A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity

Mike Macnair: Neil Faulkner n Letters and debate n Covid-19: one million deaths and his dreadful mangling n Covid-19 conspiracies of basic n UN biodiversity posturing No 1317 October 1 2020 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE weekly 2 October 1 2020 1317 worker LETTERS

Letters may have been an hour of moderate exercise a day - of any suggestions of what leftwing are with sadistic formality deemed ‘fit as an exciting race! Now surely this is shortened because of something that can be easily undone Americans should do. ‘A plague on to work’. what people who know perfectly well space. Some names (and more) in five minutes by both your houses’ is a popular way of I would suggest that nobody now they’re the working class are waiting  may have been changed drinking a 330ml can of the world’s absenting oneself from any action or has the faintest idea of how many to engage with - these messages most advertised and biggest selling responsibility, and in my mind it is a workers are unemployed. The press, being sent out that their ears will hear soft drink. dereliction of duty. again, quotes figures every now and as music. This communist truth is Obesity James Linney If DL is correct, and change has to then, generally without question, but about a future of clean-air woodlands Thank you to Gary Simons for email come to the US - and possibly soon I think we can confidently assert that with dappled glades, rather than a his considered letter, raising some - then surely any leftwing person they are woefully underestimated. It clambering over slippery rocks in rat- objections to the scientific content Infinite would want to help energise the forces may be that an academic or a union encouraging caves, as is the promise of my article about the government’s Sorry, but Engels is right when he that might propel that change. With researcher can get some idea by from our current elites. recent published obesity strategy says: “The productivity of land only 16% of workers being in trade poring over assorted statistics, but But, then again, as Van ‘The Man’ (September 3). can infinitely be increased by the unions, massive struggle is not going certainly neither the government nor Morrison advises in his song, “My I agree with his first point that application of capital, labour and to come from that direction. So surely the mainstream media has any interest mother told me there’d be days like studies have shown obesity to be a science.” And Chris Gray makes Americans have to look for another in letting us know the truth. this!” significant risk factor in suffering a an elementary mathematical avenue in which to help foment action. There are millions of workers Bruno Kretzschmar serious Covid-19 illness. My point, mistake when he says, “Yes, these Unfortunately for political struggle, now classed as self-employed - either email however, was that it is by no means powers of nature can do good, but the US is enormous, and there is no struggling with a small business the only risk factor; and weight loss the possibilities are certainly not left party that appears in all states. All of their own (window cleaning, Real world strategies, no matter how successful, limitless” (‘Arguing against the third parties throughout the history of anyone?) - or are forced to describe A friend of mine once asked me why I are not going to ‘beat’ Covid-19. wrong “Marxism”‘, September 17). the US have reached at most 20 states. themselves as such to get work in write letters to my local newspapers, My point that even a good obesity Engels was not talking about So activists have to work where they the so-called ‘gig economy’. I recall given that I cannot change things. strategy would be unlikely to have limitlessness, but about infinite are. The only party that appears in all reading that a very high proportion of My answer to him is that I am not a significant impact on Covid-19 increase, which is very different. The states is the Democratic Party. the ‘self-employed’ are getting less trying to change things: I am just was made to highlight how quickly best example of the latter is Zeno’s Certainly, the Democratic Party is than half the minimum wage. trying to make people think. This is Covid-19 is able to spread and kill, paradox about an arrow in flight. The not leftwing, but some of its adherents People who have their benefits cut something that also applies to the versus the time it would take millions arrow takes a certain finite amount are moving in that direction. Surely off are taken from the figures until, in letters I write to the Weekly Worker. of people to successfully lose weight. of time to complete half its journey, the appropriate thing to do in these so many cases, they win their appeal. By the method of contrasts similar A point made not to discourage another finite amount to complete the circumstances is to be involved in both Asylum-seekers don’t count, and to a mini-polemic, I try to make the people from losing weight, but to next fourth, yet another to complete a left organisation and the Democratic many immigrants stay under the radar readers of the Weekly Worker think, counter some of the misguiding the next eighth, and so on. Increase Party, and to work to undermine the to avoid the risk of deportation - look even though many readers often hyperbole made by the government’s is infinite, since the process can go right from within. what happened to so many of the fervently disagree with what I write. PR supporting its obesity strategy. on indefinitely. But ultimately the If one votes in the US (as I do) one ‘Windrush generation’. My letter writing became Moving on to his objections to distance the arrow travels is finite. cannot simply sit in a corner and carp. This government is set to make a more prolific in 2003 after I read me citing the ‘set point’ theory for To put this in the language of One has to be involved in some way bad situation even worse - it seems Persistence - the story of a British weight loss/gain in humans: firstly, ecology and Marxism, this means that - in my case by helping get the vote to be what they do. Millions of communist, the autobiography of in my defence, the intricacies of we can keep increasing agricultural out there and being involved in left workers and their children face utter John Peck, who had been a CPGB the biochemical mechanism of output year in and year out with no politics here. I know that Biden is a destitution and homelessness. There district organiser for Yorkshire in weight homeostasis was slightly end in sight. In the US, agricultural conservative, and I know that we’re are foodbanks and is the 1950s. In 1988 Peck became a beyond the scope of both my article land usage has declined roughly 25% dealing with the ‘evil of two lessers’, launching an “eviction resistance CPGB councillor in Nottingham. and my expertise. I am prepared since 1948, while corn output has which is what they used to say in my campaign”. The fight against Unfortunately, by the late 1980s, he to concede that, as the authors of more quadrupled and real consumer young days. But I agree with Lazare evictions played a big part in working was a Eurocommunist, and in 1991 the paper (Muller et al) that Gary prices have steadily fallen. To be sure, in this sense - that what is happening class struggles in the latter part of the joined the Green Party. quotes from conclude, there has the picture is less impressive when now is possibly one of the greatest 19th century and the beginning of the However, what I learnt from been an overreliance on the textbook environmental externalities are taken threats to not only American politics, 20th. And good luck to them all, but the book was the importance for biological ‘set point’ model for into account. But the basic trend is but to world politics. But, unlike DL, the working class needs a lot more communists of writing regularly to explaining weight homeostasis. That unmistakable - rising productivity I am not going to sit still and let it than this; the need for a Communist our local newspapers. In the book said, there is nothing in the literature means a growing ability to make more happen for another four years. Party becomes ever more urgent. John Peck details a conversation that contradicts the point I was out of less - and there is no indication Gaby Rubin Jim Nelson he had in the early 1950s with Phil making, which was that weight loss that the process is about to end any London email Piratin - former CPGB MP and at the in obesity is a more complex process time soon. time circulation manager of the Daily than simply individual willpower This doesn’t mean that limits Unemployed Days like this Worker. Phil’s advice to Peck was and dieting; one involving our genes, don’t exist. Theoretically, they must Every day the press - or at least the Faced with rising tides of rightwing that he had a short name, so he must epigenetics and the effects of a exist somewhere. But we just don’t finance pages - bears grim news populism and even neo-Nazi let everybody know it by regularly modern obesogenic environment. A know where. The bottom line is that of company failures, shop chain nationalism within its member-states, writing to the press. Peck took note of point, I think, which refutes Gary’s Marxists should concede nothing to closures, redundancies. One can the European Union has conceded that advice and wrote regularly to his later claim that I “subscribe to the green pessimism concerning limits to only read them in wonder and think, changes to its rules about their local newspapers. This is something I conventional ‘calorie in, calorie out’ growth. ‘What a surprise!’ Last week Rishi absorption of “quotas” of migrants have tried to copy. model for weight gain”. Daniel Lazare Sunak warned of a winter of rising arriving from overseas - now to be In writing letters to these two Finally, as to Gary’s question, New York unemployment and “Axe set to fall on replaced with a scheme whereby a local newspapers I can get the pulse “What survival advantage is there 1m jobs this year,” said the Financial prompt “repatriation” can take place of the local population via the replies to a hunter-gatherer in an adaptation Vote Biden Times (September 26). The already for those deemed to be “irregular”. to my letters the following week. My that causes them to become fat on Although I agree with Daniel Lazare inadequate furlough is set to be On the other side of the pond, head biggest response to one of my letters their natural diet?” I would say, an that politics in the United States is in replaced with something even more honchos within the Republican Party came in 1995, when I had a letter in adaptation that evolved during a time a parlous situation - but then where is inadequate. have announced that an “orderly” the Fenland Citizen about married that encompassed the vast majority it not, I wonder? - I am getting a little Beyond the headlines we are and “peaceful” transference will take women working. I had 19 replies in of human history, where people tired of his incessant doom-saying looking at hundreds of thousands or place, should Donald Trump lose the the first week following my letter, inevitably experienced episodes of and lack of any thought for the future. even millions of lives ruined - and November presidential election. and another six in the second. The food scarcity and where the balance Yes, indeed, Trump would like to be a that’s just in Britain. But we don’t Meanwhile, schools in inner first 19 replies took up a double page between calorie availability and dictator, but would it really be in his know how many and we probably London are being constructed spread of closely typed text. daily calorie expenditure was very interests to be carried out of the White never will. with luxury apartments towering Over the years I have developed a different to one in a modern/late House kicking and screaming? Mrs Thatcher came to power in above them, given the investment good rapport with the editors of both capitalist society. With all of his hype and bluster, he part based on a campaign of ‘Labour ‘opportunity’ and gentrified location the Fenland Citizen and the Wisbech Gary’s “abundant herds of buffalo needs to do something afterwards. He isn’t working’ - fair enough, with - of course, with the parents of those Standard/Cambs Times. To keep that historically roamed the plains is first and foremost a businessman. unemployment at around one and school kids along with any other local in the editors’ good books, I often of Africa or North America” sounds Hopefully he will go back to business, a quarter million - but the Tories working families only able to dream tip them off about things going on great, but we are talking about small where he can lose money to his heart’s quickly managed to drive that up to about being the tenants. - I helped a family who were being human populations, technologically content. But his oft quoted statement over three million. Norman Tebbit And some fools around would evicted on Boxing Day get featured ill-equipped, trying to survive and that he will “make America great” is famously said that when his father have us believe that history ended on the front-page of the Citizen and hunt (and avoid being hunted) over clearly not believed by any except his faced long-term unemployment he with those late 20th century as a result it was postponed. vast distances. Compare this to the most fanatical followers. In the US’s “got on his bike to look for work”. implosions of Stalinism’s regimes; I find writing extremely hard environment we now have in the declining state, whoever wins the next Nearly as famously at the time, that the post-World War II economic work. However, I have been aided UK, where capitalism increasingly election may wish he hadn’t. though largely forgotten now, was boom somehow negates Marxism’s by reading the book: Lucid, vigorous favours workers that are sedentary, But my major difficulty with Tebbit’s determination to “massage fundamental tenets; moreover, that and brief - advice to new writers, time-poor consumers. Where you Daniel Lazare’s constant negativity is the figures” on unemployment. capitalism is neither authoritarian by the late Peter Fryer - ex-Daily are in the minority if you manage not his analysis: it is his complete lack When he left office as the (un) nor despotic. They are fools with Worker journalist and then a member employment minister, The Guardian those genius concepts of theirs about of the Workers Revolutionary Party. I reported that the ways of counting bourgeois democratic structures highly recommend this book, which Communist University unemployment had been changed having an intrinsically progressive explains how to communicate your January 8-10 2021, online 19 times. One of the biggest nature; about capitalism being thoughts clearly. changes made at the time was the wonderfully good or at least a better Whilst not all comrades are lucky First session on evening of Friday January 8 and three (morning, encouragement of unemployed system than any ‘realistic’ alternative. enough like me to have two excellent afternoon and evening) on Saturday and Sunday. workers to get signed off as sick by An ocean-going yacht, standing local papers to write to - some parts Full list of speakers and precise times will be available shortly, plus their GP. In many cases this was quite in a landlocked backyard, next to the of Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland details about how you can take part. simple, given the prevalence of bad shed in which it was built - that’s the have no local papers at all - I suggest Please register your interest by emailing [email protected] backs, black lung and many other communist movement, as currently that writing short letters where they work-related ailments. This particular both perceived and projected. And the can will help ground communists in Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk; and device has, of course, been reversed stuff on offer from capitalism? Well, the real world. Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk under ‘austerity’, as people with ghost trains to nowhere hurtling along John Smithee debilitating or even terminal illnesses twisted old tracks, but still presented Cambridgeshire BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07903 054393 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 1317 October 1 2020 3 STATE TERROR Vengeance and global order The fates of two journalists have an ominous significance for the rest of us, argues Paul Demarty Misfortune is piled on top of interference’ the Democrats have misfortune for Alexei Navalny, the been whining about. anti-Putin journalist. It is from this perspective - Having apparently been poisoned from Trump’s carefully cultivated with a Novichok nerve agent in self-image as a vulgar instrument August, it now transpires that his of revenge - that the geopolitical assets have been frozen in Russia - uselessness of these acts is revealed ostensibly as a result of a defamation as merely apparent. There is a case brought by a catering rationale, which takes the form of company that caught the attention ‘low’ politics and electoral theatre, of Navalny’s anti-corruption but in fact expresses something foundation. Given the diplomatic important about the global situation. sensitivity of the Navalny saga, it is It has long been an electoral tactic to difficult to see how this could have engineer a crisis, or else a solution happened without the connivance of to a crisis. There is even a word for the Russian state. it in the US - an ‘October surprise’, Navalny’s case continues to after the early-November timing of poach a few column inches from presidential elections in that country. coronavirus and the US election The novelty of the Trump regime - but the same cannot be said for was expressed most clearly in the the extradition hearing of Julian run up to the 2016 election; having Assange. The Wikileaks founder said something approving about is being packaged up for delivery Putin, Trump was confronted by an to the tender mercies of the US interviewer with Putin’s record of administration, on espionage charges political assassinations and regional that could land him up to 175 years political interference, and retorted in prison. His lawyers argue that that the US was hardly on the side he has no reasonable expectation of the angels on either of those of a fair trial in America, which matters. There was a great deal of is true, but, more pertinently, his pearl-clutching at this - perhaps treatment in these hearings is utterly the most absurd wave of outrage scandalous. Though open in theory, He should be put on trial here in Britain ... or released ever directed at Trump, since his the hearing has been conducted in riposte was so evidently true. something close to secrecy. Public his daughter, Yulia, who were the fashioned state murder, and targets existing supply. Angela Merkel may Trump did not, however, mean to access to the courtroom has been victims of a Novichok attack in individuals with the express purpose huff and puff, but at the end of the signify that he would not resort to limited, ostensibly due to Covid-19; Salisbury two years ago. Though of sowing chaos and discord among day Germany needs the gas, and the revenge in this way; merely that he human rights NGOs have had the US pursuit of Assange has been the Palestinian movement and its gas is in Russia. Thus the apparently would dispense with the pretence of their access to the video stream going on for a decade, the Trump other enemies. It is difficult to know remarkable level of prevarication on national nobility. He would tell us cut off; and the bourgeois media administration has brought a more how far this has actually worked, the part of Berlin. all what we already knew, but dared has effectively boycotted the story nihilistic thirst for retaliation, and as opposed to Israel’s various other As for the United States, its not say: that international relations entirely. It has fallen to journalists signalled its intentions by hurling tactics of creeping ethnic cleansing, political dysfunction is such that under capitalism is a violent struggle outside the mainstream to cover Assange’s old source, Chelsea border wars, terroristic bombing its political class can no longer for the top spot. Trump could be what is essentially a stitch-up that Manning, back in jail for contempt. campaigns and fraudulent ‘peace consistently produce presidents who trusted to fight unencumbered by would embarrass Yezhov and Beria. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo plans’; but these assassinations will pay attention to the geostrategy the ever more threadbare ideology We do not propose to rehearse is on record, also, as seeking the have a straightforward instrumental poindexters at the state department; of American moral leadership. every dirty trick used by American execution of the whistleblower, purpose nonetheless. thus the embarrassing situation A change at the level of prosecutors and an obedient British Edward Snowden, for treason, and Compare Khashoggi’s murder. whereby Russia is subject to appearances is not necessarily judiciary here - the anti-war activist is unlikely to be the only Trump Though only a handful of junior strategic encirclement, at the same unimportant, however. If there is and writer, Craig Murray, has been appointee with that goal. Of course, officials faced ‘justice’ for the crime, time as the US president is widely a clear line from Daniel Ellsberg covering the trial day by day in it is not only the Americans and and presumably nobody important suspected to be ambivalent at best in to Chelsea Manning and Julian extensive detail, and readers should Russians who are up to such tricks, ever will, the net result was to his attitude to this supposed enemy. Assange, there is also a clear line consult his blog if they would like and surely no recent act of state expose as a laughable fraud MBS’s between them, which is that nothing to be better informed - or simply retribution against an individual ‘moderniser’ image, and to focus Tectonic drift is done in secret. The open glorying feel depressed and helpless.1 The can match the gruesome murder more unwelcome attention on Saudi The irony of Assange’s case is, of in repressive force - also highlighted grim coincidence of Assange’s and dismemberment of Jamal crimes than ever. Before his murder, course, that he is also suspected by Trump’s recent demands for probably inevitable extradition and Khashoggi in Istanbul - clearly Khashoggi was just an obscure of crypto-Putinism by liberal- the “most vicious dogs” to be let Navalny’s poisoning is instructive, by agents of Saudi crown prince journalist in a liberal broadsheet; imperialist opinion. Leaked loose on protestors - communicates however: though the two events Mohammad bin Salman. now he is a synecdoche for the messages suggest that Wikileaks’s something important, both to are apparently unconnected, they Acts such as these are stoning and crucifixion of political publication of internal emails of domestic opponents and to those may be expressions of a worrying distinguished from the venerable and religious dissidents still routine the Democratic national committee, abroad. trend towards more overtly vengeful profession of political assassinations in Saudi Arabia, the appalling exposing the cynicism with which And at the level of international forms of politics and statecraft. by their apparent geopolitical cost of the war in the Yemen, and the 2016 presidential primary was politics, the significance is clear - a The poisoning of Navalny clearly uselessness. The Israeli state the apparent incompetence of the rigged in favour of Hillary Clinton, swerve away from liberal-imperialist follows on from that of the British is probably the most notorious crown prince himself. The local was an attempt by Assange to throw multilateralism towards negative- double agent, Sergei Skripal, and contemporary practitioner of old- government of Washington DC the election Trump’s way. Assange sum games between great power is in the process of renaming the seems to have really believed in blocs. Such shifts usually start slow, street on which the Saudi embassy Trump’s isolationist rhetoric and but have a ‘tipping point’: it is rather stands, in honour of Khashoggi. considered him a lesser evil than like that classic negative-sum game, Online Communist Forum Though Donald Trump refused to Clinton, and in a certain sense he the prisoner’s dilemma, in that pious countenance any sanction for the was correct to do so: Trump has multilateralists - requiring as they crime, he did so in such openly not been sucked into any further do their ‘partners’ to operate in transactional terms that the moral military quagmires, though he has good faith - will always lose against scandal of western support for this often made the ones he inherited sufficiently powerful adversaries despotic kingdom was, if anything, from Bush and Obama worse who choose to fight dirty, and emphasised. and emboldened America’s more thus will tend to be supplanted by That, to be sure, is an unusually warlike client states (notably Saudi nationalist-revanchist types. Once counter-productive example. The Arabia and Israel). America fell into that column in Putin regime’s attempt to rub out If Assange calculated that 2016, liberal global policy began to Navalny was made in the reasonable Trump would show gratitude, then look spectacularly stupid in foreign expectation that there would be he guessed very badly. Trump’s offices the world over. no meaningful consequences. electoral strategy is built on the The fate of Assange and Navalny’s extraction to Germany sense of affronted national pride Navalny signifies, on one level, has rather the effect of emphasising among conservative Americans, the prickliness of two major state this. Germany (and much of the who hope that they might revenge regimes about people who dare to Sunday October 4, 5pm rest of Europe) is highly dependent themselves on their enemies expose their corrupt, murderous and A week in politics on Russia for fossil fuel imports. through him. Those enemies include incompetent operations; but beyond Political report and discussion A new natural gas pipeline from whistleblowers and others providing that also a tectonic drift towards from the CPGB’s Provisional Central Committee Russia to Germany via the Baltic proof of the ignobility of American great power war. That tipping point sea (Nord Stream 2) has been in militarism, and so certainly include may come sooner than we expect l If you wish to take part in these Zoom meetings, limbo since American sanctions Assange. If the latter is accused of email Stan Keable at: [email protected] were imposed last year; but Nord working as a Russian agent, then [email protected] Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and Stream 1 still exists, and a more so much the better - Trump can use Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk roundabout route was found him as a scapegoat and claim that he Notes through Bulgaria to supplement the has ‘fixed’ the problem of ‘Russian 1. craigmurray.org.uk. weekly 4 October 1 2020 1317 worker COVID-19 Testament to failure With over a million deaths globally, writes Eddie Ford, criminal incompetence has inevitably led to a second spike

Deaths amongst the over–75s have been catastrophic

eptember 29 saw the passing Office for National Statistics in the a number of anti-lockdown protests. to death rates. Beijing put in the is four. But for those over 75 the of a grim milestone with UK calculates that the real death There are those who are basically necessary measures to suppress the figure is 39,058 - which tells you S1,000,555 deaths from toll is over 57,000, as it includes saying that the government is lying virus, unlike advanced countries, something about the nature of the Covid-19 recorded globally. This is every instance where Covid-19 was to us and the Covid threat has been such as the US or UK - which is not disease. nine months after the authorities in mentioned on the death certificate, massively exaggerated, or even that to say, of course, that there are no Another thing to be noted is that China first announced the detection including suspected cases.3 That is, the virus does not even exist. cases in China any more. Over the the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has of a cluster of pneumonia cases possibly 15,000 more deaths than Having said that, you do not last seven days there have been 25 announced the end of the furlough with an unknown cause in the city the official government figure. need to be a lunatic to think that new infections, but that is not bad scheme and its replacement by a of Wuhan. Regrettably, this figure Then there is the question of the the government has not exactly for a country with a population of far less generous system - paying probably grossly underestimates excess mortality figure, which many played a straight bat. Actually, all 1.43 billion. only 20%, as opposed to the 80%, the true total. people think is the most accurate - or governments have an interest in There has been a lot of debate in of wages. It is to be expected that Almost a quarter of the deaths only real way - of establishing the exerting control. The recent anti- Britain over the plight of university the new scheme will not be taken up have occurred in the US, at 210,785 - true number of Covid deaths. Fairly lockdown demonstration in London students. And here there is no doubt widely, leading to expectations of an a truly damning indictment of Donald obviously, that will come much later organised by the likes of David that the authorities have acted extra million becoming unemployed. Trump.1 The UK, where the number after the acute stage of the pandemic Icke and Piers Corbyn - brother of irresponsibly. When you take a load Yet the government has no real plans has just exceeded the 42,000 mark, is has ended and data could be collected Jeremy - was attacked by the police of freshers straight from school - for retraining people. It just spouts fifth on the list, whilst China is way and cleaned of as much uncertainty and 16 protestors were arrested. often for the first time living away empty rhetoric, when it should be down at 4,634. But, when it comes as possible. A study published in Formally, people are allowed to from home - and put them together, working on the basis that Covid to the death rate (per one million of July and yet to undergo peer review demonstrate, but the organisers what do you expect? Saying this will be around for years to come - the population) - perhaps the real list has estimated 202,900 extra deaths are meant to give the police “due is not to blame students for being not just months. Realistically, this of shame - as of September 29 Peru across 17 countries between mid- notice” and assure the authorities students: rather the finger of blame is how long it will take to roll out comes top, followed by Belgium February and the end of May. that social distancing measures will should be pointed at the authorities the vaccines and get them to people - not least because it includes all Nevertheless, despite its manifest be put in place - though in reality - crucially the government - for not in sufficient numbers, so that the deaths in more than 1,500 nursing imperfections, the official death toll it is near impossible to enforce putting in sufficient measures like population to all intents and purposes homes as Covid fatalities, even those still paints a grim picture of a virus such measures on a protesting home learning using Zoom, and so becomes immune. But all we have untested for the virus.2 However, the that has spread with astonishing crowd. Other demonstrations have on. Obviously this is not a substitute had from the government is the UK comes seventh at 631.7 deaths speed since December and it still been banned, however. It is hard for direct, face-to-face experience, promise to provide free courses for per million - slightly ahead of the shows no signs of slowing down. to see the logic of why some have but the spike in Covid infections those without A-levels … beginning US, which stands at 624.68. China been and not others, but that is speaks for itself. in April 2021. again is at the bottom end at just 3.4. Backwards precisely the point. Come a crisis, The fact that they are now talking Lockdowns cannot be extended It should, however, be expected that In fact, the virus in Britain appears governments always have the about forcing students to stay at indefinitely. The fact of the matter, India and other backward capitalist in danger of running out of control. opportunity to impose draconian university over the Christmas except for utopians, is that you do countries will soon soar up the death The total number of confirmed measures - the danger being that period - confined to cramped need production and reproduction rate list. infections now stands at 446,156 these new emergency measures accommodation like prisoners - in any society. Without that people These figures are only the known and on September 29 there were 71 become the norm. testifies to a failure to predict what cannot consume. So the key question toll of a virus that may have already deaths - the highest since July 1. It might sound obvious, but was surely obvious. is who controls - is society run the been spreading in the world before The sharp rise in infections was Covid-19 is not a government plot on the basis of need or profit? it was first identified in China in eminently predictable, as schools - nor was it made in a Chinese Long Covid And, of course, it was the profit December 2019. Recent studies from and universities started to open up or American laboratory. The Although young people do not tend motive that the government was Italy have found traces of the virus again and people were urged to likelihood, as most scientists believe to suffer in the same way that those bowing to by encouraging the bosses in sewage samples taken the same get back to work for the ‘good of - unless you think they are part of over 45 do, let alone the over-70s, to force employees back into the month, while scientists in France the economy’. Once you relax a the conspiracy as well - is that the they still get Covid. We now seem office and other workplaces l have identified a case there on lockdown, there is going to be some virus originally came from bats and to be in a situation where about December 27. Hardly surprisingly, sort of spike upwards. Naturally, was passed on either directly to a one in 10 who get the virus suffer [email protected] there is significant underreporting the government has bended over human or, more likely, via some long-term effects to the heart, lungs of deaths in many countries - either backwards in the direction of other animal and then to humans. and brain, lasting many months Notes for political reasons or due to lack business and getting things back to It is true that the Chinese - possibly even years. This can 1. worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where- of capacity. In developed countries, normal - as defined by capitalism. authorities were initially slow to happen to the young, though older coronavirus-has-spread. 2. statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus- deaths from Covid-19 in the home In reaction to all the restrictions get a grip. On other hand, it is people are far more likely to die. deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants. may be less likely to be counted than and assaults on ‘our liberties’, remarkable that China does not For those between one and 14, the 3. thesun.co.uk/news/12734957/uks-covid-death- those in hospitals. For example, the ancient or otherwise, there have been appear in the top 10, when it comes numbers of registered Covid deaths toll-57000-15000-more-official-fig. weekly worker 1317 October 1 2020 5 FACT AND FICTION Death and conspiracy The libertarian right is peddling nonsense. Yassamine Mather issues a health warning ver the last couple of weeks isolate and people were encouraged I have studied some of the to work from home. Ocurrent libertarian theories about the erosion of individual rights Long term and freedoms since the declaration It is far too early to discuss the long- of the lockdown, including the term effects of the pandemic on the growing fear of states smothering global economy, the class struggle individual rights, and I must admit and the future of the planet … it has been a revealing experience. However, we are seeing the initial We have seen the threat of the signs of what might indicate the launch of an anti-lockdown party trends of the next couple of decades. by Nigel Farage, who echoes claims Even before the pandemic that the current restrictions are a neoliberal capital was in crisis. threat to freedom and the hasty Quantitative easing had made a concessions given to thwart the mockery of claims that we have left potential rebellion by 80 Tory MPs behind the era of state intervention. over new fines and restrictions. Of However, the data from the course, in the United Kingdom, no- pandemic has proved beyond doubt one, including Boris Johnson, seems that states where public spending on to know what the new restrictions health, sanitation and social welfare entail - for example, no-one seems were higher fared much better in able to present a rationale for the dealing with Covis-19. That is why 10pm pub closure rule. There Germany and Sweden fared much is no doubt that even loyal Tory It’s a mad, mad world better than the UK and the US, let MPs have little confidence in an alone Peru, India and Brazil. incompetent, dithering government well as the media that supports them, in profits, so they react by making line dictated by the state. When it According to professor Mariana that has shown little respect for its serve? The answer to me is obvious: more workers unemployed. This comes to Covid-19 - and indeed Mazzucato, own rules and regulations, although capitalism. But, according to some in itself reduces consumption and a very large number of diseases - it is clear that neither Farage nor libertarians, that is not the case. worsens the spiralling cycle of the scientific/medical community Decades of privatisation, Tory rebels are genuinely concerned Apparently, we live in an era where lower consumption and reduced has different opinions. This is a outsourcing, and budget cuts in about personal freedoms. states are bureaucratic apparatuses profits. relatively new virus and specialists the name of ‘efficiency’ have Farage and the Tory rebels that are both independent of capital In such circumstances central are learning more about it all the time. significantly hampered many represent the concerns of small and restrict capitalist expansion. banks intervene by cutting the rate However, the divergent opinions governments’ responses to the and medium-sized capital about Clearly these people live in a parallel of interest to encourage spending. we see do not fit the neat division Covid-19 crisis .... loss of business and profitability. universe. During the 20th century This is done to support capital, not proposed by our libertarians. Those In 2018 alone, the UK No doubt big capital is also facing we have witnessed two world wars restrict it! The presumption here is medics sceptical about the health government outsourced health a major crisis, but its lobbying and dozens of smaller ones in the that lower rates of interest means benefits of lockdown are widely contracts worth £9.2 billion of various states is more subtle interests of capitalist expansion. less interest on savings, so there is reported and, given the fact that they ($11.2 billion), putting 84% of and less obvious. After all, entire Since the mid-1970s there has no point in not spending money. are often university researchers, one beds in care homes in the hands industries face decimation. Travel been a relentless campaign by The philosophy behind it is that could argue they are as much paid of private-sector operators and hospitality have already made successive governments in the United consumption helps the economy by the state as those medics directly (including private equity firms). tens of thousands unemployed in States, the UK and most western stay healthy: in other words, it involved in the UK government’s Making matters worse, since the UK and millions unemployed countries, crucially on the ideological rescues capitalism from its own Scientific Advisory Group for 2015, the UK’s national health globally, and are unlikely to recover plain, to reduce the role of the state, follies. However, over the last Emergencies (Sage). service has endured £1 billion in from Covid-19 in the foreseeable for marketisation and of the free decade interest rates have been so Academics and researchers at budget cuts.6 future. There is sure to be a knock- movement of capital. Take this from low that they cannot be reduced any the University of Oxford’s Centre on effect on the aerospace and car the European Union charter: further. That is why we are seeing for Evidence-Based Medicine are And, then there is Our World In industries, which will make millions quantitative easing. often quoted by the media, but they Data, more unemployed. Most large city The free movement of capital Libertarians often try to find have expressed a wide variety of centres remain empty, demand has is one of the four fundamental a fundamental conflict between opinions about the medical benefits Contrary to the idea of a trade- reduced dramatically and there is no freedoms of the EU single market the interests of states and those of lockdown. off, we see that countries sign that we will return to pre-Covid ... The liberalisation of capital of capital. There isn’t one. For example, the remarks of Carl which suffered the most severe days any time soon. flows progressed gradually. Governments intervene to rescue Heneghan are often sensationalised economic downturns - like Peru, However, to believe that all this Restrictions on capital movements capitalism from inevitable crises, by the likes of the Daily Mail. Spain and the UK - are generally is part of a huge conspiracy by and payments, both between while pretending to be in favour of Readers would be well advised to among the countries with the governments, the media and medics member-states and with third reduced intervention by the state. look at his in-depth articles on the highest Covid-19 death rate.7 is to believe in a conspiracy theory countries, have been prohibited And Covid-19 has reminded us CEBM’s website, such as ‘Global of the most bizarre type. Inevitably since the start of 2004 ...1 of another aspect of the Thatcher/ Covid-19 case fatality rates’.3 Also the reverse is true: countries capitalist states can and will use Reagan era. The two leaders Some libertarians tell us that the where the economic impact has current curbs on personal freedoms Contrary to what our libertarians were opposed to any collectivist large number of fatalities in 2020 been modest - like Taiwan, South to increase their control over the tell us, freedom of capital, far from philosophy. Thatcher proudly compensates for the lower figures Korea, and Lithuania - have also working class. But libertarians increasing individual freedom, is declared, “There is no such a thing last year, in what they describe as the managed to keep the death rate who are expressing concern about actually anti-democratic, since it as society.” Whether consciously ‘tinderbox effect’. One could give low. Notice too that countries with ‘authoritarianism’ are mainly pro- paves the way for more exploitation, or unconsciously, anti-mask some credibility to this argument, similar falls in GDP have witnessed capitalist rightwingers, whose the weakening of trade unions, demonstrators are following in had the increased death toll been in very different death rates. For main concern is the freedom of longer working hours, poorer Margaret Thatcher’s footsteps: the tens of thousands. However, in instance, compare the US and capitalism to increase exploitation conditions and casualisation. The there is no such a thing as collective the week when the number of deaths Sweden with Denmark and Poland. and guarantee profit at all cost. In unequal distribution of wealth responsibility; my freedom not attributed to Covid-19 reached one All four countries saw economic defence of such nonsense they quote means that only the owners of to wear a mask is more important million globally it is impossible to contractions of around 8-9%, but the the Tories’ initial ‘herd immunity’ property and/or the means of that the risk I present to an older take such comments seriously. death rates are markedly different: response and the example of production enjoy more freedom. or sicker citizen, who might die of Over the last few months we the US and Sweden have recorded Sweden. Of course, the so-called reduced Covid-19. have heard a lot about Sweden’s low five to 10 times more deaths per role of the state is only partial, It is also false to claim that the rate of infection as proof that herd million. Parallel universe especially at times of crises. Since media has followed obediently the immunity has worked, but, if you In poorer countries, appalling So let us look at this supposed 2009 and the economic crisis that line pursued by governments. In look at the death rate per million living conditions, lack of sanitation conspiracy between governments engulfed banking and finance the UK we have seen extensive inhabitants, Sweden is in 10th and overcrowded housing will result and the media (which seems to capital, most western powers coverage of the views of those who position globally - only three places in large numbers of deaths. In other include all the press, TV and radio). have been pouring money into the have challenged lockdown - both below UK.4 The lower rate could words, imperialist exploitation will Firstly, there is considerable economy to save it from collapse. those who have argued against its be explained by the fact that the have a murderous effect l political diversity amongst the States have engaged in quantitative economic costs (mainly the owners health infrastructure in Sweden is states involved, and their responses easing - a monetary policy where of capital) and those who have stronger than in the UK, where the Notes have been remarkably chaotic and the central bank buys government questioned the state’s increasing NHS has faced constant budget cuts 1. europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/39/free- contradictory, so it is difficult to bonds or other financial assets authoritarianism. After all hardly a along with a ‘just in time’ policy for movement-of-capital. 5 2. dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8776267/ find any kind of pattern that fits in order to inject money into the day goes by without an article like availability of beds for patients. Ex-Supreme-Court-judge-LORD-SUMPTION- the allegation. The same is true of economy and thereby promote those of former supreme court judge In recent weeks, as the number of denounces-No10s-rule-muddle-authoritarianism. the media. In fact what the states expansion. Lord Sumption, who regularly infections has gone up, the Swedish html. and media have in common is their When there is an economic denounces “No10’s rule of muddle government has conceded that a 3. cebm.net/covid-19/global-covid-19-case- 2 fatality-rates. inconsistency - one day advocating crisis, the overwhelming majority and authoritarianism”. Clearly, much tighter implementation of 4. statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus- the merits of lockdown, as opposed of the population, whose income we should not entirely dismiss his restrictions at the local level will be deaths-worldwide-per-million-inhabitants. to the resultant economic hardship, depends on their labour, worry arguments. necessary, with the recommendation 5. ft.com/content/5da1906e-6a1f-11ea-800d- and the opposite the next. That is true about losing their jobs and are Perhaps the most ridiculous to wear masks in public areas. In da70cff6e4d3. 6. businesspost.ie/columnists/comment- of both the liberal and conservative therefore wary of spending too claim is that all medics who support fact herd immunity in Sweden is smallgovernment-has-been-a-big-failure-in- wings of the bourgeois media. much money. Consumption goes lockdown are paid by government a bit of myth. As early as March, thispandemic-b3ae8f2e. So what do these governments, as down and businesses suffer a fall agencies and therefore follow the elderly citizens were told to self- 7. ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy. weekly 6 October 1 2020 1317 worker POLEMIC High politics and the working class Neil Faulkner and Martin Thomas falsify the party question, albeit in different ways, argues Mike Macnair

ack on July 11, the Alliance off” three fusions is more than a essence of working class history. mutual position: the middle class for Workers’ Liberty, the Red little euphemistic. Rather, at least Working class alone has - “extension of commerce by any Flag group (formerly Workers two of these three show bad-faith He claims he is “repeating lessons means whatsoever, and a ministry B an interest in liberating Power) and the Mutiny group of Neil raiding operations - against Workers that seem to have been forgotten”. of Lancashire cotton-lords to carry Faulkner and others (a split from Power in 1975-76 and against the This makes it necessary to follow this out”; the working class - “a John Rees and co’s Counterfire split Workers Socialist League of Alan the whole of humanity his twists and turns through Marx- democratic reconstruction of the from the Socialist Workers Party) Thornett and others in 1981-84. The Lenin-Trotsky before moving on to constitution upon the basis of the held an online forum on far-left unity. Matgamnaite Workers’ Fight in the Thomas. Following the trail will, People’s Charter”, by which the In early August Neil Faulkner first case, International Communist regrettably, take more than one working class will become the wrote on the Mutiny website a series League in the second, in both cases article. ruling class of England.3 polemicising against the views of persuaded their ‘partners’ to give his interlocutors at this meeting - up their own apparatus and press Faulkner’s Marx The background to the League and especially Red Flag, it seems. He in favour of a ‘fused’ apparatus and Faulkner begins with the claim that the Manifesto in left Chartist politics opposes the adoption of a definite press, which remained controlled by Marx and Engels “were directly has been more elaborately discussed, political platform (programme) as the the apparatus core of the Matgamna involved in two attempts to build a on the basis of full use of the basis of an organisation, claiming this group - and then embarked on salami revolutionary party: the Communist Chartist and related press, by Salvo is inherently sectarian and opposed operations, using provocations and League in 1847-52, and the First Mastellone in his 2003 Mazzini and to the basics of Marx’s and Lenin’s factitious disciplinary charges, to International in 1864-72”. This claim Marx.4 ideas. The series expresses itself get rid of segments of their former is seriously inaccurate, because it Chartism had invented the as history and theory, if of a ‘great ‘partners’, until, finally, the former picks up only the best-known peaks new idea of a workers’ political men’ variety: ‘Marx’s theory of the leaders could be disposed of. of the political activity of the Marx- movement, founded on a short party’ (August 1), ‘Lenin’s theory of The record of dishonest use of Engels ‘firm’. Much more clarity summary statement of principles the party’ (August 7) and ‘Trotsky’s apparatus control was also displayed can be obtained, from a perspective with the six points of the People’s theory of the party’ (August 11). in the supposedly broad-front Labour close to Faulkner’s, in Hal Draper’s Charter (1838): The AWL’s Martin Thomas left Socialist Organiser newspaper five-volume Karl Marx’s theory of  a vote for every man over the age responded on August 23 to this - created in 1978 and turned into a revolution, which uses the full range of 21; series; and there was then a not very Matgamnaite paper in around 1980. of the writings and correspondence  the secret ballot; productive, but perhaps slightly Ian Birchall may well be right to in the Collected works.  no property qualification for illuminating, exchange of emails assess the tendency’s participation Even if we are to disregard their, members of parliament; payment for between Thomas and Faulkner, in the International Socialists in the perhaps ‘subterranean’, political MPs (so poor men could serve); which the AWL published (with early 1970s as an analogous “raiding involvements in the 1850s, it is  constituencies of equal size; Faulkner’s consent), as a comment entry”.2 The background of bad-faith a bad mistake to disregard their  annual elections. on the Thomas piece, on August 26.1 raiding operations by the Matgamna correspondence and interventions The organisational form of the Faulkner complains: group is a political inheritance from in connection with the developing movement remained that of the the activities of US Trotskyist leader German workers’ movement, which existing Whig and Tory parties - I think your piece shifts the James P Cannon in raiding/wrecking Mikhail Bakunin stood ran alongside the First International loosely associated local clubs and terrain too much, moving it onto operations against the Workers period and continued right down groups. a detailed argument about the Party of the United States in 1934- for the principle of to Engels’ death in 1895. The 1875 The connection is fundamental to early 1920s, for example, instead 35 and against the Socialist Party Critique of the Gotha programme understanding comrade Faulkner’s of engaging with the substantive of America in 1936-37; Matgamna federalism ... against the and the related correspondence goes Manifesto proof-text for ‘non- argument, which is about drawing identified politically with Cannon on Marx-Engels leadership missing - even though this can be sectarianism’: on the Marxist tradition to help the organisation question. and has been used by people who us in the task of creating a mass The Matgamna tendency/AWL of the First International have a broadly Cliffite perspective, In what relation do the communists revolutionary party today. thus has a really serious problem of like Faulkner’s, to support their stand to the proletarians as a a long record of bad-faith raiding approaches. Equally, Marx’s role in whole? The communists do not The problem is that Faulkner’s operations in fusions to account for drafting the 1880 Programme of the form a separate party opposed to original series is so seriously - not only for themselves, but also Parti Ouvrier (France) is absent. the other working class parties. inaccurate - both in its ‘great men’ for their attachment to Cannon on the The ‘great men’ form of history They have no interests separate narrative and in its silences - that ‘party question’. I should flag up that is more or less instantly displayed and apart from those of the it cannot be properly described as the problem is not the Matgamnaites by the account of the Communist proletariat as a whole. They do not “drawing on the Marxist tradition fighting sharply for their political manifesto. The antecedents of the set up any sectarian principles of to help us in the task of creating a views in fused organisations: it is Manifesto and of the Communist their own, by which to shape and mass revolutionary party today”. the combination of understating League are wholly missing: and, in mould the proletarian movement. It is merely drawing on the Cliffite disagreement before fusion, with particular, missing is the fact that this tradition, but rejecting ‘democratic sharp turns to aggression and trend emerged as one which imitated This quotation is torn from its centralism’. procedural manipulations after. and built on the politics of the left context by comrade Faulkner (as by Thomas’s response has some Faulkner claims that he wing of the Chartist movement, many advocates of broad- strengths. But a statement early on is “drawing on the Marxist attempting to apply this Anglo- frontism). The rest of the passage in his piece illustrates that he, too, tradition” (emphasis added) American working class politics in needs to be quoted: is trapped in an inability to think and that the continental European context. critically about the past of his own The link to Chartism is transparent The communists are distinguished tendency. He comments: I don’t want to be ‘new in the July 17 1846 Address from the other working class or original’; I want to of the German Democratic parties by this only: The forerunners of AWL have draw upon the existing Communists of Brussels to (1) In the national struggles of brought off three fusions in Marxist tradition Mr Feargus O’Connor, the proletarians of the different our time - one in fact with and apply it to the congratulating O’Connor on countries, they point out and forerunners of Red Flag - and present. Marxism his election to parliament, and bring to the front the common each one depended on lots of can be thought saying: interests of the entire proletariat, preliminary debate and discussion of as the distilled independently of all nationality. on differences with the people we experience of The contending parties (2) In the various stages of were fusing with. some 200 years have their respective development which the struggle of class struggle: battle cries forced upon of the working class against the To say that the AWL have “brought the concentrated them by their interests and bourgeoisie has to pass through, weekly worker 1317 October 1 2020 7

they always and everywhere Eisenach (1869), Gotha (1875) and grounds not dissimilar to modern far- the working class will be the act of capable of adjudicating claims as represent the interests of the Erfurt (1891) programmes of the left objections to ‘parliamentarism’ the working class” - which is correct to the boundaries of the federal movement as a whole [der proto-SPD, the 1880 Programme and ‘electoralism’). And Faulkner but anodyne, for the reasons given by and local powers. In the USA, the Gesamtbewegung: that is, here, of the Parti Ouvrier, and so on. He omits the third paragraph of the note, Marx in the early Critique of Hegel’s European Union and elsewhere, it is a the whole historical process]. jumps, instead, to the March 1850 which makes this point clear: Doctrine of the state: democracy vehicle for the dictatorship of capital The communists, therefore, Address of the Central Committee is the “resolved mystery of all through the judicial power and are, on the one hand, practically, to the Communist League - a text Where the working class is constitutions”, since nobody can be counter-majoritarian arrangements. the most advanced and resolute beloved of Trotskyists for its use of not yet far enough advanced in a king, president or leader without In the British labour movement, the section of the working class parties the phrase, “permanent revolution”.8 its organisation to undertake a people who are willing to follow federal principle is routinely used by of every country - that section Here, it is presumably preferred not decisive campaign against the them. Hence a ‘labour dictator’ could the bureaucracy to immunise itself which pushes forward all others; for this usage, but because it does not collective power - ie, the political only achieve anything with mass against criticism from outside its on the other hand, theoretically, have much of a political platform, in power of the ruling classes - it must working class support … Bullet 5 is ‘own’ organisations as ‘interference’, they have over the great mass contrast to the Demands. at any rate be trained for this by one of those ‘motherhood and apple while it maintains a bureaucratic of the proletariat the advantage Faulkner strangely characterises continual agitation against and a pie’ formulations: “The revolutionary tyranny within them. So, too, the of clearly understanding the this text as showing “Marx and hostile attitude towards the policy party must have (1) internationalism, Taaffeites of the Socialist Party in lines of march, the conditions, Engels’ vision of the party as a of the ruling classes. Otherwise (2) collective class interest, and (3) England and Wales. and the ultimate general results federation of local workers’ groups”. it will remain a plaything in their solidarity with the oppressed as Forget the bullet points, then, of the proletarian movement The proof-texts for this claim are hands, as the September revolution inviolable principles.” except 1 and 2. Add to those a number [den Gang und die allgemeinen “the creation of an independent in France showed, and as is also But in three of the bullet points he 3, from the Programme of the Parti Resultate der proletarischen organisation of the workers’ party, proved up to a certain point by the moves away from the fundamental Ouvrier: “That the emancipation Bewegung - again displaying both secret and open, alongside the game Messrs Gladstone and co are Marxist idea of a class party by of the productive class is that of all the point that “movement” here official democrats”, and: bringing off in England even up to including with it the category of “the human beings without distinction of means the historical process, not the present time.10 oppressed”: sex or race” - or, it may be said, any the momentary aggregate of the If the workers are to be able to of the other “distinctions”. existing organisations - “this great forcibly oppose the democratic The Brexit business is a striking (No3) The revolutionary party And add a substitute bullet No4, movement of ours”]. petty bourgeoisie, it is essential current example of this phenomenon. must be an independent party from the same source: The immediate aim of the above all for them to be The absence of a clear pole of class- of the working class and the communists is the same as that independently organised and political independence has allowed oppressed. That this collective appropriation of all other proletarian parties: centralised in clubs. At the the capitalists’ political parties to (No4) The revolutionary party can arise only from the formation of the proletariat into a soonest possible moment after enlist the working class on one side must be rooted in the struggles revolutionary action of the class, overthrow of the bourgeois the overthrow of the present or another of liberal or nationalist of the working class and the productive class - or proletariat supremacy, conquest of political governments, the Central camps: “a plaything in their hands” oppressed. - organised in a distinct political power by the proletariat. Committee will come to Germany indeed. (No6) The revolutionary party party; and will immediately convene Faulkner now jumps from 1871 should be an organisation of the That such an organisation Once the whole passage has been a congress, submitting to it all to the late 1880s, and Engels’ most class-conscious workers must be pursued by all the means quoted, it should be apparent the necessary proposals for the comments on the Social Democratic and oppressed people: that is, the proletariat has at its disposal, that it is on its face internally centralisation of the workers’ Federation and Socialist League a federation of rank-and-file including universal suffrage, contradictory. The communists “do clubs under a directorate (but not, notably, his comments on activists and local working class which will thus be transformed not form a separate party”; yet, on established at the movement’s the Independent Labour Party in the and oppressed groups. from the instrument of deception the other hand, the communists “are centre of operations. The speedy 1890s11). This is a somewhat more that it has been until now into an distinguished from the other working organisation of at least provincial complicated issue, and there is a new Question: is it really true that a black instrument of emancipation. class parties ...” Moreover, the connections between the workers’ book out by Seamus Flaherty on police inspector who was stopped Manifesto is precisely the manifesto clubs is one of the prime Henry Hyndman, William Morris and by police when driving while off- This claim was already present in the commissioned and adopted by the requirements for the strengthening Ernest Belfort Bax and Marx’s and duty, or a sexually harassed senior 1846 Address to O’Connor and the Communist League (in modern and development of the workers’ Engels’s relations with them,12 which woman manager,13 is an essential Communist Manifesto, but is missing terms a distinct party) and section 3, party. I intend to review in the near future, part of a workers’ party? Consider, from Faulkner’s narrative. The case ‘Socialist and communist literature’, so I will not discuss it in depth here. moreover, the case of the government for political action of the proletariat is characterised by an excoriating Neither of these passages advocates a Faulkner’s discussion is merely a pair officials of the Islamic Republic - common action at the level of criticism of much of what existed as federation of workers’ organisations, of ‘proof-texts’ for ‘sectarianism’ as of Iran, targeted for sanctions and ‘high politics’ - takes a wide variety a socialist movement at the time. but rather their centralisation; and isolation from the mass movement assassination by the US government, of concrete forms in the political Section 4 of the Manifesto, the text actually contains a violent (leaving out of account Marx’s and and in that sense clearly oppressed in practice of Marx, Engels and their ‘Position of the communists in relation polemic against federalism in the Engels’s other objections to the SDF the interests of imperialism - but also co-thinkers, but it is the persistent to the various existing opposition state (partially self-criticised by and SL). themselves oppressors, very clearly, thread which links all these practices parties’, begins with the statement Engels in 1885). More directly relevant, Faulkner’s of Iran’s workers. The problem is that together. It is this perspective which that “Section 2 has made clear the leap, missing Marx’s and Engels’ “the oppressed” is a large and vague Marx and Engels inherited from relations of the communists to the International relations to the German workers’ category; and a party “of the working left Chartism, and which split the existing working class parties, such The next leap takes us to the movement, here jumps over the class and the oppressed” amounts to ‘Marxists’ from the ‘Bakuninists’ in as the Chartists in England and the formation of the First International. 1869 formation of the ‘Eisenacher’ the abandonment of the project of a 1870-71. It is the class intervention agrarian reformers [National Reform Again the immediate antecedents are Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei workers’ party as such in favour of at the level of ‘high politics’ which is Movement] in America.” These missing. In this case, it is workers’ (SDAP); the 1875 Gotha one of the various forms of inter-class the point of a party, as opposed to a were closely connected movements.5 activities in political solidarity with unification of the SDAP and the party. strike committee, a trade union or a No other party is characterised as the north in the American Civil ‘Lassallean’ Allgemeinen Deutschen And why (No6) “a federation cooperative. an “existing working class party”, War in 1862-63 (against the British Arbeiterverein (ADAV) to form of rank-and-file activists and In his concluding passage, besides not even the Réformistes or ‘Social state’s aspirations to intervene on the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei local working class and oppressed the six bullet-points discussed above, Democrats’ around Alexandre Ledru- the side of the Confederacy) which Deutschlands (SAPD), and the groups”? Firstly, is this body to Faulkner argued: Rollin and Louis Blanc in France - a set up the conditions for launching snowball effect which resulted from have no apparatus (in which case, group to which the Manifesto gives a solidarity campaign in support that fusion: it turned what had been some informal and unaccountable History would expose weaknesses partial critical support. The “existing of the 1863 January Uprising in two small socialist groups into a equivalent would necessarily arise)? in Marx’s and Engels’ conception working class parties” means merely Poland - which in turn mutated into mass workers’ party - banned in Is it to commit to standing no of the revolutionary party. They the Chartists in England and their US the First International. The famous 1878, but emerging from illegality candidates in parliamentary, local or overestimated the degree to which counterparts. 1864 preamble to the International’s as the Sozialdemokratische Partei trade union elections (in which case class-consciousness would arise With this, the meaning of the rules, drafted by Marx, is absent - Deutschlands (SPD) in 1890. Since it is to commit to being the tail of organically and spontaneously out contradiction in section 2 becomes and so is the extensive activity of the - as Faulkner himself says in his whoever actually does hold elected of the class struggle. They seem clear. The communists do not form International in discussing working second part, and as Lars T Lih has office)? to have assumed that bourgeois a party opposed to (gegenüber in class policy on a series of issues.9 demonstrated - the SPD was the basis And why a federation? We can ideology would prove too brittle to the German) any actual attempt to Instead, Faulkner gives a partial of Lenin’s party conception, this is certainly see why the Proudhonists withstand the proletarian surge, as organise the working class to fight quotation from a letter from Marx a glaring omission, which deserves were keen on federalism in the First workers organised, mobilised and for political action - general laws and to Friedrich Bolte in New York separate treatment. International; this was a fundamental fought back. They were unable to constitutional changes - in workers’ (November 11 1871). I have quoted aspect of Proudhon’s politics.14 anticipate the degree to which a (perceived) independent class this text myself on more than one Oppressed Engels in an 1885 note on the 1850 conservative labour bureaucracy interests, however weak the politics.6 occasion, to illustrate the difference Finally, Faulkner adds a little subhead: Address criticising the anti-federalist would become capable of On the contrary, they seek to join and between the Marx-Engels conception ‘What about the oppressed?’ There arguments in that text (about the smothering rank-and-file struggle. build such attempts. They do organise of politics, on the one hand, and, will be a similar subhead in part 2, hoped-for united German state) within, but in a manner not dependent on the other, the common far-left on Lenin. In the section in the ‘Marx’ remarked: We have already seen reasons to on, these movements, with their own conception, in which strikes and part, we get a little discussion of reject this argument: Marx’s and manifesto, membership, if possible direct action flow directly into the oppression (principally referring to ... no more than local and Engels’ whole political conduct is press and organisational forms. struggle for power without previous race and migration issues) as causing provincial self-government is in inconsistent with them holding the They do not take the same attitude engagement with constitutional divisions in the workers’ movement; contradiction to political, national idea of an ‘organic and spontaneous’ to utopian socialist, statist socialist, and electoral ‘high politics’ under and reference to Engels’ Origins of centralisation, is it [local self- development out of the class struggle etc movements, which do not attempt capitalism. Faulkner uses it, the family. All true. government] necessarily bound up without conscious political choices to organise the working class to fight bizarrely, to attribute to Marx the idea From this, however, Faulkner with that narrow-minded cantonal and disputes. politically for its independent class of “a strong sense that proletarian concludes that “several principles of or communal self-seeking, which The other side of this coin is that the interests: even if they give partial revolution would be the more or revolutionary organisation worked strikes us as so repulsive in development of labour bureaucracy critical support, as in the case of the less inevitable outcome of the class out by the founders of Marxism Switzerland, and which all the as a conservative force in the Réformistes, they do form a party struggle in the workplaces”. remained inviolable …” - and south German federal republicans movement is not something which gegenüber these parties. Faulkner’s interpretation here is summarises these in six bullet points. wanted to make the rule in happened after Marx’s and Engels’ From the Manifesto, comrade bizarre, because the text quoted is Bullets 1 and 2 are Marxist enough: Germany in 1849. times. They may have misdiagnosed Faulkner leaps over the March 1848 a note appended to a letter, which No1 is: “The working class is the the phenomenon of ‘moderate’ Demands of the Communist Party in is about the recent splits in the First first exploited class in history with a Formal federalism, as opposed leadership of trade unions, but they Germany7 - a plain summary political International, reflecting disagreement general interest in the emancipation to a customary regime of local were not unfamiliar with it - after the platform, of the sort which appears in the movement about workers’ of humanity as a whole”, which is the self-government with a strong considerable caution of union leaders towards the end of the Manifesto political action (which the Bakuninists underlying argument for a workers’ central power, actually entails the in the 1850s, their abandonment of and which was to reappear in the and Proudhonists opposed, on party. No2 is: “The emancipation of sovereignty of whoever is the body the International after the Commune weekly 8 October 1 2020 1317 worker POLEMIC and Marx’s scandalous defence of it, Ferdinand Lassalle’s in response to a Eisenach programme, which has a set expectations, the unification of the in Faulkner’s account produce and the persistence of Lib-Labism workers’ congress in 1863. Lassalle of six general principles and then a Eisenach party and the ADAV created misunderstandings: that which (trade union leaders’ commitment to was a ‘48er’ and a correspondent set of 10 specific demands.19 a snowball effect. By unifying the stands where Chartism should be the Liberal Party) through the 1880s of Marx, though the relationship It is important to understand that German socialist groups, which were turns the Communist manifesto into and down to Engels’ death in 1895. was an edgy one. The ADAV the Eisenach programme has within not that large (about 12,000 in the an argument for the sort of politics And they could also see from the was not a Chartist or 1848-style itself most of the faults which Marx ADAV and about 7,000 Eisenachers), against which Marx and Engels were time of the SPD the development communist party committed to criticises in the Gotha programme. At within very few years the united arguing, as is true also of the use of of party bureaucracy. Witness, political democracy. When founded, the same time, however, the concept party had hundreds of thousands of the 1850 Address and the gap where merely for example, Engels writing it adopted as its platform a 40-page of the Eisenach programme is the members. most of what happened in the First to Kautsky in 1891 about the furore article by Lassalle, the ‘Open Letter’.17 same concept as that of the Charter, This snowball effect of unification International should be. over the publication of the Critique of In spite of its length, this document or the Demands of the Communist is equally true of the history of the The gap where the initiatives of the Gotha programme: proposed the idea of a workers’ party Party in Germany. Second International in general. the Germans in the 1860s-90s should independent of the Liberals, on the It is a return in that sense from The 1889 Hainfeld programme of be is a matter of Faulkner’s ‘great It is also imperative that the chaps basis of two demands only: universal the First International idea - a the Austrian social democracy was men’ or personality-cult method of should at last throw off the habit of suffrage and state-supported producer general association without a definite a fusion programme. The Italian writing history; it also massively handling the party officials - their cooperatives. The rest of the text was programme, but a framework within Socialist Party originated out of adversely affects Faulkner’s ability servants - with kid gloves and theoretical argument. which the working class can discuss a fusion of a number of different to understand Lenin’s arguments - to kow-towing to them as infallible As an organisation the ADAV what its policy ought to be - to the groups. The French Section Française which we will have to return in the bureaucrats, instead of confronting operated what at some stage Chartist and Manifesto idea of a de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO) next article in this series l them critically.15 Lassalleans may have called workers’ political movement founded originated as a fusion of a number “democratic centralism”.18 If so, on a definite short, clear political of different groups. The RSDLP [email protected] “They were unable to anticipate” in by this they meant that a congress platform. It was also, like the ADAV, originated as a fusion of a number Faulkner’s account is yet more of the elected (“democratic”) a leader a membership organisation. of different groups. The creation Notes ‘cult of personality’ or ‘great men’ (Lassalle, then later Schweitzer Between 1869 and 1875 the of a unified organisation creates 1. workersliberty.org/ comment/34561#comment-34561. (I have to say theory of history stuff. after Lassalle was killed in a duel in main political event in Europe was a snowball effect and enables the that it is really hard to find old stuff on the AWL’s 1864), and the leader had dictatorial the Franco-Prussian war. Bebel and organisation to go massively further website at the moment; the search engine seems German model powers (“centralism”) over the Liebknecht, who had been elected to forward than the disunited forces not to work). The German model of workers’ party party organisation - and equally the parliament of the north German which existed beforehand. 2. Various interventions. Contrary to comrade Birchall, however, the long-term price of banning organisation begins in Marx’s and over the trade unions, which were confederation as Eisenach party We have seen this phenomenon ‘permanent factions’ as a way of dealing with such Engels’ time, and stands between later founded in association with MPs, refused, against the advice of again more recently - albeit at the operations greatly outweighs the disruption costs their approach and that of the Russian the party organisation. In addition, Marx and Engels, to vote for credits end of the day ending in failure - in of dishonest factions. Social Democracy, which comrade Lassalle, and after him Schweitzer, for the Prussian war effort. The the Brazilian Workers Party (PT); in 3. MECW Vol 6, p59 (originally from The Northern Star No454, July 25 1846). Faulkner calls “Lenin’s”. But it is not were happy to say that the working ADAV in contrast gave clear support Rifondazione Comunista’s opening 4. S Mastellone Mazzini and Marx: thoughts upon Marx’s or Engels’ model, but that of class could ally with the Bismarck for the Prussian war effort. The up to forces to its left; in the Scottish democracy in Europe Westport 2003. the German lefts who were broadly government and with the Prussian decision of Bebel and Liebknecht Socialist Party; or lasting longer 5. On the link, see the review by Howard B Rock part of the same trend, of arguing monarchists against the Liberals, was retrospectively validated by the in the Left Bloc in Portugal, in the of JL Bronstein’s Land reform and working class experience in Britain and the United States, for working class organisation for because the Liberals represent the military victories of the Prussians Red-Green alliance in Denmark. 1800-1862 (1999): h-net.org/reviews/showrev. political action: Ferdinand Lassalle capitalist class, while the monarchists and also by the fact that the Prussians Unification of relatively small forces cgi?path=202956170085; and on the Communist and his co-thinkers; Wilhelm were prepared to make social turned out to be annexationist, seizing of socialists in itself creates a different League’s attitude to it, K Marx et al, ‘Circular Liebknecht, August Bebel and their concessions to the working class. The Alsace-Lorraine. In retrospect Bebel dynamic. against Kriege’, section 2 (1846): marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1846/05/11.htm. co-thinkers. ADAV was also kleindeutsch (‘small and Liebknecht were seen to have If we ask ourselves why that 6. And the politics of the National Reform I have written at somewhat German’), supporting the unification made an enormous stand on principle should be, the answer is actually Movement in the US were substantially weaker more length about the ‘programme’ of Germany without Austria, under against Prussian military aggression. perfectly obvious. The working class than those of British left Chartism. aspect of this history in 2013, and Prussian leadership. At the same time, the organisers as a class has a profound interest in 7. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24. htm. about the SPD roots of ‘democratic The centralism and the nationalism of trade unions under the framework united action in spite of political 8. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/ centralism’ in 2015 and 2019, and I had a distinct consequence: the ADAV of the ADAV became increasingly differences. Because without communist-league/1850-ad1.htm. do not propose to repeat all the detail was a ‘nationwide’ membership angry and frustrated by the system the framework for united action 9. Various documents are available on MIA at of what I said there.16 It is, however, organisation, which one could join under which Schweitzer as the among people who have political marxists.org/history/international/iwma/index.htm. 10. marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/ necessary to repeat some of the as an individual, unlike the Chartist- elected leader was simultaneously differences, you cannot have a strike, letters/71_11_23.htm. The ‘September revolution’ history, because comrade Faulkner’s style and old bourgeois party-style the president of every trade union you cannot have trade unions, you was the first stage of the fall of the regime of articles illustrate the very widespread federations of clubs and societies. associated with the ADAV. And cannot have credit unions, you cannot Louis Bonaparte in September 1870, in which ‘new left’ ignorance (partly wilful) of The second German workers’ party the people in the localities were have cooperatives. The working the bourgeoisie captured the spoils of mass movements. Liberal leader and prime minister it. to develop in the 1860s was what angry and frustrated by the fact that class objectively needs unity. Hence, WE Gladstone was at the date of this letter busily It is also a sharp illustration of the became in 1869 the Eisenach party. Schweitzer had the right to dissolve insofar as the left sets itself up against ‘talking left’ against the German annexation of problems of thinking these issues This started with Wilhelm Liebknecht local parties, intervene in them, unity in favour of purity, it takes us Alsace-Lorraine: D Schreuder, ‘Gladstone as through ‘great men’ histories or attempting to organise an opposition appoint the organisers of the local back to the times before Chartism, “troublemaker”: Liberal foreign policy and the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, 1870- cults of the personalities of Marx, within the Lassallean ADAV in parties, and so on. and we are forced to give all the 1871’ Journal of British Studies Vol 17, pp106-135 Engels, Lenin, as comrade Faulkner Berlin; but Bismarck, hearing of In contrast, the Eisenachers competing tendencies the names of (1978). The Liberal Party had also appealed to the does; because some aspects of the this, had Liebknecht deported from regarded the effective autonomy their theoretical leaders: just from upper sections of the working class by attempting actions the Germans took against Prussia to Saxony. Liebknecht went of the branches, trade unions and Britain, the Cliffites, the Mandelites, to legalise trade unions with the Trade Union Act 1871, while taking away with the other hand by Marx’s and Engels’ advice turned into a Saxon Liberal party called so on as being a fundamental part the Healyites, the Matgammnaites, criminalising picketing and reducing “sentimental” out to be massively more successful the Volkspartei (People’s Party), and of their political conception - that etc, like the Paineites, Spenceans, poor relief. in promoting working class organised a left tendency within it, in the working class needs political Owenites, and so on. 11. Eg, Engels to Sorge, November 10 1894 consciousness and class organisation the process winning August Bebel. democracy; and that implied that the One further step. The rapid (marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/ letters/94_11_10.htm): “The Independent Labour than Marx’s and Engels’ own In 1869 this tendency fused with a working class requires democracy growth of the SAP led in 1878 Party is extremely indefinite in its tactics, and involvement in organising activities. split from the ADAV, and created the in its own movement as well, and to the introduction of emergency its leader, Keir Hardie, is a super-cunning Scot, This particular history begins with Social Democratic Workers Party or needs the opportunity for creativity legislation against it - the Gesetz whose demagogic tricks are not to be trusted for the General Association of German ‘Eisenach party’. This organisation in the localities, in the branches and gegen die gemeingefährlichen a minute.” 12. S Flaherty Marx, Engels and modern British Workers (ADAV), initiated by was based on a clear platform, the so on. This commitment is present Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie socialism London 2020. very explicitly in the Eisenach or ‘Anti-Socialist Laws’ - introduced 13. Police inspector: The Guardian August programme. as temporary measures, but then 18 2020; and cf T Vega, ‘For affluent blacks, The result of these developments extended successively until 1890. wealth doesn’t stop racial profiling’ CNN, July Fighting fund was that in the early 1870s there These prohibited local and national 14 2016 (money.cnn.com/2016/07/14/news/ economy/wealthy-blacks-racial-profiling/index. were not only further splits from the Social Democratic organisation html); woman managers: O Folke, J Rickne, S Lassalleans towards the Eisenachers, - but did not prohibit individual Tanaka and Y Tateishi, ‘Sexual harassment of but also a pressure for unification of Social Democrats from standing for women leaders’ Daedalus Vol 149, pp 180-97 the two organisations. At Gotha in election to the Reichstag. The Social (2020): amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/ Tantalising downloads/Daedalus_Wi20_12_Folke%20 1875 the two organisations unified, Democrats seized the opportunity, Rickne%20Tanaka%20Tateishi.pdf. rustratingly, we have ended I mentioned the fact that on the basis of the Gotha programme.20 using the Reichstag as a tribunal to 14. Cf my review of Iain McKay’s 2011 Property our September fighting fund sometimes the Weekly Worker Marx’s Critique of the Gotha speak out on workers’ issues and to is theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon anthology: ‘No F guide to revolution’ Weekly Worker July 19 2012. just £9 short of our £2,000 publishes the odd “weird” letter programme, the covering note indict the policy of successive Reich 15. Engels to Kautsky February 21 1891: MECW target. Thanks to an excellent and I’m told that BK (mentioned he wrote on it and Engels’ and Land (province) governments; Vol 49, p131. There are several other related £617 that came our way over above) was actually wondering equivalent letters took the view they combined this with the comments in this correspondence. the last week, our total for the whether he was included in that the programme’s non-Marxist publication of an illegal party press 16. ‘Programme: lessons of Erfurt’ Weekly Worker September 5 2013; ‘Origins of democratic month is a tantalising £1,991! that bracket! But it didn’t stop content outweighed the benefits of outside Germany, which was then centralism’, November 5 2015 (introducing Ben However, it could have been him making that brilliant £50 unification. But in spite of the Great- circulated - and links maintained Lewis’s translation of Karl Kautsky’s article, a lot worse, but for one donation donation! Prussian nationalism and statism with local groups - through a body ‘Constituency and party’); ‘Reclaiming democratic in particular - a fantastic £257 Anyway, we were just £9 of the Lassalleans, they were still of Vertrauensmänner (‘trusted men’). centralism’, May 23 2019. 17. platypus1917.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ from comrade SK! That’s short, so I think we can live with partisans of a workers’ party as such, At this point we come very close to lassalle_openletter1863.pdf. The basis was reduced generosity for you. Another that. But let’s hope we make as opposed to a cross-class coalition the organisational conceptions of to four points in 1867, but retained as point 4 who made a bank transfer was the full £2K in October. If you party, and a party which stood for Iskra and of Lenin’s What is to be “Lösung der sozialen Frage durch freie Arbeiter- comrade BK (£50), while there haven’t already done so, why workers’ political action through the done? Assoziation mit Staatshilfe nach den Prinzipien Lassalles”: ie, that the cult of the personality of were standing orders from DG not join our other regular donors struggle for universal suffrage - not The real lessons, then, of the ‘pre- the dead Lassalle was incorporated in the party (£60), JT and JC (£50 each), BB, and set up a standing order? (It’s a cooperativist movement like the Lenin’ history of the organisation platform. W Treue Deutsche Parte programme SS, GT and MW (£15), plus £10 sort code 30-99-64 and account Proudhonists or anti-parliamentary question are nearly the opposite of 1861-1961 Gleichen 1961, pp58-59. This remained each from VP and RL. number 00744310) l mass-action movement like the those drawn by Faulkner. The point the platform of the ADAV until the Gotha fusion. 18. ‘May have’ for reasons given in my Meanwhile, AR did his usual Robbie Rix Bakuninists. This was not a repeat of the party is the intervention of the ‘Reclaiming democratic centralism’: ie, that the monthly double act - £5 via of the First International as a ‘broad working class at the level of high citation on which the 1960s author who originally both PayPal and standing order. Fill in a standing order form front’ with a minimalist platform, but politics. Attention to the various made this claim about the Lassalleans relied turns Finally DB (£50) and MG (£10) a unification of groups which were forms of oppression is a part of out not to lead to a traceable primary source. (back page), donate via our 19. archive.org/stream/EisenachProgram/725_ also chipped in using PayPal. website, or send cheques, politically close to each other, on the this attention to high politics; not a socDemWorkersParty_230_djvu.txt. By the way, last week payable to Weekly Worker basis of a long-term platform. ground for a “party of the working 20. archive.org/stream/GothaProgramme/726_ Contrary to Marx’s and Engels’ class and the oppressed”. The gaps socWrkrsParty_gothaProgram_231_djvu.txt. weekly worker 1317 October 1 2020 9 ECONOMY A return to Keynes? Michael Roberts takes apart the United Nations ‘solution’ to end the Covid-19 pandemic slump he latest report by the United China). The global economy had employment.” That may be the key So Keynesian policies of managing the wage-profit share distribution - and Nations Conference on Trade entered dangerous waters by late principle of macroeconomics, but, as capitalism “fell out of fashion” because reduce the profit share, it ignores the T and Development (Unctad), the 2019. Growth was slowing across all I have argued before many times,3 this of a change of ideology. This is the reality that it is the capitalist mode of economic research agency to help regions, with a number of economies sequence is not correct and is actually explanation also recently made by production for profit that generates that ‘developing countries’, is a must- contracting in the final quarter. back-to-front. In a capitalist, profit- Thomas Piketty in his new tome, unequal distribution. Unctad wants us read.1 Not only is it packed with Moreover, Unctad reckons that making, economy, it is profits and Capital and ideology,4 where he argues to end “rent-seeking behaviour and data and statistics about trends and a V-shaped recovery from the 2020 profitability that drive investment. that it was a change of ideology that market concentration [ie, monopolies], developments in global production, slump is not likely. Even a full When profitability drops, investment changed economic policies. and unequal terms of trade trade and investment, but this 2020 V-shaped recovery with annual growth in the means of production and [imperialism] and the international issue takes a very radical position on next year above 5%, and the world in labour will contract, leading to Profitability division of labour [imperialism how to get the world economy out of economy returning to its 2019 level unemployment and loss of consumer This idealist explanation ignores the again]”, but how can that be done what the International Monetary Fund by the end of 2021, would still leave incomes and demand. main objective economic condition without taking control and ownership calls the “lockdown slump”. a $12 trillion income shortfall in its Indeed, on occasion even Keynes of capitalism in the 1970s: the well- of the multinational companies and As Unctad eloquently says, wake and an engorged debt burden, recognised that profitability (which documented profitability crisis. Rates financial institutions that breed these particularly in the public sector. But he called the “marginal efficiency of of profit on capital in all the major inequalities and imperialist flows of The world economy is even that is not going to happen, says capital”) was an important factor in economies plummeted, leading to a value? experiencing a deep recession Unctad: “Our own assessment also causing slumps. As he said, severe slump in 1980-82. This forced Unctad says: amid a still-unchecked pandemic. sees the bounce continuing into next governments to abandon Keynesian Now is the time to hammer out a year, albeit with stronger headwinds Unemployment, I must repeat, ‘demand management’, which Markets, left alone, cannot plan for global recovery - one that weakening the pace of global recovery exists because employers have had failed to save capitalism, and efficiently provide society with can credibly return even the most - which will, under the best scenario, been deprived of profit. The loss governments turned to ‘neoliberal’ the necessary collective goods and vulnerable countries to a stronger struggle to climb above 4%.” of profit may be due to all sorts of policies, based on crushing trade union with the conditions for sustainable, position than they were before. The causes. But, short of going over to power, decimating manufacturing equitable growth and development, status quo ante is a goal not worth Analysis communism, there is no possible industry in the advanced capitalist regardless of the starting point. A the name. And the task is urgent, for What economic policies should means of curing unemployment economies and taking capital and mixture of active fiscal policies and right now history is repeating itself be adopted to end this “lockdown except by restoring to employers a productive capacity into the cheap more structural policies are then - this time with a disturbing mix of slump”, and avoid or reduce the hit proper margin of profit. labour areas of the global south (and needed to fill the gap - policies that both tragedy and farce. to the livelihoods of billions? That eastern Europe after the fall of the look beyond temporary stabilisation depends on the analysis of the causes If the marginal efficiency of capital fell ). and contribute to economic First, Unctad’s economists spell out of the slump itself. below the interest cost of borrowing Yes, the ‘rules of the game’ were reconstruction. the depth and extent of the pandemic And here I take issue with Unctad’s capital, then capitalists would have a changed from “demand management” recession. They reckon the global economists. They reckon the cause loss of ‘animal spirits’, stop investing to free markets, corporate tax cuts and This implies that things would work economy’s real gross domestic product of the global slowdown before the and instead hoard money. But this globalisation. But this was based on efficiently if markets were interfered will contract by about 4.3% cent this pandemic and the lost decade since aspect of Keynesian theory is ignored the objective situation, not on some with and ‘managed’. year, leaving global output by year’s the great recession ended in 2009 by modern Keynesians (as it was by ideological nastiness. Unctad may Unctad’s “structural policies” boil end over $6 trillion short of what is primarily due a “lack of global Keynes himself). There is no mention think that returning to Keynesian down to more regulation of monopolies economists had expected it to be before demand”. This lack of demand is of profit or profitability in the whole of demand management will solve rising and banks, not taking them over. “To the Covid-19 pathogen began to spread: caused by wages being too low the long Unctad report. Instead we are inequality, global warming and low curtail market monopolisation and because of neoliberal policies; and asked to accept that slumps are caused wages and investment. But, if the corporate rent-seeking, much of the In short, the world is grappling by capitalist investment being too by low wages and consumption, and profitability of capital stays low, such regulatory structure dismantled over the with the equivalent of a complete low because of a switch into financial by low investment caused by a switch policies (in the unlikely event of being past four decades needs to be restored. In wipe-out of the Brazilian, Indian speculation rather than into productive to financial speculation, leading to implemented) will not work. addition, anti-trust and anti-monopoly and Mexican economies. And, as investment; and by fiscal austerity ‘instability’. Unctad’s economists note that laws have to be updated.” And domestic activity contracts, so goes reducing government spending. You see, in the last 40 years, the productivity growth has slowed the international economy; trade Unctad economists openly follow share of profits in the national incomes significantly in the last 20 or more We need a re-regulation of finance. will shrink by around one fifth the Keynesian ‘explanation’ for the of the major economies has risen at the years. In the US, it grew by 17% in This includes tackling the giant this year, foreign direct investment lost decade (or what I have called the expense of wages, which means that the 1999-2009 decade, but only 12.5% private banks through international flows by up to 40% and remittances long depression) since 2009. And their the crisis of capitalist production is in the last decade; China’s impressive oversight and regulation; addressing will drop by over $100 billion. solution is a re-adoption of Keynesian ‘wage-led’, not ‘profit-led’: productivity growth of 162% in the the highly concentrated and critical policies to manage capitalism better. earlier decade came down to 99% in market for credit rating; and the cosy The Great Lockdown has tipped the For Unctad, slumps start with a In the last decade, the profit share the next one. They seem to think this is relationship between rating agencies global economy into recession in 2020 collapse in demand: ie, in investment has increased in all but three G20 due to lower aggregate demand, but the and shadow banking institutions. on a scale not witnessed since the spending and above all in household countries. If these pre-Covid-19 evidence is clear: those countries with 1930s. As a result, over 500 million consumption. That leads to a fall in forces of wage repression remain low levels of productive investment Anybody who has read my analysis jobs worldwide are under threat and at sales, trade and then production and in place, the labour share will growth also had low levels of of the effectiveness of regulation over least 100 million jobs will have gone investment. “Since its founding in likely continue its decline in many productivity growth, and low levels of monopolies and banks5 will conclude entirely by the year end. Furthermore, the aftermath of the great depression, economies in the next years, investment growth were driven by low that this policy of regulation will not between 90 million and 120 million the key principle of macroeconomics exacerbating inequalities. In the levels of profitability, not ‘demand’. work. people will be pushed into extreme has been that effective demand - United States, after a 50-year It is true that productive investment Take . Unctad poverty in the developing world, with expected sales of final goods and descent, the labour share is now growth has slowed, while investment presents a whole range of ‘green’ hunger and malnutrition certain to services - determines income and back to its 1950s level; if current in financial assets has risen, driven by measures to curb and control global follow, while income gaps will widen trends continue, in 10 years’ time cheap credit (leading to rising debt). warming. But there is no call for the everywhere. These developments John Maynard Keynes: his it will be back to the brink-of-the- But again the question is, why did public ownership of the fossil fuel point toward a massive uptick in latter–day followers leave profit abyss level of 1930. capitalists invest productively with industries and their phasing out. sickness and death. out of their basic theory credit back in the 1960s and early Maybe that is too much to expect The urgent need for increased Unctad says the problem is that 1970s, but now prefer to purchase from an international agency like health spending, along with declining “The world largely abandoned financial assets? Why have “policies Unctad - funded as it is by the great tax revenues, combined with a collapse the imperative of demand drifted towards a different paradigm powers in the United Nations. It in export earnings and pending debt management, with the turn to of finance-led globalisation”? Should wants to promote a radical alternative payments has exposed a $2-3 trillion neoliberal policies in the 1980s we not consider that the motor force to neoliberalism that it reckons has financing gap in the developing world, and an exclusive focus on for this is the low profitability in brought capitalism to its knees in the which the ‘international community’ measures to boost growth productive investment? pandemic, but if it only advocates a has, so far, failed to address: “There is from the supply-side.” But Unctad says: “... as long as growth return to Keynesian-style demand a very serious danger that the shortfall it offers no real explanation needs to rely on credit and the state management of capitalism, it is will drag developing countries into of why government policies is removed from actions to control certainly not offering a “plan for another lost decade, ending any changed in the 1970s finance and ensure full employment, global recovery - one that can credibly hope of realising the ambition of towards what are now financial instability and crises become return even the most vulnerable the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable called neoliberal measures features of capitalist economies”. The countries to a stronger position than Development.” like wage suppression. implication here is that if the state they were before” l Unctad economists note - something If everything was going controlled finance it could achieve I argued last March2 - that the world swimmingly in the ‘golden full employment and end crises. But Michael Roberts blogs at economy was already heading for a age’ of the 1960s for capitalism surely, as Unctad goes onto to say, thenextrecession.wordpress.com. slump before the pandemic hit. In the and with workers’ wages, why “with profit preservation being the advanced capitalist economies, the change? linchpin of the model, wage earners or Notes average growth rate between 2010 Unctad’s offered explanation the public sector bear the cost of crises, 1. Unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/tdr2020_ and 2019 fluctuated around an annual is that “a more active role of the and downward pressure on wages en.pdf. 2. thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/03/15/ average of 2%, compared with 2.4% government in economic suppresses aggregate demand in the it-was-the-virus-that-did-it. from 2001-07. Growth also declined reconstruction fell subsequent cycle”. 3. See, for example, thenextrecession.wordpress. for developing countries from 7.9% out of fashion in Indeed, ‘profit preservation’ is com/2018/03/07/unam-1-the-profit-investment- in 2010 to 3.5% in 2019, with an recent decades the problem, because it is the driving nexus. 4. See my article at: thenextrecession.wordpress. annual average of just 5%, compared under the influence force for capitalist production. So com/2019/10/18/capital-not-ideology. with 6.9% from 2001-07 (or 3.4% of the neoliberal when Unctad says it wants to focus on 5. thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/ and 4.9% respectively, excluding economic mindset”. “functional income distribution” - ie, regulation-does-not-work. weekly 10 October 1 2020 1317 worker CENTENARY Up the CPGB Bolshies he CPGB entered its first joy that clearly animated the The campaign was lively, came when the whole local successes, with the election parliamentary battle in the Caerphilly “Bolshies”, as they as comrade Jackson vividly Labour Party committee in of two communist MPs who T Caerphilly by-election of dubbed themselves. describes below. The CPGB’s the nearby village of Bedlinog would take the class struggle August 1921. We have featured They were going into a agent was refused election resigned and pledged to work to the heart of the bourgeois the official election address of the three-cornered fight between documents and a copy of the for the CPGB. parliament. party in a previous instalment of communist, Labour and Coalition electoral register by the local However, Labour held the In this, the final article in our this series,1 but the sketch of the (the Tory-Liberal government) council clerk. Bob Stewart, seat with 13,699 votes, while series on the CPGB’s centenary, campaign in south Wales below candidates, occasioned by our candidate, was still in the Coalition polled 8,958 and we republish the following conveys the rough and ready the death of Alfred Onions, prison for his part in a miners’ the CPGB got off the mark account of the battle, penned by improvisation, the camaraderie, a rightwing Labour MP and demonstration and was only with a respectable 2,592. In the TA Jackson in the party’s weekly the huge expenditure of effort, official of the South Wales Miners released part way through the general election a year later, paper, The Communist l the dedication and tremendous Federation. campaign. A welcome boost our party scored much bigger William Sarsfield Red raid on Caerphilly! The Communist price. Then two issues of an election the platform was Jim Shand’s driving September 3 1921 supplement to The Communist: the through the dark back into Caerphilly. To write the story of the Caerphilly first sold at a penny, and the second And now that it is all over and the by-election is not easy. The stage is distributed gratis. For these latter, result declared, what can we offer as too crowded, the issues too vast, and chief credit is due to the indefatigable our excuse for raiding in? We lost our the upshot too complex to permit a AE Cook. Then there was the election deposits, we spent all the money there description in a few cold or flaming address consisting of an abbreviated was, and all we had as individuals on words. Those who viewed it from version of the address to the workers top of it. What did we get in return? a distance will see in it nothing but of Caerphilly from The Communist of We gained this. We went into an arithmetical proportion of voters, August 13. an area in which the reaction and and a majority for the official Labour The great practical problem despair following upon the failure candidate. Those who were in it and was the folding of addresses and of the miners’ struggle had left the through it will remember it for long enveloping of this address in time for workers hopeless and broken. We as the ‘Red Raid on Caerphilly’ - the one to be posted to each elector, and found the best men in the district raid which made the valleys of East this was made possible by a team of loaded with debts, their jobs refused Glamorgan ring with the shouts of as fine a band of real workers as could them, their homes threatened by the ‘Up the rebels!’ and which taught the possibly have been gathered together. landlord greedy for arrears of rent (in children in the streets to sing at their There were not many of them, but the middle of the campaign our sub- play ‘We’ll keep the red flag flying they came from all the surrounding agent, Dai Davies, had a judgement here!’ districts - from the Rhondda, from the given against him in the county court, Having no machinery, we had Western Valley of Monmouthshire, so that his work had to be done under to take to the streets. When there from Cardiff, from Bristol, the strain of fear of a distraint upon his was a place to hold a meeting. we and London and, under the command home!). held one – and, when the ‘Boys of of comrades Brown (of Shipley), Dai Into this psychology of gloom and the Bolshie Breed’ hold a meeting Davies (of Bargoed), Hawkins and despair we carried our revolutionary in a proletarian quarter, the result is Shaw, they worked wonders. They slogans, just when the miserable, a foregone conclusion. Before the Ramsay MacDonald: stung were of all ages, all proletarians and (if pigeon-livered ‘Labour’ crew were election campaign we had some 20 truth must be told) mostly unemployed beginning to chant their chorus of communist voters in the division. At so furious was the storm of proletarian had of working the patriotic stunt, and and therefore broke. They messed “Leave it to parliament - direct action the ‘showdown’ - after the Coalition contempt roused by their efforts. at the same time these are creating a together in the committee rooms is never any good”. We raided in. had carted up in their 80 cars every While it was wrong to interpret real fear that the Coalition will slip and a goodly number of them slept First we routed the gang of whiners reactionary whom the fear of the this oratorical success as a portent of on a split vote. You are frightening at night on the floor. To come home and then we roused the enthusiasm of red flag had terrified into unwanted electoral triumph, it would be absurd the Labour crowd into working as late, weary and hoarse from a round those who had lost heart and hope. exertion and after the Labour Party to write it off as of no importance. In they had never worked before, and at of meetings to find this proletarian We put the light back into the eyes had bullied, cajoled, whined and point of fact, it was the outstanding the same time you are making voters bunch getting ready their ‘shake- of men who were leaden with despair, wheedled, finishing with the frenzied fact of the election. That ‘Bolshevik’ whose class-consciousness is just downs’ for the night was like walking and a spring into the walk of young SOS, “Don’t let the Coalition in!” - speakers would venture into the open far enough roused to make the name into a picture from John Reed’s Ten men. We brought a resurrection of the we had roused and rallied 2,592 votes at all was sensation enough. That they [Labour] attractive, but not enough to days that shook the world. They were fighting spirit. We shamed even the for communism and the slogan, ‘All should, without waiting to be accused, make them whole-hog communists.” a great bunch of the real fighting staff. Labour crew into making a show of power to the workers’. boldly adopt the title as a badge of The result certainly lends plausibility Communism has reason to be proud fighting and we left behind us not only With a month to work in and a honour and go on to hold their own to that view. of its rank and file. a spirit and a will, but the beginnings straight fight against either of them, with anything and everything in the Ramsay MacDonald in the spleen Then there was the difficulty of of an organisation which will make the Communist Party would have nature of argument, opposition and of his mean soul has asserted that we transportation. To get from village the boss class remember with fury our swept the deck clean of everything interruption was, to many, simply conspicuously avoided any attack on to village in the Caerphilly division Red Raid on Caerphilly. opposed to it. astounding. Crowds came, first of all the Coalition. No lie could be grosser means climbing three mountains When the poll closed at 8pm, we When I say that we triumphed in out of sheer curiosity; they remained or meaner. Harry Webb challenged a and crossing two bridges - except held our meetings in aid of the Russian the streets, I state what is obvious in from interest and returned night after Coalition speaker who interrupted him when you cross three bridges and famine victims. After these had the result. The Coalition had their night with intensifying enthusiasm. to debate and a meeting was arranged climb two mountains. And they closed, we waited in the streets or in press, the Labour Party, the chapels The official Labour speakers, and in for Abertridwr.2 The hour arrived, but are real mountains - no “home- the rooms for the figures - passing the and Co-op halls, to make propaganda a lesser degree those of the Coalition, the Coalition speaker was missing. made mountains”, as Ernie Brown time at a singsong, presided over by in. Except for the two Sundays over were well known by repute. Those of William Paul taunted a Coalition MP christened the coal-tips! Our the inimitable Gallacher. And on the which the campaign extended - on the Communist Party were unknown on his platform in Caerphilly and speaking campaign would have morrow we departed in Jim Shand’s each of which we held indoor meetings men - except in a few cases, and those played with him before one of the been physically impossible but for car to catch the train at Newport. - the whole of our work was done in known only to a few of the Independent largest crowds I have ever seen in the the transport available in the form of And, as we went through streets the open. A little canvassing was done Labour Party. Before the election open. Gallacher’s massacre of a group two cars latterly supplemented by a and lanes over the hills and down - necessarily very little from the size closed the Communist Party speakers of Coalition speakers, headed by motorcycle and sidecar. These were the valleys, at every sixth door man, of the area to be covered and the want had earned on all sides the repute of Captain Gee VC, was a thing to dream put at the disposal of the party by that woman, or child or altogether cheered of the requisite number of canvassers. the finest team of speakers ever sent about for a lifetime, and the happiest most enthusiastic of Bolsheviks, Jim at the sight of the red flag flying and Those we had worked like cart-horses into an election. And those who knew hour Bob Stewart has spent for a Shand of Salford. answered our slogan with shouts with splendid effect; but they were all of them intimately agreed that long time was the one during which a At least half of the votes we gained of “Up the Red!” and “Bravo Bob swamped in the flood the Labour each one of them excelled himself Coalition MP who had challenged him were made possible by Jim Shand. Stewart!” crowds were able to mobilise. The - and when a team that includes, to had to sit listening to his reply.3 You will perhaps have seen references If we can do what we did in Coalition meanwhile conserved their name only a few of the better known, It is a lie to say, as MacDonald in the press to “Bolshevik emissaries Caerphilly with the odds there were strength in the bourgeois quarters. William Paul, William Gallacher, says, that we avoided tackling the rushing through the lanes of the against us, the triumph of the rebel So enthusiastic and apparently Helen Crawford, Joe Vaughan, Bert Coalition; but there is a reason for his Caerphilly division in expensive workers is in sight l unanimous were the cheers that Joy, Walter Newbold, Harry Webb, utterance. The only communist speech cars” - and in a way they told the greeted our speakers that quite a Arthur MacManus and the candidate, he listened to was driven into him by truth. They were perhaps not specially Notes number of proletarians conceived the Bob Stewart himself - when these and Sandy Ritchie, the Lanarkshire miner, expensive cars to start, but by the 1. ‘All power for the workers!’ Weekly Worker notion that Bob Stewart was as good others like them excel themselves, only whom fate had pitched alongside of time they had bumped and thumped September 10. as elected. Their enthusiasm, carried those who know them at their best can him at Taff’s Well. That speech was, over some of the vilest roads ever 2. Abertridwr (the ‘mouth of the three waters’) is a into the pit, was contagious and imagine the sort of meetings to which as it had to be, about the Labour Party discovered with eight or 10 crowded village situated very close to Caerphilly. our audiences swelled to enormous Caerphilly was treated. in general and Ramsay MacDonald into what the maker fondly thought 3. Captain Robert Gee was awarded the Victoria Cross for his ‘heroic’ role in World War I and soon dimensions. And, however big I record for what it is worth the in particular - it will be a long time was space for six - the whole team after went into politics. His first parliamentary might be the great gun on the Labour opinion of a not unfriendly journalist, before Mac forgets it; he will never keeping themselves cheerful with the outing was as a National Democratic Party platform when our boys had to speak with whom I fraternised during a forgive it. ‘Red Flag’, the ‘Internationale’ and candidate in the 1918 general election . Ironically, in competition with them, it was the thirst spell: “Your members are too Apart from open-air meetings and shouts of “All power to the workers!” the NDP’s origins lay in a chauvinist, pro-war split by the right wing of the British Socialist Party of rarest of rare things for our audience good; and they are doing their work a little canvassing, we employed the or “Up the Bolshies!” - they will be Henry Hyndman. As readers who have followed to be the smaller. As for the Coalition, too well. They are smashing up weapon of literature. First of all was expensive to mend. The only thing on this series will know, the BSP went on to play a they abandoned the streets altogether, whatever chance the Coalition crowd The Communist, on sale at the regular our side that equalled Bob Stewart on pivotal role in the formation of the CPGB. weekly 11 worker 1317 October 1 2020 What we ENVIRONMENT fight for n Without organisation the working class is nothing; with the highest form of organisation Loss of biodiversity continues it is everything. n There exists no real Communist A global socialist solution is becoming ever more urgent declares Jim Moody Party today. There are many mainstream fanfare greeted form of society. so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In world leaders when they backed Usefully, environmentalist reality they are confessional sects. yet another declaration on the Anna Pigott took matters in an Members who disagree with the A prescribed ‘line’ are expected to environment. This time under the anti-capitalist direction in a recent slogan, ‘Leaders’ pledge for nature’. publication: gag themselves in public. Either Together they claim to be “united to that or face expulsion. reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 By naming capitalism as a n Communists operate according for sustainable development”. root cause, on the other hand, to the principles of democratic While 64 heads of state and we identify a particular set of centralism. Through ongoing debate government (including Boris practices and ideas that are by no we seek to achieve unity in action Johnson) signed up, the USA, Brazil, means permanent nor inherent to and a common world outlook. As China, Russia, India and Australia the condition of being human. long as they support agreed actions, did not. As these six countries are In doing so, we learn to see that members should have the right to key players in the biodiversity things could be otherwise. There speak openly and form temporary stakes, because of their size and is a power to naming something or permanent factions. current levels of environmental in order to expose it. n Communists oppose all impe- destruction, that might seem to be a rialist wars and occupations but big problem. In this regard, Pigott also references constantly strive to bring to the fore But the real problem is that environmentalist Rebecca Solnit: the fundamental question–ending war capitalism itself cannot even begin is bound up with ending capitalism. to deliver what is required. It is Calling things by their true n incapable of tackling the climate names cuts through the lies that Communists are internationalists. crisis, habitat destruction and excuse, buffer, muddle, disguise, Everywhere we strive for the closest consequent loss of biodiversity; avoid or encourage inaction, unity and agreement of working class but most bourgeois governments indifference, obliviousness. It’s and progressive parties of all countries. would prefer that their pretence of not all there is to changing the We oppose every manifestation doing something went unexposed. Species extinction happening at an alarming rate world, but it’s a key step. of national sectionalism. It is an Ironically, the sordid six’s refusal internationalist duty to uphold the to chime with the majority helps put remains among the main drivers Pigott is more astute politically than principle, ‘One state, one party’. them in the camp of the virtuous. of global biodiversity loss. It goes on to say: those who cooked up the Green n The working class must be On September 30 the circus went Pollution, including from New Deal. On its ‘Our demands’ organised globally. Without a global up a notch in the shape of a UN excess nutrients, pesticides, Scientists agree that the page the UK franchise makes no Communist Party, a Communist summit in New York. However, plastics and other waste, destruction of natural habitats mention of capitalism, socialism, International, the struggle against in reality, all that happened was continues to be a major driver and the trade in wild animals or class society, simply coming out capital is weakened and lacks a series of speeches by worthless of biodiversity loss … Plastic increase the risks of disease with trite nostrums. For example, coordination. worthies, each followed by a tawdry pollution is accumulating in the outbreaks like Covid-19. They “We know from our history that n Communists have no interest video presentation. oceans, with severe impacts on have also made it clear that as a society we can work together apart from the working class All becomes clear when we marine ecosystems, and in other without action to protect and against the odds and win.” In other as a whole. They differ only in realise that the end of the UN ecosystems with still largely restore nature we have no chance words, class collaboration, merely recognising the importance of ‘Decade on Biodiversity’ (2011- unknown implications. of controlling climate change, or “tackling climate change” (in one Marxism as a guide to practice. 20) is approaching. That is what … [eradication] successes adapting to its impacts. country!), and most mendaciously That theory is no dogma, but this week’s signing and junketing represent only a small proportion of all a deal for “people and must be constantly added to and was all about: the precursor to of all occurrences of invasive Similarly, the World Wildlife Fund families” that will mean “putting enriched. another UN event in 2021 - the species. There is no evidence of is extremely concerned. Its Living power back in their hands.” When n Capitalism in its ceaseless 15th Conference of Parties to the a slowing down in the number Planet Index has been tracking the have we ever had power? Whatever search for profit puts the future Convention on Biological Diversity. of new introductions of alien decline in species and populations cloud cuckoo land these Green New of humanity at risk. Capitalism is This is supposed to produce yet species. over decades. According to its 2020 Dealers inhabit - it does not seem synonymous with war, pollution, another “global biodiversity Multiple threats continue report: “The population sizes of to be the class-riven world in which exploitation and crisis. As a global framework”. And we are told, too, to affect coral reefs and other mammals, birds, fish, amphibians the rest of us live. system capitalism can only be that “its effective implementation vulnerable ecosystems impacted and reptiles have seen an alarming Labour’s 2019 general election superseded globally. must put nature on a path to by climate change and ocean average drop of 68% since 1970.” manifesto asserted that its policy recovery … and realise the vision acidification. The WWF goes on to declare: of a “Green Industrial Revolution n The capitalist class will never of living in harmony with nature”. … nearly one quarter (23.7%) is complemented by our Plan willingly allow their wealth and Some hope! There have already of species are threatened with A deep cultural and systemic for Nature”. But this ‘plan’ puts power to be taken away by a clearly been 14 such conferences, extinction unless the drivers of shift is urgently needed, one forward only what capitalism can parliamentary vote. producing precisely results of little biodiversity loss are drastically that so far our civilisation has accept. It includes milk-and-water n We will use the most militant or no consequence. reduced, with an estimated total failed to embrace: a transition to proposals, such as legally binding methods objective circumstances of one million threatened species a society and economic system targets to drive the restoration of allow to achieve a federal republic Ten across all groups. Wild animal that values nature … The way we species and habitats; a programme of England, Scotland and Wales, Assessing the achievements of populations have fallen by more produce and consume food and of tree planting; funding frontline a united, federal Ireland and a the last 10 years, the UN’s own than two-thirds since 1970, and energy, and the blatant disregard environment agencies; creating United States of Europe. publication Global Biodiversity have continued to decline since for the environment entrenched new national parks and protected n Communists favour industrial Outlook No5, published mid- 2010. in our current economic model, areas; and making sure that unions. Bureaucracy and class September, had to admit: Genetic diversity of cultivated has pushed the natural world to administrative decisions accord compromise must be fought and “Biodiversity is declining at plants, farmed and domesticated its limits. Covid-19 is a clear with environmental and nature- the trade unions transformed into an unprecedented rate, and the animals, and wild relatives manifestation of our broken recovery obligations. As for schools for communism. pressures driving this decline are continues to be eroded … relationship with nature … waste treatment, the manifesto n intensifying.” Indeed, ‘progress’ in The capacity of ecosystems to is completely inadequate even in Communists are champions of implementing the Strategic Plan for provide the essential services on This begs the question. There is an its own terms. It evidently was the oppressed. Women’s oppression, Biodiversity was revealing: which societies depend continues urgent need to replace the social intended to have no truck with combating racism and chauvinism, to decline, and consequently most system. socialist solutions. Amazingly, and the struggle for peace and Overall, little progress has ecosystem services (nature’s some purportedly on the left saw ecological sustainability are just been made over the past decade contributions to people) are in Green New Deal this as a door to socialism. as much working class questions in eliminating, phasing out decline. Worse than useless is the ‘like to The next step is to deepen, solidify as pay, trade union rights and or reforming subsidies and Progress towards the target be seen as radical’ Green Party, and generalise an understanding demands for high-quality health, other incentives potentially of restoring 15% of degraded whose attitude toward capitalism of capitalism’s responsibility for housing and education. harmful to biodiversity, and in ecosystems by 2020 is limited. is summed up by a sentence on its environmental and biodiversity n Socialism represents victory developing positive incentives policy page: “Britain is one of the destruction. Loss of biodiversity in the battle for democracy. It is for biodiversity conservation and The Royal Society for the wealthiest nations in the world and other environmental disasters, the rule of the working class. sustainable use. Protection of Birds has also recently but this wealth isn’t being shared including climate change, sorely Socialism is either democratic or, The recent rate of deforestation published A lost decade for nature. fairly.” But this is hardly surprising affect and will continue to affect as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it is lower than that of the previous Recognising a global failure to for a petty bourgeois party. the whole of humanity, while turns into its opposite. decade, but only by about one halt loss of biodiversity by 2020, it There are, of course, liberal capitalism lasts (and for some time n Socialism is the first stage third, and deforestation may be states: politicians and commentators afterwards). Capitalism is far from of the worldwide transition to accelerating again in some areas. aplenty who bemoan how ‘we’ being able to solve these problems; communism–a system which … a third of marine fish According to the UK (ie, humanity) have treated the on the contrary, it is exacerbating knows neither wars, exploitation, stocks are overfished, a higher government’s own assessment planet badly and produced the them with every year that passes. money, classes, states nor nations. proportion than 10 years ago. of performance, the UK has current precarious position by ‘our’ Its unending thirst for profit, not the Communism is general freedom Many fisheries are still causing also failed in its contribution actions. Occasional mainstream needs of humanity and the planet, and the real beginning of human unsustainable levels of bycatch towards this global goal. mentions of capitalism’s problems prioritises the task before us: the history. of non-target species and are The UK’s Sixth National are presumably a sop to those who current system must go. The Weekly Worker is licensed by damaging marine habitats. Report, published by the UK might see the social system as It is central for the continuation November Publications under a Creative … biodiversity continues to government in March 2019, faulty. But the mass media certainly of life itself that we destroy Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence: decline in landscapes used to shows the UK will miss nearly cannot countenance, as part of the capitalism and embark on the road creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ produce food and timber; and all its commitments for nature support mechanism for capitalism, to socialism and communism on a legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. food and agricultural production made in 2010 (14 out of 20). any real discussion of an alternative global scale l No 1317 October 1 2020 Till 2017 it was backbench or out Either principle or surrender David Shearer of Labour Party Marxists says that socialists should not serve in ’s shadow government erhaps unsurprisingly, given of Jeremy Corbyn. The SCG had to the government’s shambolic and did change its rules. After all, Phandling of the Covid-19 Corbyn was now the Labour leader crisis, a recent opinion poll puts and in charge of appointing dozens Labour ahead of the Tories - for of shadow ministers. The opposition the first time for well over a year. within Labour was the majority of A survey published by Opinium on the Parliamentary Labour Party, the September 27 showed 42% support majority of Labour councillors and for Labour, compared to 39% for whole layers of the Labour Party the Conservatives. bureaucracy. And no doubt Sir Keir Starmer The bar against sitting on the was more than pleased to hear that front bench went in 2017. And 55% of voters think he is “ready to suddenly, no surprise, existing lead the country”, compared to the and, especially, newly elected MPs minority of voters who approve wanted to join. To be a member was, of Boris Johnson’s performance for many, now a clever career move. in relation to the pandemic. After A fast track into Corbyn’s shadow all, Starmer prides himself on his cabinet - along with, as an added “constructive” opposition to the bonus, a generous rise in salary. Tories over Covid - this has been So where does all this leave the positively reported across the Labour left? The SCG must go back media, much of which regards him to its pre-2017 rules. No-one who as a ‘safe pair of hands’. He is a calls themselves a socialist should Labour leader like Tony Blair, who sit in Starmer’s shadow cabinet. can be relied on to act in a “patriotic” Unfortunately, groups like the way (to use his own expression), Labour Left Alliance and Labour and defend the interests of British Representation Committee have capital. rejected the call from Labour Party Typical was Starmer’s position in Marxists to oppose as a matter of relation to the Overseas Operations principle participation in a capitalist (Service Personnel and Veterans) government or shadow government. Bill, which was given a second And, have no doubt, despite Starmer’s reading by the House of Commons youthful Socialist Alternatives on September 23. This appalling dalliance - and his tactically astute piece of legislation seeks to reduce acceptance of the economic measures to a minimum the chances of contained in the 2019 general election soldiers or former service personnel manifesto - he is committed to being prosecuted or made subject forming a government that acts in a to private legal claims as a result of Keir Starmer (by Tim McDonagh): wants Labour to govern in the interests of capital manner fully acceptable to the British occupations and other imperialist establishment and its US allies and actions conducted overseas. left must oppose all imperialist , and the four, Dan Carden, Marsha de masters. Following their victory in the wars and occupations ... and laws Olivia Blake, who were promptly Cordova, and Albeit by implication, the LLA December 2019 general election, which in effect give immunity to sacked by Starmer - only some four Andy McDonald ought to resign and LRC have betrayed socialism the Conservatives promised to the torture, maltreatment and killing SCG shadow ministers remaining. - either from Starmer’s team or and adopted a British version of introduce legislation “to tackle of captured enemy combatants and But one has to ask, what on earth are from the SCG. Or they should be Millerandism - in 1889 French vexatious legal claims that uncooperative civilians. people who claim to be socialists expelled from the SCG forthwith as socialist Alexandre Millerand undermine our armed forces” and Revealingly, the Starmer doing in a shadow capitalist out‑and‑out class traitors. joined Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s as a result the bill “seeks to raise leadership called on the party’s MPs government? Thankfully, however, It is worth noting that the SCG, government of ‘republican defence’ the threshold for the prosecution of to abstain on the second reading groups like the Labour Left Alliance when it was formed, specifically as minister of commerce. The alleged offences.” of the Overseas Operations bill. have not so far called for the three to barred its members from sitting cabinet included general Gaston If passed into law there would be Defying the whip, 18 Labour left be reinstated by Starmer, as they did on the front benches. For all Gallifet - the butcher of 30,000 a “triple lock” to give current army MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, in the case of Rebecca Long-Bailey. its many and various faults, the Communards in 1871 - who served personnel and veterans “greater John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, The SCG conceived of itself as being as minister of war. Obviously certainty” that “the pressures rebelled and voted against. But - which still includes four junior a politically coherent opposition bringing in Millerand furthered the placed upon them during overseas clearly a good number of the 34 member’s of Starmer’s team within within the Labour Party and clearly interests of French capitalism, not operations would be taken into members of those belonging to its ranks - was formed as a result of a that would be incompatible with socialism. account when prosecution decisions the Socialist Campaign Group split from the Tribune group in 1982. sitting in a cabinet or shadow The 1900 Paris conference of for alleged historical offences are disgracefully obeyed the whip It was solidly Bennite and stood cabinet. True, the SCG slowly the Second International voted for a made”. and abstained, while the Scottish against the stampede to the right shrunk to next to nothing under the resolution drafted by Karl Kautsky There would also be a time National Party and even the Liberal that culminated in former leftwinger Blair and Brown leaderships. By on Millerandism (a ‘rubber’ limit on any civil claims regarding Democrats voted against. But the Neil Kinnock expelling supporters the time of Miliband it consisted resolution - Lenin). However, the “overseas operations” and the bill went through to the next stage of Militant by the score and Tony of perhaps five or six MPs and did 1904 conference in Amsterdam took government would be obliged to by 332 votes to 77. Blair replacing the famous 1918 not even go to the bother of holding an unequivocal stance. Socialists “consider derogating from the Amongst the Labour rebels were state-capitalist clause four with his regular formal meetings. should not serve in bourgeois European Convention on Human three junior shadow ministers, third-way managerial spiel. Frankly, That all changed with the election governments, period l Rights in relation to significant overseas military operations”. Subscribe Name:______Standing order Clearly, this is an attempt to re- 6m 1yr Inst. To ______Bank plc ______establish the legitimacy of foreign Address:______UK £30/€35 £60/€70 £200/€220 adventures by appearing to defend Branch address ______Europe £43/€50 £86/€100 £240/€264 ______the rights of veterans. We, of course, Rest of £65/€75 £130/€150 £480/€528 Post code ______Account name ______have no wish to see former rank- world ______Sort code ______Account No ______and-file soldiers dragged through New UK subscribers offer: the courts. 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