Socialist Standard September 2020 1 Introducing the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party advocates a society developing Russian capitalism under a where production is freed from the one-party dictatorship. Both failures have artificial constraints of profit and given socialism a quite different -- and organised for the benefit of all on the unattractive -- meaning: state ownership basis of material abundance. It does not and control. As the Socialist Standard have policies to ameliorate aspects of pointed out before both courses were the existing social system. It is opposed followed, the results would more properly to all war. be called state capitalism. The Socialist Standard is the combative The Socialist Party and the World monthly journal of the Socialist Party, Socialist Movement affirm that capitalism published without interruption since is incapable of meaningful change in 1904. In the 1930s the Socialist Standard the interests of the majority; that the explained why capitalism would not basis of exploitation is the wages/money collapse of its own accord, in response to system. The Socialist Standard is proud widespread claims to the contrary, and to have kept alive the original idea of continues to hold this view in face of the what socialism is -- a classless, stateless, notion’s recent popularity. Beveridge’s of the natural world can have limited wageless, moneyless society or, defined welfare measures of the 1940s were effect and run counter to the nature of positively, a democracy in which free and viewed as a reorganisation of poverty and capitalism itself. equal men and women co-operate to a necessary ‘expense’ of production, and Gradualist reformers like the Labour produce the things they need to live and Keynesian policies designed to overcome Party believed that capitalism could be enjoy life, to which they have free access slumps an illusion. Today, the journal transformed through a series of social in accordance with the principle ‘from exposes as false the view that banks measures, but have merely become each according to their abilities, to each create money out of thin air, and explains routine managers of the system. The according to their needs’ why actions to prevent the depredation Bolsheviks had to be content with

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2 Socialist Standard September 2020 Editorial How real is democracy today?

A common boast made by capitalism’s can face periods of unemployment and such as the Chartist movement in supporters is that free market capitalism even destitution. When capitalists do hire nineteenth-century Britain. is inherently democratic and that rights, workers they will attempt to extract the The freedom of assembly enables such as the right to vote, freedom of most value from the use of their labour the workers to organise politically in speech, freedom of assembly, necessarily power that they can get away with and their own interests and is invaluable go hand in hand with the freedom of the keep their wage costs to a minimum. On in aiding the development of working- capitalists to invest and make profits. the other hand, it is in the interests of class political consciousness. The right During the Cold War, Western workers the workers to obtain the highest wages to vote means that workers have the were always reminded that whatever they can. In their efforts to achieve this, power to choose who will control the grievances they had about life under workers have combined in trade unions capitalist state machine. Up to now, they capitalism, they were lucky to have the and at times have withdrawn their labour have used their votes to elect capitalist vote and have their say, not like in the to put pressure on the employers. It representatives in the mistaken belief USSR and the other ‘Socialist’ countries. is the outcome of these struggles that that those representatives can run the The words ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ determine the conditions of workers’ capitalist system for the workers’ benefit. are a necessary part of any aspiring lives. Although both the capitalists and the They are invariably disappointed and in capitalist politician’s lexicon. workers enjoy the same democratic rights, many instances this has led to political This prominence given to democracy they do not have the same social power. disillusionment and cynicism. masks the reality of workers’ lives under Clearly, the capitalists, more often than We urge workers to find out about the capitalism. not, are in a stronger position. socialist case, which is that capitalism Workers, who have no independent However, we must not read into this, cannot work in their interests and that means of living, have to sell their physical as many on the Left do, that capitalist socialism is the only solution to the and mental energies to an employer in political democracy is a sham and that problems capitalism creates. order to acquire the necessities of life. workers should have nothing to do with With this in mind, workers can then The employers (or capitalists) who own it. It needs to be pointed out that the elect their own delegates with a mandate the means of production and distribution workers were not handed their democratic to abolish the private and state ownership will only employ workers if they have a rights on a plate, they had to struggle for of the means of living and replace it with prospect of making a profit. If not, workers them through their own organisations, democratic common ownership.

Socialist Standard September 2020 3 Two fingers to the virus THE CONTINUING spikes in Covid cases and drugs vie in a constant arms race. If city. The fire team was killed instantly. around the world, in places where it you attack a disease with a drug that’s The architect, who thought he was at a was deemed vanquished or at least in meant to kill it, and the disease wins, it’s safe distance, was also killed, and two retreat, start to resemble the physical like Popeye getting a dose of spinach. hundred or so other people besides. The appearance of the virus itself, with little Vaccines are already under attack in docks were obliterated, three hospitals trumpets erupting everywhere from its social media, with anti-vaxxer messages destroyed, ships flipped, sunk or flung in spherical surface. But what’s also erupting outnumbering pro-vaccine posts on pieces onto the land. The blast measured is the trumpet fanfares of success as average by five to one, and a recent 3.3 on the Richter scale despite the force countries like India and Russia announce survey suggesting that, even if a vaccine going mostly upwards. It was heard 160 the mass production of vaccines they is produced in the UK, up to 50 percent miles away. It has been listed as the fifth have supposedly developed for their of the population might refuse to most powerful, artificial, non-nuclear home markets. How have Modi and Putin take it (New Scientist, 12 August - bit. explosion in history. succeeded in leaving the rest of the world ly/346Qsw2). Let the idiots die, you might Sympathetic city halls across the world straggling behind them? Do they have think, the world has enough fools, but draped themselves in the Lebanese flag, better scientists than anyone else? Did their anti-vaxxer idiocy could kill others including Tel Aviv, though Israel and they just get lucky? if it prevents society vaccinating its way Lebanon are technically at war. As the In the case of India, it’s just political to the long-hoped-for herd immunity. fire burned out over the blast area, the spin from the nation’s prime administer. And any vaccine toted as effective which recriminations started. How could nearly “Not one, not two, as many as three turns out to be the opposite will only 3,000 tonnes of explosive ammonium coronavirus vaccines are being tested in strengthen the antivaxxer lobby and risk nitrate have been kept for six years India,” Modi announced with a flourish extending the pandemic. in a port warehouse without proper in Delhi in August, as if announcing the Of course the Russians might be right safety precautions, despite numerous breakthrough of the century. But you about their vaccine, though the lack of warnings and six letters to judges, and can describe anything as a vaccine and transparency is not encouraging. Even without residents knowing about it? announce tests on it. “Along with mass- by capitalist standards, Putin is not a The conspiracy vultures descended to production, the roadmap for distribution team player. He will certainly be hoping feast, but the simple answer was that of vaccine to every single Indian in the the vaccine works, so he can use it as people fucked up. The Lebanese cabinet least possible time is also ready,” he an armlock on the West, just as he did resigned. The country’s food supply, in a added with grandiose pomp but again with gas supplies to Ukraine. Things pandemic, had been virtually destroyed. without really saying anything. in Belarus have been kicking off lately, Ammonium nitrate is quite like Russia’s president Putin went further, with the repulsive and patriarchal troll potassium nitrate, or saltpetre, and is however, by announcing that a Covid Lukashenko stage-managing yet another popular because it’s cheap to make, good vaccine had been medically approved 80 percent election ‘victory’ despite for fertilisers and, if you mix it with fuel and would go into mass production by only scoring 3 percent support in polls, oil, excellent for making bombs. Terrorists October. They’ve called it Sputnik V, as and calling on Moscow for support in love it for this reason, which is why a two-finger reminder to the western the face of the gigantic social protests capitalist states are keen to phase it out. world that Russia was first into space in that followed. A working vaccine would It’s not supposed to explode by itself but 1957 with the Sputnik satellite. Ignoring be just the leverage (Ras)Putin needs if you don’t store it right it will do, and calls for a global combined effort, the if he’s considering an empire-building has done repeatedly, killing thousands. Russian Health Ministry has released no intervention into Belarus, as seemed a Of the ten biggest explosions mentioned details of the Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials possibility when this went to press. above, it was responsible for four. it ran last month. As for Phase 3 trials, We can’t say people in socialism apparently they didn’t run any. Big Bang in Beirut wouldn’t use ammonium nitrate. The August warehouse fire in Beirut Vaccine trials go in three distinct We don’t know. But we can pretty had already attracted a lot of media phases to check three distinct things: much guarantee that they wouldn’t attention. As the smoke plumed up over 1) will it kill or damage anyone (small stuff thousands of tonnes of it next the dock area, volunteer firefighters test only), 2) does it do anything useful to flammable material in a forgotten and a paramedic went in on the ground. in any way at all (medium sample), and warehouse for six years just because of On a balcony blocks away, a French 3) does it do what we actually need it a legal dispute over who should pay the architect live-streamed the fire to his to do (big sample)? Paracetamol would port fees after the original shipowner Facebook friends, a bit of excitement on pass the first two phases of clinical trials went bankrupt. There are bound to an otherwise dull day. Little flashes in for the coronavirus. So would a gin and be accidents in socialism too, but they the smoke suggested fireworks going off, tonic. Almost anything would, apart wouldn’t be because of arguments which added spice to the event. Then a from Trump’s bleach. Phase 3 is the between jobsworths about who owed stupendous explosion, and a shockwave one that matters. Without that, you’ve money to whom. flashed outwards, ringed by a fat white basically got nothing. Or you’ve got PJS condensation cloud that was eerily worse than nothing, because you could redolent of a small nuclear detonation. make Covid stronger (New Scientist, Cladding and glass flew like autumn 12 August - bit.ly/2E3t2MT). Diseases leaves off apartment blocks across the

4 Socialist Standard September 2020 ‘Made in Leicester’ eople often associate sweatshop conditions in the constantly changing clothes styles, designed for one night-out, clothing industry with Bangladesh or Cambodia but one destined for the charity shops the following morning. Consumers Pconsequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to are buying more clothes and discarding them faster than ever. reveal garment factories in Leicester which can very easily be Clothes have become disposable throwaway products. Shoppers described as sweatshops. look for the lowest priced clothes and retail outlets look for larger ‘Labour abuses’ (breaches of labour laws) and sweatshop conditions are occurring across the UK’s garment manufacturing are either accepted by consumers or obscured by marketing industries, campaigners warn. In the factories of Leicester, there campaignsprofit margins. peddling The knock-on ‘ethical’ sourcing. effects of this in the supply chains are as many as 10,000 mostly immigrant workers who are Anna Bryher, advocacy director for the campaign group reportedly paid as little as £3 an hour. During the pandemic many Labour Behind the Label, said: ‘Women at the bottom of have been forced to work with no protective equipment, and it supply chains bear the brunt of fashion’s unrelenting push to is said to have contributed to a spike in coronavirus cases that be fast and cheap…It’s obscene.’ She added: ‘Women making resulted in a second lock-down in the city. our clothes in Bangladesh are routinely and systematically Human rights barrister and leading expert on human abused and harassed.’ A recent report by a US Senate committee found Bangladesh of the type of exploitation that has been going on up and was backsliding on garment workers’ rights. Union leaders downtrafficking, the country Parosha during Chandran, Covid. said, If that’s ‘I think the this estimate is an exampleof faced intimidation, hampering their ability to investigate what’s happening in Leicester, then what’s happening in claims of threats and abuse, mostly of female workers. Birmingham? Or Nottinghamshire? Or Manchester? Or The pressure for brands to get fashions from catwalks on to

the Midlands. It’s going on everywhere…’ rivalry to secure the cheapest source – a phenomenon referred London?A 2018 Modern report found slavery breaches is not just of labour confined laws to similarone place to in toshoppers’ as ‘chasing backs the and needle.’ deliver If wages profits rise for andinvestors, conditions can lead improve to a those uncovered in Leicester in garment factories across in one region, companies look elsewhere to keep costs down. Greater Manchester. Machinists reported being paid £4 an In Ethiopia, for example, wages are much lower than the rates hour and said their payslips were doctored to make it look paid in Bangladesh and it has led to the Ethiopian government like they had worked fewer hours than they had actually put making almost a virtue out of its low labour costs. in. ‘The way the market is at the minute, it’s the person who Worker organisation produces the good cheapest who gets the order,’ one said. As shoppers have become more aware of labour abuses, ‘Exactly the same labour abuses that the government and companies have been forced to scrutinise labour practices at brands are professing shock and horror over in Leicester are the various factories involved in manufacturing their products happening at scale across the country,’ said Emily Kenway, an and committing themselves to addressing problems from adviser at Focus on Labour Exploitation. fear of consumer boycotts. Such approaches obscure the ‘Again and again we see the same coercive practices importance of building worker power to counteract sweatshop impacting on the most vulnerable workers who have no way conditions. Consumer campaigns are limited in their ability to of getting their voices heard and who are forced to accept lessen sweatshop conditions and non-respect of labour laws. whatever conditions are pushed on them by their employers, Some boycotts have led companies to cancel contracts, leaving who have little to fear from the authorities,’ said Thulsi workers in a worse position, facing unemployment. Narayanasamy, a labour rights researcher. Prioritising projects that promote workers’ ability to The number of health and safety inspectors employed by the organise collectively is crucial for securing better conditions. Health and Safety Executive has dropped by a third from 1,495 Worker-led efforts, rather than corporate- or consumer-led in 2009 to 978 in 2017, with funding reduced from £239m to ones, shift the focus to the ideas, needs and collective action of £139m over the same period. the workers themselves. Workers self-organising, both inside ‘If employers know that they won’t be inspected, face or alongside trade unions, is critical to achieving freedom penalties and lose business then you’re creating conditions for of association and collective bargaining. Instead of relying abuse,’ said Dominique Muller, senior campaigner at Labour upon governments, corporations and consumers, worker Behind the Label. organisation challenges the relationships of power and Downward pressure authority and lessens the risk of labour abuse. There exists a relentless downward pressure exerted by the global fashion industry on the workers at the bottom of the the story of Shimu Akhtar, a young woman making clothes supply chain. The resulting falling price paid to suppliers has forRubaiyat Western Hossain clothing in companies her film, ‘Made whose in indignation Bangladesh’ at tells the led to a substantial decline in pay rates and working conditions working conditions she is forced to endure leads her to try to over the past 10 years. Garment workers have been kept unionise the factory. Hossain says she wanted to go against the working in unsafe conditions for low pay by a fashion industry stereotype of the poor, exploited factory worker. ‘I wanted to show that these women are active agents, fast fashion include turning a blind eye to sub-contracting and allowingseeking to forced maximise and unpaid its own overtime. profits. The These buying practices practices have of ‘Too many people think of Bangladeshi women as victims sitting encouraged the erosion of garment worker rights by employers. behindfighting a for sewing their machine,rights and but demanding it is thanks to tobe female heard,’ garment she says. workers that Bangladesh is now a middle-income country. And by their suppliers. Despite decades of government regulation and these young women are not victims, they are often feisty, young, ‘fairThe trade’ fashion policies, industry sweatshops profits from have these continued breaches to prevail of labour because law spirited women who are fearless and brave…’ of the introduction of a marketing model called ‘fast fashion’, ALJO Socialist Standard September 2020 5 A is for Alpha

August A-level results, but this year’s turned into a bigger Tfurorehe UK newsthan usual.media With always schools has a closedbun fight due over to Covid the annual the exams had to be replaced by estimated grades based on the Alphas, just like in Huxley’s Brave New World, cool, collected, students’ but also the schools’ track records, in order to replicate well-adjusted, organised, and able to cope with competitive the year-on-year average. Objections rapidly mounted that this stress. They’re most likely supported at home by motivated and ‘locked in’ existing biases which excluded talented outliers and underprivileged schools that had previously been making fast In fact, it’s designed for them. progress. When Scotland decided to rely on teacher assessments well-offBut it doesn’tparents worktoo. The for examthose systemwho dread works exams for them like the just fine. instead, predicted grades shot up well beyond what would normally be expected. Because of this well-meaning but blatant dentist, the ones who don’t get the emotional support, the teacher bias, England refused to follow suit, prompting an even private tuition, the helicopter parenting, the ones who come bigger row (BBC Online, 14 August - bbc.in/3kSHsQK). from poor backgrounds and grow up thinking that education’s It was an intriguing conundrum for the statisticians. wasted on them, that they’re just silly, stupid girls or boys and There was no way to estimate grades that could be judged that they’ll never amount to anything. Their main obstacle ‘fair’, because no algorithm could account for all biases and in any exam is fear of the exam itself. It doesn’t matter what assumptions. But who says exam systems are fair anyway? they know or how smart they are because they fall to pieces While disappointed students loudly complained about how whenever they open an exam paper. they were ‘let down by the system’, and leftist opportunists But that’s also a victory for capitalism, because what keeps immediately started screaming about ‘justice for students’, nothing was heard from the probably equal number of students because they’ve been labelled as losers and so they spend their who found themselves with better grades by not sitting the entirethe system lives fitblaming and trim themselves is a working for notclass measuring who won’t up. fight back exam than they would have got if they’d sat it. Capitalist education isn’t really education, it’s a factory system What everybody overlooked in the furore was that, of all for workers that has no regard for their hopes or passions as it the ways to assess what somebody knows about a subject, shunts them along its inhuman conveyor belt into its inhuman a competitive exam is probably the worst and the cruellest. mincing machine. This year, at least, some of them might have Exams aren’t a test of knowledge, they’re a test of nerves. got a free pass because the belt broke. Some students are ok with the exam regime. They’re the PJS COOKING THE BOOKS What is poverty? as most workers do have a job and the that the number of the destitute does ‘Huge rise in destitution for the poorest’ regular income it provides and so are rise in a period of contraction (even ran the headline in the Times (27 July) not deprived of some or all of the basic though the present one is government- reporting on research by the National necessities of life. They are not destitute. induced rather than a part of the boom/ Institute of Economic and Social Academic, legal and popular definitions slump cycle). Research. According to this think-tank: of poverty start from this point and It is not just socialists who feel the ‘Destitution is defined as income that define the poor as those who, for need to distinguish between poverty and is so low that a household is likely to one reason or another, do not have destitution. Reformists have come up with lack essential provision of shelter, food, enough money to satisfy all their basic the concept of ‘relative poverty’: ‘those heating, lighting, clothing/footwear and necessities. In this sense most workers who can scrape by on the basics but who basic toiletries in the immediate future’. aren’t poor. Only those on very low cannot afford the normal activities and Destitution is a word socialists wages or who are unable to find an opportunities that average earners have have tended to prefer to describe the employer or who are unable to work are access to’ (Big Issue, 21 February 2019). situation of ‘the poor’ as the word poor. In other words, essentially what the In Britain you are considered to be in this poverty has a wider meaning. NIESR mean by destitution. position if you are in a household whose In fact capitalism can be said to Ever since the sixteenth century the income is less than 60 percent of the be based on poverty in that the vast state has had to make some provision median average (i.e., of the mid-point of majority of the population does not for people in this position. For centuries the range of incomes). have enough of their own resources it was called the Poor Law; today it’s This concept has a number of to live; as a result they are obliged by Income Support as the minimum level to drawbacks. First, it assumes that those economic necessity to sell their mental which the state will bring up a person’s with incomes above this level don’t have and physical energies to an employer income. When Marx was writing and restricted opportunities. Second, it’s a in exchange for money to buy what right up until the 1920s such people moving poverty line as a household can they need. In this sense all those in the were officially called ‘paupers’. Marx find itself reclassified as not being (or working class are poor; it is part of the regarded one section of paupers as part being) in poverty without their income definition of the working class. of what he called capitalism’s ‘industrial changing simply because the average Other definitions of poverty don’t reserve army’, i.e., that section of the income has. It is probably better called take the analysis as far back as this, working class that could be called on ‘relative low income’. Still, according to but assume that most workers do have to serve as wage-workers in periods of the government’s own statistics some 14 a more or less steady job and so do capitalist expansion but which had to million people, or over 20 percent of the have resources to satisfy their basic be maintained by the state in times of population, are in this position. Which is needs. This is not entirely unreasonable contraction. The NIESR report confirms quite an admission and a condemnation of capitalism by its own standards.

6 Socialist Standard September 2020 Selfishness common objection to the satisfying personal needs. Perhaps, if not rich but comfortably realisation of socialism is that off, it can seem there is no real imperative to pursue socialism. A it’s a nice idea, but contrary to A moral case could be made highlighting the poverty of others, human nature. This presupposes that but a little charity and the conscience can be assuaged. Hardly an imperative for action. time acting as a prophylactic to prevent However, comfortably off can quite quickly peoplethere is collectively a human quality achieving fixed a for more all become discomfort. Capitalism is persistent benign society. Motivated by self- but inherently unstable. Economic crisis can interest, individuals will act against very rapidly impoverish swathes of the once the common interest. well to do. Then there is the constant There is more than a little anecdotal threat of war as competition between evidence for this being the case. Many nations for economic advantage a survey has declared that voters are becomes bellicose. prepared to pay higher taxes to better Climate change and pandemics fund the NHS. Come election day, secluded in the polling booth, many then vote for the party overriding the need of people for measures, offering tax cuts. areand exacerbated expenditure, by tothe deal need with for them.profit Is Infallible proof surely that human nature, a secular version of original sin, some, maybe many are, but even if they weren’t it mitigates against the possibility of socialism. If people won’t would make thisno difference. because capitalists Capitalism are can selfish? only operate Probably by countenance a modest tax increase for the general good of society, then they certainly won’t storm the citadels of capital. In an ideal capitalist world in which everyone had become The raising or lowering of taxes, of course, actually changes accumulating surplus value, profit. nothing in terms of how capitalism functions. A reformist the companies their shares were in to prosper at the expense party raising taxes does draw down from surplus value in the ofshareholders competitors. they Even would without have a to parasitic be selfish capitalist enough class, to want short term, while lowering them reduces this social tapping. The economic health of capitalism largely determines which the driving force behind production. of those policies will actually be pursued. fundamentallyNot that capitalism nothing could would exist change without while a capitalist profit remained class and Socialists point out the human species only survived because for most of pre-history, amounting to hundreds of thousands of years, cooperation was fundamental to survival. it is in their selfish best interests to continue making profits. Human nature, as with any animal’s nature, is posited upon earthOr is it? succumbing Depends on to howglobal short warming, or long increasing term a view occurrences selfishness survival, the factor that determines how that nature manifests. takes. Even a trillionaire ultimately does not benefit from the wars. Even arms dealers perish. shaped by circumstances. In a society driven by competition, of Forpandemics the vast ormajority, global militarythe world’s conflict workers, erupting it would from serve trade pitchingHuman individuals nature, therefore, against rathereach other than and being driven fixed, by is theflexible, does not want to be frazzled by rising temperatures, left Even acknowledging such being the case does not entail a gaspingthem well for to breath be selfish. by the If eachlatest individual zoonotic virus,decides blown he or up she single,expectation predictable of accumulation, expression. human Self-interest nature mayreflects lead this. a person to say one thing, favour tax increase for the NHS, and yet do fretting about the future for the children and grandchildren et the opposite by voting for a tax decrease. The former offers al,by theninsurgents become or greedy. air strikes, worried by financial insecurity, theConversely, benefit of socialmatching kudos, action the tolatter sentiment, a perceived a vote personal for tax Never mind about fiddling with taxes, decide to take increasefinancial maybenefit. be a recognition, tacit or otherwise, that self- otherthe whole one. world.A person’s Socialist own selfishnesswelfare and can interests, only be rather realised than interest, in this case health care, is best served by having it altruism,through each is a concreteselfish individual starting point,working a foundation in concert onwith which every to properly funded and available if and when the individual construct the socialist case. needs it. A recognition that a social good is a personal good. Both viewpoints are perfectly reasonable within the context but it is not necessarily a barrier to cooperative social of capitalism. Wanting to move beyond capitalism, though, Of course, selfishness can be negative and even destructive, requires the individual to recognise that their best interests are served through developing a society based on democratic thereprogress. is an Human aspect nature,of it that’s in so a problemfar as it can for besocialists identified it’s andnot common ownership of the means of producing to meet need defined, is not a fixed determinant of human behaviour. If known, however unappealing, and step towards the unknown While the NHS is not a socialist institution it does have noselfishness matter how but promisingcaution, a reluctanceit seems. to leave behind the arather social than ethos profit. at its base. In principle, people are treated Socialism has to become more than a nice idea and accepted according to immediate need not their ability to pay. That ethos is massively constrained by having to operate within in that, all well and good. Then human nature can do what capitalist parameters that limits the availability of treatments humanas a necessity. nature Ifdoes, self-interest, adapt to aselfishness, new world can of cooperation. play a part Just and their further development. as it has done for the vast majority of human existence. DAVE ALTON

It is possible for an individual to be selfish and look only to Socialist Standard September 2020 7 Contact details website: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb email: [email protected] UK BRANCHES & CONTACTS Cornwall. Contact: Harry Sowden, Contact: Richard Botterill, 21 Pen-Y-Bryn Rd, 16 Polging Lane, Troon, Camborne, TR14 9DY. Gabalfa, Cardiff, CF14 3LG. 02920-615826. LONDON 01209 219293. [email protected] North London branch. Meets 3rd Thurs. 8pm at East Anglia. Contact: David Porter, Eastholme, Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, NW5 Bush Drive, Eccleson-on-Sea, NR12 0SF. 01692 INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS 2RX. Contact: Chris Dufton 020 7609 0983 582533. Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs [email protected] Rd, Hethersett, NR9 3JD. 01603 814343. LATIN AMERICA South London branch. Meets last Saturday in Essex. Contact: Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Contact: J.M. Morel, Calle 7 edif 45 apto month, 2.30pm. Head Office, 52 Clapham High Billericay, CM12 0EX. [email protected]. 102, Multis nuevo La loteria, La Vega, Rep. St, SW4 7UN. Contact: 020 7622 3811. Cambridge. Contact: Andrew Westley, Dominicana. West London branch. Meets 1st Tues. 8pm. [email protected]. 07890343044. Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace (corner AFRICA Sutton Court Rd), W4. IRELAND Kenya. Contact: Patrick Ndege, [email protected] Cork. Contact: Kevin Cronin, 5 Curragh Woods, PO Box 13627-00100, GPO, Nairobi Frankfield, Cork. 021 4896427. Zambia. Contact: Kephas Mulenga, MIDLANDS [email protected] PO Box 280168, Kitwe. West Midlands regional branch. Meets NORTHERN IRELAND last Sun. 3pm (check before attending). Belfast Contact: Nigel McCullough. ASIA Contact: Stephen Shapton. 01543 821180. 02890 930002 Japan. Contact: Michael. japan.wsm@gmail. com Email: [email protected]. SCOTLAND AUSTRALIA NORTH Edinburgh branch. Meets 1st Thurs. 7-9pm. Contact: Trevor Clarke, North East Regional branch. The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace (above [email protected] Contact: P. Kilgallon, c/o Head Office, 52 Victoria Street), Edinburgh. Contact: J. Moir. Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN. 0131 440 0995. [email protected] EUROPE Lancaster branch. Meets 2nd Sun (Jan 3rd Sun), Branch website: Denmark. Contact: Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund 3pm, Friends Meeting House, Meeting House http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/ 9, Floor 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby J. Lane. Ring to confirm: P. Shannon, 07510 412 Glasgow branch. Meets 3rd Weds. at 7pm in Germany. Contact: Norbert. 261, [email protected]. Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, [email protected] Manchester branch. Contact: Paul Bennett, Glasgow. Contact: Peter Hendrie, 75 Lairhills Norway. Contact: Robert Stafford. 6 Burleigh Mews, Hardy Lane, M21 7LB. 0161 Road, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0LH. [email protected] 860 7189. 01355 903105. Italy. Contact: Gian Maria Freddi, Bolton. Contact: H. McLaughlin. 01204 844589. [email protected]. Via Poiano n. 137, 37142 Verona. Cumbria. Contact: Brendan Cummings, Dundee. Contact: Ian Ratcliffe, 12 Finlow Spain. Contact: Alberto Gordillo, Avenida del 19 Queen St, Millom, Cumbria LA18 4BG. Terrace, Dundee, DD4 9NA. 01382 698297. Parque. 2/2/3 Puerta A, 13200 Manzanares. Doncaster. Contact: Fredi Edwards, Ayrshire. Contact: Paul Edwards 01563 541138. [email protected] [email protected]. COMPANION PARTIES OVERSEAS Lothian Socialist Discussion @Autonomous SOUTH/SOUTHEAST/SOUTHWEST Centre Edinburgh, ACE, 17 West Montgomery Socialist Party of Canada/Parti Socialiste Kent and Sussex regional branch. Meets 2nd Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA. Meets 4th Weds. du Canada. Box 31024, Victoria B.C. V8N 6J3 Sun. 2pm at The Muggleton Inn, High Street, 7-9pm. Contact: F. Anderson 07724 082753. Canada. [email protected] Maidstone ME14 1HJ. Contact: spgb.ksrb@ worldsocialism.org. WALES World Socialist Party (India) 257 Baghajatin ‘E’ South West regional branch. Meets 3rd Sat. South Wales Branch (Swansea) Block (East), Kolkata - 700086, 033- 2425-0208. 2pm at the Railway Tavern, 131 South Western Meets 2nd Mon, 7.30pm (except January, [email protected] Road, Salisbury SP2 7RR. Contact: Ray Carr, April, July and October), Unitarian Church, High Flat 1, 99 Princess Rd, Poole, BH12 1BQ. 01202 Street, SA1 1NZ. Contact: Geoffrey Williams, 19 World Socialist Party (New Zealand) 257556 or 07929627689. Baptist Well Street, Waun Wen, Swansea SA1 P.O. Box 1929, Auckland, NI, New Zealand. Brighton. Contact: Anton Pruden, 6FB. 01792 643624. [email protected] South Wales Branch (Cardiff) World Socialist Party of the United States. Canterbury. Contact: Rob Cox, 4 Stanhope Meets 2nd Saturday 12 noon (January, April, P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA 02144 USA. Road, Deal, Kent, CT14 6AB. July and October) Cafe Nero, Capitol Shopping [email protected] Luton. Contact: Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive, Centre, Queens Street, Cardiff. LU2 7LP.

8 Socialist Standard September 2020 Vaccine development: another market failure ‘There is just not enough profit margin in it for pharma companies. They live by profits and the rules of capitalism. And capitalism has no interest in human beings other than as consumers’ (Nobel laureate and immunologist Professor Peter Doherty, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April). THE PHARMACEUTICAL corporations project stalled when it struggled to has called for a COVID-19 ‘patents pool’ would have us believe that without their secure funding for human trials. The lead where intellectual property rights would investments in scientific research, millions researcher, Dr Hotez, told NBC, ‘We’ve be surrendered so pharmaceuticals could of people would not benefit from the had some conversations with big pharma freely share data and technical knowledge medicine they sell. These businesses are companies in recent weeks about our and numerous participating countries built upon a business model of maximising vaccine, and literally one said, ‘Well, have begun revising their licensing laws shareholder value — and hinge on short- we’re holding back to see if this thing to allow them to suspend intellectual term returns to seek maximum profits so comes back year after year.’” property rights, the response from the their investors can achieve higher prices It is business logic which reflects the industry has been cool. Pfizer and some for their stocks and pursue higher returns belief that vaccines for recurring seasonal other major drug makers say they oppose for their dividends. We are told that illnesses, like the flu, are the more suspending patent rights for potential without the pressure from competition attractive investment. They promise a COVID-19 vaccines. and the promise of riches, drug companies client base that can be mined over and The UK and the US refuse to support the would not invest in research. over again. Capitalism steers R&D towards WHO initiative and are more interested Capitalists imagine a world in which the largest profit in the shortest amount in siding with big pharmaceutical free enterprise and free markets of time. corporations than turning vaccine research promote a race to the top but this isn’t In 2017 a plan to speed up the into a genuinely collective endeavour. For quite how things are in practice. It may development and approval of vaccines for the British and American governments sound counter-intuitive but the laws of priority diseases such as MERS and SARS, the patent system is sacrosanct and they capitalism deliberately restrict innovation, both of them coronaviruses, was put appear determined not to upset their information and knowledge. Many in forward by EU officials on the Innovative own pharmaceutical corporations or the the pharmaceutical industry are bound Medicines Initiative (IMI), a public-private financial sector that makes substantial by non-compete agreements in their partnership, but it was rejected by returns from these companies, which employment contracts which prevent industry representatives of the European spend more money on share buybacks employees when switching jobs from Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries. than on researching drugs. Now, a new using prior experience to make meaningful Informed sources commented that rather term has entered our lexicon – ‘vaccine contributions to a new employer. Patent than compensating for market failures nationalism.’ protection allows the patent holder to by speeding up the development of National governments are neglecting charge high fees for the direct use or medicine, as per its remit, the IMI has the most effective and safe route to licensing of their discovery and to sue been ‘more about business-as-usual discovering speedy cures for coronavirus: anyone who doesn’t buy this permission. market priorities’ and that the influence by forgoing corporate profitability and Competitors are discouraged from of pharmaceutical companies has led intellectual property rights in favour of trying to improve on products, knowing IMI’s agenda to becoming dominated global cooperation through open and they would need legal permission and by industry priorities, and to the side- shared research. considerable time and money is spent lining of poverty-related and neglected The minority interests of economic on acquiring such permission. So the diseases, including coronaviruses. and financial groups has placed profits patent system shrinks the overall pool of Drug companies have historically for themselves above the common innovators, slowing down progress. pleased investors by promoting vaccine good. The chaos of the market must be Public health experts have warned for development projects during disease superseded by a more rational system years that the world is at risk of a major outbreaks, then quietly dropping them of planning – a socialist system, where pandemic, and the drug corporations later. Had there been more sustained drugs are produced to meet the needs showed little interest in preparation until interest, researchers would have more of humanity. When it comes to the this latest outbreak of COVID-19 offered tools for combating the current outbreak. crunch, pharmaceutical companies treat an opportunity to rake in government The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed healthcare as a commodity. For the subsidies and enjoy profits with minimal the workings of capitalist economics, pharmaceutical companies Covid-19 is a risk. Governments have eliminated many laying bare the pharmaceutical industry. business opportunity. risks that had dissuaded drug companies When faced with a global threat, one Our competitive capitalist market is from vaccine investments by bankrolling would expect worldwide cooperation and not a suitable approach for solving the research, sponsoring clinical trials, and collaboration to contain it. The United problem. Socialism would apply an open, reducing liability for drug corporations. Nations, International Red Cross and collaborative strategy to coronavirus Back in 2016, doctors at the Texas others said it was a ‘moral imperative’ vaccine development to assure a safe and Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine that everyone have access to a ‘people’s effective vaccine will be made accessible Development created a potential vaccine vaccine.’ Sadly, such aspirations are to all and it would speed up the process of for one deadly strain of coronavirus unenforceable, despite the launching of discovery as well. which they believed could be effective some international initiatives. ALJO against the strain we face now but the While the World Health Organization

Socialist Standard September 2020 9 Capitalism: incompatible with democracy apitalism’s relationship to democracy is similar to a state. As the majority are convinced that they live in a free and democratic society, control over the population is easier. Cwhere a lawyer addressing a client described the relationshipconversation between in athe film law set and in apartheidjustice in generalSouth Africa, as being Illusion of Political Democracy similar to distant cousins who were not on speaking terms. However, it can be argued that even the limited democracy Capitalism, as we know, is a world-wide system. However, the allowed for in the LD system is a sham. Whilst LD does allow type of political system that underpins it differs in various for multiple political parties for the electorate to choose parts of the world. In many places it operates on the basis between, perhaps there is less difference than many might of what are clearly totalitarian regimes, although even here think between a one-party state and a situation where terms such as ‘Peoples’ Assembly’, as in China, try to create multiple political parties exist but stand for more or less the the illusion that it contains democratic features. The dominant same thing. For example, there is little difference in real terms political system for organising capitalism is the mostly between the Democrats or Republicans in the United States Western mode of liberal democracy (LD). It is this system that or between the parties who might reasonably be expected to we will focus on here as it claims to be the only democratic compete for government in places such as Germany, France system on offer, and organisations such as the Westminster or Italy. Here we are merely considering differences limited Foundation for Democracy and National Endowment for to the running of capitalism and not anything more radical. Democracy attempt to export and promote this model to other In the years running up to the election in December 2019 parts of the world. the situation in Britain It seems that there is a widely was arguably somewhat held belief that capitalism and different and so is worthy democracy go together almost of examination. as well as bread and butter Margaret Thatcher and that therefore totalitarian once suggested that regimes are seen as something one of her major other than capitalist. China and accomplishments had similar systems are labelled, been Tony Blair. It quite incorrectly of course, as seemed that the Labour ‘Communist’. This linking of Party had been moving capitalism with democracy rightwards prior to seems to be contradictory when Blair but it was under one considers that it is based his leadership that the on the minority ownership concept of New Labour and control of the means of really began to take producing and distributing shape. The policies wealth; meaning of course that advocated by this the majority are separated from seemingly new version those means and therefore from of the Labour Party any real control over their lives. meant that it was now in So immediately the system a position to challenge and perhaps end the very limited terms. It is clearly Conservative Party’s long undemocraticof LD defines democracy in terms of in wealth reign of political power production and distribution but claims to be democratic on in Britain. It was now seen by those who mattered most to be the basis that on the political level it allows for a multi-party political system where a majority of the population, restricted Things radically changed in 2015 when, after Labour’s defeat ina party the general fit to take election power of and that run year, capitalism a subsequent in the leadership right way. in and out of government, which normally occurs every election led, much to the surprise of most people, to the generally only by age qualification, can vote political parties election of Jeremy Corbyn, a long standing left-winger. democratic than the parts of the world that are governed by Whilst the background to these events is of interest, the one-partyfour or five states. years. So the general opinion is that this is more relevant point to be teased out here is that the Labour Party However, it can also be argued that this multi-party system under a left reformist programme was a rather different animal does have advantages for a smoother running of capitalism. To begin with, the state can be described as little more than to accept as suitable for forming a government. From almost an executive committee to ensure the overall interests of the theand moment definitely he not was one elected the capitalist there were class moves would to be discredit willing his minority who monopolise the means of living. If a particular government is seen to be failing in this respect, normally due a prospective Prime Minister; that was apart from personal to some problem with the economy, those who hold economic attacksleadership and abilities for good and measure most definitely his dress hissense. suitability The anti-Corbyn to be power have at their disposal an alternative to take its place, campaign was mainly administered by the mass media but was and generally they have enough control over the prevailing also supported by many of those close to the top of Corbyn’s ideas in existence to persuade the majority to vote in line with own party including a substantial number of Labour MPs, so their thinking. So a multi-party system is a good arrangement much so that after only about a year as leader Corbyn had to for the minority capitalist class. Secondly, it is probably less seek re-election. Despite all of this the Labour Party gave the costly in economic terms not to have to resort to maintaining Conservative Party a good run for their money in the snap the kind of state apparatus needed to support a totalitarian general election called by Theresa May in 2017.

10 Socialist Standard September 2020 If a fairly recently leaked report into the internal strife in single issue campaigns. As for the media such as television the Labour Party is anywhere near accurate, the surprisingly and the press, whilst it is, in theory, free from the state it is a good showing of the 2017 Labour election campaign was the powerful weapon in the hands of capitalism. last thing that many near the top of the Labour Party wanted. Those who were totally opposed to the elected leader of their Managing Democracy own party had to wait until the end of 2019 to achieve their As capitalism operating under LD permits a limited form of goal when a disastrous election result for Labour signalled the end for Corbyn and led to another leadership election early in control the majority who are divorced from ownership, It 2020. The election of Sir Keir Starmer who has been described needsdemocracy a mechanism it needs to findreplace a way the of outward making repressivesure that it state can as ‘soft left’ is probably seen as the beginning of the process to apparatus generally found in totalitarian societies, in order return the Labour Party to a situation where it can be viewed to maintain a compliant society; otherwise the democratic practices it does allow could be used by a politically conscious form an alternative government if the need arises. population to overturn the rule of capital. This is where the byThis those points who outmatter something in the capitalist about the system level of as democracy a party fit to work of Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent) or more recently a within capitalism. LD may be a multi-party system but to book entitled Managing Democracy, Managing Consent edited have much or even any chance of gaining political power by Rebecca Fisher come in very useful. This process could also the policies put forward have to be inside a very limited be termed as the Construction of Reality. This is not a form of conspiracy theory where a group of powerful individuals meet even when it is only concerned with running capitalism. Take and make certain plans to hold the population in check but is forframework. example Athe party Labour needs Party’s to operate slogan in for very the narrow 2019 General confines the natural outcome of a system of minority control operating election ’For the many not the few’. That slogan, along with the with limited democratic rights which need to be controlled way in which the Labour Party under Corbyn thought they within. could administer capitalism, not only sounded the alarm bells To begin with, it is stating the obvious to say that in a for much of the capitalist class but also caused dissent for capitalist society the means of communication are owned many in the hierarchy of the Labour Party who saw even this and controlled by members of the capitalist class who have kind of mild reformist programme for running capitalism as no interest whatsoever in undermining their system. Not meaning they would very likely be unelectable despite the fact surprisingly as in capitalism the tendency to monopoly is that they performed quite well in 2017. an unstoppable force the media is owned and controlled by By 2019 the Brexit issue was more at the forefront of very few companies. This is highlighted by a report published the campaigns. Some have argued that the programme put in 2019 by the Media Reform Coalition on the ownership of forward in 2019 was much less radical then those of the the media in the UK. This states that just three companies, 1960s and 70s. Following on from the Blair governments Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, Daily Mail Group and Reach, the the dominant attitude of many in the Labour Party was that publisher of the Mirror titles, dominate 83 percent of the to win an election they had to advocate policies that either mirrored or were at least not that far removed from those percent only four years earlier. When online readership is on offer by the Conservative Party. The important issue now national newspaper market. This is up from the figure of 71 was not even trying to represent the many but who could run Group, Reach, the Guardian and Telegraph control nearly 80included percent it meansof the market. that five To companies quote from – Newsthe Media UK, Daily Reform Mail After all, the only time that Labour had been in power in over Coalition: fortycapitalism years towas the the benefit Blair ofadministrations. the minority who Elected really in mattered. 1997, ‘We believe that concentration in news and information the prime ministerial role was passed over to Gordon Brown markets in particular has reached endemic levels in the UK in 2007 who was then defeated by Cameron’s Conservatives and that we urgently need effective remedies. Concentrated in 2010, following another periodic capitalist economic crisis ownership creates conditions in which wealthy individuals in 2008. To be blunt, the Blair governments were more or and organisations can amass vast political and economic less conservative in everything but name. So the last Labour power and distort the media landscape to suit their interests.’ government that was elected with something close to a From time to time media outlets may question the way traditional Labour programme was way back in 1974. Many that capitalism is operating or favour one particular political of course will blame this on neo-liberalism but that is just party over the rest but any criticism they make within the capitalism operating in the only way it can. boundaries which suggest that capitalism is the only game in As pointed out previously, LD has advantages over more town. In line with all capitalist companies, the corporations authoritarian systems for running a society based on the rule by and for a privileged minority. As it is based on a multi-party much of their revenue comes from selling advertising space political system it manages to create the impression that towho their own fellow the mass wealthy media corporations. exist on a profit The income priority from basis this and people live in a free and democratic society, thus making it source is estimated to be around 75 percent of a newspaper’s easier to manage any opposition to it. For people have little to total income, even for the so-called quality press such as the object to as they seemingly have the right to vote governments Guardian or Independent. So there is no wish to bite the hands in and out of power and the right to protest and there exists a that feed them. (The source for much of the information on the media which is seen as being independent of the state. media is Media Lens). However, the right to vote on its own is no guarantee of (continued next month.) democracy. As for the freedom to protest, whilst as with voting RDC it is an important right, history has tended to show that whilst there have been many protests on many issues they have changed very little and fundamental change needs more than just protest movements, especially as they normally focus on

Socialist Standard September 2020 11 ust what is wrong with the world today, so wrong that there are huge numbers of protests in numerous countries Jwith millions of people crying out for change? Some of these protests get much publicity, others in different parts of the world are rarely heard of except locally. A brief search on the internet for protests will supply reams of information from countries many people from the West will not be able to point to on a map, let alone be aware of the protest and its purpose – but they are there in great numbers and appear to be growing annually.

Nuclear Weapons Different generations may have different perspectives as to the made global warming. At that time the emphasis of growing grows older they can look back and possibly/probably have movements and writers was on the rape and pillage of the asignificance different view of any from particular those of protest younger but generations as each generation who are worldwide environment and the urgent need to protect the viewing the same events but as historical events. If we recall planet for future generations. The result? A year on year the early days of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) increase of emissions, increased degradation of forests, and the ‘Ban The Bomb’ banners, initially started by Bertrand over use of water leading to the increased disappearance of Russell all those decades ago with the aim of stopping aquifers and huge increases in the number of migrants having development of nuclear weapons and protecting the planet no choice but to move away from such diversities adversities and humanity, and then we give serious thought to the years as drought, gradual inundation and loss of land for basic food stuffs. seven decades research and development of such weapons Recently we have witnessed the Extinction Rebellion and in between then and now, what do we find? In those six to global protests with the expected kick-back from media entrenched with the status quo. This topic now seems to humblehas continued atomic and bomb a significant of 1945 has number now become of countries, a bomb including of the be taken more seriously by many more individuals as time past,the UK, superseded continue toby produce incendiaries and sell of much them greaterat great capacity. profit. The slips by but the action required against it is not being taken. Since then waste nuclear materials have become a favoured Warning after warning is signalled telling of the enormity product for use in depleted uranium weapons as used in Iraq for example. regardless whilst continuing to ignore the degradation of the Following on from the initial CND campaign, which clearly planetaryof the problem environment and still andproduction the plight for of profit climate continues refugees. hasn’t seen success yet, came more generalised protests such as the Greenham Common women’s attempts to bring ongoing Racism attention to the US Airforce base from where nuclear weapons Surely no one now can be totally unaware of the history of were being deployed. slavery and the following knock-on effects continuously displayed and currently witnessed in the Black Lives Matter the United States on those two towns in Japan, more countries protest movement. Whilst the previous two paragraphs of Yearthe world on year either since developed the first atom or simply bombs bought were droppedthose weapons by related to all life on Earth this topic reveals the division

And where are we now? How has protest affected the the despicable history of European colonialism. The evidence decisionsfrom countries of those willing in power to sell to them pay attentionfor great profits.to calls for isspecifically clear that between the legacy black of colonialism and white individualsof one form as or a another result of abolishing nuclear weapons? Some talks to limit the kind and has left indigenous and black and brown people in positions size and numbers – talks but no action to speak of. of severe inequality. Both the US and UK’s statistics reveal inequalities in employment – from the securing of a job Global Warming/Climate Change interview to rate of pay, education, housing, stop and search Around six decades ago there were strong warnings regarding by police and especially imprisonment where numbers by the coming problems for the globe connected to human- percentage of population are highly disproportionate.

12 Socialist Standard September 2020 improved conditions, better pay and other concessions from employers. Some will look back at the headier days some decades ago but the reality is that there are fewer union members year by year as new rules and regulations from governments are applied plus the downgrading of the general work force following massive offshoring of manufacturing.

improved conditions for workers. TheIt shouldbottom be line noted is profit that forone employers of the issues and referred companies, to above, not that of global warming, has suffered for years now from the added effects of reformism. Recall the long list of COP meetings (Conference of the Parties) established in 1985 This protest has been alive for generations. Now we supposedly in order to address the pending global climate problem. So many agreements to no avail, so much negative – murders(?) – of black individuals who happen to be in thecontinue wrong to place witness at the an wrongongoing time. series Of courseof horrific there deaths will be including those from the thousands of people attending from protests. Such an urgent matter does need to be addressed but allinfluence parts of from the planet,corporations, as delegates, so many media, more protesters emissions, – and this isn’t what is happening. every meeting registering more annual negative effects.

Why are there protests? Democracy It becomes more apparent as time goes by that huge sections Current systems of ‘democracy’ around the world are seen of the global population are standing up and shouting because by many citizens as worthless and lacking in what’s required they want to be seen and heard calling for action different of a true democracy, thus leading to increasing numbers from what their leaders are offering. Democracy, so-called, as of protests annually. All of what we can refer to as ‘single it is displayed around the world is obviously not democratic issues’ have relevance to any debate, however in isolation enough for many. Voting for a candidate once every four or they face the power of the opposition, that is the power of the wealthy, the corporations, the capitalists and our elected be achieved eventually is surely not how most would want representatives in hock to the capitalists. Many things are not it.five They years, know for example,their voice and is notthen heard hoping and that is not something likely to will be heard or acted upon. The capitalist system is far from democratic and must be In one way or another all these various voices of protest overcome.allowed to Ratherchange thanbecause be divided that would by all affect such ongoing single issues profits. seek to improve human society. Let’s assume that at some what is required is that as members of a global population we point one or more of the objectives are resolved to the general recognise that all of these issues are just parts of the whole, all satisfaction of the protest’s supporters. Will those supporters should be gathered together under the umbrella of a true and inclusive democracy. be solved? Recognising that any move in the direction of JANET SURMAN be satisfied or will they then discover another problem to are supporters, or even generations of supporters, prepared satisfying the protesters is likely to be insignificant, how long wrong? Many protest movements have evolved over the years andto continue are still withunresolved. their fight Some against will bewhat prepared they consider to compromise to be and accept crumbs from the table leaving future protesters to attempt to take the protest further. Reformism seems to have become acceptable to many as a way to achieve a particular end step by step but consider the track record of another attempt to improve things within the system, trade unions, a collective of workers pressing for

Socialist Standard September 2020 13 Super-profits and the labour aristocracy

We continue our series debunking the view that workers in the project. First World live off the backs of those in the Third World by Imperialism had been condoned on the grounds that, by examining in further detail Lenin’s mistaken theory. imposing capitalist development on the newly colonised countries, this would hasten the advent of socialism. However, enin’s theory of the ‘weakest link’ led him to believe a ‘socialist proletarian revolution’ would most likely occur as some kind of objectively ‘civilising’ and progressive project L therebehind lurked the superficial ulterior motives. rationalisations portraying imperialism capitalism, not the advanced capitalist countries themselves. Partly,first this in arose parts from of the his world belief still that transitioning a stratum of towards workers full imperialist project, by increasing their living standards at in the latter – the ‘labour aristocracy’ – had been ‘bribed’ theLenin expense argued of the that colonial by materially workforce, benefitting the labour from aristocracy the comprising the ‘principal prop of the Second International’, produced by a super-exploited colonial workforce. found their appetite for socialist revolution had been intoIn supportingImperialism, capitalism the Highest out Stage of imperialist of Capitalism ‘super-profits’ (1917), Lenin considerably dulled if not altogether extinguished. Thus did quotes the arch-imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, reminiscing about a they succumb to the politics of ‘opportunism’ – or reformism meeting of the unemployed he once attended. The discontent – and, in their leadership role as representatives of the wider he encountered there convinced Rhodes that Britain should working class, they set about persuading the latter to adopt expand its empire, thereby improving the economic prospects this course of action as well, in the process abandoning their of British workers, in order to avert a civil war. earlier commitment to socialist revolution. Indeed, reformism Yet, incongruously, Lenin states elsewhere in his book (Ch. itself could likewise be construed as a form of bribery 4) that if capitalism could ‘raise the living standards of the insofar as it held out the prospect of workers improving their masses, who in spite of the amazing technical progress are circumstances within the framework of capitalism itself, everywhere still half-starved and poverty-stricken … it would thereby shoring it up. not be capitalism’. This prompts the question – why then would the capitalists go to such lengths to raise the living Earlier theories standards of some workers by ‘bribing’ them? The term ‘labour aristocracy’ was originally coined by the anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin, in 1872. Bakunin felt it was not 1920 Preface of Imperialism: the organised and more skilled workers within the proletariat ‘Lenin’sObviously definitive out of such statement enormous on thesuper-profits subject appears (since theyin the are that were its most radical elements but, rather, those lower obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe is not, as it is to the Marxists, the upper layer, the aristocracy the labour aristocracy. And the capitalists of the “advanced” ofdown labor, the those labour who hierarchy: are the most ‘To me cultured, the flower who of earn the proletariatmore countries are bribing them, they bribe them in a thousand and live more comfortably than all the other workers’ (On the different ways, direct and indirect. This stratum of workers- International Workingmen’s Association and Karl Marx,1872). turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite This, in a way, anticipated Lenin’s view that revolution philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second of the world. In both instances, the underlying (and rather International, and in our days, the principal social (not mechanistic)was more likely assumption to break out seems first to in have the poorerbeen that countries the more military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents intense the poverty experienced, the more likely are people to of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour revolt. lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism However, this raises the question – what are the people and chauvinism’. supposedly revolting for? A violent uprising, however Prior to the First World War, as Eric Hobsbawn notes, understandable, does not of itself constitute a social Lenin did not really make a connection between the ‘labour revolution if all it does is to replace one ruling class with another. Social revolution means a fundamental change in the for the reformist outlook of workers. Rather, he seems basis of society irrespective of how it is achieved. aristocracy’ and imperialist ‘super-profits’ as an explanation Bakunin’s basic argument has been endorsed by others – bourgeois’ tendencies becoming more prominent due to a like Frantz Fanon, whose seminal work The Wretched of the changingto have attributed occupational this tostructure the influence and the of developmentcertain ‘petty of a Earth (1961), contended that it was the lumpenproletariat purely ‘economist trade union movement fragmenting the and Third World peasantry who, precisely because of their social distance from the capitalist mainstream and its pursuing its interest at the expense of others’ (Monthly Review, dominant ideology, embodied the greatest revolutionary Decemberworking class 2012). into ‘selfish’ (“petty bourgeois”) segments each potential within modern capitalism. Similar sentiments It was the impact of the First World War and Lenin’s profound sense of shock induced by the various Social ‘precariat’ of more recent times. Democratic parties (comprising the Second International) haveMarx’s been opinion expressed of the with ‘lumpenproletariat’ regard to the newly-identified contrasted starkly abandoning all pretence of international solidarity and with Bakunin’s. Living largely outside of the constraints of aligning themselves with their respective capitalist formal wage labour and subject to the vagaries of desperate governments in the cause of an imperialist bloodbath, which poverty, the lumpenproletariat, by virtue of its very life jolted him into further developing his idea of the labour situation, was more likely to become a ‘bribed tool of aristocracy. That war, he reasoned, was the quintessential reactionary intrigue’ rather than a force for revolution. This expression of the capitalist rivalries inherent in imperialism. was a reference to elements of the lumpenproletariat being By supporting it, the parties of the Second International employed by the French state within its armed forces for the betrayed their own inadvertent support for the imperialist purposes of maintaining order during the social upheavals of

14 Socialist Standard September 2020 the term ‘bribe’ as a premeditated act to materially induce the other party to the transaction to do your bidding. For Lenin’s concept of a bribe to make any sense, and to work on its own terms, it would need to imply something given in addition to the wages received – meaning one would need to transparently disaggregate the income of the labour aristocracy into a ‘legitimate’ wage and ‘illegitimate’ bribe component. This obviously did not happen; all workers received was a wage so any alleged bribe would be hidden within this wage. This raises multiple problems. If the capitalists of the imperialist countries were so amenable to surreptitiously sharing the proceeds of their investments abroad with (some of) their workforce at home, one might surmise that they would be less resistant to pressure from the latter for better wages than was the case. As Tony Cliff noted: ‘No capitalist

’ Socialist Review, June 1957).says to Workersthe workers: always “I have have made to struggle high profits for higher this year,wages. so Indeed,I am ready Lenin to give rather you contradicted higher wages” himself by suggesting that the mid-nineteenth century – the bribe in question being a soldier’s wage rather than something received in addition to –super-profits implying a systemic are obtained need, over arising and out above of market ‘the profits competition, which this wage (The Class Struggles in France 1848-1850). forcapitalists these capitalists squeeze out to exert of the a workersconstant of downward their “own” pressure country’ on Marx’s reference to the lumpenproletariat being ‘bribed’ is wage levels. ironic, given Lenin’s insistence that it was labour aristocracy, If Lenin’s thesis was correct we would expect income differentials between the labour aristocracy and other However, this may be a case of over-theorising on both workers to vary in proportion to a country’s level of colonial sides.instead, One’s that own was circumstancesthe beneficiary – of be capitalist one a lumpenproletarian bribery. investment. However, the evidence suggests otherwise. or labour aristocrat – need not be particularly decisive as far According to Cliff, wage differentials between skilled and as one’s receptivity to socialist ideas is concerned. Indeed, unskilled workers were higher in a country like Romania Marx and Engels themselves in the Communist Manifesto which had very little foreign investment compared to, say, speculated on the possibility of even some capitalists (Engels Britain – in Lenin’s time by far the world largest source of himself, being a prime example), cutting themselves adrift foreign capital. from their class and seeking common cause with the workers. Moreover, though wage differentials in Britain did widen Nevertheless, the weight of historical evidence suggests that the more militant elements within the working class the growth of craft unions (e.g. the Amalgamated Society (particularly those who have embraced revolutionary ofsignificantly Engineers) between, dominated roughly, by ‘labour 1850 aristocrats’, and 1890 because these of socialism) have, indeed, tended to be drawn from the ranks of differentials narrowed towards the end of the nineteenth semi-skilled and skilled workers. century with the appearance of the ‘new unionism’ which There is a further irony in Lenin’s depiction of the labour sought to reach out and organise unskilled and semi-skilled aristocracy as a force for conservatism since it was precisely workers. The point is that it was precisely then when the this segment of the Russian working class that formed the age of imperialism commenced (as Lenin saw it) that these social base from which the Bolsheviks primarily drew their differentials started narrowing, thus contradicting what his support – skilled machinists in the large factories whereas theory predicts. ‘Lower paid workers, such as the predominantly female textile There are other grounds on which one might question the workers, were generally either unorganized or apolitical (until theory. For instance, it overlooks that what might theoretically the beginnings of the revolution) or supported the reformist be in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole to collude Mensheviks’ (C Post, Solidarity Sept-Oct 2006). in bribing workers to achieve some nebulous political Engels, before Lenin, had suggested a link between capitalist monopoly and the labour aristocracy, in a letter to individual capitalists (in competition with other capitalists) to Kautsky, concerning the political situation in England: ‘There becomeobjective, involved may not in be this a sufficiently stratagem. persuasiveMeaning it reasonmay never for take is no workers party here, there are only Conservatives and off as a stratagem. Liberal-Radicals and the workers gaily share the feast of Likewise, workers succumbing to such bribery and seeing England’s Monopoly of the world market and the colonies’ (12 themselves as indebted to their employers would probably September 1882). be less likely to militantly struggle for better wages and However, unlike Lenin, Engels held that the tendency for conditions. This would probably more than wipe out the value capital to penetrate everywhere would eventually break down of any hypothetical bribe they might have received. England’s global monopoly (and, by extension, undermine There are other problems with Lenin’s theory which we will consider later in the context of a ‘post-colonial’ world. reversing the ‘embourgeoisement’ of the English proletariat. While Lenin fondly imagined ‘national liberation struggles’ the super-profits it derived from such a monopoly), thereby would serve to undermine imperialism and thereby strike Bribery but how? a blow against ‘monopoly capitalism’ the outcome of such For all Lenin’s talk of how the capitalists bribe the labour struggles, as we shall see, has been quite the opposite of aristocracy in ‘a thousand different ways, direct and indirect’, what he hoped for. (To be continued) happen – not if we are to remain faithful to the meaning of ROBIN COX it is difficult to envisage even a single way in which this might Socialist Standard September 2020 15 Private enterprise pays At the beginning of July, it was loudly trumpeted in the media Pandering to the wealthy that hundreds of people had been arrested in operations Similarly, a criminal enterprise broken apart by state across Europe. It was a directed strike at organised crime action is Jeffrey Epstein and his associates. His ‘little black groups, enabled by French police compromising the book’ of contacts has been released and while, it should be communication servers of a company called Enchrochat, stressed, there is no reason to think any of the names listed which offered secure encrypted communications. Believing in it are connected with his sex crimes, it is an interesting themselves safe from police surveillance the criminal insight into the connectedness of the rich and powerful entrepreneurs using its services were caught planning drugs (tinyurl.com/y6mfzsbl). Just as criminal gangs organise in deals, kidnappings and murders. international networks, so too do supposedly legitimate The enterprises engaged in drug production on an industrial businesses. scale. Police uncovered ‘19 meth labs, 1,200kg of meth and 10 Jeffrey Epstein famously committed suicide in prison tons of cocaine’ (tinyurl.com/yxhxu58k). This industrialism (under murky circumstances that led many to claim he is complemented by the horrifying fact that Dutch police found a shipping container that had been converted into a Wikipedia article relates: soundproofed torture chamber, complete with a chair to strap was‘Epstein ‘suicided’). pleaded He wasguilty convicted and was ofconvicted sex trafficking, in 2008 as by his victims into. a Florida state court of procuring an underage girl for Enchrochat charged £1,500 for a 6 month contract with its prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. He served almost 13 dedicated handsets, and it’s believed that 10,000 people in months in custody, but with extensive work release. He was the UK availed themselves of its possibilities, out of 60,000 convicted of only these two crimes as part of a controversial worldwide (tinyurl.com/yck7u5h5). The law enforcement agencies consider that this was a bespoke service for young as 14 years old, whom Epstein had allegedly sexually criminal enterprises, used by middle tiers and upwards of abused’plea deal; (tinyurl.com/yypd37bt). federal officials had identified 36 girls, some as organised criminals. So this set of police raids, which have His initially lenient sentence after the plea deal was netted 800 arrests (so far) has also revealed the extent of organised crime. Although those numbers sound large on their own, what Heattributed gained wealthby many in to the his ‘80s having as a influentialWall Street friends. trader. Steven they reveal is how small the organised criminal underworld Hoffenberg,He was a wealthy who served financier 20 years from in a federal modest prison, background. claims Epstein was a co-conspirator in his fraud, and yet he was not number to cause so much pain and mayhem. Just as with most charged. He moved in to managing the investments of the truly otherreally enterprises,is, and how efficientmodern theirindustrial business technology is for so has small increased a wealthy. the productivity of those whose output is crime. He used his wealth to pander to other wealthy and powerful The raids in the UK amounted to over 700 arrests, netting men. It is interesting to see who was willing to be a recipient £54 million in cash. This is, though, not the full value of these businesses. nicknamed ‘the Lolita Express’ (apparently because of the These are early days, and the state agencies have a vested of his largesse, flying on his private jet – rather tastelessly interest in saying everyone who used these machines was a criminal (as opposed to legitimate business people with andnumber Andrew, of teenage Duke ofgirls York. it flew Epstein’s to his contact private listisland). included The list of a need for privacy). What these events show, though, is the Primethose who Ministers flew on like the Tony jet includedBlair (of Billcourse, Clinton, this justDonald means Trump he professionalisation of crime. Indeed, the root cause of crime knew their contact details, not that they had been in contact). is free enterprise, and entrepreneurs would be foolish not At his death, he possessed $112 million in investments, to make the best use of available technology to spread their $56 million in cash and was worth an estimated total of $577 businesses. They co-operate across borders with business million, including his Caribbean private islands. As a fund partners (the press called them ‘gangs’) in other countries. manager he made his wealth looking after billions of dollars Like any other business, they need to co-ordinate their of other people’s money. To that end, his luxurious lifestyle activities, and although this co-ordination remains hidden was part of his means of impressing clients and potential most of the time, this communication was used in this case to investment partners. smash their organisations. They also need secrecy, lest their That lifestyle included using his wealth to obtain and competitors take their markets from them (their competitors sexually abuse young women and girls. While still alive he including capitalist businesses that are ‘legitimate’ and use settled a string of lawsuits with pay-offs. There are allegations the law to make their money rather than breaking it). Like he provided girls to his contacts (tinyurl.com/y547oqnw). the criminals, the police advanced their use of technology. As More will come out, doubtless, in the upcoming trials of his Joseph Cox (at Vice,com) explained, there was: associates. ‘…malware on the Encrochat device itself, meaning that it Like the Enchrochat criminals, wealth and respectability could potentially read the messages written and stored on the came to him from the proceeds of criminality. Like them, state device before they were encrypted and sent over the internet’ intervention shows how the powerful and wealthy organise (tinyurl.com/ycq2r46j). and connect to each other. The wealth stolen from our labour Enchrochat themselves boasted that nothing was stored on funds these lavish lifestyles. For the truly wealthy, the law their servers, and that their phones had an easy wipe feature. becomes optional, and it took particularly egregious behaviour The malware prevented wiping and stored passwords. from Epstein to even get a slap on the wrist. The loss of Enchrochat has temporarily broken the bond The connection between his world and the Dutch torturers of trust needed to engage in this type of business, but new is wealth and ego turning into impunity: wealth, secrecy and encryption services are coming forward, and the criminal power go hand in hand which in turn enables criminality. enterprises will learn and return to their pursuit of wealth and Billionaires do not need a lift on a friend’s jet, but they like the

PIK SMEET profit without restraint at the first opportunity. After all, isn’t flattery and affirmation. 16that what capitalist ideologues tell us all to do: fill your boots? Socialist Standard September 2020 or centuries, women have been denied the opportunities as long as they are under 40 and not lesbians). In Poland, for personal advancement in the name of religion and the ruling Law and Justice Party introduced the 500+ policy Ftradition. Religious and cultural institutions where patriarchal attitudes were legitimised have had a deep effect per child per month from the second child onwards, later on the role and status of women. Yet it is now women who are expandedin 2016, under to include which all mothers children. received Russia 500launched złoty (£99)a one-off the key drivers in defusing what was once popularly called payment of £5,800 to families with two or more children, with the ‘population bomb’. Everything has changed so much that Putin explaining that ‘Russia’s fate and its historic prospects choosing to have no children, or just give birth to one child, is depend on how many of us there are, it depends on how many for women just as convenient as choosing to bear two or three. children are born in Russian families.’ Globally, the fertility rate – the average number of children Sweden is one country that used a package of policies a woman gives birth to -- is falling below the replacement level and this means nearly every country could have maternity and paternity leave packages to reverse its shrinking populations by the end of the century, based on the populationincluding childcare, decline. Butflexible the increaseworking toconditions the fertility and rate generous was expectation that women will have fewer children. This does marginal – just 0.2 children per woman. not mean the number of people living in these countries is As Wolfgang Lutz points out, ‘Once a woman is socialised falling, at least not immediately, as the size of a population is to have an education and a career, she is socialised to have a a mix of the fertility rate, death rate and migration. It can be a smaller family. There’s no going back.’ generation before changes in fertility rate take hold. Although fertility rates continue to fall the world population will Fertility rates continue to rise because the fall in fertility rates takes a while Just as the Catholic Church’s anti-contraceptive dogma was to show up, a phenomenon known as population momentum. blamed for rises in population only to be punctured by women Falling fertility rates go hand-in-hand with better education defying their priests, the argument switched to the Muslims, and more career openings for women and the access to with its emphasis on strict traditional hierarchal gender contraception and abortion. When more infants survive, roles, and it would be they who would go against the trend of fertility goes down and population growth draws to an end. smaller families. But then fertility rates in majority-Muslim The more secure and prosperous people become, the lower countries such as Iran, Bangladesh and Indonesia fell, as well. will be their family sizes. Now the blame for over-population has shifted to sub- According to Wolfgang Lutz, of the Vienna University of Saharan Africa, suggesting that African high fertility rates Economics and Business, one reason for the fertility decline is with four or more births per woman will not buck the trend women’s education: and cause over-population. But even here, there are signs of ‘The brain is the most important reproductive organ,’ he change in a growing number of countries. explains. Once a woman receives enough information and Countries such as Nigeria which are struggling to make autonomy to make an informed and self-directed choice about progress to provide education and employment opportunities when to have children and how many to have, she immediately and provide quality healthcare should be seen as the last hold- has fewer of them and has them later. outs against the global triumph of small families. International agencies found that over 20 percent of women Paid to reproduce in this region of Africa want to avoid a pregnancy but have Some countries are so concerned about their shrinking their needs unmet by any family planning outreach. It results populations and fear of the alternative – a policy of in almost 20 million — or 38 percent — of the region’s immigration – has led nationalist and xenophobic leaders to pregnancies each year being unintended. The World Health introduce policies that could only be described as a return Organization estimates that globally 270 million women who back to an earlier time when women were viewed as baby- want contraceptives have no access to them. producing machines. Across Europe, governments have Practices such as early marriage, which is associated with an early start to child bearing, are common. In sub-Saharan implementing baby bonuses for each new child and promoting Africa, approximately 38 percent of women are married by the ‘traditionalintroduced benefitsfamily values’. aimed at stimulating population growth, age of 18. In Niger, three-quarters of girls marry by the age of Victor Orban of Hungary is heavily investing in such things 18. Child marriage denies girls an education which leads to a as cash loans to young married couples. Each time a child is born, repayment is deferred. If the couple have three children decision-making power and their right to choose. within the requisite time frame, the loan is completely written lackThe of gap ability between to find desired work in and later actual life and family so handicapssize suggests girls’ off, otherwise they have to pay it back. Government IVF clinics that women are not fully able to control their own bodies, but will offer free treatment for all women who want them (just choice can become a reality everywhere, including the African

Socialist Standard September 2020 17 continent. In the past, women in Botswana would have seven (and that means allowing women themselves to make their children on average. Now they have fewer than three. It was decisions) are what will sustainably and non-coercively accomplished by enabling women to control their fertility and lower birth rates. Family planning and reducing family sizes, reducing child mortality rates – moves that almost inevitably however, is not the answer to our environmental problems. lead to them having fewer babies. When more girls attend Environmentalist focus on population is mistaken and school, a country’s adolescent fertility rates dip, more women can lead to equally misguided action. Over-population is a wait until adulthood to have children and are armed with thinly veiled misogynist racist myth that is accepted by both much more sophisticated knowledge-tools to make better right-wingers and progressives alike. People who claim to be decisions for their health and future offspring. against genocide and eugenics push this myth with no sense It took the UK 95 years to drop from a fertility rate of six of the irony. Those accepting the over-population argument children per woman to three, but it took Botswana only 24 obscure the more immediate causes of suffering under years, Bangladesh 20 and Iran only ten years. capitalism. Because of its short-termism, its unrelenting drive

Overpopulationism a tendency toward planetary crisis, regardless of the total Blaming our environmental problems on population numberfor profits, of humansand international living on earth.conflict, The capitalism amount of expresses waste and pressures is all too common among eco-activists and it has pollution under capitalism is enormous, with a preponderance resulted in a sordid history of top-down population control of production and distribution of useless products, wasted programmes violating women’s bodies with such measures labour and the creation of mounting piles of garbage as a as uninformed sterilisations. All women should have full result of planned obsolescence and single-use products. access to contraception and safe abortion as part of overall The concentration on so-called over-population confuses health services. Family planning, however, is not the answer symptoms with causes, validating apologists for the system to our environmental problems. Babies and yet-to-be- and perpetuating Malthusian anti-poor arguments. The central born babies are not responsible for today’s environmental concept in the ideological armoury of capitalism is the idea problems. Reducing population numbers will not stop that there isn’t enough to go around. Hence, we are confronted climate change, nor rising sea-levels. Many environmentalists with the idea that there isn’t enough food, aren’t enough jobs, will cite the fallacious carrying capacity in their argument not enough housing, or we haven’t enough classrooms or that we have too many people on the planet but the over- emphasis on individual consumption distracts from these things. People who claim that population growth is the industrial and military consumption. Capitalism is the reason issuehospital are beds shifting because the blame there fromis a certain the rich fixed to the amount poor. of all for ever-increasing resource depletion, CO2 emissions, waste Those who believe reducing the population to be an answer and pollution. It should be held accountable, not the innocent to global warming say very little about which policies would victims of global warming. spare the planet many more billions of people, particularly More people bring more ingenuity, more talent and more when the existing trend is already towards smaller family innovation into the world. Every human born is not just an sizes. We should forget all about prioritising population extra mouth to feed but also another pair of helping hands control and instead help each and every woman bear a child and an additional thoughtful brain. Yet we are being told by in good health whenever she chooses to have a baby. It might environmentalists that it means less for each of us. We get sound counter-intuitive for stabilising and lowering the informed that we will need to radically reduce humanity’s population but giving women control over their lives and of carbon footprint on the environment by reducing our their own bodies controls population growth. We need no numbers, as well as changes to our lifestyles and that until the more misanthropic pronouncements about too many people world’s population stops growing there will be an urgent need or that humanity has somehow exceeded the planet’s carrying to squeeze people’s consumption. capacity or that humanity is a parasitic species on the Planet Does pushing population growth down actually put the Earth’s ecology. environment on a more sustainable path? And if so, what Giving women control of both their lives and their bodies is measures would the policy makers have to apply to actually what will control population growth. The best family planning bring about such a change? and contraceptive is the empowerment of women. The answer to environmentalists attracted to the over- ALJO populationist argument is that the birth-control campaigns are, in the end, just one more patriarchal attempt to control women’s reproduction, and that improving child survival rates, giving girls access to education, and empowering women to control their own reproduction

18 Socialist Standard September 2020 ‘I’ve Got Nothing. I Ain’t Got No-one. But I’ve Got The Shops’ THE HIGH Street was already on the financial skids before the pandemic, which has sped up the shift to online shopping. And these days, going to the shops has the added considerations of facemasks, social distancing, arrows on the floor and sanitisers by the doors, making it more of an ordeal than before. Despite all this, slick, brightly-lit shopping malls are still there to tempt those looking for either retail therapy or a five-finger discount. The latter were the focus of Channel 5’s recent Shoplifters: At War With The Law. This fly-on-the-wall documentary series follows the security guards and their quarries at two interchangeable shopping centres: that’s in the shop is a shoplifter until they These gangs tend to move between areas West Orchards in Coventry and Weston go to the till’. Those who are caught are led once they become too well-known in one Favell in Northampton. It was filmed to a bleak holding room to be questioned place. Nearly three quarters of shoplifting pre-Covid 19, so since the cameras left, and have their bags searched. The police in West Orchards is carried out by a small the guards are presumably on the hunt will be called if the person has ‘gone group of local repeat visitors. Many of for people not wearing masks as well as equipped’ with a foil-lined bag or pliers, or these are homeless, with or without people not paying. if what they have stolen is valued at over a benefit claim, either stealing to get According to the programme’s £200. If the goods are worth less than this enough food or to fund a drug habit. One voiceover, last year, there were the police won’t usually be involved and man speaks to the camera crew after he’s 400,000 shoplifting incidents reported instead, a year-long ban from the shopping thrown out for the umpteenth time: ‘I’ve nationwide, with the number of those centre is issued. If the accused says they got nothing. I ain’t got no-one. But … I’ve that go undetected estimated to be 20 have no ID, they’re asked to bring up their got the shops.’ The guards tend to treat times higher. Of course, we don’t see social media profile instead. Their name, those who are pushed into shoplifting by any of these, and the shopping centres address and date of birth are taken, as is poverty with some sensitivity, as long as understandably want the programme to a mug shot for the database. If they are they don’t get lairy. emphasise the chances of getting nabbed. seen to return to the centre, they will be But Shoplifters: At War With The Law Regardless of this, the show has plenty trespassing and the police will be called. doesn’t want us to feel too sympathetic of tips for would-be pilferers, such as The guards have had plenty of practice with towards people who steal. Its voiceover going with a group of friends to distract the procedure: the West Orchards team makes the point that shoplifting ‘takes the guards while items are slipped into ‘take down’ up to ten shoplifters a day, as more than £2 million out of tills every day’, pockets elsewhere. And higher-end goods they put it. and that to make up for these losses shops with electronic tags attached can be dealt The programme-makers blur out have been ‘ramping up prices for millions with by snipping them off with pliers or the faces of the people caught, which of honest shoppers’. It’s easy to claim that hiding them in a bag lined with foil so they also has the effect of emphasising how theft raises prices, but this falsely implies don’t set off the door alarms. dehumanising the need to shoplift is, and that retailers would lower prices below Watching out for all this are hundreds of the rituals around it. Some of the people the market rate if people stopped stealing, HD CCTV cameras, whose footage is relayed featured have been recruited by gangs, which of course no retailer would ever do, back to each shopping centre’s control and probably have very little choice in so it just scapegoats people who shoplift room. When the guard on duty there sees the matter. They tend to be from Eastern and provides an alibi for inflated prices. The someone acting shiftily or gets a tip-off Europe, not able to claim benefits and costs of security measures and stolen items from one of the shops, they can radio down without much chance of securing better do impact on the profitability of goods to to their colleagues to find their target. It’s paid work, which makes them vulnerable some extent, so the chain store owners will all quite sad to watch this game of cat-and- to exploitation from organised gangs. be keen to clamp down on shoplifting. But mouse, although a couple of the guards get Most of the value of any successfully a few pinched bottles of perfume or boxes a kick out of their work. ‘I always catch my shoplifted goods is likely to go to the of chocolates are nothing compared to the prey,’ boasts one, ‘that’s why I do my job. gangmasters, with those who take the billions of pounds creamed off by owners I love it’. The guards can only apprehend risks receiving little back; a more extreme and shareholders. someone once they’ve left a store, version of mainstream employment. MIKE FOSTER although they cynically assume ‘anybody

Socialist Standard September 2020 19 Capitalism’s World under coronavirus to become unpaid and positive. It covers both the extreme carers. right (which includes fascism and rejects Cheap energy resulted in a big reduction democracy) and the more numerous in the cost of producing iron, leading to radical right (which is mostly populist cheap tools and machines. The sixteenth and opposes liberal democracy, which in century saw a transition to large-scale turn involves rule of law and respect for coal mining in England and peat-digging in minority rights). In the EU, the far right the Netherlands. Despite environmental has gained support in recent decades, objections, burning coal to power sugar from around one percent of the vote in refineries was legalised in Amsterdam over the 1980s to seven percent in the 2010s. a century later, as coal was cheaper than As Mudde says, they are ‘here to stay’. The peat. Controlling energy costs was one radical right, in particular, is more or less way of sustaining cheap work. Currently part of mainstream politics. An example a switch to solar power would require a of an extreme right political party would massive investment, and capitalists prefer be Golden Dawn in Greece, while the to rely on cheap oil. Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) would be By Raj Patel and Jason W. Cheap lives included racist radical right. Moore: A History of the World characterisations of some humans The book deals with a lot of parties and in Seven Cheap Things: a Guide (see above on cheap nature). More other organisations, in many European to Capitalism, Nature, and the broadly, force and ideology combined countries but also the US, Brazil and Future of the Planet. to maintain cheap labour, cheap care, India. Thus it is on the whole more of Verso £9.99. and so on. For instance, in 1575 Francis a helicopter tour, though a useful and Drake participated in the murder of informative one, than a detailed look at every inhabitant of an Irish island before specific movements or individuals. While The seven cheap things are nature, money, acquiring greater wealth in the Americas there are plenty of differences among work, care, food, energy and lives. ‘Cheap’ and a knighthood. The nation-state them, many views common to the far right does not just mean low-cost, it is a strategy became a technology of social control. can be identified. that provides as little compensation Patel and Moore’s book contains a They are nativist, combining nationalism as possible in return for transforming great deal more, which we can’t cover and xenophobia, and often advocate production. This is part of the Capitalocene, here. The conclusion, though claiming to ethnocracy (where citizenship is based a term the authors prefer to Anthropocene be revolutionary, discusses the idea of on ethnicity). They are authoritarian, and which emphasises the way capitalism ‘meaningful, pleasurable work’ without wanting law and order, a strictly-ordered has changed the relations between humans saying much about what would be needed society where infringements are severely punished, though they are themselves and the rest of nature. to realise such a ‘reparation ecology’. Each chapter provides a rapid run- PB quite often violent. Immigration and through of various aspects of history. For the ‘refugee crisis’ (Mudde’s quotation instance, the chapter on cheap nature Right Here marks) are central issues, with so-called observes that indigenous people, in the security of nation or race seen as vital Americas and elsewhere, were often and as having a cultural component. regarded as part of nature and so should They advocate familialism, with the be enslaved, ruled and exploited by traditional family seen as the foundation Europeans. In the seventeenth century, of the nation and – yet more jargon! – the productivity of labour in English femonationalism (‘the use of women and agriculture grew massively, and far more women’s rights in support of nativism, in people came to work outside farming; as particular Islamophobia’). Their support part of cheap food, they were fed by grain for the family implies opposition to imports from the US. Even a century ago, abortion, but they are increasingly tolerant food made up a far greater proportion of homosexuality. of average household expenditure than One issue about populism is that its today. Rural people, as in Ireland and Peru supporters claim to oppose an elite, the in the sixteenth century, were often forced definition of which is not usually clear. to move to towns and villages. Mudde states that mainstream politicians Cheap work involved far more than low are viewed by the far right as a corrupt wages. The spoils of war often involved elite who steal from ‘the people’. He says slaves, including women for sexual also that much academic research shows Cas Mudde: purposes, and capitalism imposed longer that voters for the far right are motivated The Far Right Today. working hours than people in earlier forms Polity £14.99. less by economic anxiety than by ‘cultural of society had been used to. There was backlash’, which refers to mass immigration cheap care too: the important work of and the supposed rise of a multicultural caring for others was seen as appropriate society. So it seems in fact that little for women. In the US much caring work is support for the far right is based on the performed by low-paid immigrant workers, The term ‘far right’ as used here refers existence of inequality or resentment at the and it was recently reported that 4.5 to organisations which accept that power of the one percent. million people in the UK have been forced inequalities between people are natural Mudde describes the radical right

20 Socialist Standard September 2020 as reformist but the extreme right as understanding’ and to recommend it to write well and b) who has rather fewer revolutionary, though without explaining or anyone who wants ‘to understand how axes to grind. It is subtitled ‘25 uneasy justifying this latter label. His final conclusion the system works in order to fight and pieces’ and this is a more rounded and is that the response to the far right should ultimately destroy it.’ We don’t disagree accurate description than perhaps the be the strengthening of liberal democracy. of course but it must cause raised author intended. The sloppy production Instead, it would be better to argue for a eyebrows amongst some anarchists. hasn’t helped matters either. truly democratic classless society. Unfortunately, it is not a good There seems to be a sneaking PB translation. Why, for instance, are the admiration for the Trotskyist-Feminists words ‘currency’ and ‘salary’ used instead of Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Popular Marx of ‘money’ and ‘wages’ as in Marxian Century (RS21) but all others get short economics in English? And there is a shrift, including naturally enough, glaring error on page 58 where Cafiero ourselves in the SPGB, ideologically is made to say ‘therefore, salary cannot ‘mapped’ through the film Lars and represent the price of labour power’; the Real Girl (2007). The discussion of which is wrong both in terms of what the SPGB seems largely to have been Marx held (wages are precisely the price adapted from points made from our of labour power) and of what Cafiero entry in Wikipedia, and claims we have a himself had written in the preceding particular vision of socialism that we cling paragraph. Socialist Party members to like a doll. familiar with Italian say that a correct It also claims we have a ‘dwindling translation of what Cafiero wrote in membership’. It’s difficult to see where Italian is ‘therefore, wages can represent this comes from (perhaps it’s just nothing other than the price of labour wishful thinking) but nevertheless power’ (they advise that there are other, the 25 chapters are said to be though less serious, mistranslations ordered in sequence according to the too.) It is a bit odd that the ACG did not author’s personal perceptions of the pick this up and add a correction as that organisational size and influence of the Compendium of Karl Marx’s wages are the price of labour power is a parties and groups concerned. This sort Capital. By Carlo Cafiero. basic part of Marxian economics. of approach is always asking for trouble. Anarchist Communist Group. ALB Indeed, it’s not clear why on that basis 2020. 100 pages Socialist Appeal appear several chapters A Rocky Horror Show for the Left before the Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW), as the latter – effectively Marx’s Capital, first published in German the parent organisation – is obviously in 1867, is a tome of over 1,000 pages and several times the size and prominence of so not an easy read. As a result, ever since the former, whatever else we might think the working-class movement took off in of them. the 1870s its content has been popularised The SPGB is once again derided as the in shorter works. This is an Italian one ‘Small Party of Good Boys’ (yes, the book from 1879. It is accurate enough with long is that funny) and, while you’d never passages from Capital, though Cafiero’s know from this text, is actually larger conclusion expresses a rather romantic than all the left-of-Labour groups listed view of ‘revolution’. aside from the SWP, SPEW and CPB. Cafiero was a member of the So the fact we appear in the ‘running International Working Men’s Association order’ behind the likes of Workers Power, and met and corresponded with Marx the RCG and the somewhat mysterious and Engels but who in the end sided with Plan C probably says rather more about Bakunin when the split came and became the author than it does about us. In a populariser for ‘anarchism communism’, particular, the obsession Trotskyists i.e of those anarchists who stood for a Ian Parker: everywhere seem to have with leadership Mapping the English Left society where the means of life were cults, would-be leaders and manipulators Through Film. owned in common and the principle of of the masses. Folrose. 2020. ‘from each according to their abilities, to Talking of which, it is also telling that each according to their needs’ applied (as while the small band of relentless media opposed to ‘to each according to their whores from Spiked achieve prominence work’ as favoured by other anarchists). Older readers may remember an amusing (presumably because of their regular His pamphlet Anarchism and Communism pamphlet from the 1980s called As Soon appearances on the Sky News paper (tinyurl.com/y2ubu7ck) puts the case for as This Pub Closes . . . which was a wry reviews defending whatever contrarian this (which we call socialism) rather well. (and largely accurate) commentary about ideas are in vogue this week) there is Despite opposing Marx politically, the main groups on the British far left. no mention anywhere of the recent Cafiero accepted Marxian economics, This short book from Trotskyist Ian Parker significant interest in Fully Automated and later anarchists translated his attempts to do a similar thing, but with Luxury Communism. But then again FALC pamphlet into French and Spanish, a the twist that the various groups and is without doubt nearer to the SPGB’s tacit recognition that anarchist attempts parties are deconstructed in relation to view of socialism than anything else to develop an alternative analysis of the a film that is claimed encapsulates their presented here, and that would be to capitalist economy (as fellow anarchist- methods and objectives. open up a veritable Pandora’s Box (1929) communist Kropotkin attempted) had In fairness it’s a neat idea, but it’s for the latter-day followers of old Leon. failed. In their introduction the ACG difficult not to come to the conclusion DAP go so far as to describe Capital as ‘a that it might have been better done by superb contribution to our revolutionary someone else – someone who can a)

Socialist Standard September 2020 21 50 Years Ago Labour Party hypocrites The Labour Party, now in opposition, has the opportunity to try and rebuild its severely damaged image of being the party with ideals. Their publicity men tried their best with posters and hoardings during the election, but the reality of Labour’s record in office was just too much for them to whitewash. “Arms for South Africa” is an issue which the opportunists in the Labour Party are determined to hang on to and develop this purpose, but their hypocrisy in doing so should be obvious to anyone who has followed the Labour government’s foreign policy. It was Denis Healey, Minister of “Defence”, who in 1968 proclaimed. “Her Majesty’s government and the South African government share the responsibility for maritime security in the South African area”. It seems now that he expected them to carry out this function with arms supplied by countries other than Britain. Throughout Labour’s period of office the Simonstown Agreement was honoured and joint naval manoeuvres continued. Healey and his colleagues by accepting a ban on arms shipments to South Africa were attempting to gain the best of both worlds: defence of the Cape trade route and continued trade with and investment in South and South- West Africa and, at the same time, expanding trade and influence in the rest of Africa.

(from front page Socialist Standard, August 1970). / CC0 Mieremet Rob Credit: School Report PLANS FOR this year’s Summer School progress and its application in the past, discussion session about more effective sadly ground to a halt earlier in the year, present and future. Adam Buick opened ways we can engage with others online, as the lockdown came into effect and the weekend by raising the question whether through memes, messaging our usual venue – Fircroft College – had of whether Marxism is technological boards or podcasts, with many useful to temporarily close. 2020’s Summer determinism, and reminding us that suggestions for us to work on. Summer School looked like it would be the one class struggle also drives change. Next, School isn’t just about the talks, it’s also that never was. But when Discord came Bill Martin’s talk considered how the an enjoyable opportunity to share ideas along we realised this could be the way way we think is a form of technology, and catch up with like-minded comrades to hold the event after all, much as it’s as the ideas behind inventions come and friends around the globe. come to the rescue for other talks and from social relations. Mike Foster’s talk There was also time for a fun quiz on meetings. Appropriately, given that about philosopher Gunther Anders’ Saturday evening, a first for ourselves Summer School’s theme is Technology, views opened up an interesting on Discord. For anyone who wants to the internet and social media enabled discussion about many people’s revisit the event, transcripts of talks us to go ahead. A bonus was that this often-wary attitudes around scientific and links to related articles have been meant it would be a shorter journey to developments. More optimistically, uploaded to the site, and recordings of a computer screen than to Birmingham, Leon Rozanov explored the potential the sessions will be added to the party’s especially for people outside Britain. of digital technology for streamlining website soon. Thanks go to everyone Summer School was held on the 7– 9 distribution and democracy in a socialist who gave talks, chaired discussions August, with over 30 people joining in. society. And Paddy Shannon closed and tuned in. Preparations for Summer The weekend’s agenda was more-or-less the weekend with his talk about what School 2021 will soon be underway, so the same as if it had been at Fircroft, new tech is around the corner and how keep an eye out for an announcement with six sessions discussing technological we can get ready. Paddy also hosted a later in the year.

22 Socialist Standard September 2020 All meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord (unless it is stated that the meeting or talk is on Zoom). Please contact the Meetings [email protected] for how to join. Members of Central Branch are advised that there is an informal discussion group hosted fortnightly on a Sunday by Paul Edwards at 7.00pm (BST) in the Discord online server. The next date for your diary will be 13th September at 7.00pm (BST); and, then every second Sunday thereafter. Please, do consider joining in. This is a great opportunity for all. SEPTEMBER 2020 DISCORD EVENTS evidence-based rules about what’s effective Friday 18 September, 7.30 BST and what isn’t. Many socialists dismiss FRIDAY NIGHT TALK Wednesday 2 September, 7.30pm BST marketing as dishonest by design and insist To be announced The FAQ Workshop that personal preference is valid as we are CONSPIRACY THEORIES Wednesday 23 September, 7.30pm BST not in the business of ‘selling’ the socialist At least 50% of Americans believe in one or The FAQ Workshop case. But is that true? We are attempting more conspiracies, from flat earth to moon THE POLITICS OF ENVY to persuade, just as marketing attempts to hoax to an engineered coronavirus pandemic. Some people call socialism the politics of persuade. Are we behaving like enthusiastic Religions offer an uplifting experience, but envy, often when they themselves have got amateurs when we should be looking for tips conspiracy theories make believers more nothing that anyone else would envy. Is this from the Mad Men of marketing? depressed, paranoid and fatalistic, all the fair comment, or egregious insult? We could more so in the fake-news environment of Friday 11 September, 7.30 BST repudiate the idea and point to the global social media. What can we do to talk people FRIDAY NIGHT TALK poor, which makes us look moralistic. Or we out of this no-hope and do-nothing attitude? ROADMAP TO SOCIALISM could agree that they’re right and complain Binay Sarkar of the WSP India, live from Kolkata that workers aren’t envious enough, which Friday 4 September, 7.30 BST makes us look like wannabes and sore losers. FRIDAY NIGHT TALK Sunday 13 September, 7.00 BST Is there a good way past this argument? WHY NOT REFORMISM? CENTRAL BRANCH CHAT Keith Graham throws some light along a With CB Secretary Paul Edwards Friday 25 September, 7.30 BST FRIDAY NIGHT TALK political blind alley. Wednesday 16 September, 7.30pm BST To be announced Sunday 6 September, 3.00pm The FAQ Workshop DANGEROUS WOMEN SOCIALISM AND MORALITY Sunday 27 September, 7.00 BST Ursula Le Guin Socialists generally think morality is a bad CENTRAL BRANCH CHAT Author of one of the best anarcho/socialists way to make a good argument, and some With CB Secretary Paul Edwards novels ever. We look at her life and work. years ago after a big debate we decided that Wednesday 30 September, 7.30pm BST socialism was not, even partly, an ethical Wednesday 9 September, 7.30pm BST The FAQ Workshop case. Despite this, it’s arguably impossible The FAQ Workshop 10 DESERT-ISLAND BOOKS FOR to be a socialist without having a well- IS PROPAGANDA DIFFERENT FROM WOULD-BE SOCIALISTS developed sense of moral justice. Are we MARKETING? We all remember books we liked, but which doing the right thing by constantly avoiding Personal communication is a matter of ten would we recommend as absolute must- the moral debate, or do we risk doing personal preference, but propaganda is reads for someone exploring socialist ideas, ourselves a disservice by making socialism communication for a group objective. on a desert island or elsewhere? seem soulless and mechanistic? How could Marketing is communication for a group we achieve the best of both worlds? objective, using a professional approach with Declaration of Principles

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

Socialist Standard September 2020 23 Sick society see her staff back at work. Club BonTon ‘Many Turkish womens’ right groups say and Club LV both reopened this week the crackdown reflects a wider societal after four months of lockdown due to problem. They say many women who are the coronavirus pandemic’ (pri.org, 6 being abused seek — but never receive July). To Alberg and Fuambai Ahmadu, an — proper help. Melek Önder of the We anthropologist who chose clitoridectomy Will Stop Femicide initiative told DW that as an adult, we say the only place for Turkish police, the government and state prostitution and FGM in a world freed officials must do much more to protect from the dictates of capital and culture women at risk: “There were cases where will be at the museum of antiquities. women who were being violently abused Engels showed that the suppression asked for help, but nothing happened,” of women had its origin in the rise of she says’ (dw.com, 24 July). The crackdown private property. Marx saw sex work as on protests is hardly surprising under the ’only a specific expression of the general would-be Sultan, Erdoğan. Calling for wife prostitution of the labourer’ (Economic beating to become a priority concern for and Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844). Rosa the police, who prefer not to get involved, Luxemburg and Sylvia Pankhurst shared and thus give their tacit endorsement, is the socialist vision of Engels and Marx: ‘The mass of the proletariat must do more reformist folly, particularly when there are Sylvia Pankhurst so many reactionaries such as Ebru Asiltürk, than stake out clearly the aims and direction ‘the spokeswoman for womens’ affairs of the revolution. It must also personally, by for Turkey’s Islamic conservative Saadet its own activity, bring socialism step by step Sylvia Pankhurst is better known for Party.’ She opined recently that ‘...the treaty into life’ (Rosa Luxemburg, What Does the her part in the campaign for votes for [Istanbul Convention to tackle violence Spartacus League Want?, 1918). all women as well as all men (one third again women and domestic abuse, as well ‘Our aim is Communism. Communism of whom were denied the vote before as promoting gender equality – which is not an affair of party. It is a theory of 1918). Her mother, Emmeline, the Turkey was, ironically, the first country to life and social organisation. It is a life authoritarian leader of the WSPU, was ratify!] would be like a “bomb” destroying in which property is held in common; against this and campaigned instead only Turkey’s traditional family structure.’ in which the community produces, by for votes for women on the same terms Femicide is indeed an indication of serious, conscious aim, sufficient to supply the as then applied to men; which would wider social and sexual problems that are needs of all its members; in which there have resulted in enfranchising more not confined to a small minority of deviants is no trading, money, wages, or any direct property-owners than workers. Opposing or reactionary regimes – Poland is another reward for services rendered’ (Sylvia that was a no-brainer. example – but are typical of a sick society. Pankhurst, What is behind the label? A When Sylvia Pankurst wrote the Neither changes in the law and policing plea for clearness, 1923). passage above she had come to hold the policy, nor more prosecutions against wife Mother and daughter (mistaken) position that the vote didn’t beaters offer a cure. matter either for men or for women, arguing that communism (or socialism, Cultural pain and pleasure she used both words to describe the same ‘The UK’s only centre dedicated to stamping form of society) could only be achieved out female genital mutilation is facing by anti-parliamentary action. A few years closure after the government pulled its later, in 1927, Emmeline, who had been a funding, putting women at fresh risk of jingoist in the First World War, was adopted harm. Cash has been quietly withdrawn as a Conservative Party parliamentary from the unit – set up by Theresa May, candidate; not surprising for someone who when she vowed to end FGM “within a had stood for votes only for rich women. generation” [likely as effective as Tony Socialism can only be achieved with the Blair’s 1999 pledge to end child poverty] – majority support of women and of men. leaving it struggling to survive...The crisis This point is so important that it forms part comes despite hundreds of new victims of of our Declaration of Principles: ‘That as in FGM being identified every month and just the order of social evolution the working one successful prosecution for the practice, class is the last class to achieve its freedom, despite laws being on the books for 35 the emancipation of the working class will years’ (independent.co.uk, 26 July). Women involve the emancipation of all mankind, supporting the status-quo or reactionary without distinction of race or sex’(emphasis cultural/religious practices abound, alas. added). This clause along with the other Emmeline Pankhurst seven dates from the formation of our Back to the primitive? Party in 1904. Yes, the founding members, There may be some socialists who would The decade leading up to 1914 and the all 142 of them from Miss H. Aitken to H. J. like to see the return of the woolly ‘War to End All Wars’ was the heyday Young, were remarkably forward-thinking in mammoth, but none favour primitive of the Suffragette movement under their assertion that women’s emancipation communism over the establishment of the leadership of Sylvia Pankhurst’s could only be achieved as part of the a post-capitalist world. ‘ Lotte Alberg, mother, Emmeline. Some readers may emancipation of all humanity through the who owns two sex clubs in Amsterdam’s be surprised to learn that we opposed establishment of socialism as described Women’s Social and Political famous red-light district, is relieved to her and the above by Sylvia Pankhurst. Union she founded in 1903.

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