoke out about the government’s suggestion that people might be encouraged to vote if it was made easier for them, by having polling booths in places like supermarkets. Her comments were less than original. The way to get people to vote was not, she said, by “inventing new electoral systems or new types of politicians . . .The underlying cause of voter apathy is growing cynicism with the political process . . .” This banality does not even approach the question of why voters should be cynical. One obvious reason is that experience of a Labour government has made it clear to thousands of people that there is no difference worth influencing a vote between the big parties. People who voted Labour in 1997 under the impression that they were opting for social change are now realising that they were wrong but they have no idea of any other way. That is the root of their cynicism.

Bombs and Poverty 

There is a kind of pornography in this social system, which has nothing to do with a few women being paid to perform a variety of sexual acts for the entertainment of others. The kind of socially organised, premeditated state violence that has devastated the wretched country of Afghanistan in the interests of the oil industry is a kind of pornography; it excites all manner of morbid responses which are stimulated and exploited by political pornographers like Blair and Bush. It is a kind of pornography that in this country, which our leaders assure us is a model of civilised advancement, a third of the children live below the official poverty line. It is a kind of pornography that voters should be cynical about the political system when they have the power to use it to transform society, to liberate the human race into a society based on human needs.

Meanwhile we are left with the same dreary procession of impotent leaders who tell us, one after the other, that the way forward is to hand over to them our power to change society so that they can keep it as it is. Major for Thatcher; Hague for Major; Duncan Smith for Hague; perhaps one day May for Duncan Smith. And that is just the Tory Party. The other Teresa May, and those who do the same work, do far less damage.

Ivan