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Socialist Standard November 2016 1 socialist standard Contents November 2016 Features Regulars 10 Ugly Gargoyles 10 Grotesque caricatures represen# ng hell - 4 Pathfi nders why do we put up with capitalist poli cians? 5 Le" ers 12 Aberfan: disaster in the hillsides 6 Cooking the Books 1 Looking back 50 years later 7 Greasy Pole 14 Security at zero 9 Material World The rise of zero hours contracts 18 Cooking the Books 2 19 Proper Gander 16 Where is everybody? The odds are that there are intelligent 20 Reviews worlds out there, so why aren’t they 22 50 Years Ago speaking to us? 23 Mee# ngs 17 Marxism 24 Rear View Marx was a polymath, so how come he gets 16 labelled a simplis# c reduc onist? 24 Free Lunch 22 6 Introducing the Socialist Party The Socialist Party is like no other poli cal We use every possible opportunity Party the more we will be able to get our party in Britain. It is made up of people to make new socialists. We publish ideas across, the more experiences we who have joined together because we pamphlets and books, as well as CDs, will be able to draw on and greater will be want to get rid of the profi t system DVDs and various other informa# ve the new ideas for building the movement and establish real socialism. material. We also give talks which you will be able to bring us. Our aim is to persuade and take part in debates; The Socialist Party is an organisa# on of others to become a" end rallies, mee# ngs and equals. There is no leader and there are socialist and act for demos; run educa# onal no followers. So, if you are going to join themselves, organising conferences; host we want you to be sure that you agree democra# cally and internet discussion fully with what we stand for and that we without leaders, to forums, make fi lms are sa# sfi ed that you understand the case bring about the kind presen# ng our ideas, for socialism. of society that we and contest elec ons are advoca# ng in this when prac cal. Socialist journal. We are solely literature is available concerned with building in Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, a movement of socialists for Esperanto, French, German, socialism. We are not a reformist Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish and party with a programme of policies to Turkish as well as English. All original material is available under the Crea# ve Commons A" ribu on-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales patch up capitalism. The more of you who join the Socialist (CC BY-ND 2.0 UK) licence. 2 Socialist Standard November 2016 Editorial Tweedledum and Tweedledummer ON 8 November, American workers to the discomfort of the Republicans. dona! ons from Wall Street interests. will be cas! ng their votes for the next Many in the Republican Party hierarchy Despite the animosity between Trump US President. Aside from the minor have never favoured his candidacy, and Clinton that has been revealed in candidates, Jill Stein of the Green Party regarding him as an aberra! on. Yet, his the elec on rallies and TV debates, there and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, populist style of poli cs has, in some form is one fundamental issue in which they the contest is between Donald Trump, or other, been pursued by Republican both agree and that is in the need to the Republican Party’s Frankenstein and Democrat poli cians in the past. support US capitalism. Whoever wins, Monster, and Hillary Clinton, the devotee He follows in the footsteps of Barry the US government will con! nue to of US corpora! ons and Wall Street. Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W manage capitalism as before, promo ng Donald Trump, the billionaire poli cal Bush among others. the interests of the US capitalist class conman who poses as the workers’ Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders, at home and abroad. American workers champion, has been preying on the the so called ‘Democra! c Socialist’ from will con! nue to work for their bosses, anger, insecuri es and, in some cases, Vermont, to become the fi rst woman and if a profi t cannot be made, then the despera! on of American workers, Presiden! al nominee. She has posi oned unemployment looms. Workers will s! ll many of whom are s! ll suff ering from herself as the progressive candidate be sent to fi ght wars on behalf of the the eff ects of the 2008 fi nancial crash. He suppor ng lesbian, gay, bisexual and capitalist class. Sadly for the American claims he will bring jobs back to the US transgender rights and is pro abor on working class, it will be business as usual and scapegoats immigrant and Muslim and is in favour of gun control. As a New when the new President takes offi ce in workers for America’s social and economic York Senator, she voted for the Iraq January 2017. ills. He appeals to the more conserva! ve War. However, her candidacy has been Yet it need not be this way. American voters by suppor ng gun ownership and dogged by ques! on marks over her use workers have another choice. They can opposing abor on. With the release of of a private email server when she was unite with workers worldwide to gain a video produced in 2005, which reveals Secretary of State and controversies poli cal power and wrest control of the Trump boas! ng that his celebrity status over foreign dona! ons to the Clinton Earth’s resources from the capitalist class allows him to grope any woman he Founda! on. Despite this, her candidacy and convert them from private property wants, many high ranking Republicans has received endorsements from high used for the produc on of profi t to the have dumped him. Further allega! ons ranking members of the poli cal and common heritage of all humankind. by women, who have come forward to corporate establishments, including many accuse him of sexual assault, have added Republicans. Her campaign has received Socialist Standard November 2016 3 ScenesScenes DeletedDeleted From The Jungle Book DID YOU know that cheetahs can’t roar scarily like lions, they mostly purr pre! ly like ki ens? Or that they are generally good-natured and easy to tame, unlike other big cats? You probably know that the cubs are incredibly cutesy-cute. What you probably don’t know is that these reasons, taken together, are helping to drive the fastest animal on Earth to its ex# nc on. Why? Because as well has having to deal with low birth rates in the wild due to shrinking habitat combined with around 70 percent cub mortality thanks to lions Mother and young rhino killed for their horns, South Africa. The wild and hyenas, the cheetah has to rhino popula on has collapsed by 96 percent since 1970, due to poaching. face a rather less natural form of preda# on. Humans want them as many would ques# on whether even October). Rhino horn is hugely valuable pets. But not pets to look a$ er properly, of this is necessary. As humans we are in Asian markets for quack remedies, and course. Trophy pets, cos# ng up to $10,000 inevitably going to put humans fi rst, as rhinos approach total ex# nc on in the each on the black market, to dress up in and socialists are no diff erent. If animal wild Asian buyers are keen to stock up in stupid ou its so that their rich, narcissis# c tes# ng of important medicines is deemed advance, thus driving the price further owners can impress their shallow and necessary, we are not going to argue up. The naysayers are adamant that a supercilious friends. So poachers box that it should not be done, because that legi mate market in rhino horn, however up whole li ers of wild cubs in packing would unconscionably put the welfare of limited, will be a disaster for rhinos. crates, bundle them onto trucks and then animals above that of humans. Indeed They’re probably right too. When a limited container ships, and then li out whatever there is something rather peculiar about sale of stockpiled elephant tusks was has survived at the other end from the humans and their double-standards restarted in 1997, elephant poaching went heap of starved and dehydrated corpses towards animals, on the one hand billing stratospheric. (BBC Online, 23 September: h" p:// ny. and cooing over chicks or lambs or bunny Cynics talk about capitalism as ‘the law cc/s7b2fy). Most of the 15 percent of rabbits and then ea# ng them in pies, or of the jungle’ but in fact it’s much more furry li le cu es which survive transit keeping pet moggies out of a ‘love for vicious and destruc ve than any law of rarely make it past their fi rst year as pets animals’ while overlooking the massacre the jungle, for animals as well as humans. anyway because their rich owners have of wildlife these same moggies cause on It’s a mindless profi t-machine, without no clue or care about diet or exercise, and a daily basis. It’s es# mated, for example, care or conscience, that like some giant are en# rely unconcerned about keeping that domes# c cats kill around 14 billion combine harvester rages across the world an animal indoors which normally has a small mammals and birds every year in shredding everything in its path, whether 500 square mile backyard to run around the USA, while in Australia there is serious human, animal or natural resource.