Socialist Standard January 2015 1 Contact Details SPGB Media: [email protected] socialist UK BRANCHES & CONTACTS Frankfi eld, Cork. Tel: 021 4896427. Email: [email protected] LONDON Newtownabbey : Nigel McCullough. North London branch . Meets 3rd Tues 8pm Tel: 028 90852062. standard at Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, SCOTLAND NW5 2RX Edinburgh branch . Meets1st Thur. 7.00- Contact: [email protected] or 020 9.00pm. The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace JANUARY 2015 7609 0983 (above Victoria Street), Edinburgh. South London branch . Meets 1st Tues. J. Moir. Tel: 0131 440 0995. 7.00pm. Head Offi ce. 52 Clapham High St, [email protected] Branch SW4 7UN. Tel: 020 7622 3811 website: contents West London branch . Meets 1st & 3rd Tues. http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/ 8pm. Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfi eld Terrace Glasgow branch . Meets 3rd Wednesday of (corner Sutton Court Rd), W4. Corres: 51 each month at 8pm in Community Central FEATURES Gayford Road, London W12 9BY. Tel: 020 Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow. Peter 8740 6677. Email: [email protected] Hendrie, 75 Lairhills Road, East Kilbride, Marquis de Sade 5 Glasgow G75 0LH. Tel: 01355 903105. Email: MIDLANDS [email protected]. Little children suffer 10 West Midlands Regional branch . Meets last Dundee . Ian Ratcliffe, 12 Finlow Terrace Sunday of the month, 3.00pm, the Briar Rose Dundee, DD4 9NA, Tel 01382 698297 pub, 25 Bennetts Hill, Birmingham B2 5RE. The war in Gaza 12 E-Mail:[email protected]. Kilmarnock .Meets last Thursday of month Tel:01242 675357 7pm-9pm at the Wheatsheaf pub (about 2 The Canut revolt 15 minutes from bus station). Paul Edwards. Tel: NORTHEAST 01563 541138. Email:rainbow3@btopenworld. Northeast branch . Contact: Vin Maratty, 22 com Greystoke Avenue, Sunderland, Tyne and Lothian Socialist Discussion @Autonomous Wear, SR2 9DS, tel: 01915 250 002. Email: Centre Edinburgh, ACE, 17 West Montgomery [email protected]. Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA. 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Meets 2nd com Saturday of each month in the Railway AUSTRALIA Tavern, Salisbury, 2.00pm (check before Trevor Clarke, [email protected] The Socialist Party attending). Shane Roberts, 86 High Street, EUROPE 52 Clapham High Street, Bristol BS5 6DN. Tel: 0117 9511199 Denmark . Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund 9, fl oor London SW4 7UN Canterbury . Rob Cox, 4 Stanhope Road, Deal, 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby J Tel : 0207 622 3811 Kent, CT14 6AB Germany . Norbert. Luton . Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive, LU2 E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] 7LP Norway . Robert Stafford. Website : www.worldsocialism.org/spgb Redruth . Harry Sowden, 5 Clarence Villas, Email: [email protected] Blog: http://socialismoryourmoneyback. Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 1PB. Italy. Gian Maria Freddi, Via Felice Casorati blogspot.com/ Tel: 01209 219293 n. 6A, 37131 Verona Spain . Alberto Gordillo, Avenida del Parque EAST ANGLIA 2/2/3 Puerta A, 13200 Manzanares. SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS East Anglian Regional branch. Meets every should be sent to the address above. two months on a Saturday afternoon (see COMPANION PARTIES OVERSEAS RATES: One year subscription (normal rate) meetings page for details). £15. One year subscription (low/unwaged) £10. Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Billericay, CM12 Europe rate £20 (Air mail). Rest of world £25 0EX. [email protected] Socialist Party of Canada/Parti Socialiste (Air mail). Voluntary supporters subscription David Porter, Eastholme, Bush Drive, Eccles- du Canada . Box 4280, Victoria B.C. V8X 3X8 £20 or more. Cheques payable to ‘The Socialist on-Sea, NR12 0SF. Canada. Party of Great Britain’. Tel: 01692 582533. Email:[email protected] Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs Rd, World Socialist Party (India) 257 Baghajatin Hethersett, NR9 3JD. Tel: 01603 814343. ‘E’ Block (East), Kolkata - 700086, Tel: 033- The next meeting of the Executive Committee Cambridge . Andrew Westley, 10 Marksby 2425-0208, Email: [email protected] will be on Saturday 7 February at the address Close, Duxford, Cambridge CB2 4RS. World Socialist Party (New Zealand) P.O. above. Correspondence should be sent to Tel: 07890343044 Box 1929, Auckland, NI, New Zealand. the General Secretary. All articles, letters World Socialist Party of the United States and notices should be sent to the Editorial IRELAND P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA 02144 USA. Committee. Cork : Kevin Cronin, 5 Curragh Woods, Email: [email protected]

2 Socialist Standard January 2015 Introducing The Socialist Party

The Socialist Party is like no other political to make new socialists. We publish ideas across, the more experiences we party in Britain. It is made up of people who pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, will be able to draw on and greater will be have joined together because we want to DVDs and various other informative the new ideas for building the movement get rid of the profi t system and establish material. We also give talks and take part which you will be able to bring us. real socialism. Our aim is to persuade in debates; attend rallies, meetings and The Socialist Party is an organisation of others to become socialist and act for demos; run educational conferences; equals. There is no leader and there are themselves, organising democratically host internet discussion forums, make no followers. So, if you are going to join and without leaders, to bring about the fi lms presenting our ideas, and contest we want you to be sure that you agree kind of society that we are advocating elections when practical. Socialist fully with what we stand for and that we in this journal. We are solely concerned literature is available in Arabic, Bengali, are satisfi ed that you understand the case with building a movement of socialists for Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, for socialism. socialism. We are not a reformist party Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and If you would like more details about with a programme of policies to patch up Turkish as well as English. The Socialist Party, complete and capitalism. The more of you who join The Socialist return the form on page 23. We use every possible opportunity Party the more we will be able to get our socialist standard JANUARY 2015 Editorial Hopes for the New Year?

JANUARY 2015, the start of another year. Time for looking Lib Dem’s promise not to raise tuition fees comes easily to back on past failures and for promising ourselves we will mind). Sometimes the promises themselves are no more do better in the future. Do politicians indulge themselves in than convenient lies, bait to catch unwary voters, or balm this game? Perhaps they do, but if so, it would give us scant to sooth working-class anger or pacify their resistance. But reason to hope that a better future was in prospect for the when all the parliamentary squabbling and fi nger-pointing working class. is done, the fundamental underlying cause of such failures Back in 2010, the Tories promised to eliminate the structural is not the stupidity or greed or ignorance of politicians but defi cit by the next election, to be the greenest government the workings of capitalism. The economic system, a tightly- ever, and to ensure that the NHS would be ‘safe in our hands’. woven web of social and legal relationships driven by profi t, They promised a ‘Big Society’ (remember that?) which would is its own master, following its own anarchic way, ceaselessly give power back to the people and encourage individual undermining the attempts of governments and corporations to enterprise. They said they would rescue working people from tame or control it. the benefi t trap by making work pay. Later they promised Perhaps the politicians, servants of capital, eventually come to replace every council house sold with a new, ‘affordable’ to believe their own promises – it often seems that a capacity home. At the last election, did the British working class trust for self-deception is a hallmark of a successful career in the Tories and Lib Dems to keep their politicians promises? parliament. But whatever motives lurk behind politicians’ Did they believe such promises would make their lives better eyes whenever the glib promises come tumbling out of their in future? Or did they merely react against the long list of mouths, capitalism will have its way with them. And it will have failed pledges made by the previous Labour governments: its way with us, too, the working class. It was never set up to to keep debt stable, to keep infl ation down, to cut youth meet our needs or to fulfi l our hopes or dreams. It was not unemployment, to borrow only to invest, not to raise income designed to provide for the fulfi lment of humanity as a whole. tax. Did not Brown, in fact, assure us of increased prosperity; Whatever hope this new year may bring, it will not lie in the did he not tell us that he had beaten back the trade cycle and prospect of working people fi nally electing a capitalist political there would never be mass unemployment again? party that can keep its promises, for unless it is promising us Failure to keep promises is a defi ning mark of all further exploitation, confl ict and unfulfi lled hopes, such a party governments pledged to run capitalism. Sometimes such does not, and cannot, exist. failures are the result of opportunistic manoeuvring (the

Socialist Standard January 2015 3 Doing something for nothing society that laughs at the idea of working for free. In September last year Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of A NEW year ought to start with a good news story, so here’s England, stated that volunteers in Britain do the work of an one you may have seen recently – global malaria deaths are equivalent 1.2m employees, a fi gure only slightly smaller than down by 50 percent in the last ten years, according to the World the total workforce of the NHS (Economist, 12 September). Health Organisation (BBC Online, 9 December). The Offi ce of National Statistics estimates that frequent, formal In Africa, home to 90 percent of malaria fatalities, cases volunteering in the UK generates around £24 billion of economic have declined by 25 percent even though the population has output, roughly twice that of the agricultural sector. Add in increased by 43 percent. 50 percent of those at risk now have infrequent, informal types of volunteering and the total amounts mosquito nets, compared to just 3 percent ten years ago. There to £50 billion, equal to the UK energy sector (Wall Street is more diagnostic testing, more people are getting treatment, Journal blog, 12 September). Globally, voluntary work is done and a number of tropical countries have for the fi rst time been by almost a billion people, close to the population of China, and able to report and maintain zero cases. much of that in war-zones, disaster sites and disease belts. A Obviously there is much more to be done. For one thing, 2011 report by the International Red Cross commented on the many people in rural areas are still out of reach of treatment. largely volunteer-driven 2000 Many children still die unnecessarily. 43 percent of pregnant Global Polio Initiative which women receive no preventative medicine. 3.2 billion people the United Nations described remain at risk, and with global warming, disease zones are as ‘far beyond the reach of spreading north to higher latitudes. There were still around governments or international 207 million cases in 2012, with a WHO estimate of between and national organizations’ 473,000 and 789,000 deaths, mostly among the under-fi ves. (ifrc.org). At the low end of the estimate, that’s still close to one child a One way to think of minute, all year. While Bob Geldof and his band of conceited socialism is as a global and condescending millionaire celebs invite us to care as much volunteering effort, systematised as the norm rather than the as they do about the Ebola epidemic (suggested lyric: ‘Let’s all exception. Opponents of socialist ideas are very quick to argue cure it in the New Year, or else we’ll get it over here…’), malaria that in a free society where there is no property or money, has been quietly going about its business of causing around 100 people would be too lazy or selfi sh to work for free, although times more fatalities with zero media coverage. typically they never include themselves in this assessment. Even so there’s no doubt that this is a success story in What’s ironic about this mean-spirited myopia is that, with a healthcare among the world’s poor countries, and especially so present-day volunteer force approximately the size of China, in the context of a global social and economic system which is we could easily run the essential global productive services not famous for giving a monkey’s about poor people and their of socialism, right now, without a single extra person stepping problems. How come we see this rare buck in the general trend forward. To take agriculture as an example of how technology of doom and gloom? Is it just an anomaly, the exception that has made this possible, ‘From 90% of the US workforce in proves the rule? 1790, the percentage in the fi eld dropped to roughly 50% in Socialists often describe capitalism as a nasty, brutish and 1890 and is now less than 2%. Yet, the US farm production uncaring system, but this is perhaps somewhat loose and breaks records every year’ (ARK investment at seekingalpha. idiomatic talk. What we are doing is reifying and even carelessly com, 26 September). Similar productivity trends are expected anthropomorphising what is, after all, nothing more than a set of in India and China, and the same applies to manufacturing, abstract and inherited rules. It doesn’t mean that the people who where the US tops the global manufacturing tables with just live in capitalism are necessarily nasty, brutish and uncaring. 9 percent of its workforce. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics Of course, some of them are, for example the sort of money- gives 2012 fi gures of 3.9 percent for construction and just 0.6 grubbing scumbags who are responsible for the estimated 40 percent for mining, with a whopping 80 percent being employed percent of counterfeit malaria drugs now circulating in China in government or service industries, a very large proportion of and South-East Asia. But often people are quite the opposite. It which would be unnecessary in socialism (bls.gov). And there says something very positive about humans that so many are is also the matter of work inside the home. According to UN able to cope under a divisive economic system where they have statistics, ‘In all regions, women spend at least twice as much every reason to be in confl ict with each other, but somehow fail time as men on unpaid domestic work’ (unstats.un.org). Taking to turn into Hobbsean stereotypes. People care, even though these factors together, it’s obvious that in capitalism a huge capitalism says they shouldn’t because there’s no money in amount of useful and necessary work is unpaid while only a caring. They try to help, even when there’s no profi t incentive. fraction of the paid work is what could be described as useful or They pull together, even when there’s no bottom line, no cash necessary in socialist terms. As a rough calculation, if the global return, no angle. It’s not that humans are angels, but living in workforce is something like 3 billion today, and if only 20 percent capitalist economic hell you might expect to see a lot more do useful work by this defi nition, then not only could today’s devils. global volunteer force run socialism, they could do it in a 24 Scientifi cally speaking, capitalism could have wiped out hour week even if every former tax inspector, sales ‘executive’, malaria worldwide back in the mid-20th century, just as it did in benefi t advisor and check-out assistant sat back and made no the southern states of the USA and southern Europe, where it effort to help. had been endemic for centuries. This new success is therefore Far more likely of course, given their sudden liberty from not a victory for the capitalist system as such, but a victory for bosses and wage-bondage as well as a free democratic voice concerned people and groups within and despite the capitalist and free access to what was available, such people would system. Some of those groups are NGOs, some government- be falling over themselves to lend a hand, especially given backed, some private philanthropists, like the Gates Foundation. the opportunity for once to do something actually important Above all, it’s a victory for the unsung volunteers who don’t and worthwhile. Capitalism has never been able to conquer make the papers, don’t walk the red carpets and don’t release human beings’ basic sense of decency despite every effort and bleeding-heart pop songs, but who do ninety percent of the work incentive. What will happen when it is unleashed in all its force behind the scenes. can only be guessed at, and with socialism we’ll get a chance to People don’t realise how much work volunteers do, in a see it in action. PJS

4 Socialist Standard January 2015 Are Socialists Sadists?

It is two hundred years since friend Gaufridy: ‘They wanted me in the one the rich who was the the Marquis de Sade died – to put through a bestial and bloody slave of his pleasures; in the other resolution, which I couldn’t do.’ Then the unhappy victims of fortune; we examine his political ideas. toward the end of the year 1793 they and I never found in the former the came for Citizen de Sade himself. desire to be better or in the latter He was pencilled in to be guillotined the possibility of becoming so, as n 2 December 2nd, 1814 but avoided that fate by the though both classes were working Donatien Alphonse François good fortune of having for their common misery..; I saw Ode Sade, the Marquis de Sade, been transferred to the rich continually increasing died in an insane asylum. The words another prison. the chains of the poor, while ‘sadism’ and ‘sadist’ are derived from When Napoleon doubling his own luxury, his name. De Sade was incarcerated Bonaparte while the poor, insulted for about 32 years of his life became military and despised by the (including ten years in the Bastille), dictator de Sade’s other, did not even receive often without access to the courts. temporary liberty the encouragement During the French Revolution he was ended and without necessary to bear his an elected delegate to the National any trial he was burden. I demanded Convention. He was given the task of thrown into political equality and was told it was reviewing sanitation in the hospitals. prison once more, utopian; but I soon saw those These were terrible places but thanks before being sent to an who denied its possibility were to de Sade, individual beds were asylum. those who would lose by it...’ given to each and every patient, De Sade held no illusions about This is the beginning of a treatise whereas formerly one was obliged to the natural goodness of man, but on the class-war by the extremely share, sleeping alongside the dying he believed that with complete savage Bishop of Grenoble who and the dead in one bed. De Sade economic and sexual equality human declaims ‘That is the [lower] class forced the hospital authorities to conditions could be greatly bettered. that I would abandon to perpetual transform the clinics and hospitals He went far beyond the ‘advanced’ chains and humiliation ... all others into places fi t for patients. He was social thinkers of his time and even ought to join together against this also given the task of overseeing of the present day. One of his earlier abject class ... to fasten chains upon the renaming of the streets of Paris, biographers Geoffrey Gorer, who them, since they in their turn will be abolishing the Christian names, wrote The Revolutionary Ideas of the enchained if they relax.’ renaming them after republican Marquis De Sade, pointed out that On theft, de Sade wrote that heroes, for example, Rue Spartacus. Sade was in complete opposition to the oath taken by the nation with He began to challenge the efforts contemporary philosophers for both respect to the law of property is by the new masters of France to his ‘complete and continual denial of ridiculous: ‘How can you expect the sabotage democratic measures. the right to property,’ and for viewing man who has nothing to honour a But democracy was to be overtaken the struggle in late 18th century law which protects the man who has swiftly by The Terror. Unlike the French society as being not between everything? It is his duty, surely, English Jacobins (of the London ‘the Crown, the bourgeoisie, the to attempt to redress the balance!’ Corresponding Society etc), the aristocracy or the clergy, or sectional Property is itself theft, he says. The French Jacobins were not the interests of any of these against one thief proposes a law to punish theft representatives of the still weak and another’, but rather all of these ‘more against himself, the original thief, relatively new working class. They or less united against the proletariat.’ and expects those with no other represented the petite-bourgeoisie. Gorer argued, ‘he can with some recourse than theft to respect such a Only 6 percent of those passing justice be called the fi rst reasoned law! Laws against theft are therefore beneath the guillotine during the socialist.’ absurd.’ Jacobin regime were aristocrats. Socialists say that society is Gorer, in his book, explains: ‘This The rest were minor clergy and divided into two antagonistic classes, distinction of classes is founded on workers, 80 percent of victims being the haves and the have-nots. This property; and with unaccustomed manual labourers. The nascent point is so fundamental for de Sade epigrammatic terseness De Sade workers’ movement was silenced by that he stresses it in every book. defi ned property as ‘a crime Robespierre, and not later. His defi nition of class can hardly be committed by the rich against As regards prison and the death improved: ‘Don’t think that I mean the poor ... theft is only punished penalty, de Sade was opposed to by the people the caste called the because it attacks the right of every form of punishment: ‘It is tiers-etat [bourgeoisie in the limited property; but that right is in itself a far simpler to hang men than to sense]; no, I mean by the people ... theft, so that the law punishes theft fi nd out why we condemn them.’ those who can only get a living by because it attacks theft.’ Again and again he spoke for the their labour and sweat ’. In his Aline On leadership, de Sade had release of those brought before the et Valcour the good king Zamé begins this to say: ‘you can only govern tribunal, and never once would he his description of his visit to Europe men by deceiving them; one must allow himself to vote for the death by saying: be hypocritical to deceive them; penalty. Finally, having stormed ‘Everywhere I could reduce men the enlightened man will never out of the tribunal, he wrote to his into two classes both equally pitiable; let himself be led, therefore it is Continued on page 18 Socialist Standard January 2015 5 And now someone is taking his wish to become ‘defender of faith’ to all the gods seriously. Lord Harries, a former Bishop of Oxford, and a ‘leading CofE liberal thinker’ according to the Daily Mailil (28 November) suggests that Charles’s coronation DefendingD f di ththe iindefensible d f ibl service should be opened with a reading from the Koran. Unsurprisingly, many of his colleagues strongly disagree. HRH PRINCE Charles, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke In any event, one passage it may be wise to avoid will be of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Lord of the Surah 5 verse 51: ‘O ye who believ e! Take not the Jews and Isles, etc. etc. is obviously a man with a liking for job titles, and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He his collection so far is only overshadowed by the collection of among you who taketh them for friends is one of them. Lo! Allah military medals and uniforms he wears to go with them. And, guideth not wrongdoing folk’. de sp ite his less than im pr essive record of Lord Harries is sure , howeve r, any actual employment so far he’s looking that it would be ‘a creative act of forward to getting a new one. accommodation’ and make Muslims feel ‘Defender of faith’ he wants to be known ‘embraced’ by the nation. Whether some as rather than ‘Defender of the faith’when of the more extreme Islamists of Isis, for the family business, consisting of travelling example, who want an Islamic state and around the world waving at the natives, is prefer to deal with those of a differe nt fi nally handed to him. And this makes perfect persuasion by beheading them feel the sense. The current title seems to imply that need to be ‘embraced’ or have their faith there’s only one faith that needs defending, ‘defended’ by the new King Charlie of whereas of course, they’re all at each other’s the UK is another matter. throats, and so need defending from each A report on the World Bullet in website other. There’s also the fact that he and (11 November) suggests that in Egypt, his chums who collectively own the planet at least, panicking Moslems and don’t give a sod which faith the proles go Christians are being forced to join forces for, as long as they can be kept in a state of to fi ght what they see as a new danger: obedient, religious stupor by believing in one a ‘growing trend of atheism’ which of them. has ‘alarmed the country’s religious In the good old days, of course, the gods institutions’. It seems that since the 2011 were omnipotent and could easily defend uprising many young Egyptians have themselves. Thor had a ruddy g reat hammer begun to openly declare their atheist to show who was boss and Zeus was known views. for hurling thunderbolts at anyone who Strange, isn’t it, that after being crossed his path. But now, it seems, they divided for centuries by their religions need a mortal to consult with and advise it’s the rejection of religion that’s getting them on the defence of their various faiths. them together? Funny old world isn’t it? And Charlie, the man who has devoted Perhaps now that they’ve found this new so much of his life to talking to plants understanding they can tell us which god and studying quack herbal remedies is is the real one, and which the imposter. apparently uniquely qualifi ed to do it. NW Too much ado about: aeroplane takes two days – and in proved or disproved, the majority of most cases a person alleged to have Africans are still (in mentality) in the Primitive fables, such mystical powers is among the era of the Christian believers who hallucinations, dreams, poorest and cannot point to Harare, shun reality, like the condemners myths let alone London, on a map. of the Galileo Group. As such, as But after consulting some prophet Galileo said that recanting would Every race, nation, tribe had/has its such a person might be axed to never make the Earth fl at, the Jews portion of these, the Zezuru, Zulu, death. ‘Our daughter was doing very were never wrong for dismissing Xhosa, Nyanja, Sena (Southern well in England until that their witch the Christ Myth. And, like all dead Africa) are no exception but, sadly made the “visitation” … So, any people, he will not arise. In fact the unlike the Jews, Greeks, Romans etc, wonder that people who can believe catch trick (to fool weak minds, the literacy came much too late to this such silly tales are very cheap prey timid and gullible) is in (a) John region. Add the inferiority complex, to the highly propagated, highly 14:19, (b) Acts 1:6, 10, 11. the psychological defeat and awe of mystifi ed Jesus who is but forever Anyway, by saying that such the conqueror. How can the subdued, coming yesterday! The everlasting lie utterances are from God (and not timid, submissive, inferior native of course! While most Africans, due from cunning, dogmatic/despotic ever have confi dence in himself or to wishful thinking are convinced by humans) are you (Christians) not his defeated elder? Moreover, the the silly eternal lie, in Zim in 2001, at depicting the same kind of loving/ aforementioned aliens have their 3.00 o’clock on 15 June (or was it 3rd fair God as worse than a primitive myths well written down. June) and again (was it 9 December ritualist (sacrifi cing his only son to The local myths are not written 2002) at 9.00 am, the much criticised end sin which has since multiplied) down to date… our ancestors when scientists accurately forecast the a tribalist, a liar who did not even hungry, would just go under a tree, eclipse of the sun, the exact date, the know that before the 21st century clap their hands, tell the creator exact hour and duration. Which of there would be no more war of horses their needs and immediately food the biblical waffl ings has come true? and swords but missiles from the presented to them… that their Poor backward Africa! While the Pentagon, Sandhurst, Seoul etc? neighbour can go from Harare to West, Russia and China have learnt London and back within 3 hours that all phenomena considered GODWIN HATITYE, HARARE, in a rusero (winnowing tray) – an mysterious and transcendental can ZIMBABWE be mathematically and scientifi cally 6 Socialist Standard January 2015 PUBLICATIONS ORDER FORM

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Another reform goes wrong An Inconvenient Question: Socialism and The Environment...... £2.00 x____

WHEN THE Chancellor announced in his Autumn Statement What’s Wrong With Using Parliament?...... £1.00 x____ that stamp duty on buying a house was being reformed, to reduce it on most purchases while increasing it on the most Ecology and Socialism...... £1.00 x____ expensive, he claimed that this reform would benefi t 98 per- cent of house-buyers. The assumption was that as this tax From Capitalism to Socialism: how we live and how we could live....£1.00 x____ was being reduced, the price of houses would also fall. Africa: A Marxian Analysis...... £1.50 x____ The Chairman of the Offi ce for Budgetary Responsibility,

Robert Chote, however, warned ‘the reform could put up Socialism As a Practical Alternative...... £1.00 x____ prices in some areas, predicting that they would rise where the tax had fallen and fall where it had risen.’ Some Aspects of Marxian Economics...... £2.00 x____ This paradoxical effect is what happens when something for sale is taxed in a sellers’ market as one where demand How the Gods Were Made...... £1.50 x____ exceeds supply. This, in fact, is the logic behind the taxes Marxism and Darwinism by Anton Pannekoek...... £1.50 x____ on tobacco, alcohol and petrol. By regulating sales the gov- ernment creates an artifi cial sellers’ market which pushes How we Live and How we Might Live by William Morris...... £1.50 x____ up their price; it then taxes the surplus profi ts of the sellers. This situation can also arise without government interven- The Right to be Lazy and other articles by Paul Lafargue...... £2.00 x____ tion and is what Chote was predicting with regard to house prices. Marxism Revisited...... £2.00 x____ John McDermott, in his ‘Since You Asked’ column in the Socialist Principles Explained...... £2.00 x____ Financial Times (6/7 December) elaborated. He has his questioner say ‘I thought that lower taxes would mean buy- ers would pay less overall.’ To which he replies: All the above pamphlets (25% discount)...... £15.00 x____ ‘Of course prices will go up. The Offi ce for Budgetary Re- sponsibility, Britain’s fi scal watchdog, estimates that for eve- BOOKS ry 1 per cent fall in the effective rate of stamp duty, house Strange Meeting: Socialism and World War One...... £4.50 x____ prices rise 1.4 per cent, a house currently worth £300,000 would cost about £2,000 more under the new rates accord- A Socialist Life by Heather Ball...... £3.75 x____ ing to Shelter, a housing charity. When you lower transac- tion costs of any transaction, there will be more of those Are We Prisoners Of Our Genes?...... £4.75 x____ transactions. There will be lower transaction costs for 98 Socialism Or Your Money Back (reduced from £9.95)...... £4.00 x____ per cent of purchases, according to the OBR. In a market where there isn’t a lot of supply, the extra demand will push All the above books and pamphlets (25% discount)...... £20.00 x____ up prices.’ That’s how the market works. Sellers always charge what DVD the market will bear at any time, irrespective of whether the Capitalism and Other Kids’ Stuff...... £5.75 x_____ tax on what they are selling goes up or down. If the tax goes up and the market won’t bear an increase in price, Poles Apart? Capitalism or socialism as the planet heats up...... £5.75 x_____ then the tax falls on them. If, on the other hand, the tax is reduced and the market will still bear the same price as TOTAL ...... £______before, they won’t pass the reduction on but keep the whole of it for themselves. If again, as in this case, a tax reduction results in in- All prices include postage and packing. For six or more of any publication, creased demand, this means the market will bear a higher reduce the price by one third. price and the seller will increase the price. And vice versa, as with the higher stamp duty for the most expensive prop- Return this form along with your cheque or money order to: erties, this reduces demand for them forcing the seller to The Socialist Party of Great Britain, FREEPOST, London, SW4 reduce their price. 7BR, United Kingdom. This phenomenon was noted in the second issue of the (No postage necessary if mailed within the UK) Socialist Standard in October 1904 with regard to rates and the price of rented accommodation: NAME...... ‘When the Central London Railway was opened the com- petition for houses in Shepherd’s Bush increased largely, ADDRESS...... and as a consequence rents rose as much as 3s. in the ...... £. This was the limit offered for the time being, and when shortly after rates were raised by a good sum, the rents ...... remained unaltered. At West Ham, which is the most heav- City...... ily rated district in England, rents are falling, while rates are rising, owing to the decreased demand for houses.’ ...... Postcode...... In any event, taxes on items that workers consume to County...... recreate their labour-power, in so far as they increase or decrease the price of these items, exert, respectively, an PHONE (optional)...... upward or a downward pressure on wages. It’s just that, in the fi eld of housing, reforms have a habit of not working out E-MAIL (optional)...... as planned.

Socialist Standard January 2015 7 The price of oil and fracking

REVEALING DEVELOPMENTS are going on at the moment on players who wish to enter the industry as many companies the world energy market. Coal has seen its price halved in the in the UK seek to do. Wells that are already producing oil or past year. The price of oil has fallen, by more than 40 percent gas are extraordinarily profi table, because most of the costs since June, when it was $115 a barrel. It is now below $70. This are sunk. But the output of shale wells declines rapidly, by comes after nearly fi ve years of stability and some oil-producing 60-70 percent in their fi rst year, so within a couple of years countries want the OPEC cartel to restrict production so as to this oil will stop fl owing. It is far less clear if the industry can put up prices. The question being asked is why Saudi Arabia profi tably invest in new wells to maintain or boost production. hasn’t cut back production as they have done in the past. There With their revenues now dropping fast, they will fi nd themselves are, of course, a number of conspiracy theories. overstretched. A rash of bankruptcies is likely. According to the Economist, curbing output to once again Nevertheless, the global oil economy, despite the ‘green’ raise its price would benefi t Iran and Russia, which Saudi Arabia goals, will be around for several decades. As two green pundits does not want to happen. More likely, but not necessarily solely, note pertinently: the reason this is being opposed by Saudi Arabia is that it wants ‘The largest companies in the energy industry have concluded to keep the price low so as to discourage fracking. Saudi Arabia that policymakers are unlikely to act quickly enough to strand can tolerate lower oil prices quite easily for quite a while. It has their current fossil fuel assets or make it unprofi table for them $900 billion in reserves. Its own oil costs very little (around $5-6 to continue exploring for new reserves. The oil and gas sector, per barrel) to get out of the ground. Low prices stem investment in particular, is gambling on a business-as-usual model that in other sources of oil, such as Canada’s tar sands or America’s projects out to a roughly $14 trillion investment in new reserves shale, and this means more demand for low-cost ‘dirtier’ coal in by 2035. This investment would correspond to a staggering future. amount of wasted capital should policymakers decide that these The US is producing over 3 million barrels a day more reserves cannot be burned’ (thehill.com, 9 December). than it did several years ago. And it is fracking that is doing What this shows is the impossibility of a rational energy it. According to the Institute for Energy Research ‘Nearly every policy under capitalism as energy use under it refl ects the barrel of new U.S. oil production can be attributed to the use of relative prices of the various sources (coal, oil, gas, shale oil, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies.’ etc) and changes as they vary. It highlights the utopianism of In fact, the International Energy Agency has predicted that the those environmentalists who think that shaping the market is United States will produce more oil next year than Saudi Arabia; a solution. There are just too many variables, most of them the US might even pass Russia, which, at ten million barrels a market-driven. Prices of fossil fuels collapse, demand for them day, is the world’s biggest producer. The US already produces then starts to rise and the market need for alternative sources more natural gas than Russia. such as renewables falls. But when prices for fossil fuels rise Over the past four years, as the price hovered around other fossil fuel sources then become profi table. Either way $110 a barrel, US corporations set about extracting oil from there is no signifi cant reduction in the burning of fossil fuels and shale formations previously considered unviable. Their manic so no reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. drilling—they have completed perhaps 20,000 new wells since There’s also a lesson for those who want to campaign against 2010, more than ten times Saudi Arabia’s tally—has boosted the use of fracking under capitalism. They should be careful America’s oil production by a third, to nearly 9m barrels a day, what they wish for. They may get fracking slowed but not just a 1m b/d short of Saudi Arabia’s output. US domestic replaced by renewable sources as these are too costly, with a demand has apparently plateaued so this extra production is movement instead towards . . . oil and coal. going on to the world market. We can concede that the present oil price war poses more The boss of Continental Resources, Harold Hamm (whose questions than answers as the game is played. In the end, who fortune has dropped by $11 billion since July), has said he can knows how it will pan out? But, unlike those green economists, cope as long as the oil price is above $50. Stephen Chazen, we never claimed that capitalism can be predictable or offer the who runs Occidental Petroleum, has said the industry is ‘not solutions to climate change. We were never delusional enough healthy’ below $70. to believe capitalism had the answers. The pain of this competition will be borne more by those new ALJO

8 Socialist Standard January 2015 Who are you calling a pleb?

FOR MORE than three years Tirades the nation was gripped in After Cambridge Mitchell had been employed as a paralysing uncertainty. Was trader at the merchant bank Lazards, making a great that policeman, standing on deal of money for himself before becoming an MP. He guard on 19 September 2012 became notorious for his short temper and his abusive at the very centre of British government, being petulant tirades against his staff. ‘He could be cantankerous and and obstructive when he refused to allow a man with aggressive’ said one of his Ministry staff ‘...a horrible a bicycle to wheel it through the main gate? Was he person to do business with.’ Although in some cases telling the truth when he said that the cyclist abruptly ‘business’ was what he was ready to ‘do’. For example responded with a word which, even without being backed there was the situation when, according to the Tory up in abusive swearing, was cruelly offensive? Was it so journalist Simon Heffer – one of his admirers – when urgent that the cyclist should not be delayed because he he was International Development Secretary Mitchell was going to one of London’s most exclusive clubs? And agreed to some £500 million being paid to ‘consultancy’ during those three years why did so many participants fi rms which resulted in some handsome payouts within in the incident appear to change their minds about what the fi rms. All in all, it was no coincidence that when happened? he was embroiled in the stresses of Plebgate he had so little support from the other Tories (it was said that he High Court Judgment kept a list of those he considered to be unreliable in that The matter eventually came to a head with the respect) that it was inevitable that Cameron sacked him. conclusion of a libel case at the High Court in late November 2014 when Mr Justice Poverty Mitting ruled that Andrew So far Mitchell has not expanded on his concept of Mitchell MP, ex-Minister of what he calls ‘plebs’. We know that they are the lower, in International Development, ex the sense of the exploited, class in society to the extent -Government Chief Whip, had that it is permissible for ex-public school pupils to regard behaved ‘childishly’ when he them with contempt. But he told PC Toby Rowland at the overlooks the fact that other Downing Street gates that he, and members of the government the other police offi cers on duty prefer to adopt a more subtle there, were ‘fucking plebs’. The and patronising – if equally judge did not accept Mitchell’s contemptuous – attitude, defence that Rowland had made describing them as ‘hard- that up; his opinion, in the coldest Above: Andrew Mitchell. Right: Jesus College working people’, when a more appropriate term would be terms, was that Rowland was not ‘long suffering’. For example in 2011/12 according to the capable of anything so subtle and effective: he was ‘...not Joseph Rowntree Trust – who are heavily experienced in the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination this fi eld – there were 13 million of those ‘hard working’ or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an ones in poverty, with a million of them being paid below account of what a senior politician had said to him in the offi cial living wage. a temper’. So Mitchell lost his libel case, which landed him with a massive debt starting at £300,000 but which Oceania could run into millions. In this matter there is an instructive irony in George Orwell’s novel 1984, fi rst published in 1949. In his Politically Toxic bleak probe into the future, Orwell suggests a world Perhaps to emphasise the basis for his decision, Mitting divided into three super powers, constantly at war with chose to describe the word ‘Plebs’ as ‘politically toxic’. each other while ruthlessly imposing a class society That may not be universally agreed; for what about that of meticulously unrelenting exploitation. In the state adjectival word which apparently Mitchell often uses, and of Oceania the lower class is known not as ‘plebs’ but which he uttered before ‘pleb’, which may be considered ‘proles’ – the different root of which does not relieve the to be the more toxic – more aggressive, more emphatic, misery of their lives. Even the music they are allowed more friendly to being spat at a victim (one of the facts to is prepared for them at the Ministry of Truth on a kind emerge from the libel hearings was that there had been of kaleidoscope known as a versifi cator. The central 16 recorded incidents of Mitchell clashing with the police character of the book, Winston Smith, feels he is almost in Westminster, including one which involved a direct alone in being aware of the situation. It is his belief that insult). In comparison ‘pleb’ is the less pejorative word, If There Is Hope It Lies With The Proles – until he is taken easier to use in exasperation rather than anger. It is a in by the Thought Police to learn to love Big Brother. shortened version of ‘plebeian’ for the underdogs – the Purged of his expletives, Mitchell began his tirade more common people – of ancient Rome, expanded to against Rowland with the advice that ‘Best you cover anyone behaving in a coarse or vulgar manner. In learn your...place. You don’t run this...government’. the case of Mitchell there is more to it than that. He was It would indeed be progressive if the lower class in a pupil at Rugby School, where he attained the exalted society, exploited and ridiculed as plebs or proles or rank of a prefect known, for his harshly disciplinarian hard working, took heed of this advice in the sense of manner, as ‘Slasher’. Among the privileged toffs of understanding their position and the reasons for it and Rugby it was common for the non-teaching staff to be the universal problems which ensue from it. That would known, contemptuously, as plebs. At Jesus College in be the beginning of the end of all the negatives associated Cambridge, where Mitchell went after Rugby, the word with capitalist society. And it would not need a Minister was used for workers such as cleaners, porters and of the crown or a high court judge or a police offi cer. ‘townies’. IVAN

Socialist Standard January 2015 9 Little Children Suffer We examine the history and current situation regarding child labour.

abour by young children was at the heart of cheap unskilled labour power in factories, which children capitalism from the start. Factory production was could provide, and the increasing need for workers with Lpreceded by domestic industry, whereby small- some basic education in terms of literacy and numeracy. scale manufacturing took place in workers’ homes; Consequently the British Parliament introduced a this included the textile industries, where the earliest number of Factory Acts to regulate working hours for examples of factories arose. Working in their own homes, children and women, the provision of education and handloom weavers could have their children, perhaps various basic safety measures. as young as four, working alongside them. Down to The 1802 Act limited the working hours for apprentices the 1820s a cotton spinner working in a factory would and required them to receive some form of instruction. often have his wife and children working with him, thus More signifi cant was the Act of 1833, which prohibited preserving the family group. Workers generally saw this the employment of under-eighteens at night in textile last as a positive point, even in the unpleasant conditions factories. Children (defi ned as those aged nine to thirteen) of the early factories. Even after families working together could work a maximum of nine hours a day, and young in factories declined, children continued to work there. In persons (aged thirteen to eighteen) a maximum of twelve. 1851 there were 600,000 children under fi fteen working Children could not work in textile mills, except in silk in England, Wales and Scotland, including 180,000 in mills (where foreign competition was a problem). Similar textile factories, 130,000 in agriculture and 38,000 in regulations were gradually extended to other industries, mines. Toiling in such unhealthy environments naturally such as to bleaching and dyeing works in 1860. led to many children suffering health problems, such The 1870 Elementary Education Act made school as curvature of the spine, not to mention the lack of attendance compulsory in England and Wales between any decent education to speak of and little time or the ages of fi ve and thirteen, but only in areas where opportunity to play. there was a School Board which decided to introduce As a specifi c example, from 1813 George Courtauld this. In 1878 the ‘half-time’ system was set up: children employed girls, and some boys, aged ten upwards, as under ten could not be employed in factories and those apprentices at his silk mill in Braintree. They came from under thirteen were required to split their time between London workhouses, and he paid the workhouse for each school and employment. child. The children signed a contract that committed Incidentally, Karl Marx was quite keen on a them to work at the mill till they were twenty-one. The combination of work and education, mentioning that company went on to become one of the world’s largest factory inspectors felt that this made each more congenial producers of artifi cial fi bres. to the child than limiting them to just one. And he looked Child labour was generally seen (by the wealthy, at forward to ‘the education of the future, an education that least) as something entirely natural and unexceptionable, will in the case of every child over a given age, combine though various objections on moral grounds were made. productive labour with instruction and gymnastics … Others saw it as socially advantageous, since idleness the only method of producing fully developed human on the part of children was supposedly the road to beings’ (Capital, vol 1, ch 15, sec 9). Much would depend, criminality. There grew up a tension between the desire of course, on the age of the child and the kind of labour of some members of the capitalist class for abundant involved.

10 Socialist Standard January 2015 Further restrictions on children working were (this fi gure is taken from the International Labour introduced in the fi rst part of the twentieth century, Organization (ILO) website, which contains a lot of together with further requirements for education. The relevant information: www.ilo.org). In an echo of early 1918 Education Act put an end to the half-time system, capitalism, child workers mostly take part in unpaid work though not immediately. In 1935 the Conservative for their family, rather than being in paid employment. In government produced an Education Bill that would sub-Saharan Africa, roughly one child in four is a child raise the school leaving age from fourteen to fi fteen; labourer. Furthermore, child labour is in no way confi ned but it allowed children to leave at fourteen if they had to the poorest countries; one estimate from 2000 was ‘benefi cial’ employment. Many poorer workers needed that 300,000 children were working illegally in the US, the wages of their fourteen-year-old children, while many and 2.5 million globally in ‘developed countries’, though employers wanted the cheap labour power involved. One such fi gures have to be taken with a large pinch of salt. MP, the Duchess of Atholl, noted in the parliamentary In addition many child workers in developing countries debate on the bill that some work in textile factories work in effect for multinational companies, often via required ‘small fi ngers’, and that excluding fourteen- subsidiaries much earlier in the supply chain. year-olds would mean ‘placing a very serious handicap on one of our most important export industries … not one of our great commercial competitors in Europe has raised the school-leaving age to 15’. The Second World War prevented implementation of the Act, and children left school at fourteen until 1947. In the early fi fties there were some proposals to put the leaving age back to fourteen again, but nothing came of these. It was eventually raised to sixteen in 1972. And what of the current situation? It might be thought that children toiling in sweatshops and so on is a thing of the past. After all, even those who want an absolute minimum Left: child labour in of government interference in the modern India. Below: economy will generally agree that 18th century mill laws prohibiting child labour are workers. Right: child acceptable. Surely capitalism in miners, 19th century

Over half of the 168 million are in hazardous work, defi ned as work which ‘jeopardises the physical, mental or moral well-being of a child, either because of its nature or because of the conditions in which it is carried out’. The very worst forms include traffi cking, debt bondage, compulsory recruitment to armies, prostitution, pornography and drug smuggling. Even mining and quarrying still employ around a million children, working deep underground in tiny tunnels, pounding boulders or using toxic substances such as mercury; this is primarily in informal, small- scale, often family-based operations. An ILO report from 2007 found that girls did not take part in underground extraction work, but could be used to transport rubble and pan for precious stones or gold. In Peru some girls as young as ten could work twelve hours a day in bars that served the mining community, leaving them open to physical and sexual abuse. The ILO runs an International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, which has the goal of ending the worst forms by 2016, but it is accepted that even this limited aim will not be met. The ILO has promulgated various conventions on child labour, and many countries have ratifi ed these, but of course this does not imply that any signifi cant action will be undertaken. In October 2013 the Third Global Conference on Child Labour was held in Brasilia: this produced a Declaration which noted that ‘child labour impairs the realisation of children’s rights and its eradication constitutes an important issue for development and human rights’. It speaks further of encouraging this and promoting that and strengthening the twenty-fi rst century has no need to employ children? something else, but it fails to recognise that child labour In fact, globally child labour remains widespread. and its associated horrors will continue as long as global The minimum age for employment varies across capitalism enforces widespread poverty, employers countries, being as low as fourteen in some places, with benefi t from the employment of children, and the poorest eighteen as a common minimum for hazardous work. workers and peasants have to resort to putting children But legal requirements are often ignored in the name to work in an attempt to relieve their own poverty. of profi t. Though the number is declining, 168 million PAUL BENNETT children are reportedly still involved in child labour

Socialist Standard January 2015 11 The war in Gaza The concluding part of our series on capitalism’s ongoing wars

he Israeli-Palestine war destroyed (Ma’an News Agency, 5 cows and camels. The FAO report in Gaza last year was yet August 2014). The tunnels between went on to say ‘The recent fi ghting Tanother round of fi ghting in Gaza and Egypt which were bringing has resulted in substantial direct a confl ict that began in 1948 when $700 million into Gaza’s economy damage to Gaza’s 17,000 hectares the state of Israel was established. through goods or services were of crop lands as well as much of its The Palestinians have no chance destroyed by bombing. agricultural infrastructure, including whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel destroyed 134 Gazan greenhouses, irrigation systems, Israel. Israel’s economic might with factories, and bombed Gaza’s main animal farms, fodder stocks and its GDP of around $110 billion power station. Without power to fi shing boats’ ( Ma’an News Agency, overshadows the Palestinian GDP of run treatment plants, untreated 16 August 2014). Gaza factory owner $4.2 billion. sewage was dumped directly into the Mohammad al-Telbani said ‘This is a In the 50-day military operation Mediterranean Sea contaminating war on our economy’ (Guardian, 22 by Israel against the Palestinian fi sh and sickening fi shermen. The August 2014). people in Gaza in July to September Food and Agriculture Organization 2014, 2,199 Gazans were killed, 70 reported that extensive damage to Capitalist development percent of them civilians, 10,895 Gaza’s agricultural sector had ‘forced Palestinian capitalist development were wounded and 65,000 people left farmers and herders to abandon in Gaza is fettered by the Israeli homeless. A third of hospitals were their lands and has paralysed state. The Gaza Strip was occupied destroyed or damaged. Mufeed al- fi shing activities, bringing local food by Israel from 1967 until 2005 but Hasayneh, Minister of Public Works, production to a halt and severely has been under siege by Israel since said Israel’s offensive on Gaza has affecting livelihoods.’ Losses among then. Gaza has a population of 1.8 caused over $5 billion of damage Gaza’s fi shing sector were estimated million Palestinians, and over half to homes and infrastructure. Some at 234.6 tons, or about 9.3 percent of these are children who live in one 10,000 homes have been completely of the yearly catch. Farming gives a of the most densely populated areas destroyed, and 30,000 homes livelihood to 19,000 Gazans, while in the world. The Israeli blockade partially destroyed. In Shujaiyya, 6,000 people work in livestock raising means the borders and airspace are where some 110,000 people live, 60 and 3,600 in the fi shing industry. controlled by Israel so that foodstuffs, percent of the homes were completely The Israeli military also killed building materials, fuel and medical

12 Socialist Standard January 2015 supplies have to be brought in via and Israeli companies. Israel is the most economically and tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. The founders of the Israeli state socially developed capitalist nation Even livestock is transported through in 1948 forced into exile about state in the Middle East with a large these tunnels. The fi shing industry 800,000 Palestinian people in working class. It is a bourgeois is restricted to within 3 km of land what is known as the ‘Al-Naqba’ or democracy but also a sectarian and thus 85 percent of its fi shing ‘catastrophe’ which was compounded state. Israeli capitalism not only waters are inaccessible due to Israeli in 1967 when a further 325,000 exploits the Jewish working class imposed restrictions. As for farmland Palestinians became refugees. The but also a Palestinian working class 35 percent of Gaza’s farmland is 1948 UN Resolution 194 states and migrant labour. Palestinians inaccessible, and farmers are unable Palestinians have the right to in the state of Israel comprise 20 to get pesticides, fertilizers needed for return to their homes. Today over 6 percent of the population and face their crops or permits from the Israeli million Palestinians live as refugees, discrimination, and are considered government to export what they hundreds of thousands of whom still to be second class citizens because the very defi nition of a Jewish state excludes them. According to the OECD ‘21 percent of Israelis live in poverty, the highest among developed countries that are part of the OECD’ (Haaretz, 15 May 2013). At the bottom of the economic pyramid are the African migrants from Eritrea and the Sudan who cannot legally work but are used as cheap labour in hotel, restaurant and cleaning companies, and when arrested are put in detention centres such as the one in the Negev desert. Next there are the Bedouin Arabs who live in unrecognized villages unconnected to water and electricity systems. The 2005 National Insurance Institute reported that 52 percent of Palestinians in Israel lived Above: Palestinian refugees in 1948. below the poverty line as opposed to Right: how the Dead Sea has dried up 16 percent of Jewish Israelis, and from 1972 to 2011 unemployment averages more than 50 percent for Palestinians (Sawt manage to produce. el-Amel: The Laborer’s Voice, 2006). Even the historical symbol of the In 2011, the average monthly salary Levant, the olive tree, has come of Ashkenazi Jews was 33 percent under attack from the Israeli state. above the average, whereas the Thousands of olive trees have been monthly salary for urban Palestinian cut down, devastating the Palestinian citizens was the exact opposite: 33 economy, and some of the ancient percent below the average (Oligarchy trees are dug up and transported in the Holy Land, 3 December 2013). to Israel and abroad for sale. The The Palestinian struggle for their Palestinian Independent Commission own capitalist state was controlled for for Human Rights reports that decades by Fatah and the Palestine ‘since 1967 Israeli authorities have Liberation Organization (PLO) which uprooted or destroyed more than are bourgeois, secular, ‘leftist’ Pan- one and a half million trees, 70 live in overcrowded refugee camps Arab nationalists but they came to percent of which were olive trees, in the West Bank and Gaza, and in a dead end after years of confl ict the staple crop of Palestinian rural Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. with the Israeli state. In the 1990s communities’ (Middle East Monitor, Fatah collaborated with the Israeli 2010). Olives are the lifeblood of Zionism government which would lead to the Palestinian agriculture, almost the Emma Goldman in her 1938 work rise of Hamas in Gaza. Essentially only crop which grows on the stony On Zionism identifi ed ‘Zionism as the the Palestinian Authority controlled hillsides of the West Bank without dream of capitalist Jewry the world by Fatah could not meet the basic irrigation. Palestinian agriculture over for a Jewish State with all its economic needs of the Palestinian and people have always depended trimmings, such as Government, people, and this led to the success on the water of lakes and springs laws, police, militarism and the of Hamas in the Gazan elections of in the fertile hills of the West Bank rest. In other words, a Jewish State 2006. as well as the Jordan river. Since machinery to protect the privileges 1967, these water sources have been of the few against the many.’ The Hamas taken into the control of Israel, which founders of Israel sought to expel Hamas, also a bourgeois nationalist has drained lakes near Tiberias and as much of the Arab majority as organization, was established in rerouted the Jordan river to take the they could and make their profi ts 1987, and proposes an Islamist water to Israel. One of the results by creating an almost all-Jewish capitalist Palestinian state based is the drying up of the Dead Sea. working class in the mistaken belief on a 1947 Palestine. Hamas is an Palestinians are now having to buy ‘it is better to be exploited by one’s abbreviation for ‘Islamic resistance back their water from settlements fellow countrymen’ (Marx 1848). movement’ but also means ‘force

Socialist Standard January 2015 13 and bravery’ and has its origins in and Fatah, to isolate Hamas and public awareness of the minority the Muslim Brotherhood movement. punish Fatah for the rapprochement? ownership of the economy developing. Hamas are not only anti-Zionist But even Fatah entered the confl ict For instance, in 2009 Israel’s central but also anti-Semitic, and are in July 2014 with missiles launched bank stated in its annual report that trying to bridge the divide that against Israel by Fatah in the West ‘some twenty business groups, nearly separated Palestinian nationalism Bank. Amin Maqboul, Secretary- all of family nature and structured and Islamism, a twin track policy of General of Fatah’s Revolutionary in a pronounced pyramid form, a national liberation struggle and a Council said Palestinians were continue to control a large proportion jihad which aims ‘to raise the banner united against the Israeli assault: of public fi rms (some 25 per cent of of Allah over every inch of Palestine’ ‘We all know that the main Israeli fi rms listed for trading) and about (Covenant of the Hamas, 1988). goal has been to break up the half of market share’ (Renewal: A Hamas are wealthy because they national unity reconciliation. We will journal of social democracy, January have rich backers from Saudi Arabia respond by strengthening our unity 2012). and other Gulf states such as Qatar. and reconciliation’ (Palestine Pulse, The summer 2011 social justice

IDF tanks near the border with the Gaza 10 July 2014). Israel’s anger was protests that erupted helped unite Strip on August 2, 2014 evident when it said ‘The moderate the Jewish and Palestinian working The Palestinian working class are Palestinian leadership has shown class in Israel. Jewish working organized in the Palestine General its true colours. It sides with the class activists signed a covenant Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) terrorists, not with Israel’ (Arutz of cooperation with the Palestinian which is a Fatah organization that Sheva, 16 July 2014). activists and they chanted mixed has not had any elections since After the war last summer, in Hebrew and Arabic renditions of 1981. The rise of the Federation of September 2014 Fatah and Hamas slogans from Tahrir Square. Arab Independent and Democratic Trade reached an agreement that would writer Odeh Bisharat addressed Unions & Workers’ Committees in turn over the civil administration a meeting of 300,000 people and Palestine, representing workers in of Gaza immediately to offi cials of announced that the struggle for independent, democratically-elected a Palestinian unity government social justice has always been the unions and workers’ committees which would attempt to ease the struggle of the Arab community, across the West Bank and Gaza has long blockade of Gaza by Israel and the people shouted ‘Jews and threatened the Fatah PGFTU. After and Egypt and open the way to Arabs refuse to be enemies’ (The New a protest outside the Palestinian reconstruction of Gaza. Jibril Rajoub, Signifi cance, 17 August 2011). For a Legislative Council in Gaza in 2005, a senior offi cial in Fatah announced brief time that summer the the PGFTU asked the Palestinian ‘Fatah and Hamas have reached a Israeli and Palestinian working security services to investigate the comprehensive agreement for the class saw itself as a class. Independent Workers’ Committees unity government to return to the Emma Goldman claimed the origin Federation and the Democracy and Gaza Strip’ (Al-Arabiya, 25 September of the Arab-Israeli war stemmed from Workers’ Rights Center. 2014). the fact that ‘the Arab feudal lords The split in the Palestinian had sold the land to the Jews without bourgeoisie between Fatah and Nationalism divides the knowledge of the Arab people.’ Hamas suits the Israeli state but in Both Zionism and Palestinian Goldman concluded that ‘the land April 2014 Israel became very angry nationalism hold back the growth should belong to those who till the at the reconciliation deal agreed of class consciousness among the soil’, in other words, the Jewish and between Fatah and Hamas, and working class in Israel and Palestine Palestinian working class regardless threatened to withhold tax revenues but something extraordinary of religion and national identity it collects on behalf of the Palestinian occurred in the summer of 2011 in a socialist society of common Authority. Was the offensive against during the social justice protests in ownership and democratic control. Gaza last year an Israeli attempt to Israel inspired by the ‘Arab Spring.’ STEVE CLAYTON sabotage the deal between Hamas In Israel there was an increasing

14 Socialist Standard January 2015 A page of history: the 1834 Canut revolt in Lyon

ast year was the 180th anniversary of the 1834 Canut Lrevolt in Lyon. Engels had described the earlier Canut revolt in 1831 as ‘the fi rst working-class rising’ (Socialism: Utopian and Scientifi c ) in the early years of the modern capitalist period. In October last year the OECD released its study How Was Life? Global Well- Being Since 1820 which concluded that ‘global income inequality has returned to levels recorded in the 1820s – when the Industrial Revolution produced sizeable wealth gaps between the rich and poor’ (Common Dreams, 2 October). This study was shortly followed by the slogan ‘Enrichessez-vous’ (Enrich The Lyonnais silk weavers were Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report yourselves) from ‘Enrichissez-vous known as ‘Canuts’ which probably 2014 which stated that ‘the richest par le travail, par l’epargne et par la derives from ‘ca nette’, a spool used 1 percent of the world’s population probit’ (Enrich yourselves by work, in silk weaving. The Canuts worked own more than 48 percent of global saving and probity’ (Liberty-Tree. on huge Jacquard mechanical looms wealth’ (Guardian, 14 October). ca ), and artist Honoré Daumier in poor working conditions largely It is said that modern capitalism caricatured the bourgeoisie in the Croix-Rousse neighbourhood. was born in 1825 after Britain perceiving the meanness and The Jacquard loom was introduced revoked its law against joint-stock mediocrity of the bourgeois class. after 1801 and greatly benefi ted silk companies (the 1720 Bubble Act), Marx pointed out that ‘the July production although for the worker Britain had gone on the Gold monarchy was nothing other than it was expensive and enormous: it Standard in 1821, the business a joint stock company for the needed its own building with extra cycle began, and the ‘Panic of 1825’ exploitation of France’s national high ceilings and reinforced fl oors. was the start of modern economic wealth’ (The Class Struggles in The Canut lived and worked in the cycles and crises. It was the fi rst France) while republican Lamartine same building as the loom, and the international economic crisis worried that ‘the proletarian question weaver bore the costs of maintaining occurring in peacetime. is one that will cause the terrible the loom. There were about 8,000 Capitalism imprisoned the working explosion in present-day society, if chief weaving craftsmen (Canuts), class in either workhouses, the society and government decline to and 30,000 apprentices, women, and ‘bastilles of the proletariat’ or in fathom and resolve it’ (War and Peace errand boys who lived and worked the factory described by Marx as in an Age of Upheaval). with the Canuts, everybody working ‘The House of Terror... realised a 14 to 18 hours a day in buildings few years later in the shape of a Silk Weavers lacking ventilation. gigantic Workhouse for the industrial In Lyon, the second city of France, The Lyonnais bourgeois class of worker... called the Factory’ (Capital). the main industry was textiles silk manufacturers and bankers The 1832 ‘Great’ Reform Act did not in particular the silk weaving were known as ‘fabricants’ and extend the franchise to the working industry which had begun in numbered about 1,400. They, class, and when on 16 October Lyon in the fi fteenth century, and through the ‘Fabrique’ governed the 1834 (180 years ago) the Palace of would become the capital of the Lyonnais silk trade, and contracted Westminster (House of Commons) European silk trade. By the middle with the Canuts for a specifi c order burned down, the people cheered in of the seventeenth century over or per price. The Fabrique had the street. 14,000 looms were in use in Lyon a raft of anti-worker regulations In France at this time during Louis spinning the silk from the silk such as in wage disputes, the Philippe’s reign of 1830-48, a very worms in the mulberry trees grown employer’s word was taken without small portion of the bourgeoisie ruled in the departments of Drôme, Gard, question while workers had to prove the kingdom, the July monarchy gave Vaucluse, and Ardèche. By 1830 wrongdoing, and also associations freedom to the industrial, commercial Lyon had a population of 133,000 (ie. trade unions) of more than 20 and fi nancial bourgeoisie, enriching people, of which 25 percent worked workers were prohibited. One hated the bourgeoisie and attacking the in the ‘Fabrique’. Silk and silk-related regulation was that ‘each worker was working class who were attempting products accounted for half of Lyon’s required by law to carry a booklet to organise themselves. Greed was total commercial income and a third called a ‘livret’, in which his or her at the heart of French capitalism of the value of all French exports. employer kept notes on the terms typifi ed in Prime Minister Guizot’s of service, personal conduct, debts

Socialist Standard January 2015 15 bourgeoisie sought to lower the wages of the Canuts which caused a general strike in Lyon in February 1834. The Canut leaders of employees’ benevolent associations such as Medailles de la Societe de Secours Mutuels des Ouvriers de Sole (Silkworkers Provident Society) were arrested and sent for trial in April.

Bloody repression At the same time as the Canut leaders were on trial, the French parliament was discussing restrictions on republican groups, collective bargaining and the rights of association for workers. This anti-working class legislation Canuts workshop c.1830 was passed on 9 April 1834. On the same day the Canuts etc’ (Silk in Lyons Erika Budde). The d’Argout, Governor of the Bank of took over parts of Lyon, Fabrique also wanted to abolish France to write to the King: ‘the erecting barricades, raiding the the professional requirements manufacture is in a state of simply barracks and taking arms from (apprenticeships) to be a ‘master fabulous prosperity’ (Guy Antonetti the arsenal. The National Guard weaver’ so anyone who could afford a Louis-Philippe). The Lyonnais were forced to evacuate the town. loom could become one. The Canuts had a thriving working class culture with a great emphasis on education; ‘by the late 1700s, 70 percent of male silk workers were literate’ (Budde), and Lyon had two workers newspapers. Marx wrote that ‘the working-class, stunned at fi rst by the noise and turmoil of the new system of production, recovered, in some measure, its senses, its resistance began’ (Capital). In 1831 there was competition from imported English silk which led to price decreases, the economy was in a downturn, and the Canuts struggled to maintain an adequate standard of living. The Canuts wanted a minimum price for silk which was refused by the Lyonnais bourgeoisie. In October 1831 the Canuts seized the arsenal and repulsed the local National Guard with a slogan of ‘vivre libre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant!’ (live free working or die fi ghting!). This was the fi rst working class uprising in modern capitalism. The revolt was quickly suppressed by Napoleonic offi cer Marshal Soult with 20,000 soldiers, and with little bloodshed. Engels identifi ed that ‘the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front’ (Socialism: Utopian and Scientifi c ). The Lyonnais bourgeoisie refused to set a tariff, a fi xed minimum, statutory wage for the Canut silk weavers which they had had during the Napoleonic Empire. In 1833- 34 the Lyonnais silk industry was booming, and Canut wages had increased which led the Comte Canuts Jacquard loom

16 Socialist Standard January 2015 The Canuts adopted the French military fi ght, resistance becomes longer saw behind it the ‘people’ Republican Calendar, 9 April 1834 madness.’ but rebels, subversives, plunderers, becoming Germinal 22, Year XLII of levellers, the scum of society; the the Republic in homage to the 1789 Engels on street fi ghting offi cer had in the course of time great bourgeois French Revolution. Engels summarised the nineteenth become versed in the tactical forms of This revolution did not solve the century of working class street street fi ghting, he no longer marched socio-economic problems facing the fi ghting in his 1895 Introduction straight ahead and without cover working class in France. The Canut to Marx’s The Class Struggles in against the improvised breastwork, revolt was not a political revolt France: ‘rebellion in the old style, but went round it through gardens, but an economic one, at this time street fi ghting with barricades, which yards and houses.’ the franchise being limited to the decided the issue everywhere up to In the same essay Engels saw bourgeois class. 1848, had become largely outdated... ‘with this successful utilization of The bourgeois class strategy under everywhere the bourgeoisie had universal suffrage, however, an the leadership of Thiers, the Interior thrown in its lot with governments... entirely new method of proletarian Minister, was to abandon Lyon to and feasted the military moving struggle came into operation, and the Canut rebels, surround it and against insurrection. The barricade this method quickly took on a more then retake it, a tactic again used had lost its magic; the soldier no tangible form’ with organised working by Thiers against the working class political parties such as class in the 1871 Paris Commune. the German Social Democratic Thiers was a resolute enemy Party, and from 1904 the Socialist of the working class, described Party of Great Britain. Since eloquently by Marx as ‘that control of parliament is obtained monstrous gnome, [who] has via elections based on universal charmed the French bourgeoisie suffrage, a socialist majority can for almost half a century, because win control of the machinery of he is the most consummate government and the state through intellectual expression of their own winning a parliamentary majority class corruption... consistent only via the ballot box. The state is in his greed for wealth and his the institution with the power hatred of the men that produce it’ Barricades, Berlin, 1848 to employ socially-sanctioned (The Civil War in France). Thiers physical force, it is an expression had Lyon subjected to artillery of and enforcer of class society. bombardment then had the army On the eve of a socialist election retake the town between 11 and victory, the working class would 15 April during what became already be convinced of the need known as ‘sanglante semaine’ for socialism and would have (bloody week). The Canut revolt organised themselves in parties, was crushed with 600 workers, unions, councils and other men, women and children killed bodies ready to keep production by the army and police and 10,000 and administration going, and workers imprisoned or deported to socialist ideas would also have the colonies. penetrated into the armed forces. The bourgeois class were just If die-hard capitalists attempted a practising their revenge on the Barricades, Prague, 1848 coup against a socialist majority, working class which would fi nd the armed forces would tend to fulfi lment in the 1848 June Days side with those who have the in Paris when 10,000 workers undisputed democratic legitimacy, were either killed or injured, ie. those who want socialism. while over 4,000 were deported to Even anarchists concede that Algeria. All this pales compared ‘the majority of military personnel to the suppression of the 1871 are working class, and however Paris Commune when 30,000 indoctrinated they are, we doubt communards were killed by a that they will be prepared on the vicious bourgeoisie. The capitalist whole to shoot down their friends, class is ruthless when they feel neighbours and relatives’ (Beyond threatened in their minority Resistance). ownership of property and capital. As socialists we remember The Canut revolt of 1834 as the the working class struggles of fi rst major working class uprising Barricades, Bangkok, 2010 yesteryear such as the Canut in modern capitalism signifi es revolt of 1834. Slavoj Žižek that ‘philosophy fi nds its material paraphrasing Walter Benjamin weapon in the proletariat’ (Marx, says ‘the authentic revolution A Contribution to the Critique of is not only directed towards the Hegel’s Philosophy of Right) but the future but it redeems the past lessons of the 1834 Canut revolt failed revolutions. All the ghosts were not learned by the working as it were; the living dead of class for several decades. Engels the past revolution, which are pointed out in a letter to Paul roaming around, unsatisfi ed Lafargue of 11 March 1892 that will fi nally, fi nd their home’ ( The ‘the era of barricades and street Perverts’ Guide to Ideology). fi ghting has gone for good; if the Barricades, Donetsk, 2014 STEVE CLAYTON

Socialist Standard January 2015 17 From page 5 necessary to deprive him of enlightenment to lead him as we want ...’ Elsewhere, he says ‘Politics, which teach men to deceive their equals without being deceived themselves, that science born of falseness and ambition, which the statesman calls a Pie-crust pie-chart virtue, the social man a duty, and the honest man a vice ...’ DID YOU get one? The government propaganda sheet, that is, Religion is summed up by his view ‘When the sent to some 24 million people recorded as paying income tax or strong wished to enslave the weak he persuaded national insurance on ‘How your tax was spent in 2013-14’. him that a god had sanctifi ed the chains with which What stood out – and what you were expected to see standing he loaded him, and the latter, stupefi ed by misery, out – was a huge slice of a pie-chart for ‘welfare’. It amounts, believed all he was told.’ Blasphemy can only exist if if you do the arithmetic (which the propaganda sheet doesn’t), God exists. If there is no God, then blasphemy and to a quarter of the whole pie. How terrible, we are supposed to all other ‘religious crimes’ are likewise non-existent. conclude, all that money going on welfare for scroungers who are So how can you have laws against them? If one, too lazy to work. on the other hand, believes in a God, can he really However, imagine for a moment that we are living in a rationally- believe his God to be so petty as to take offence organised society, one geared to meeting people’s needs, and that at being calumnied? Such a God isn’t worthy of the pie-chart was measuring not money spent but real resources honour’. used. ‘Welfare’ would then be the goods and services consumed De Sade also condemned war, which he said sent by or for certain people to ensure that they ‘fared well’. But who are the wrong message to those abroad whom we would they? wish likewise to follow our example and liberate The government propaganda sheet doesn’t help but the Institute themselves. It is not our job to make war on them, for Fiscal Studies does, in an article on their website ‘What is but to show them through our peaceful example welfare spending?’ (www.ifs.org.uk/publications/742). They break what a free republic can and ought to be. He claimed the 25 percent into ‘personal social services’ for people in care war is simply public and authorised murder, in (4 percent), public service pensions (3 percent), other benefi t which hired men slaughter one another in the spending on pensioners (4 percent) and other benefi t spending on interests of tyrants: ‘The sword is the weapon of him those of working age (14 percent). who is in the wrong, the commonest resource of So, 11 percent of the pie is going to people who have retired ignorance and stupidity.’ from work or people needing to be cared for, children and As mentioned, de Sade was no supporter of capital the disabled as well as the elderly. What’s wrong with that? A punishment. He wrote: ‘The state publicly honours rationally-organised society would certainly cater for the needs of those profi cient in murder and encourages them. Yet people in this position and devote resources to this, in fact more it punishes the man who disposes of his enemy for a than today though allocated on the basis of need and as of right personal reason!’ As for the death penalty, he writes: rather than fi nal or average salary or pensions contributions (if ‘Either murder is a crime, or it is not. If it is not, why only because nobody would be working any longer for a wage or a punish it? If it is, then by what perverse logic do you salary). punish it by the same crime?’ It also is tantamount That leaves 14 percent of the pie going to people under to bad arithmetic, since ‘now two people are dead retirement age, but some of this will be going to people who are instead of one!’ disabled or who are temporarily sick. That would still happen in a De Sade thought the greatest causes of misery society geared to meeting people’s needs. As to the able-bodied were four things; private property, class distinctions, unemployed, they would no longer exist as everybody would be religion and family life. In the future societies free to contribute work to society instead of being forced to be he wrote of these institutions being abolished or part of capitalism’s industrial reserve army or be included in the transformed. In one section of Aline and Valcour, a 6 percent rate of unemployment that economists say is ‘natural’ brutal African kingdom is contrasted with the Pacifi c under the market system. island utopian paradise of Tarnoé. He describes an But back to capitalism where what the pie-chart is showing is imaginary island where all priests were banished, how capitalism distributes some of society’s resources. Three there were no temples and no vested interest in other slices of the pie, amounting to nearly 17 percent, stand out religion. There were also no professional lawyers and as waste: national debt interest (7 percent), defence (5.3 percent) discussion of theology or law was punished as one and criminal justice (4.4 percent). Talking of scroungers who of the gravest anti-social crimes. There was also no contribute nothing, a good example is the capitalist holders of money. the national debt who are getting a much larger income than Job Wherever you look in the world today you will fi nd Seekers Allowance without having to work. The remaining nearly 9 a parasitical minority suffering an embarrassment percent goes to maintain the coercive part of the state machinery, of riches while the toiling masses endure real which would not need to exist in socialism (for that’s the rationally- and unnecessary pain as very much part of their organised society we’re talking about) where only the non-coercive everyday lives. The Marquis de Sade would fi nd and non-fi nancial parts many examples of this obscenity in today’s class of central administration Latest from Canada divided society. De Sade may not have been a would continue. So, what the socialist as we would now defi ne one, but a man of Fall 2014 his times, though he perhaps ought be remembered government propaganda far more for raising important social questions than sheet is unwittingly issue raising erections through his masturbatory sexual showing is how £2 inc p&p fantasies. capitalism wastes from Head ALJO society’s resources and Offi ce, 52 is not geared to meeting Clapham people’s needs, ie. not For more information see: A Brief Account of the Life High Street, of the Marquis De Sade by Anthony Walker catering for everybody’s London SW4 http://www.sade-ecrivain.com/docs/sade.html welfare. Thanks, Mr Osborne. 7UN

18 Socialist Standard January 2015 MI XED Sociologists have described the Romani as usually Our Big Land engaging in self-employment rather than the more MEDIA common wage-labour of capitalist society, sometimes Our Big Land by Romani writer Dan claiming ‘the Gypsies history is also the history of their Allum was directed by Amy Hodge last refusal to be proletarianised’ (Judith Okely The Traveller- year at the Oval House Theatre in Kennington, London. It Gypsies), but Gypsies could also be classifi ed as ‘petty- is a brutal, bloody and beautiful drama, a ‘mystical, dark, bourgeois’ under the Marxist defi nition as they work epic poem’ according to Allum (InSuffolk, 14 February independently yet are ‘dependent on a wider economy 2014) which centres on the ‘bauro diklo’, a sacred within which they circulate supplying goods, services storytelling/fortune-telling shawl passed from mothers to and occasional labour’ (Okely). It is also important to daughters which symbolises Romani spirit and culture. point out that ‘Gypsies enter the market without the The Romani matriarch Oceania is played by Robyn protections afforded non-Gypsies, often working in the Moore who was memorable in 2003-04 in the working alternative economy in casual employment’ (Brian Belton, class TV soap opera EastEnders. Her son Roman is Questioning Gypsy Identity: Ethnic Narratives in Britain). played by Samuel Edward-Cook, and Sophie, the Gadje Oceania, Roman, and Sophie later face eviction from (non-Romani) house dweller who is drawn into the world their land with bulldozers at the gate which evokes the of the Romani as a child, is played by Scarlett Brookes. tribulations of the Irish Traveller community at Dale Allum puts women at the central place of the narrative as Farm in Essex who had lived there from the 1980s to the Oceania perceives in Sophie a ‘gypsy heart’, and we see 2011 eviction by bailiffs and riot police. The Dale Farm Sophie grow from a girl to become a strong woman. eviction took place at the same time as capitalist media Allum was inspired by the memory of ‘when I was stereotyping and misrepresentation of the Romani and the Irish Traveller community in ‘reality’ programmes such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. This prompted Billy Welch, spokesman for the Romani to say ‘While Channel 4 should be praised for at least differentiating between Irish Travellers and Romani Gypsies, the fi rst three episodes have in fact focused exclusively on Irish Travellers and their traditions: They called the show Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and you’ve yet to see a Romani Gypsy in it’ (Guardian, 7 February 2011). Allum’s play is defi ant and proud with Oceania declaring ‘the Romani Nation won’t bend or break.’ The Romani people need their strength to combat the hostility of capitalist society; at the 2012 Tory Party conference, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles demonised Romani and Traveller communities when he vowed to ‘stop caravans in their tracks’ (Guardian, 12 October 2012). In August 2013 Pickles declared ‘I want all councils a kid we used a camp in Essex and in the wood was a to be ready to take action straightaway to stop illegal traveller mother and – no father. They wouldn’t mix with camps and unauthorised sites’ (Inside Housing, 9 the travellers and non-travellers. It was quite mysterious, August 2013). This follows the scrapping of diversity and I never forgot about them’ (Oval House programme and equality guidance so that Romani and Travellers February 2014). can be persecuted. It has been identifi ed that ‘there is a During the early part of the play we hear the cautionary recognised national shortage of legal pitches for Gypsies petty-bourgeois nursery rhyme for children; ‘My mother and Travellers’ (Inside Housing, 9 August 2013). said never to play with the gypsies in the woods and if I Our Big Land is clearly opportune, what with Pickles did she would say, naughty girl to disobey.’ The Romani declaring war on the Romani, and also the Tory live in the forest apart from bourgeois society. Oceania government and UKIP opposition to eastern European refers to ‘keys for a cage’ which symbolise the capitalist (aka Romani) immigration. And, in essence, the fetish for home ownership and private property. persecution of the Romani is ‘camoufl aging the failures Bourgeois society fears the Romani, and the woods or of capitalism, particularly in times of economic slump, forests where they live come to have supernatural powers by seeking out scapegoats’ (Socialist Standard, January which frighten bourgeois sensibilities. In Nathaniel 2014). Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter set in Boston, STEVE CLAYTON Massachusetts in the 1640s, the woods for the Puritans become a symbol of darkness where the devil and his witches reside. The woods are the only place that Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne can meet away from the stern, repressive laws of Protestant society. Protestantism was a result of developing capitalism and was its ideological justifi cation. Oceania is dismissive when Sophie appears in her school uniform; ‘uniforms are for prisons’ and later says ‘How can you understand freedom, when you’ve never had it?’

Socialist Standard January 2015 19 Book Reviews Worse is better? which he oxymoronically calls to support a family back home or ‘market socialism.’ Actually, it’s not to pay off the debts of those who Things are Going to Get quite a return to those days as one were smuggled here illegally. As one Worse and Why We Should be of the things he wants governments madam tells Pai, ‘No one would do Glad. By Michael Roscoe. New to do is to slow down growth (as it’s this job if they weren’t desperate.’ Internationalist. £9.99. using up the Earth’s resources) by They may be able to earn £300 a slowing down the rise in productivity. night, after paying part of their Given capitalism, that’s like King takings to the brothel-owner. One The basic Canute ordering the tide not to woman was returning to China, assumption of come in. It won’t work and can’t having earned £20,000 in four this book is one work because capitalism is a system months. we can share: of capital accumulation driven by But you would indeed need to be ‘Real wealth competition between profi t-seeking desperate to work up to fourteen creation requires enterprises, both private and state, hours a day, having sex with a dozen real work, and which imposes rising productivity or more men, six or seven days a real work must and growth on them as the price of week. There is an ever-present fear involve the staying in business. of violence from customers or of transformation A disappointing book, then, which being robbed. Whether prostitute, of nature’s raw starts off making a good point housekeeper or madam, there is no materials into something of value to but which ends up advocating an prospect of negotiating working hours us humans. There is no other way to impossible reform of capitalism. or conditions. Illegal immigrants create wealth.’ This is, of course, the ALB have great diffi culty in accessing basis of all labour theories of value health care, including sexual health, including Marx’s, even though wealth and their poor English and social and value are not the same. Unseen and isolation often handicap them in this Roscoe argues that, as wealth Unprotected regard. can only be material, the service Further, many women are sector does not create any, but just Hsiao-Hung Pai: Invisible: Britain’s traffi cked into Britain specifi cally consumes it, even if the service is Migrant Sex Workers. Westbourne for sex work. This seems to be useful and/or contributes indirectly £10.99. particularly common among to future material wealth production. Romanian women and Pai mentions Education, healthcare and various one woman smuggled here and then personal services do contribute to In Chinese sold from one pimp to another for this by maintaining and improving Whispers £2000. the workforce that produces the (reviewed in the The government’s crackdown actual wealth. Finance, on the other August 2010 on undocumented migrants has hand, says Roscoe, does not. It can Socialist Standard) led to sex workers from outside play a useful role in channelling Pai examined the the European Union being driven funds to the productive sector but living and working further underground in order to most of its activities since the 1980s conditions of avoid immigration controls and have just been shuffl ing money undocumented make themselves, in the book’s title, between speculators which doesn’t Chinese migrant invisible to the authorities. help wealth production at all. workers in PB The growth of the service sector Britain. Now she looks specifi cally refl ects the rise in productivity in at migrant sex workers, herself the productive sector (agriculture, courageously working underground fi shing, mining, manufacture and as a ‘housekeeper’ in several construction) over the years. The brothels. extra wealth produced has gone to About a quarter of the eighty maintain and expand the service thousand sex workers in Britain are sector, absorbing the workers immigrants, mostly from China or displaced from the productive eastern and south-eastern Europe. sector by rising productivity. Why, There has been much economic according to Roscoe, ‘things are disruption in these areas; women going to get worse’ is that this can workers have been particularly no longer continue because the badly hit by the closure of state- service sector is being automated too owned businesses in China, for (and oil is going to run out and the instance. One solution, which is fi nancial bubble is going to burst). especially appealing for those with As a result unemployment is going to young children to bring up and grow until the system collapses. As educate, is to emigrate and then ‘it is only in times of crises that real send remittances home. One Polish change can be brought about’, this woman who Pai spoke to could earn is ‘why we should be glad’. In other as much in a day in a brothel in words, worse is better. London as she could earn in a month This may (or may not) be true, in Katowice. but Roscoe’s ‘real change’ turns Not that most come intending to out not to be one. He wants to work in the sex industry. It’s just retain capitalism but modify it by that badly-paid and insecure work government action, a return to the in agriculture, food-processing ‘mixed economy’ of before Thatcher factories or restaurants is not enough

20 Socialist Standard January 2015 England Arise trap of most agit-prop theatre, that .Volunteerism is no longer suffi cient of being strident with a developed to fulfi l the growing demands of Written by Mick Martin. Directed hectoring tone directed at the this costly and brutal confl ict. by Jude Wright. Performed by Bent audience. The cast, like in a Peter This impacts on all the four young Architect. CAST, Doncaster. Brook play, have limited scenery people featured in this drama, and props. They use their acting the men being tortured in solitary skills which includes movement and confi nement. musical ability. The following is also part of this The political and emotional lessons tableau and impacts on the cast: evolve through a well balanced script. the suffragette movement with The story is set in the run up to the its contradictions and splits, the Great War, and features two young compromises that political life men and two young women of the demands of marriage, parental Clarion Socialist Sunday School in criticism, and, disappointingly the ONE OF the delights of the Art Huddersfi eld. The play illustrates solace former revolutionaries fi nd Scene in a town well away from a their artistic and revolutionary within bourgeois political parties. city is that you can appreciate a play activities. The play is inspired by No easy answers are provided without any of the distractions of the book. Comrades in Conscience by the play. However we as the celebrity culture on or off the stage. by Cyril Pearce. It also draws on audience are left to examine the The play is what you get – pure and Jill Liddington’s Rebel Girls. Set dilemmas faced by these brave young unvarnished. in Huddersfi eld, it uses fi rst hand revolutionaries. As we leave the This visit is the anniversary of the source material. theatre we need to examine what opening of Doncaster’s new theatre We are introduced to the Players the lessons are for us to learn and CAST. Something signifi cant is by the Company. This draws us infl uence our lives and the socialist happening in this part of South immediately into the drama. The future. Yorkshire and the theatre is emergence of the key element of The important thing is to see this beginning to grow audiences in a Conscientious Objection emerges play –this is real theatre and not town where Art and Drama is often slowly and powerfully through Shaftesbury Avenue shenanigans. thought to be ‘Not for people like the story line. This comprises the JOHN WHEELER us’. This is due in no small measure programme of plays, love affairs and to CAST’s Kully Thiarai’s varied and all those elements that make up imaginative programming. This is young people’s lives everywhere. This coupled, as in this production, with a gives greater potency to the inherent SOCIALIST STANDARD INDEX mission to challenge the audiences. political messages that are conveyed. They fl ow from the story and do not FOR 2013 This magnifi cent production, For a copy send 2 second-class stamps was challengingly programmed in develop into a harangue. to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham Armistice week, a time of confl icting The sheer joy of living is disrupted High St, London emotions, even for socialists. and perverted by changing attitudes SW4 7UN The play immediately avoids the to the war by the establishment

directorial gimmicks are familiar from every single crime Do Have drama littering our screens, but feel tasteless when they’re Nightmares used to depict real, horrifi c situations. Presumably, the producers of Crimewatch think that this approach is most CRIMEWATCH HAS been a likely to encourage people to call in. Conversely, the way depressingly regular fi xture the programme presents CCTV footage looks more like on BBC1 for over 30 years. You’ve Been Framed. There is cheesy music and cheesier Its format has hardly changed wordplay, such as the ‘hamburglars’ stealing from a fast over the decades: food joint getting ‘£15,000 to reconstructions of violent go’. offences, ‘most wanted’ mugshots, The show also features and grainy CCTV recordings of old investigations reopened robberies and assaults, shown in the because of ‘failings’ or hope that viewers who know about ‘signifi cant mistakes in the them will phone in. Watching this can police response’ at the leave us with the uneasy feeling that time. Today’s police force masked attackers are stalking every is presented as much more street. Research in 2003 found that effi cient and precise, especially the programme increased the fear of thanks to advances in DNA crime in over half of its viewers, while identifi cation. The show is an a third said it left them feeling afraid. Even if it doesn’t advertisement for the police’s strength as much as it is an turn us paranoid, Crimewatch reminds us that society can appeal for information. Crimewatch, like the police, only make people alienated and desperate enough to commit focuses on catching criminals. The state can do little else, the most brutal acts. as it can’t remove the causes of violence built in to the The reconstructions are shot with tense music, society it defends. moody lighting and blurry scenes in slow-motion. These MIKE FOSTER

Socialist Standard January 2015 21 Meetings

For full details of all our meetings and events Yorkshire Regional Branch Picture Credits see our Meetup site: Cover: Andrew Mitchell – © UK Department for http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of- DAY SCHOOL International Development 2011 the Creative Great-Britain/ ‘From Capitalism to Socialism’ Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. p4: Volunteers in Zimbabwe, 2013, Department of Socialist Party Head Offi ce Foreign Affairs and Trade, CCA 2.0 Saturday 21 February 2015 1.00pm to p6: Avengers, 2012, Dick Johnson, CC BY 2.0 Sunday 18 January 2015 3.00pm. 5.00pm. p8: Oil barrels, 2013, fernost, PD ‘Homelessness and Health’ Speakers: p9: Jesus College – © Jesusgreen 2012 Creative Speaker: Mike Foster Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Johnny Mercer: ‘Capitalism: How it license. works and its effects on human beings’ p16: Jacquard loom, 2008, Lofo7, CCA-SA 4.0 Paul Bennett: ‘Socialism: a Practical p17: Bangkok barricades, 2010, Jeremy, CCA 2.0; West London Branch Donetsk barricades, 2014, Aleksandr Sirota, CC Tuesday 20 January 2015 8.00pm. Possibility’ BY-SA 3.0 ‘I For One Welcome Our New Robot Overlords’ Adam Buick: ‘Getting from Here to p19: Images, ovalhouse.com Speaker: Bill Martin There’ p20: Things are Going to Get Worse – bokus.com Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfi eld Terrace, Invisible: Britain’s Migrant Sex Workers – amazon. Ukrainian Centre, 48 Beckett Road, co.uk. London W4 4JN. Doncaster DN2 4AD. p21: England Arise – undergroundhistories. wordpress.com. Socialist Party Head Offi ce p23: Broken window – missionmemos.com Sunday 25 January 2015 6.00pm. p24: F15e Strike Eagle and ‘bunker buster’, 2003, Film: We are Legion TSGT Michael Ammons, USAF; Abu Ghraib, PD 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Socialist Party Head Offi ce Sunday 1 February 2015 3.00pm. ‘Radical Feminism and Communism’ Speaker: Johnny Mercer 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Socialist Party Head Offi ce Sunday 15 February 2015 3.00pm. ‘Borders and Control: Migration under Capitalism’ Speaker: Paul Bennett 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Declaration of Principles

This declaration is the basis of our a class struggle between those who possess the powers of government, national and local, organisation and, because it is also an but do not produce and those who produce in order that this machinery, including these important historical document dating from but do not possess. forces, may be converted from an instrument the formation of the party in 1904, its original of oppression into the agent of emancipation language has been retained. 3.That this antagonism can be abolished only and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic by the emancipation of the working class and plutocratic. Object from the domination of the master class, by The establishment of a system of society the conversion into the common property 7.That as all political parties are but the based upon the common ownership of society of the means of production and expression of class interests, and as the and democratic control of the means distribution, and their democratic control by interest of the working class is diametrically and instruments for producing and the whole people. opposed to the interests of all sections of the distributing wealth by and in the interest master class, the party seeking working class of the whole community. 4.That as in the order of social evolution the emancipation must be hostile to every other working class is the last class to achieve its party. Declaration of Principles freedom, the emancipation of the working The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds class will involve the emancipation of all 8.The Socialist Party of Great Britain, mankind, without distinction of race or sex. therefore, enters the fi eld of political action 1.That society as at present constituted is determined to wage war against all other based upon the ownership of the means 5. That this emancipation must be the work of political parties, whether alleged labour of living (i.e. land, factories, railways, etc.) the working class itself. or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the by the capitalist or master class, and the members of the working class of this country consequent enslavement of the working 6.That as the machinery of government, to muster under its banner to the end that a class, by whose labour alone wealth is including the armed forces of the nation, speedy termination may be wrought to the produced. exists only to conserve the monopoly by the system which deprives them of the fruits of capitalist class of the wealth taken from the their labour, and that poverty may give place 2.That in society, therefore, there is an workers, the working class must organize to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as consciously and politically for the conquest of to freedom.

22 Socialist Standard January 2015 of big clubs, and said ‘aclub with money 50 Years Ago ACTION can take the best players from the other teams’. Rather ironic given that Manches- ter City are one of the biggest spending Churchill’s birthday REPLAY clubs in the transfer market. Arsenal and Manchester City are ex- HERE, IT was obvious, was what they Football: the January amples of how supporters help fund their call a great man. Propped-up, glassy transfer window clubs. The cost of a season ticket at Man- eyed, at the window, fl apping his hand at chester City is £860whereas at Arsenal IN ENGLISH football, the winter trans- the crowd outside. Oozing in his senility, it’s a staggering £2,013 ( Daily Mirror, fer window lasts from the 1st January - like the old Disraeli with his corsets and 15 October). A Manchester City football 31 st January. Football clubs can transfer lacquered hair. Famous visitors came shirt costs £55, while Hull City’s retail at home based and foreign players into their and went. An enormous cake was carried £39.99.The overseas fan base of Man- playing staff. Such a transfer is completed in, with sacks full of cards and telegrams. chester City, Manchester United, Arsenal by registering the player into The fl ashlights popped and the television and Liverpool benefi t massively the new club through FIFA. cameras Chirred. Winston Churchill was from shirts sales in the Far East ‘Transfer window’ is the unof- ninety years old. e.g. Singapore. fi cial term used by the media Most people were agreed that this was People who complain that for ‘registration period’ as a remarkable achievement. Perhaps it footballers in the Premier described in the FIFA Regu- was, in a way. An impressive feature League are overpaid need to lations on the Status and of the many newspaper reminiscences understand that Premiership Transfer of Player. of the old man in his heyday was the football is big business where Steve Coppell, former billions of pounds circulate manager of Reading called for the trans- throughout a season. Football under fer window to be scrapped in favour of the capitalism is shaped by the market, and previous system, where transfer deals revenue streams from season and match could be made throughout the season. day tickets contribute to the large fi nancial Coppell considered that the transfer win- outlay required annually. dow bred panic and encouraged ‘scurril- So now we await the latest scramble ous’ transfer activity. Last season, Arsene for ‘humanfl esh’ as clubs argue about Wenger the Arsenal manager asked for a player’s value based on goals scored, the January transfer window to be lim- shots blocked, assists, and clean sheets ited to two transfers per window and – all are phrases and statistics in football’s claimed it is ‘unfair’ in its current form. lexiconthat serve to attribute the ‘value’ of Manuel Pellegrini the Manchester City a human being as a football commodity. manager backed Wenger by saying that KEVIN amount of hard liquor which he has put transfer window was unbalanced in favor down. One article said that when he was Prime Minister, he drank champagne and brandy with every meal and sipped FREE at tumblers of whisky and soda all 3-month trial subscription to the through the day. A man of lesser Socialist Standard constitution would almost certainly have been killed by such a deluge of alcohol. Churchill’s consumption of drink is typical of the gusto with which he has lived his life, and it is this gusto which has been the subject of much recent hypocrisy. First, the business of those ninety years. It is too obvious that to be born into a family like the Churchills gives a person a built in advantage in their prospects of longevity because, everything else being equal they are going to get the best of everything. The best food. A secure and comfortable For more details about The Socialist Party, or to request a 3-month trial subscription home. The best education and, if they to the Socialist Standard, please complete and return this form to 52 Clapham High want it, an interesting job. It is a different matter for the people Street, London SW4 7UN. who were cheering so enthusiastically outside Churchill’s window on his Please send me an info pack birthday and it is worthwhile to take a Please send me a trial subscription to the Socialist Standard. look at how they live. Their lives may be summed up in one word poverty, Name...... although it is a different kind from the Address ...... poverty their parents knew, in the days when Churchill was a young man. They ...... are, fi rst of all, the people who make the wealth of the world...... (from article by Ivan, Socialist Standard , January 1965) Postcode......

Socialist Standard January 2015 23 A Wasteful Society councils attempted to slash costs, has foreigners but The mad wastefulness of capitalism left growing numbers of elderly people just isn’t British. So is staggering. Take the expenditure of without access to the care system. how come a letter the USA in their recent military efforts. In turn it has forced millions of family discovered in ‘President Barrack Obama will ask members to step in, many of them giving Downing Street lawmakers on Friday for an additional up their own jobs. ‘The acute shortage at the National $3.2 billion to pay for the war against of care for older people in Britain is Archives has the Islamic State group in Iraq offi cials exposed in offi cial fi gures showing how placed Britain said Thursday .... The air war in Syria the population of care homes was left in the dock and Iraq - which commanders say could virtually unchanged during a decade at European last years - has involved thousands of which saw the biggest expansion in the Court of sorties and hundreds of bombing raids, overall elderly population ever. According at a daily cost of $8.3 million, according to a study published by the Offi ce for to the Pentagon’ ( Hindustantimes, 2 National Statistics the number of December). This immense expenditure people in care homes in Human represents a lot of human effort and England and Rights accused energy. Think what that could of torturing detainees mean inside a socialist in Northern Ireland in the society producing 1970s? ‘The confi dential memo food, clothing written in March 1977 by Merlyn Rees, and shelter for then Labour Home Secretary, states all. Wales that, six years earlier, Tory ministers had rose by only authorised the use of torture in Ulster. 0.3 per cent in Mr Rees told Prime Minister James the decade between Callaghan that he the 2001 and 2011 censuses, thought individuals standing at just short of 291,000. But the or soldiers should Troubles Ahead overall number of over 65s jumped by 11 not be prosecuted Despite the picture the government per cent in the same period - 37 times because “a political is trying to draw about how they are faster’ ( Daily Telegraph, 6 December). decision was taken” coping with the economic crisis, some Having suffered a life of exploitation and to use the so-called economic institutions are drawing poverty old workers’ misery continues. deep interrogation vastly different conclusions. ‘The plans techniques’ ( Times , set out by George Osborne in the God And Mammon 6 December). These Autumn Statement on Wednesday will The Christian churches are adamant that techniques included require government spending cuts “on they care nothing for the material aspects wall standing in a colossal scale” after the election, an of this world and concentrate on spiritual stress positions, independent forecaster has warned. The values. The Roman Catholic Church with white noise, hooding, sleep deprivation Institute for Fiscal Studies ( IFS) said just its new Pope is particularly concerned and withholding of food and water. £35bn of cuts had already happened, about its recent past history. with £55bn yet to come. The detail of ‘The Vatican’s bank - which A Torturing Society (2) reductions had not yet been spelled out, he threatened to shut down It is not only Britain of the so-called free IFS director Paul Johnson said’ ( BBC - is now closing hundreds of nations that carries out torture as the US News, 4 December). The reason for suspect accounts as it tries to has recently confessed. ‘The CIA carried the vagueness about future welfare shrug off its scandalous reputation out “brutal” interrogations of al-Qaeda cuts is of course the approaching after decades in which it was a by-word suspects in the years after the 9/11 election. for money laundering and tax evasion’ attacks on the US, a US senate report (Times , 5 December). has said. The summary of the report Capitalism And Cuts compiled by Democrats on the Senate The increasing A Torturing Society (1) Intelligence Committee said that the CIA rationing of state- Torture according to the press is misled Americans about what it said it funded care, as something carried out by unscrupulous was doing’ ( BBC News, 9 December).

ISSN24 0037 8259 Socialist Standard January 2015 Produced and published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN