Socialist Standard November 2014 1 socialist Contact Details SPGB Media: [email protected] UK BRANCHES & CONTACTS Frankfi eld, Cork. Tel: 021 4896427. Email: [email protected] LONDON Newtownabbey : Nigel McCullough. standard North London branch . Meets 3rd Tues 8pm Tel: 028 90852062. at Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, SCOTLAND NW5 2RX Edinburgh branch . Meets1st Thur. 7.00- Contact: [email protected] or 020 9.00pm. The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace NOVEMBER 2014 7609 0983 (above Victoria Street), Edinburgh. South London branch . Meets 1st Tues. J. Moir. Tel: 0131 440 0995. 7.00pm. Head Offi ce. 52 Clapham High St, [email protected] Branch SW4 7UN. Tel: 020 7622 3811 website: contents West London branch . Meets 1st & 3rd Tues. http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/ 8pm. Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfi eld Terrace Glasgow branch . Meets 3rd Wednesday of (corner Sutton Court Rd), W4. Corres: 51 each month at 8pm in Community Central FEATURES Gayford Road, London W12 9BY. Tel: 020 Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow. Peter 8740 6677. Email: [email protected] Hendrie, 75 Lairhills Road, East Kilbride, Wars Today: Iraq and Syria 10 Glasgow G75 0LH. Tel: 01355 903105. Email: MIDLANDS [email protected]. Beside the Seaside 13 West Midlands Regional branch . Meets last Dundee . Ian Ratcliffe, 12 Finlow Terrace Sunday of the month, 3.00pm, the Briar Rose Dundee, DD4 9NA, Tel 01382 698297 pub, 25 Bennetts Hill, Birmingham B2 5RE. Tory bluster about Human 15 E-Mail:[email protected]. Kilmarnock .Meets last Thursday of month Rights Tel:01242 675357 7pm-9pm at the Wheatsheaf pub (about 2 minutes from bus station). Paul Edwards. Tel: But is it really Capitalism? 17 NORTHEAST 01563 541138. Email:rainbow3@btopenworld. Northeast branch . Contact: Vin Maratty, 22 com Greystoke Avenue, Sunderland, Tyne and Lothian Socialist Discussion @Autonomous Wear, SR2 9DS, tel: 01915 250 002. Email: Centre Edinburgh, ACE, 17 West Montgomery [email protected]. 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Meets 2nd com Saturday of each month in the Railway AUSTRALIA Tavern, Salisbury, 2.00pm (check before Trevor Clarke, [email protected] The Socialist Party attending). Shane Roberts, 86 High Street, EUROPE 52 Clapham High Street, Bristol BS5 6DN. Tel: 0117 9511199 Denmark . Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund 9, fl oor London SW4 7UN Canterbury . Rob Cox, 4 Stanhope Road, Deal, 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby J Tel : 0207 622 3811 Kent, CT14 6AB Germany . Norbert. Luton . Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive, LU2 E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] 7LP Norway . Robert Stafford. Website : www.worldsocialism.org/spgb Redruth . Harry Sowden, 5 Clarence Villas, Email: [email protected] Blog: http://socialismoryourmoneyback. Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 1PB. Italy. Gian Maria Freddi, Via Felice Casorati blogspot.com/ Tel: 01209 219293 n. 6A, 37131 Verona Spain . Alberto Gordillo, Avenida del Parque EAST ANGLIA 2/2/3 Puerta A, 13200 Manzanares. SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS East Anglian Regional branch. Meets every should be sent to the address above. two months on a Saturday afternoon (see COMPANION PARTIES OVERSEAS RATES: One year subscription (normal rate) meetings page for details). £15. One year subscription (low/unwaged) £10. Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Billericay, CM12 Europe rate £20 (Air mail). Rest of world £25 0EX. [email protected] Socialist Party of Canada/Parti Socialiste (Air mail). Voluntary supporters subscription David Porter, Eastholme, Bush Drive, Eccles- du Canada . Box 4280, Victoria B.C. V8X 3X8 £20 or more. Cheques payable to ‘The Socialist on-Sea, NR12 0SF. Canada. Party of Great Britain’. Tel: 01692 582533. Email:[email protected] Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs Rd, World Socialist Party (India) 257 Baghajatin Hethersett, NR9 3JD. Tel: 01603 814343. ‘E’ Block (East), Kolkata - 700086, Tel: 033- The next meeting of the Executive Committee Cambridge . Andrew Westley, 10 Marksby 2425-0208, Email: [email protected] will be on Saturday 6 December at the Close, Duxford, Cambridge CB2 4RS. World Socialist Party (New Zealand) P.O. address above. Correspondence should be Tel: 07890343044 Box 1929, Auckland, NI, New Zealand. sent to the General Secretary. All articles, World Socialist Party of the United States letters and notices should be sent to the IRELAND P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA 02144 USA. Editorial Committee. Cork : Kevin Cronin, 5 Curragh Woods, Email: [email protected]
2 Socialist Standard November 2014 Introducing The Socialist Party
The Socialist Party is like no other political new socialists. We publish pamphlets will be able to draw on and greater will be party in Britain. It is made up of people who and books, as well as CDs, DVDs and the new ideas for building the movement have joined together because we want to various other informative material. We which you will be able to bring us. get rid of the profi t system and establish also give talks and take part in debates; The Socialist Party is an organisation of real socialism. Our aim is to persuade attend rallies, meetings and demos; run equals. There is no leader and there are others to become socialist and act for educational conferences; host internet no followers. So, if you are going to join themselves, organising democratically discussion forums, make fi lms presenting we want you to be sure that you agree and without leaders, to bring about the our ideas, and contest elections when fully with what we stand for and that we kind of society that we are advocating practical. Socialist literature is available are satisfi ed that you understand the case in this journal. We are solely concerned in Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, Esperanto, for socialism. with building a movement of socialists for French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, If you would like more details about socialism. We are not a reformist party Swedish and Turkish as well as English. The Socialist Party, complete and with a programme of policies to patch up The more of you who join The Socialist return the form on page 23. capitalism. Party the more we will be able to get our We use every possible opportunity to make ideas across, the more experiences we socialist standard NOVEMBER 2014 Editorial Foolish protest
SO UKIP have won their fi rst MP, Douglas Carswell, ex-Tory, protectionist and anti-foreigner views fl ourish when people, currency crank and free-marketeer who wants to bash those who already mistakenly consider themselves to be a nation, on benefi ts even more. Quite how UKIP feel this can appeal feel economically insecure. They tend to turn to the ‘nation- to Labour voters is unclear. From a policy point of view, UKIP state’ to protect them from world market pressures and the are still Tories, an external faction of the Tory party, fi nanced competition of other states. by jumped-up, opinionated businessmen who think they can Panic-stricken, the Tories, who stand most to lose from buy themselves into politics. the UKIP protest vote, are trying to compete with UKIP in the The trouble is that people don’t always think rationally anti-immigration and anti-EU stakes. As far as the dominant when it comes to protest votes. In these instances they are section of the British capitalist class is concerned, this is a voting against something –the Labour, Tory and Lib Dem dangerous game. They don’t want to withdraw from the vast, Westminster politicians – not for anything. UKIP voters won’t single European market, nor to be excluded from taking be interested in anything beyond the party’s anti-foreigner part in decisions about it. And they see more advantages stance and don’t know or couldn’t care less what else it says than disadvantages in the free movement of EU labour. it stands for. Nor would they expect UKIP to carry out its They would be appalled if their favourite party, the Tories, in promises if they got into power any more than they expect the pursuit of the personal ambitions of its MPs and would-be other parties to. MPs, manoeuvres itself into a position where they have to There have been protest parties before that have done campaign for an Out vote in an In/Out EU referendum. well at by-elections. That’s what the Liberals used to be in People are right to be discontented and to protest about the 60s and 70s, and then there was the SDP in the 80s. their situation, but they need to be more discerning and They attracted people who were put off by the Punch and choose the right target. It’s not the Westminster politicians, Judy show between the Tories representing big business and nor the Brussels bureaucracy, nor the East European Labour perceived as representing the trade unions, which migrants who are to blame for their plight. It’s the world-wide they saw as refl ecting the industrial disputes of the time. capitalist system of production for profi t. That’s what they The Liberals were a pretty pointless lot but you could hardly should target. But protesting against it and its effects is not describe them as nasty. In fact, in some ways they espoused enough. They need to go beyond this and organise politically some decent values such as tolerance. to bring the whole system to an end and replace it by one in It’s different today. Times are harsher and the protest vote which the resources of the Earth have become the common is going to a nasty party. In periods of economic downturn heritage of all humanity and used to improve the lot of people people turn more easily to this kind of party. Nationalist, everywhere.
Socialist Standard November 2014 3 random shooting sprees considered normal? Where do we The real war to end wars fi nd social agreements torn up, civil rights trashed, human dignity laughed at, intelligence recruited in the service ATTEMPTING TO explain how a four-dimensional of stupidity, and anger geysering up as if from a being would view three-dimensional humans, Carl limitless well? Sagan in Cosmos invited us to imagine our We typically fi nd those things in a war. 3D selves looking down on beings in a two- Looking inside the skin of society, as the dimensional universe. To us they would appear internet now allows us to do, we are seeing many as cut-outs on a fl at page, with length and breadth of the classic hallmarks of warfare. but no height, with no distinction between public and This issue of the Socialist Standard carries the fi rst private space, with nothing concealed either inside their of a series on current wars, beginning with ISIS. It’s a bodies or outside. If we tried to talk to these 2D beings, they truism for a socialist to say that capitalism causes war, but would be astonished to experience our voice as appearing to as a statement it’s not nearly strong enough. It’s like saying that them from everywhere at once, both internally and externally football causes knee injuries or that water skiing involves getting and through all their senses, like a ghost from some spirit world. wet. The far-sighted Sagan presented this analogy without the Capitalism is war, plain and simple. It’s not just market society least expectation of it coming true. And yet in a sense it has with a war on top, it’s war all the way down, and can only come true. The internet has made it so. be properly understood as such. Peace is a social myth we Now we are all able to look down on the two-dimensional have constructed to delude or amuse ourselves in our leisure world of the internet screen and speak to it like a god, moments eating rat stew in the trenches. anonymously, as if from nowhere and everywhere. Nation states, schools and commercial businesses are Simultaneously, we are all trapped in that 2D world, and anyone organised hierarchically, like armies, and we are all reluctant can look down at us, from above, right into the core of our conscripts, squaddies whose task it is to fi ght whoever we’re being. And what is the result? Public and private spheres are told to fi ght, whose received ambition may be to make NCO or now in collision, not just with the hacking of celeb or child nude offi cer but whose real ambition, if we’re not blinded by patriotism pictures from cloud storage, not just by government agencies or xenophobia or bloodlust, is to not get killed. ferreting through our private correspondence, but in even more Understanding that capitalism is war helps to make sense sinister ways. Now we are seeing inside the skin of humanity, as of the news in a way that nothing else does. Random acts of it were, into the hidden depths, and it’s not a pretty sight. Before violence no longer seem random. The fear and the paranoia the internet, communications were largely constrained within the and the endless search for scapegoats and snake-oil cures social protocols of politeness and good taste. Nobody imagined become explicable, even predictable. The impotent and that society had an inner beast or if there was, it was confi ned to irrelevant posturings of politicians are meaningless precisely a few demented freaks and kept well and truly out of view and because they are war propaganda, as bogus as Hollywood behind closed doors. The ‘troll’ was a being that existed only in fantasies, monarchical pomp or religious preaching. This is nightmares. not civil society with a few oddballs and quirks, it is society in Now the lid is off and we are peering in on a panorama of shellshock, having a continuous mental breakdown. earthly delights redolent of Hieronymus Bosch. This is not what Obviously this comes as a surprise to a lot of media pundits anyone expected. It’s not just a case of a few intemperate who fondly imagined society as different from this, and who now hotheads fi ring off ‘fl ame’ emails or carelessly worded texts search anxiously for reasons, alibis and justifi cations. But what without explanatory ‘smileys’. Celebs are leaving Twitter and do well-fed semi-detached liberals know about the anger of the celeb Twitch gamers are turning off their feedback comments food aid queue and the fi nal demand? It’s war, the reality show, because of the amount of abuse and threats of ‘doxing’ – having and now on prime time and social media for your entertainment. their private information posted online. Sexting has resulted And where do you fi t in? There’s no room for shirkers or in new laws to prevent ‘revenge porn’. In the instantly reactive conshies in this war. You don’t have a choice not to fi ght. If online environment, a stray word can result in death threats. you struggle to make ends meet, you’re in the war. If you Presenter Judy Finnegan and her daughter were recently struggle against disability prejudice, you’re in the war. If you feel threatened with rape (quite possibly by women) for making oppressed by white racists, loud-mouthed bigots, the council, the innocuous suggestion that violent rapes were worse than the boss at work, the ‘male gaze’, you’re in the war. You don’t non-violent ones (‘Madeley warns trolls over rape threat’, BBC have a choice not to fi ght, but you do have a choice what to Online, 16 October). In the GamerGate scandal, in which female fi ght, and how to fi ght. games programmers have been terrorised for speaking out For socialists, the only part of this war that makes any sense, against the depiction of women in games, a planned feminist that is worth fi ghting, that might realistically stand a chance of games conference had to be cancelled due to threats of a ending war forever, is the class war, the war against the idea spree-style massacre (‘Feminist video-games talk cancelled of capitalism itself, the mindset of private property and public after massacre threat’, BBC Online, 15 October). As tablet-toting poverty, the universal acceptance of oppression. Everyone else children from 9 upwards join in as spectators of cyber delights is fi ghting to win, or not lose, or just survive. If we were to win including hard-core porn, 22 percent of boys aged 12 – 15 the class war, it would remove the main reason for fi ghting all and 30 percent of girls report being bullied online, and at least the other wars. In socialism, society could fi nally start to recover as many know someone who is bullied or has suffered from from the hell it has put itself through. deliberately embarrassing online exposure (‘Call for teens to There is an upside to the internet’s opening of Pandora’s self-regulate net use ‘, BBC Online, 15 October). Box. Humans are being forced, albeit reluctantly, to face their Society responds with more new laws to expose trolls by demons, to acknowledge the real state of affairs instead of lifting up their stones of anonymity before they can scurry away paying lip service to ritual, custom and pretence. And capitalism, out of sight. There’s no doubt that trolls are nasty pieces of which traditionally masks its ugliness with these same rituals, is work. Most commentators don’t feel the need to explore the increasingly running out of dark holes to hide in. The faster we question why. Trolls are just a fact of life. Every barrel has a few are communicating, the more we’re beginning to understand, rotten apples. It’s human nature. and the more we understand, the sooner we will act. In what other familiar reality is it common for bullies to prosper PJS and fear to silence critics? In what circumstances are rape and
4 Socialist Standard November 2014 Letters Dear Editors I was very surprised indeed that the The Central Asian Holocaust SPGB and the Socialist Standard did not use the opportunity of the of the First World War centenary of the start of the First World War to re-publish, and in full, WAY BACK in the Socialist Standard attacker, which was fi rst applied to one of what must be one of the most of August 1918 we referred to a bands of brigands. During Tsarist powerful anti-war messages produced ‘Mr. Price from Russia itself, in his times, these bands existed after by revolutionary socialists, that of the article in the Manchester Guardian Turkestan independence was lost SPGB, published in the September for November 28th , 1917, where he and Russian domination began’. 1914 Socialist Standard. describes the cold-blooded slaughter On 11 July 1916, the fi rst mass You quite rightly re-published of 500,000 Khirgiz Tartars by the protest meeting took place in part of it in the October 1939 Czar’s Government in 1916. And he Tashkent and Russian police fi red Socialist Standard in response to caustically remarks: “While Western into the crowd. Arrests and summary the start of the Second World War, Europe has heard about Armenian executions followed. The Russian and I understood the Party was massacres, the massacre of the settlers, who had been brought into extremely proud of the prose and Central Asian Moslems by the Tsar’s Tashkent some thirty to forty years the revolutionary socialist anti-war agents has been studiously hidden.”’ earlier, began looting, apparently message it expressed. Under Tsarist Russian rule, at the instigation of the Russian As you have chosen for whatever Turkestan was converted to a police. Protest meetings spread to reason not to re-publish your original major cotton-growing region. Marghilan, Andijan and Hojend; anti First World War manifesto, may I Cotton cultivation was imposed to attacks on Tsarist offi cials took have at least part of it re-published in compensate for the loss of the US place in Akkurgan, Akmesjid and your letters column? cotton supply in the 1860s due Kanjagali. The people of Jizzakh “Placing on record our abhorrence to the American Civil War. The destroyed the railroad at several of this latest manifestation of the resulting economic development points. In the middle of August the callous, sordid and mercenary nature brought some small-scale industry resistance spread to Ashkhabad, of the international capitalist class, to the region, but the native people Mervto Akmola, Turgay, Yedisu, and declaring that no interests are of Turkestan were worse off than Karakul and Chu basin. at stake justifying the shedding of a their Russian counterparts, and the The Imperial Russian state declared single drop of working class blood, we new wealth from cotton was spread martial law in Turkestan, and as protest the brutal and bloody butchery very unevenly. On the whole, living a concession announced a lower of our brothers of this and other lands, standards did not improve, and quota of workers to be conscripted who are being used as food for cannon many farmers became indebted. under the 25 June decree. Russian abroad while suffering and starvation Cotton price fi xing during the First generals Kuropotkin and Kalbovo are the lot of their fellows at home. World War made matters worse, a armed the Russian settlers in Central We have no quarrel with the working large, landless rural proletariat soon Asia to act as additional military class of any country, we extend to the developed, gambling and alcoholism units to reinforce their existing and workers of all lands the expression of became commonplace, and crime wellarmed regular forces. Russian our goodwill and socialist fraternity, rose considerably. Historian Togan generals Ivanov and Rynov moved and pledge ourselves to work for wrote ‘after the proliferation of cotton all their forces against Jizzakh. Fully the overthrow of capitalism and the planting in Ferghana [imposed by the equipped Russian regiments under triumph of socialism, The World for the Tsarist state at the expense of cereal General Madridov attacked the Workers!” cultivation] the economic conditions people of Khiva region, and according I note the one good thing the SPGB deteriorated’. to eyewitnesses, massacred even ever said about the Bolsheviks and On 25 June 1916 the Russian babies in the cradle. Those who were the Russian Revolution was that Imperial Decree ordered the not killed were stripped of their all they took Russia out of the war. The compulsory conscription to military possessions. Contemporary reports workers and peasants revolution in service of Muslims in the Central estimated that between 25 June 1916 Russia in November 1917 was surely Asian region of Turkestan. This was and October 1917, some 1.5 million the single most powerful and most the beginning of the ‘Basmachi’ Turkic peoples were killed by the effective anti war action ever taken in movement or the Turkestan National Russian forces and settlers. At least modern history. Liberation movement which was half of the Central Asian livestock Does not the fact that the documented by historian and was destroyed and an inestimable Bolshevik Revolution so clearly participant Zeki Velidi Togan (1890- amount of personal property was and unambiguously pulled Russia 1970) who wrote: ‘Basmachi is looted by the Russian military forces out of the First World Slaughter, derived from “baskinji” meaning and settlers. and published and exposed all the Amadeo Bordiga once pointed secret treaties and pacts, showing out that extermination of peoples all the dirty connections and inter Revolution (in reality more of a ‘occurred not at a random moment, relationships between apparently coup d’état) was carried out by but in the middle of a crisis and hostile imperialist powers, indicate proletarians in the main and it did an imperialist war. It is thus from that, perhaps, there was more of a have the positive effect of taking within this gigantic enterprise of proletarian content to that Revolution Russia out of the First World War, destruction.’ This can be seen in the than the SPGB has ever felt able to as we indeed acknowledged at the midst of the First World War with acknowledge? time. Set against that though is the the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of With very best wishes legacy of the decades of totalitarian 1.5 million Armenian people but also Andrew Northall (by email) dictatorship that followed, and the the ‘Central Asian Holocaust of the mistaken association of this brutal Turkic Peoples’. Reply: state capitalist regime with ‘socialism’ STEVE CLAYTON There’s no doubt the Bolshevik and ‘communism’. – Editors.
Socialist Standard November 2014 5 irresistible to those who dabble in the singularly clean and spotless game of politics. But after all, these refl ections do but touch the fringe of the question. Though Father Vaughan opines that it will take all eternity to thank God for the war, he will NewsN FromF HHeaven agree that it would be a mistake to carry the thing so far that there was no one left alive to thank God for having The Bishop’s Special killed off all the others. He cannot, then, object to the All-loving being persuaded to temper his love with so (A blast from the past, from the March 1916 Socialist much of Spartan sternness as will put a stopper on our Standard) murderous indulgences. So much for Father Vaughan. IN THE January issue of this journal were recorded the Now the Bishop of Chelmsford tells us that ‘God is statements of the Rev. Father Vaughan anent the reason sitting on the fence,’ and plaintively asks, ‘how can we God did not intervene to stop the war. The unmarried get Him to come down on our side and give us a mighty father showed us very clearly that only his—pardon, His— victory?‘ great love prevented Him from doing so. God, like the Much smaller bugs than bishops are may be permitted munition manufacturer and the ship-owner, was drawing to offer suggestions on a subject of such universal good out of the war, and in such circumstances it was not interest as getting God to come down off his perch. An old to be expected that the merry mill which the bulk of the bird-catcher whom I consulted on the off-chance declared world fi nds so amusing, and which some (not excluding ‘if yer can’t call him down yer must feed him down, and even Bishops, who in this respect are luckier than if yer can’t feed him down yer must call him down, and beershops) fi nd so profi table, would be interfered with by if yer can’t neither feed him down nor call him down ye’d the Divine hand. No, God, who so loved the world that he better try a ‘en angel, and if that ain’t no good why yer gave his only begotten Son to be nailed up on a stick, as won’t never take him up to Club Row.’ the only way in which he could prevail upon himself to But we may reject that advice with scorn. Obviously refrain from strafi ng the world with fi re and brimstone, the fi rst step is to get ourselves clean. ‘We must cleanse was certainly not the bloke to prevent his children stirring England,’ says the bishop, and he is right. Let’s wash up one another’s vitals with bayonets and other eminently our shirts and our shifts ; let’s scrape ourselves, pumice- suitable implements. The reverend father led us to that atone ourselves, boil ourselves if necessary. Let’s co- conclusion by ways so logically sound that to most of us operate for the job—my Lord Bishop, you scratch my he spoke absolutely the last word on the subject. back, I’ll scratch yours: I’m ready for any dirty job so But after the long as we get the muck off. Then, when we have got Roman Catholic Church comes the Catholic Church of England. The Bishop of Chelmsford, speaking at Queen’s Hall on the 7th February, in the Day of United Intercession arranged by the World’s Evangelical Alliance, stoutly combated (without mentioning names) the claim of the rival show to know all about God and his whys and wherefores. The Essex bishop, far from ascribing the non-interference of God in this game of butcher my through with that we might pursue the course which has neighbour to boundless love, declares that it is a question proved so effi cacious in the past. We might plaster the of politics. ‘God has his politics,’ the bishop assures us, fence whereon God is sitting with such announcements ‘and would never be an ally of any nation that was not as ‘Your King and Country Need You’; ‘Isn’t This Worth clean.’ So the fi at has gone forth. The reason England has Fighting For?’ ‘What Did You Do, Daddy?’ ‘Go ! Don’t be not wiped the fl oor with Germany is that the English are Pushed!” ‘I wasn’t among the fi rst to go, but I went, thank so damned dirty—a bishop has said it. God, I went.’ And if this was followed up by a visit from As between the Romish father and the Anglican bishop, the recruiting sergeant, or, to stretch a point in view of the present writer does not presume to judge. The theory the greatness of the occasion, from Lord Derby himself, that God so loves the world that he wouldn’t for anything murmuring the magic ‘What about it?’ we should surely save it from self-annihilation, has attractions for the ‘get God out of this dilemma,’ and ‘get him down on our reverent mind ; on the other hand, the idea of God as side’ (as the bishop ‘reverently’ and gracefully put it)— a politician, making known through his agents that unless the irreverent but far-sighted Germans have taken cleanliness is one of the planks of his platform, and that, the precaution to lime His perch, in which case, perish no matter what the demerits of the Germans, he will not me pink, there is a dilemma indeed. ally himself with the itchy and the crumby—that idea is BILL BAILEY
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shares in it. There is another reason why an investor Marxism and Darwinism by Anton Pannekoek...... £1.50 x____ should steer clear of such fi rms. A fi rm with old machines will be less profi table as its machines won’t be able to How we Live and How we Might Live by William Morris...... £1.50 x____ produce its product as cheaply as its competitors who have installed the new machines. The Right to be Lazy and other articles by Paul Lafargue...... £2.00 x____ Dillow claims that ‘profi ts come from monopoly power’ Marxism Revisited...... £2.00 x____ and, on this assumption, asks ‘will new technologies be a source of monopoly power or not?’ His answer: yes, at Socialist Principles Explained...... £2.00 x____ least for a while until the new technology becomes the norm. In saying this he was pointing out that those fi rms All the above pamphlets (25% discount)...... £15.00 x____ that fi rst employ a new technology will, because they can produce more cheaply than the average, be able to BOOKS make an above average profi t. This ‘superprofi t’ attracts Strange Meeting: Socialism and World War One...... £4.50 x____ other fi rms to adopt the new technology, so bringing the average cost of production down and, with this, the end A Socialist Life by Heather Ball...... £3.75 x____ of the temporary superprofi ts of the innovating fi rms. Are We Prisoners Of Our Genes?...... £4.75 x____ This is well explained by Ernst Mandel (despite his Trotskyism) in his Introduction to Marxist Economic Socialism Or Your Money Back (reduced from £9.95)...... £4.00 x____ Theory: ‘ … an enterprise or industrial sector with an above All the above books and pamphlets (25% discount)...... £20.00 x____ average level of productivity … economizes in its expenditure of social labour and therefore makes a DVD surplus profi t, that is to say, the difference between its Capitalism and Other Kids’ Stuff...... £5.75 x_____ costs and selling prices will be greater than the average profi t. The pursuit of this surplus profi t is, of course, Poles Apart? Capitalism or socialism as the planet heats up...... £5.75 x_____ the driving force behind the entire capitalist economy. Every capitalist enterprise is forced by competition TOTAL ...... £______to try to get greater profi ts, for this is the only way it can constantly improve its technology and labour productivity. Consequently all fi rms are forced to take All prices include postage and packing. For six or more of any publication, this same direction, and this of course implies that what reduce the price by one third. at one time was an above-average productivity winds up as the new average productivity, whereupon the surplus Return this form along with your cheque or money order to: profi t disappears. All the strategy of capitalist industry The Socialist Party of Great Britain, FREEPOST, London, SW4 stems from this desire on the part of every enterprise 7BR, United Kingdom. to achieve a rate of productivity superior to the national (No postage necessary if mailed within the UK) average and thereby make a surplus profi t, and this in turn provokes a movement which causes the surplus NAME...... profi t to disappear, by virtue of the trend for the average ADDRESS...... rate of labour productivity to rise continuously. ’ (www. marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/index.htm) ...... So it is not true that ‘profi t comes from monopoly ...... power’. Profi ts come from the surplus value produced by the working class. Monopoly power only enables a City...... fi rm to draw more than average from this pool of surplus value. If monopoly power was the source of profi ts then ...... Postcode...... if there was none, as in the ideal of so-called ‘perfect County...... competition’, there would be no profi ts. Which is absurd. In that situation fi rms would still be making a profi t, only PHONE (optional)...... the average with none making a superprofi t. E-MAIL (optional)......
Socialist Standard November 2014 7 Capitalising on Disease
THE WORLD Health Organization (WHO) now estimates that World Bank President Jim Yong Kim co-authored an article in the Ebola death toll in West Africa had surpassed 4,000— the Washington Post which said that ‘If the Ebola epidemic though it warned that the statistics ‘vastly underestimate’ the devastating the countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone true scale of the epidemic. Hundreds of health workers have had instead struck Washington, New York or Boston, there is no died in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, three of the countries doubt that the health systems in place could contain and then where the disease has hit particularly hard. The Centers for eliminate the disease.’ Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released new We have now witnessed the near-panic reaction of some estimates that Ebola may infect 1.4 million people in Liberia and elements of the press as Ebola has indeed broken out in the Sierra Leone by the end of January. WHO said in a statement: USA and Spain. All over the world, airports are now screening ‘The Ebola epidemic ravaging parts of West Africa is the passengers from affected regions and hospitals drawing up most severe acute public health emergency seen in modern action plans to cope if indeed what some say is inevitable does times. Never before in recorded history has a biosafety level happen. four pathogen infected so many people so quickly, over such Nevertheless, there is a tendency to blame the pathology of a broad geographical area, for so long.The current situation is the disease (and the victims) for the epidemic. John Ashton, so dire that, in several areas that include capital cities, many of president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, places this crisis these common diseases and health conditions are barely being in its proper context, explaining ‘We must also tackle the managed at all’ (commondreams.org/news/2014/09/27). scandal of the unwillingness of the pharmaceutical industry Properly called Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), the virus to invest in research to produce treatments and vaccines, damages the cells it hijacks so badly that victims often bleed something they refuse to do because the numbers involved are, from every opening of the body. This epidemic has been in their terms, so small and don’t justify the investment. This compounded by a shortage of health workers and facilities is the moral bankruptcy of capitalism acting in the absence of an ethical and social framework.’ He said the international community needed to be ‘shamed into real commitment’ to address the ‘poverty and environmental squalor’ in which epidemics can thrive’ (telegraph.co.uk/health/ healthnews/11010135). Previous Ebola outbreaks used to be restricted to the rural areas in poor African countries. In other words, there are no large markets or high profi ts for the pharmaceutical industry. From a pure business perspective, the Ebola market used to be tiny compared to other viral diseases like infl uenza. Investors are more interested in a company that can prove it has an effective cure for infl uenza and sell to the global market for many years. Billions in revenues would be generated annually, driving stock prices far above those that could be achieved via rare diseases like Ebola. It is not beyond human capacity to contain or defeat Ebola in West Africa since it is plus a belated and insuffi cient response from the international spread primarily by contact with victims and is not as easily community. A relative handful of courageous medical workers contracted as airborne diseases such as SARS. Ebola victims have struggled to control the spread of Ebola and to treat are infectious only when they exhibit the actual debilitating people with the virus. Many of these people have themselves symptoms and then they can be quarantined. In Nigeria due to died. a more developed health infrastructure, health workers were In an article published in the New England Journal of able to utilise their contact tracing teams, which were originally Medicine, Doctors Jeremy Farrar and Peter Piot wrote that set up to detect and treat polio, to effectively stop its spread the epidemic ‘was an avoidable crisis.’ They go on to write (theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/ ‘We are concerned that without a massive increase in the oct/07). Decades of civil war in Sierra Leone, Liberia and response, way beyond what is being planned in scale and Guinea has ensured that their health systems are fractured and urgency, alongside the complementary deployment of novel in disrepair. interventions (in particular the use of safe and effective vaccines Barack Obama raised in a television interview the worrying and therapeutics), it will prove impossible to bring this epidemic scenario that Ebola could mutate and become much more under control’ (commondreams.org/news/2014/09/23). communicable. The virus already exists in at least four forms Heeding such warnings many nations are sending medical and it could happen although this need not be a mutation to a teams and mobilising their militaries to set in place treatment more lethal form but can be into a more benign mutation. But centres. let’s imagine that Ebola undergoes a mutation that increases In a world that is dominated by capitalism, no drug has ever its ability to spread and then let us pretend that it then kills, on been approved to treat Ebola, and little research has been done average, 40,000 to 50,000 Americans and at least a quarter although the disease was fi rst identifi ed in 1976. An article in million people globally every year. Now, for the capitalist class the New Yorker explained that ‘diseases that mostly affect poor and the pharmaceutical industry, in particular, that is where you people in poor countries aren’t a research priority, because invest your money for a healthy (sic) return! it’s unlikely that those markets will ever provide a return’. The ALJO
8 Socialist Standard November 2014 Reckless in Rochester
THIS WAS not a fertile year he had been busily plotting his changeover with the for the party conferences UKIP defector – and now UKIP MP forClacton – Douglas what with Ed Miliband in his Carswell. Typical among the fl ood of angry responses leader’s speech ‘forgetting’ the chairman of his constituency Party trumpeted that to mention what Labour he was ‘...astonished and disgusted... only 48 hours would try to do about the economy and the mess it is ago he proclaimed his support for the Conservatives in and David Cameron working to make everyone else and their plans for a referendum on Europe and he ignore that the Tory party is having nightmares about gave me assurances that he wouldn’t defect’. This mass defections to Nigel Farage and his UKIP. Most aggravated Reckless’ own expectation that he would face prominent among these was Mark Reckless MP for the an ‘enormous personal risk’ by changing his party and highly vulnerable seat of Rochester and Strood. Reckless excused him concealing his intentions because he knew was one of the 2010 intake into the Commons but in so that to reveal it all would unleash ‘a media onslaught on brief a time there he has made himself a name as both me . . . in a vicious, vicious way’. He has yet to explain a rebel and a ‘statesman’ – which means he has a talent why his awareness of so aggressive a potential in the for adjusting to some of the most threatening aspects Conservative Party did not dissuade him from joining it. of capitalist society. In 1996 and 1997 while employed by the investment bankers UBS Warburg he was rated Shapps as one of the top three economists in that breeding As the rumours swirled and fl ashed about the ground of such life forms known intentions of so many Tory MPs (even Stephen Bone, as the City of London. And another the carelessly right-wing MP for Wellingborough who similar rating in 2012 placed him is famous for publicising his long-suffering wife, as Conservative back-bencher of muttered an admission on Have I Got News For You the year after he led fi fty-three MPs that he also had thought about defecting) there was in rebellion against the EU budget. a fully primed machinery of abuse and threats ready Other issues on which he has stood to go into action. Early, and particularly nasty in out include tuition fees, the so- this when Reckless eventually came clean was Grant called pasty tax and restricting Child Shapps, the Party Chairman. But he has not been free Benefi t. On another theme – which of controversy himself. Before he got into Parliament he may have been more appealing was accustomed to use to Farage – he missed voting in a Above: Mark the pen name of Michael debate on the Budget because he Reckless. Right: the Green. It was Michael ‘Jack In The Green was in a drunken stupor. This was Sweeps’ dance Crick (who was once in the small hours: ‘I thought it was assaulted by a prominent inappropriate’ was how Reckless excused his lapse, UKIP member with a which evaded the fact that it happened when he was just loosely rolled-up leafl et) two months into his career as an MP and was supposed on Channel Four News to be supporting the 2010 budget – Osborne’s fi rst who revealed that Shapps’ contribution to the great Conservative crusade to salvage marketing website about the British economy. his business included ‘testimonials’ from people and businesses who, if they did exist, could not be traced. Blazing Row But this revelation was no deterrent for Shapps as he His case for leaving the Tory party was that the leaders sounded off in the Reckless affair: ‘He has lied and lied were ‘not serious about real change in Europe... Britain and lied again’ he bellowed at the Tory faithful ‘...Today, could do better’. The matter came to a head when he was your trust has been abused. You have been cheated. But in a group of MPs at an ‘away day’ at Cameron’s Cotswold worse, the people of Rochester and Strood have been cast home, when the guests were expected to wear casual aside’. This is part of the very stuff of politics; change the clothes and, apart from other activities, play football on odd word and it could have been Miliband going on about the house lawn while they composed the manifesto for Cameron, or Clegg about Miliband or, at another time, all the next election. Cameron had attacked him (but not on three about Shapps. the pitch) over the rumours of his pending departure and a blazing row ensued which left Reckless ‘losing faith’ in Rochester Cameron. Apart from anything else he was reported to be With its cathedral and castle and Cornmarket and so disturbed by the pressure of the Whips on some MPs, at many other such buildings Rochester is an interesting times using knowledge of embarrassing aspects of their place, a particular favourite of Charles Dickens. On the private lives. Perhaps this example of our leaders’ caring coast of Kent, it was once a symbol of British naval power unity was among the titbits served to Reckless when he and of building the ships which went along with that. was taken to lunch in the Members’ Dining Room by Symbolic of something else, it was nearby that the fi rst Chief Whip Michael Gove. of the supposedly enlightened penal establishments for youngsters was set up at Borstal. But as shipbuilding Clacton declined so did the town; the Chatham dockyard closed It did not help Reckless make his case against in 1984 and unemployment soared in what was feared to the insincerity of the others when he gave so many be a post-industrial economy. If there has been any kind assurances that, apart from not moving over to UKIP, of easing since then it might have been seen in the revival he would be prominent in the party’s campaign in the of the traditional May Day ‘Jack In The Green Sweeps’ Clacton by-election: ‘Good to lead coach for Team 2015 dance. Will there be any relief in the by-election, in the campaigning in Birmingham Northfi eld on Sunday and bitter recriminations, the blackmail, the transparently will be followed by our Clacton action day next Thursday’ dishonest promises about a better, safer world? he announced, although this was at the same time that IVAN
Socialist Standard November 2014 9 1: IRAQ AND SYRIA
The fi rst of a series of three articles on wars currently going on in different parts of the world.
t was the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city with a population of about Itwo million people, to the army of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) on 9 June 2014 that propelled the name of ISIS into the global consciousness. The fall of this strategic city on the crossroad between Syria and Iraq was seen as a turning point, and clear evidence that the war in Syria had spread into Iraq. In Mosul, ISIS captured government offi ces, the airport, police stations, the Central Bank holding 500 billion newly-printed dinars (equivalent to $430 million or €308 million), military equipment such as Black Hawk helicopters, Humvees, thousands of guns and ammunition rounds, and they freed from prison 2,500 Islamist fi ghters. It is estimated that ISIS which now controls swathes of fi rst Syria and now Iraq has about $2 billion in its war chest. On 29 June ISIS leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi proclaimed the new Caliphate and changed its name to Islamic State (IS). This new Islamic State is expanding by the day and now covers an area resonance with the fi rst Caliph in AD 632 Robert Fisk of the Independent (13 larger than Great Britain and inhabited also called Abu Bakr, the fi rst ruler after June): ‘Sykes-Picot is dead’ considering by at least six million people. Baghdadi the death of Mohammed. that IS bulldozed the berm (‘berm’ is declared the Syrian city of Raqqa the a level space, shelf, or raised barrier capital and in celebration IS paraded Sykes-Picot is dead separating two areas) dividing Syria a captured Scud ballistic missile in the and Iraq which was the ‘border’ based streets of Raqqa. Baghdadi proclaimed Patrick Cockburn in the London Review on the 1916 Sykes-Picot demarcation ‘Rush O Muslims to your state. It is of Books (21 August) claims that ‘the of Arab lands, those artifi cial, arbitrary your state. Syria is not for Syrians and birth of the new state is the most radical boundaries imposed by western Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the change to the political geography of capitalism. Cockburn concluded that Muslims, all Muslims. This is my advice the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot ‘a new and terrifying state has been to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Agreement was implemented in the born.’ So, what had begun in Tunisia Rome and own the world, if Allah wills’ aftermath of the First World War.’ In and Egypt, the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ (Washington Times 2 July). Abu Bakr al- fact it is safe to say that as the Druze as movements for economic and Baghdadi, picked his pseudonym for its leader in Lebanon said to correspondent socialreform has been well and truly
10 Socialist Standard November 2014 hijacked by the Caliphate of the Islamic oil per day at prices ranging from about Mr Erdogan [President of Turkey] State. On 29 September Canon Andrew $25-$45, some of this goes to Kurdish questioned the motives of the White, the Vicar of Baghdad who runs middlemen up towards Turkey, some anti-Isis allies and accused them the last Anglican church in Iraq, posted goes for domestic IS consumption and of meddling in the region’s affairs on Facebook ‘ISIS are now just 5 miles some goes to the Assad regime in for the past century. “Do you think away from Baghdad.’ Syria. With grim irony only possible in IS are not something from TE capitalism IS ‘has also secured revenue they come for peace, with their Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom; by selling electricity back to the Syrian planes and their missiles?” he ‘a Bedouin raiding party that appears government from captured power plants’ asked an audience at Marmara dramatically from the desert, wins (New York Times , 11 June). University, Istambul. “No,” he spectacular victories and then retreats to its strongholds leaving the status Military effectiveness said. “They do it to get the petrol quo little changed’ (Cockburn). IS are a wells under their control” (Times , military force capable of waging war on The military effectiveness of IS has been 14 October). three fronts – south towards Baghdad in possible because IS has established Iraq, west to Aleppo in Syria, and north a military command of former Iraqi and east towards Kurdish territories. On Army offi cers from Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. This explains the 2 August IS had also invaded Lebanon Ba’athist regime which had been battlefi eld success of IS, it is in effect and was only pushed back into Syria overthrown by the US military in 2003. a hybrid of Sunni insurgent rebels after a fi ve-day battle. IS is a religiously These offi cers include two Colonels, and a Ba’athist organised army. This reactionary organisation, fundamentally Adnan al-Sweidawi and Fadel al-Hayali, combination of internationalist Islamic anti-working class, which believes that from Saddam’s army. But more telling theocracy and the Bonapartist Arab the world’s Muslims should live under is that Field Marshall Izzat Ibrahim nationalist secularism of Ba’athist Army one Islamic state, a capitalist state ruled al-Douri, who was Saddam Hussein’s offi cers rests on ‘not the revolutionary, th by Sharia law. Deputy of the Revolutionary Command but the conservative peasant’ (Marx 18 IS have taken over the capitalist Council, the ultimate decision making Brumaire), and is a heady capitalist mix state structure in occupied Syria body in Iraq before the 2003 invasion, for the Middle East. and Iraq, effi ciently running public has been pointed out as one of the main Respect MP George Galloway pointed services, administrative and military commanders responsible for successful out that ‘ISIL could not survive for fi ve control systems, taking over banks, takeovers of North Iraq and the city minutes if the tribes in the west of ministries, law courts and operating a of Mosul in June. It was reported that Iraq rose up against them’ ( Guardian, taxation system which demands less fellow Ba’ath generals Azhar al-Obeidi 26 September). Largest sections of than Assad’s Syrian government. IS and Ahmed Abdul Rashid had been the Sunni Arab working class and effectively secure the water, fl our and appointed as governors of Mosul and peasantry in Iraq and Syria support hydrocarbon resources of an area, Tikrit. Izzat al-Douri is the most high Islamic State because IS promises centralising distribution, providing profi le Ba’athist offi cial to successfully them preferential treatment and better services, such as supplying bread, evade capture after 2003, he was the economic opportunities than they could and activities including Koran classes ‘king of clubs’ in the infamous most- ever hope for under the current Shia- for children, all run by ‘an effective wanted Iraqi pack of playing cards. After dominated leadership in Iraq and Syria. management structure of mostly Saddam’s execution in 2006 he became Since 2003 economic deprivation has hit middle-aged Iraqis’ ( New York Times , leader of the now banned Ba’ath Party. the Sunni Arab faction hard since it lost 27 August). IS control of Syria’s and IS have the support of many Ba’ath its former dominant position in society Iraq’s oilfi elds has added wealth to its Party loyalists, former intelligence and the Sunni has now become the funds, it exports about 9,000 barrels of offi cers and soldiers in Saddam’s most oppressed section of Iraqi society and many ended up unemployed and
Socialist Standard November 2014 11 even destitute. The Sunni peasantry of the ritual and the true faith and to only way you are going to get rid of has been hit hard by a series of poor appropriate in recompense the treasures the foreign jihadis is if the Sunni tribes harvests and food shortages in the last of the renegades’ ( MECW Volume 27). and the Ba’athists do it themselves. If ten years which is ironic since Iraq is your answer is to start bombing ISIS Financial support in the Mesopotamian fertile crescent in Iraq then what you are actually of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates but doing is bombing the tribes and the Before IS gained access to oilfi elds in it has suffered severe agricultural Ba’athists who are exactly the people Syria and Iraq and later banks in Mosul, decline, neglect and confl ict. Agricultural you are going to need to get rid of ISIS’ wealthy members of ruling families in productivity declined by a devastating (Guardian, 25 September). Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Persian Gulf 90 percent after the 2003 war, and there The capitalist Islamic State is an countries provided fi nancial support have been six years of the driest winters organisation, it is even a ‘state’, and laundered through the compliant Kuwaiti since 2004. Once a major exporter, Iraq is a hundred times larger and better banking system. IS also benefi ted from is now reliant year-round on food imports organised than the al-Qaida of Osama money smuggled via a Turkish border while many Sunnis have been working bin Laden. IS are insurgents not left deliberately unchecked. The then hard on the land, and yet struggling to terrorists, al-Qaida did not attempt to solve the economic problems of the Muslim working class and relied on international terrorist acts which can only be described as ‘propaganda of the deed’ and did nothing for the Muslim working class. IS on the other hand are securing ground, creating a localised state structure and ensuring peasant and working class support through palliatives to the capitalist system shrouded in a theocratic conservatism. However, reforms to capitalism cannot solve the problems facing the working eat but perceiving metropolitan Shias class regardless of whether the capitalist Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad and the east to be living in class wear ties or turbans. In the Middle stated ‘we hold Saudi Arabia responsible luxury. Thus IS have been successfully East the ideology of the capitalist class for the fi nancial and moral support given recruiting mostly young Sunni men who opposed to western capitalism is now to ISIS’ ( Daily Telegraph, 17 June) are poor, unemployed, lacking education dominated by Islamic fundamentalism although German Development Minister and underprivileged. whereas in the recent past it was a Gerd Mueller said ‘w ho is arming, who The religious strictures applied by IS leftist Arab nationalism rooted in state is fi nancing ISIS troops. The keyword are also attractive to Iraqi Sunnis as the capitalism such as Nasser in Egypt, the there is Qatar’ ( Reuters, 20 August). adherence to conservative conventions, Ba’athist regimes in Syria and Iraq, and Günter Meyer, Director of the Center and the clarity and simplicity of Sharia the PLO supported by the Russian state- for Research into the Arabic World at law always appeals to downtrodden capitalist bloc. the University of Mainz writes ‘the most peoples who tend to prefer robust As for IS even Jonathan Powell, important source of ISIS fi nancing to law and order to instability. This and Blair’s former chief of staff says ‘ISIS is date has been support coming out of the resentment of metropolitan Shias is not a small movement of middle-class Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia but reminiscent of what Engels wrote in kids like Baader-Meinhof. It’s a big also Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab 1894: ‘Islam is a religion adapted to political movement like ETA or the IRA Emirates’ ( Deutsche Welle, 19 June). Orientals, especially Arabs, i.e., on one which represents a genuine political The Western capitalist powers, hand to townsmen engaged in trade strand of grievance’ ( Guardian, 22 now with the support of Persian Gulf and industry, on the other to nomadic September). monarchies, are engaged in military air Bedouins. Therein lies, however, the Socialists are minded to agree with strikes against IS in Iraq and Syria but embryo of a periodically recurring Engels who wrote ‘All these movements there are some sane political voices collision. The townspeople grow rich, are clothed in religion but they have even amongst bourgeois politicians luxurious and lax in the observation their source in economic causes; and such as backbench Tory MP Adam of the ‘law’. The Bedouins, poor and yet, even when they are victorious, they Holloway who pointed out ‘This is hence of strict morals, contemplate with allow the old economic conditions to a political problem. ISIS in Iraq are envy and covetousness these riches persist untouched’ ( MECW Volume 27). Sunni tribesmen who were fed up and pleasures. Then they unite under STEVE CLAYTON with the Maliki government. They a prophet, a Mahdi, to chastise the are international jihadis and they are apostates and restore the observation Next month: the war in Ukraine. former Ba’ath regime elements. The
12 Socialist Standard November 2014 ‘I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled’ was how J.Alfred Prufrock intended to manage senility. But it was to be properly unchallenging: ‘Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach? I shall wear white fl annel trousers, and walk upon the beach’. Beside the seaside
addling at the tide’s edge, back home as the blinds were drawn manipulative art of what came to be dressed in a style as might once on the summer season. Their hotel known as market research. Perhaps Phave been admired, enjoying could survive in profi t by offering drawing on what he had learned some rare luxury of tropical fruit. It pensioners the choice of a cheaper from getting those prisoners back he was a day free from the stresses of package holiday when the resort travelled the country looking for a the workplace, some slight easing of was quiet. It was in 1951 that Saga place where he could rely on fi lling a glum fears about the butt end of the Holidays, based in that same sea regular coach service to Folkestone. days. Then dozing in a beach chair front town, came to life. When he found what he was looking briefl y unworried about the call to That man was Sidney De Haan for in Yorkshire he opened a service catch the coach back to the yellow who had long nursed an ambition to of regular trips from there to The fog rubbing its back on window panes buy a seaside hotel – perhaps from Rhodesia hotel for bargain, all and the pools which stand in drains. his earliest employment as a chef inclusive holidays. The result was an Late in 1949 as the nights drew in in London and then when he was explosive growth in business, which a married couple stared out from a a prisoner of war in Poland under spread across the country and then bench on the sea front at Folkestone orders to escort some sick prisoners to hotels and resorts abroad. And in Kent, where they had bought a who were being repatriated. In truth now Saga is big time, selling holidays small hotel called The Rhodesia. this period was not unblemished as and tours around the world. It owns Sitting there that day they worried preparation for his future; during his cruise ships and hotels and sells together about how they would time as a prisoner he was repeatedly insurance for a wide range of what survive as the hotel bookings fell off in punishment for ‘insubordination’ are called risks, fi nancial advice, during the winter. Until the woman – although which side he was healthcare, direct mail trade. There gave voice to what was obvious – at insubordinate to is not known. In is also their biggest-selling Saga that moment they were among people 1951 he faced different demands Magazine which claims a readership who were too old for employment and priorities which encouraged of over a million. and who therefore did not have to go him to reveal a keen talent for the
Socialist Standard November 2014 13 Roger super pricey footballers and the own very real, hard struggle which, Sidney De Haan retired in 1984, feather-fi ngered pickpockets along although different in detail from what passing control of Saga to his eldest Las Ramblas. is being experienced by younger son Roger who left the company people now, was nevertheless in 2004 after selling off its hotels Distress demanding and terrifying. The and then himself moving into Meanwhile in 2013 Saga became elements of working class oppression fi nancial services and insurance. a public limited company – Saga change with time but the basic A management take-over of Saga PLC – with its share price quoted, realities remain. Meanwhile it is backed by the private equity with a varying response, on the hard, in those terraces and lounges, company Charterhouse yielded the Stock Exchange. This aroused some to listen to opinions which allow no De Haans a profi t of £1.35 billion. arch comments from media fi nancial acknowledgement of those realities. This at a time when Folkestone was and investment specialists but the Even when it is soothed by an suffering from the decline of the overall result, typically in the present ‘entertainment’ which can be as outworn and tiresome as music from Victor Sylvester.
Questionnaire So what of those who work for Saga? The holiday reps? Overall they perform as mature, patient and hard- working. Amid the customary stress of expectant – very often demanding – holidaymakers they manage to stay placid and confi dent. Ask them about their job and if they enjoy it? Most defi nitely. Yes . What was their work before they joined Saga? Er...marketing, offi ce admin ...felt Kentish coal mines, from losing the recession, was rather less successful like getting something different to do... ferry trade to the Channel Tunnel than previously. Saga holidaymakers, Were these responses spontaneous and the competition of cheaper air anxious not to jeopardise their or rehearsed? The replies of Saga fares and package holidays. In the pensions, were intrigued but not employees to a questionnaire on The eastern part of the town – described wildly tempted. To judge from 10 best things about working at Saga by De Haan as ‘the slum area around the prevailing popular subjects provides some clues, not always the harbour’ – there was one of the and style of discussion in hotel comforting: country’s lowest rated secondary lounges and on the terraces they the fact you receive Quarterly schools under the dreaded ‘special are now enjoying some unexpected business presentations from the CEO measures’ performing the third consolations from being old. These himself as he updates staff on how worst in the country. Two wards in spring from the assumption that Saga is growing... Folkestone are among the ten highest vital components in working class the fact that there are constant occurrences of pregnancy among the life such as employment, health, a goals and I’m always working hard to age group 15 to 17. The 2011 Census stable home, were more accessible achieve my targets set ... revealed that respondents in the to them when they were younger If you can’t get to grips with selling town considered their health to be and employed than they are now for a product they will provide you with signifi cantly lower than the national the generation who have replaced 1-on-1 training to get you back on average. It was symptomatic that them in the workforce but do not yet track ... Folkestone was part of a constituency qualify by age for a Saga holiday. When the De Haans were huddling where UKIP could benefi t from any This is not because the pensioners on the sea front at Folkestone rampant dissatisfaction with the had any special skills or fortitude; that day did they ever experience big parties and became of interest all in all it expresses the particular any awareness that holidays are to Nigel Farage until he infl icted passage in the economy which commodities, designed and produced himself on Thanet South. The town capitalism is going through. As a to be bought and sold and with was apparently in terminal decline result, young workers who have a all that follows by way of being until De Haan bought up the harbour range of experience, educational contributive to capitalist society for £11 million with the intention qualifi cations and expectations which where all wealth has that character? to revive it with new shops and would once have given them some We can have access only by buying premises to be known as a Creative confi dence about their immediate them, which is subject to infl uence Foundation. There has been a future on the labour market, and all by the current situation in capitalism response to this. In August the beach the stress that goes with it, are now at large. It is all part of the system’s was swarming with people hopefully cruelly thrust onto an unimpressed repression and manipulation of wielding buckets and spades as they and unwelcoming labour market to our lives. Paddling at the tide-line dug in the sand for gold bars which moulder in bewildered distress. or gazing out at the sea can be had been buried there by a visiting recommended as relaxing and can artist. This year’s Triennial art Revenge induce a refl ective frame of mind, to festival included the re-opening of the But those hotel discussions too reveal something vital even to the previously dilapidated Payers Park. often take comfort that all of this is extent of our holidays. Well worth It was all part of the intention to a kind of revenge for those infamous rolling our trousers for. create another Barcelona presumably drunken evenings in places like IVAN to be unaffected by the devastating Magaluf. This can often override Spanish recession as well as free the pensioners’ memories of their
14 Socialist Standard November 2014 Tory blusterbluster about ‘Human Rights’
he Tories are hard at work trying to reaffi rm their Treputation as the Stupid Party. In an imbecilic and shambolic fashion, they have announced they intend to repeal the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. Even further, they are threatening to renounce the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and withdraw from the treaty. Noticeably, they only sent their press release announcing the move to the Fleet Street tabloids, ignoring the broadsheet press. The draft document was then found to be error-strewn and ill-thought out. When their document became available legal minds across the internet immediately began to pick it apart, showing up inaccuracies and ignorant comments scattered throughout. It claims, for instance, The Nuremberg Trials, a that the European Court of Human catalyst for post-war European human rights legislation. Rights has banned whole life sentences: when in fact all it did was this policy, has written in Prospect in secret and bind the state in the say that there must be a mechanism Magazine pointing out that since eyes of the world. Necessarily, this for review of the sentence (and, 1815 the UK has signed up to over limits what Parliament can and can’t indeed, the British Supreme Court 800 treaties that commit to some do since it means that Britain cannot has since said it believes suffi cient sort of international arbitration, pass legislation that would break its such structures are already in place). and the ECHR is just one of those. obligations to other countries. This is It has been pointed out that Far from the EHCR undermining the basic means by which Britain has narrowing the ability of courts to political sovereignty of Britain, it in entered into the European Union, read legislation in such a way as fact entirely relies upon the sovereign and all European Law is actually a to make it compatible with human British state entering into and treaty obligation which is given effect rights (as they are obliged to do agreeing to uphold treaty obligations. by the British Parliament passing under the HRA) would lead to courts The power to make treaties is an compatible legislation. striking down legislation more often. executive power (or, in the byzantine As Grieve notes, ‘in promoting the They also promised to stop British world of the British state, a matter Convention and adhering to it, we courts being bound by Strasburg of Crown prerogative). It is thus part have followed a long tradition that rulings, when they are already not. of the anti-democratic aspect of the has seen our national self-interest Just as all courts have always done, state. The Prime Minister and Foreign bound up in promoting international they listen to rulings and reasoning Secretary can negotiate, practically order.’ That is, British capitalists from other jurisdictions and use it as benefi t from promoting international part of their own reasonings. order and transparent processes It has also been suggested that the to protect their property rights and Westminster Parliament alone might investments. not have the power to repeal the HRA or withdraw from the ECHR, because The rights of property the devolved bodies for Scotland, The ideology of capitalists has Wales and Northern Ireland have always been based around contract, had these documents incorporated as they seek to mediate both into their foundation (in the case of competition between themselves Northern Ireland, this is underpinned and against other classes in society. by an international treaty). In particular, in their battle with Former Attorney General, Dominic the absolutist states of feudalism Grieve, who has been booted out they sought protection in the of the government for opposing language of rights to protect their
Socialist Standard November 2014 15 property and business interests. In today’s world, they still have to Detail from Magna Carta, 1215 protect themselves from arbitrary expropriation by state actors (and also from other capitalists reneging on their obligations). The interest of big British business depends on a stable rights-based world, where contracts can be enforced. We need only look at Russia, where rival groups of capitalists have used the state to imprison their rivals (and indeed, have frequently resorted to British courts to try and resolve their differences). Codifi ed human rights are a way of ensuring that the state cannot be used by rival factions (and also so that state actors can know what they are supposed to be doing). That is the function of rights within the ruling class. Rights, though, also form a sort of peace treaty between the ruling capitalist class and the What this means in practice is that rights on paper, we would have the working class. Rather than fi ght rights are not essential, universal or practical fulfi llment of human needs in the ditches over every single transhistorical, they are always the with the equal access to suffi cient scrap, rights allow us and them to outcome of the social relations in a democratic power to secure those let routine matters of confl ict be particular society and the relative needs. resolved. Their state gets to operate strengths of the class forces to in a way which is considered broadly enforce them. The 1936 constitution Window-dressing fair by the wider population. When it of the USSR was touted as the most The Tories know that this is just doesn’t, then open fi ghting resumes democratic on Earth (as, indeed it bluster and window dressing. They (usually in the form of riots, strikes was, on paper). The fact that it was cannot effectively remove the rights and civil disruption, but also at the completely ignored and useless in in the ECHR. The games they are ballot box). The enunciation of civil practice was down to the lack of playing are just symbolic efforts rights and their enforcement is a any independent capacity of the to shore up a right-wing coalition. refl ection of the balance of class population, and the working class, to The number of times they fulminate power. demand it be lived up to. against Traveller sites and planning This can be seen in the history Human Rights are an outgrowth of laws in their document on the British of every signifi cant document of both the competitive class and social Bill of Rights shows that they are rights. The Twelve Tables of Rome, division of society and the existence mostly interested in addressing the the Muslim Constitution of Medina, of the state. Just as people who do grievances of people who are big fi sh Magna Carta: all were created not keep lions do not need a set of in small village ponds (the sort who following a period of civil strife as written lion safety manuals, so a may vote UKIP because they don’t a means of putting an end to the society of free individuals without have big businesses that rely on present confl ict (and also leaving the a state will not need a written set international stability). existing social structures in place). of state safety manuals. Instead of At most, they are seeking to bring control of the law back into the hands of British judges, who share Guaranteed to rile the cultural and family relations with country UKIP voter the domestic capitalist class, and can be relied upon more than foreign judges to support the interests of the ruling elite. These judges, though, have already shown a willingness to incorporate human rights language wholesale into common law, and have made signifi cant rights based rulings without reference to either HRA or the ECHR. We should not let ourselves depend on these judges for our freedoms, though. We can defend ourselves and protect what freedoms and rights we have best by building our own movement for socialism and pursuing the class struggle through our unions. We can only ever have the rights we fi ght for and can defend. PIK SMEET
16 Socialist Standard November 2014 But is it really Capitalism? Can it truly be the case that capitalism no longer exists? We examine some claims along these lines.
ocialists argue that the would be fi ne if we could get back to in some cases a small number dominant economic ‘proper capitalism’ rather than the of companies are enormously Ssystem today is capitalism, ill-functioning spin-off that has taken powerful in particular areas (as with characterised by class ownership of its place. Amazon and Boeing in ebooks and the means of production, wage labour There is no doubt that capitalism aircraft, respectively). The state, and commodity production. A very has undergone a number of changes too, has a much larger role now, small part of the population (perhaps since, say, the late eighteenth with everything from regulation of just one percent) own and control the century, when Adam Smith wrote The competition to the welfare system land, factories, offi ces, raw materials, Wealth of Nations, changes surveyed and investment in infrastructure. patent rights and so on. These people in Ha-Joon Chang’s Economics: The But the question is to what extent form the capitalist class, and the rest User’s Guide. In Smith’s day, most these changes have altered the basic of the adult population – the working capitalist fi rms and factories were nature of the economy. class – have to sell their working owned by individual capitalists or One writer who distinguishes abilities for wages in order to live. small partnerships, people who between capitalism and Goods and services are produced for were closely involved in supervising corporatism is Michael Labeit the sake of profi t, hence the general production and, for instance, (see www.economicpolicyjournal. rule of ‘no profi t, no production’. individually combatting strikes. com/2009/11/explaining-difference- At the same time there are those, Nowadays, factories, offi ces, etc are between.html). In his view of the mainly on the so-called political ‘right mostly the property of companies, world, capitalism is based on the wing’, who claim that what exists which are themselves owned by large recognition of individual rights, nowadays in much of the ‘developed’ numbers of shareholders; as one including that to private property; world is not really capitalism at example, Superdrug is wholly owned hence theft and murder are illegal. all. Let’s leave aside those who by the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Capitalism involves the free market, consider that present-day society is Whampoa, which has a number of ‘the vast network of voluntary socialism or some strange mixture of other brands too. Corporations now exchanges of property titles to socialism and capitalism. Instead we are often huge, with Walmart, for intermediate and fi nal goods’. shall focus on those who use some instance, having over two million Under corporatism, in contrast: such term as ‘corporate’ or ‘crony employees. With lots of different ‘the government intervenes capitalism’ to describe the social competing fi rms, eighteenth-century aggressively into the economy, system. Underlying this is a claim, capitalism supposedly knew far typically with political instruments sometimes explicit, that everything more competition than today, when that benefi t large corporations and
Capitalism - alive and well in Canary Wharf
Socialist Standard November 2014 17 enterprises to the detriment of smaller businesses and private citizens. … corporatist authorities seize control of land and capital goods when they feel it is necessary to do so without regard for private property rights.’ Subsidies, tariffs, anti-trust laws and licences are all seen as examples of government working in the interests More on profi ts of large companies and so against the interests of small CHRIS DILLOW’S article on ‘Robot Dangers’ raises other capitalists and ‘ordinary’ people. Note that corporatism issues about profi ts. Noting that ‘profi ts don’t come merely and government interference do not mean state from being able to produce goods cheaply’ but that ‘you have ownership. to sell these goods’, he asks: Here is another, very sanitised, depiction of ‘genuine ‘And if millions of people are out of work, who will you sell capitalism’ (from www.againstcronycapitalism.org): to? In theory, therefore, robots aren’t good for profi ts and ‘Capital is invested by individuals to further ideas and might be disastrous for them.’ enterprises that the investor thinks will create a return This is the old one about mechanisation causing on the money invested. If the enterprise in question is a continually rising unemployment. It hasn’t happened in good one, both investor and business owner win. If not – practice, though it could theoretically. It doesn’t happen if better luck next time.’ capital accumulation continues and the extra demand for The Economist (15 March) developed a crony- labour it entrains rises faster than the displacement of labour capitalism index, focussing on industries that are by machines. This is what has happened in the past. So, particularly vulnerable to monopoly or to heavy state Dillow’s investors needn’t worry too much on that score. involvement, such as banking, defence, infrastructure After noting that technology has been eliminating many and energy. They looked at how rich the billionaires in routine white-collar jobs in recent years, Dillow continues: these crony sectors were, as a percentage of GDP. Top ‘… this process has not been accompanied by rising by some margin was Hong Kong, followed by Russia, aggregate profi ts. Offi ce for National Statistics data show that Malaysia and Ukraine. Britain was only fi fteenth, the US returns on capital have fallen since the late 1990s. this is not seventeenth, China nineteenth and France twentieth. merely because of the recession; profi t rates were lower in Apparently, ‘French and German billionaires … rely 2007 than in 1997. In this sense, the IT boom has lowered rather little on the state, making their money largely profi t rates.’ from retail and luxury brands.’ As the magazine pointed It is true that profi ts rates do tend to fall at the end of a out, the data were not always reliable, so the precise boom but Dillow’s conclusion here seems rather daring, results needed to be treated with caution. And the claim especially as aggregate profi ts are not the same as profi t of people like Labeit is that the economy as a whole, and rates and can go up even if rates go down. not just particular sectors, is subject to cronyism. Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Marx and even Keynes So is there any real difference between crony or discerned a tendency for the rate of profi t to fall in the long corporate capitalism and ‘the real thing’? As far as the run, even though they offered different reasons. working class are concerned, the answer has to be, very Marx’s explanation was linked to increasing mechanisation. little. All forms of capitalism involve wage labour and He argued that as profi t came only from that part of exploitation, and it is of minimal relevance for workers to capital invested in productive wage-labour and that as what extent a capitalist company depends on government mechanization meant that the part of capital invested in interference. And of course all companies benefi t from buildings, machines and materials grew faster, there would the government’s defence of private property and class be a long-run tendency for the rate of return on total capital rule, its anti-worker legislation and its fi ghting of wars to fall. to protect trade routes and access to markets and raw Perhaps surprisingly (or perhaps not, as he mentions that materials. he has read Marxian economist Andrew Kliman), Dillow takes The descriptions we have cited above all focus on Marx’s view: the capitalist class and how they obtain their wealth, ‘According to the standard work on historic economic whether simply by investment or by relying on data (Mitchell’s British Historical Statistics), the UK’s capital government facilitating their profi t-making (by licenses, stock rose by a factor of almost 11 between 1850 and 1938 zoning, import duties or whatever). None of them whereas profi ts rose by a factor of less than seven. Ninety recognise workers and their unpaid labour as the source years of massive technical progress – the Bessemer process, of the wealth of the capitalists, or the role of exploitation electrifi cation, combustion engines, telegraph, radios and so in profi t-making. Big capitalists no doubt exercise more on – saw profi ts fall.’ (He means the rate of profi t). sway with the state than smaller ones, but that should He apologises to his investor readers for seeming ‘a not make us feel sorry for the latter, or accept that they little dystopian’, but they needn’t worry too much about this have the same interests as workers. Those who criticise since robotisation reducing the rate of profi t to zero is only a corporatism can be seen as standing for the interests theoretical limit and in any event would be years and years of the owners of small businesses (a point that has also away. Well before that, they will have something more urgent been made about the Tea Party movement in the US). to worry about – a growing socialist movement aiming to end And what of the free market? Many leftist economic the profi t system altogether. commentators have argued that the recession which Dillow ends by posing a very pertinent question: started in 2007–8 came about because of the free market ‘What’s at stake here is a matter of utmost importance: and the unregulated nature of the fi nancial industry. how can we ensure that technical progress benefi ts everyone Thus Seumas Milne of the Guardian wrote in 2008 that rather than just a minority, while encouraging that progress?’ ‘it is the free-market model, not capitalism, that is dying’. Easy. Make the means for producing wealth the common But the view of those discussed here is that the market property of everyone instead of just a minority. Since people prior to then was not truly free, as there was plenty of would then no longer depend on wages to live but would government regulation. This position, however, inevitably have free access to what they needed, robotisation wouldn’t leads to the conclusion that there never has been a deprive anyone of a living but would just reduce the work free market, since government has always defended load all round. the interests of the capitalist class as a whole: in 1700, for instance, the British continued page 22
18 Socialist Standard November 2014 MI XED was £2, 8s, 1d. He was signed for a transfer fee of £29,999 to Barnsley: Working Class Matt Busby’s Manchester United but was later killed in the 1958 MEDIA Culture in the Tarn Munich Air Crash aged 26. BARNSLEY’S HISTORY has been Gilbert Daykin at the Cooper Gallery dominated by the glass industry and coal mining but marked by disasters that befell the working class such as the 1838 The Hidden Art of Barnsley at the Cooper Gallery in Barnsley Huskar pit disaster when 26 children were killed, and in 1866 highlighted the work of coal miner and painter Gilbert Daykin. the worst pit disaster in England at Barnsley Oaks when 361 Daykin was offered a bursary from the local Miners’ Welfare miners were killed. Committee to enable him to study part-time at Nottingham The Barnsley Museum at Barnsley Town Hall is well worth a School of Art. His work was also brought to the attention of the visit and showcases Barnsley’s coal mining history, with many then local MP Malcolm MacDonald, son of the Prime Minister. artefacts from the class struggle that was the 1984-85 Miners’ Daykin was invited to London and met the Prime Minister Strike such as Ramsay MacDonald and the Duchess of Portland (she ‘cared an Orgreave for’ the Nottinghamshire Miners, an example of ‘the heart- Barnsley Town Hall police riot burnings of the aristocrat’). Daykin would appear on the front shield. The cover of the Daily Mirror on 3 August 1931. Daykin’s 1938 oil museum Symbolic-Miner Enslaved is heroic and evokes Renaissance also houses paintings of Saint Sebastian. His Choke Damp is quite macabre the NUM and underlines the dangers of working underground. Markham’s Yorkshire Area Ponies portrays coal miners pushing a truck of coal while North Gawber his The Results of Labour is a somewhat idealized portrait Branch banner which had been commissioned by the Staveley Coal and Iron ‘from darkness Company. Daykin could never afford to give up mining and into light’ i.e. concentrate on his art, and tragically was killed in a pit accident ‘socialism’ at Warsop Main colliery on 20 December 1939. via various Seven miles from Barnsley is the old pit village of Goldthorpe reforms where in 1984 during the Miners’ Strike two teenage brothers such as Paul and Darren Holmes were killed while collecting coal when nationalisation an embankment collapsed. In April 2013 an effi gy of Thatcher and was burned to celebrate her funeral. Since Goldthorpe colliery ’employment closed in 1994 the village has ‘died’ and the Goldthorpe and for all’. Highgate NUM Club is subtitled ‘Lest We Forget’ those from British the ‘great class war’ that was the 1980s Miners’ Strike. At NUM cinema is headquarters in Barnsley there is a monument commissioned represented by NUM Yorkshire Area, sculpted by Graham Ibbeson in 1992, by the 1969 and unveiled by Arthur Scargill, President of the NUM in July Ken Loach 1993 which portrays a miner, his wife, young daughter and a fi lm Kes fi lmed babe in arms, and says ‘In memory of those who have lost their in Barnsley, lives in supporting their union in times of struggle.’ based on the Lenin was of the opinion that ‘the fi eld of art in particular novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barnsley writer Barry Hines. should be imbued with the spirit of the class struggle being This working class fi lm publicised as ‘They beat him. They waged by the proletariat’ which Barnsley culture could be said deprived him. They ridiculed him. They broke his heart. But to demonstrate but tragically the Barnsley working class does they couldn’t break his spirit’ starred Dai Bradley, a non- not ‘constitute itself as a class for itself’ (Marx) as the area still professional from Barnsley. The 1996 fi lm Brassed Off fi lmed elects four Labour MPs. in Grimethorpe near Barnsley was set during the pit closures STEVE CLAYTON programme of the John Major Tory government in 1992 when 31 out of 50 remaining deep mines faced closure with the loss of 31,000 jobs. In 1980-81 Grimethorpe Colliery had produced 1.2 million tonnes of coal. Barnsley is famous for Charlie Williams, the son of a Barbadian and a Barnsley girl, who was a miner and footballer at Upton colliery then joined Doncaster Rovers in 1948, and was later the fi rst black comedian on British TV in the 1970s. It’s just like watching Brazil is an exhibition about Barnsley Football Club, founded in 1887, nicknamed the ‘tykes’ with a motto of ‘spectemur agendo!’ (‘let us be seen together in action!’) from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and an emblem of a glass-blower and miner. Barnsley were FA Cup winners in 1912 but the exhibition title is from the ‘cherished 1996-97 season’ when Barnsley were promoted to the Premiership. In March 2014 Barnsley football supporters would unfurl an Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign banner ‘30 Years of Lies, No Justice, No Peace, Never Forget, Never Forgive’ at the Oakwell ground. Tommy Taylor, according to John Roberts in The Team That Wouldn’t Die: The Story of the Busby Babes learned his skills in Barnsley on ‘the bog, a rock-hard piece of ground where local boys played in clogs, pit boots Gilbert Daykin, The Tub: At or bare feet.’ Taylor worked in the pit, then aged 15 signed to the end of the coalface, 1934 Barnsley as a ground-staff boy, and in 1948 his weekly wage
Socialist Standard November 2014 19 Book Reviews Memories are made despite all his self-refl ection in this A Co-op in Spain book, it remains something of a of this puzzle that he chose to end up in the Dan Hancox: The Village Against CPB. Indeed, it is very clear that he the World. Verso £9.99. Notes From the End of History: A retains an affection not only for the Memoir of the Left in Wales. Philip style of politics of the SPGB but for Marinaleda is a Bounds. Merlin. the Party’s insistence on majority village of 2,700 democratic revolution and hostility people in the Philip Bounds is to the totalitarian dictatorships Andalusia region an historian and of the former Soviet Union, China of southern Spain, journalist and and North Korea, etc. These are about sixty miles this is his memoir dictatorships for which members of east of Seville. about being the CPB are normally want to retain Under the Franco attracted towards something of a political affection. dictatorship it – and involved At times there is a sense that was poor and in – radical Bounds wishes to challenge his underdeveloped, politics and readers to move beyond the stock-in- like most places in the area, where organizations in trade reformism and sloganeering of massive landed estates owned Wales. It focuses the far left. For instance, towards the by aristocrats prevailed. When mainly on the 1980s and 90s when end of the book there is a moving and Franco died in 1975, Spain began a he was growing up in a dynamic insightful piece about the occasion transition to capitalist democracy. political environment punctuated he accompanied a poverty-stricken The people of Marinaleda organised by seminal events like the Miners’ member of the CPB around Swansea in unions and demanded land; Strike of 1984-5. In particular, he late one night, as she rooted through eventually, in 1991, the government tries to answer the questions ‘Why leftovers behind a luxury hotel in gave them 1200 hectares of land has Marxism survived in spite of search of free food to be distributed belonging to a duke. enduring so many defeats?’ and amongst those on her estate: So began the development of what ‘What was it like to belong to the ‘With her gift for locating sources Hancox terms ‘an anti-capitalist radical left at a time when Marxism of free food in a hostile city and her answer … [a] community founded was at its lowest ebb?’. uncompromising insistence that the on mutual aid and collectivism, not In some ways, he gives a more booty be shared out equally among the profi t motive’. The village co- coherent answer to the latter than her kinsfolk, she gestured towards operative owns El Humoso, a farm the former question though it is a past in which no one thought of several miles away. This is planted interesting that his political journey themselves as better than anyone with labour-intensive crops such as started out attending meetings of the else and everyone said ‘this is ours’ cotton and sugar beet, thus providing SPGB as a teenager. His accounts but never ‘this is mine’. In reminding more employment than the previous are at times funny and nearly always us that communism had once been practice of growing crops such as insightful, a fl avour being his vivid the natural order of things, she corn that need little labour power. description of his fi rst ever political incarnated the hope that one day – All co-op members earn the same meeting, addressed by late comrade at a much higher level of technology wage, and any surplus is re-invested Ron Cook: and culture and at a much lower to create more jobs. There are no ‘I suppose he was the sort of level of superstition – we could do it local police, the village is run by socialist Orwell might have been too all again.’ (p.186) assemblies on the basis of direct narrow-minded to appreciate. Grey There is another way in which democracy, and many villagers live haired, bespectacled and genial he this book challenges the reader and in self-built homes for which they came across like a university lecturer pushes them further than they might pay just fi fteen euros a month. Each who had thrown it all up for a career otherwise have gone in their thinking. month the villagers work together in market gardening . . . I understood It is exceptionally well written and voluntarily doing improvement work, about a third of it but in my heart I the prose fl ows beautifully. However, such as gardening in the park. embraced it all.’ (p.62-3) it is best to realise that amongst all Yet all is not quite what it seems. Bounds says that despite his this are often some very unfamiliar The regional government provides admiration for the SPGB’s vision phrases and words. It is almost as building materials and architectural of a peaceful, democratic socialist if Bounds like to lull the reader into assistance for the self-built homes, revolution (which has clearly stayed a false sense of security through and also some kind of farming with him since) he moved on to the fl uidity of his writing style subsidy (unfortunately Hancox associate with various of the more before including something more does not say much about this). The conventional organizations of the challenging that will have readers unemployment rate is much lower political left, saying of the SPGB that running for the dictionary: ‘aetiology’, than the national average, but is he was ‘thrilled by its internal culture ‘exegetically gifted’, ‘subfusc’, still fi ve to six percent. The present but dismayed by its lack of activism’. ‘manichean intuitions’, ‘marmoreal’ economic crisis in Spain has not He ended up – perhaps bizarrely – and the wondrous ‘gallimaufry of left the village untouched, with in the Communist Party of Great soporifi c guests’ are but a random regionally-based funding drying up, Britain and then one of its successor selection. and there is insuffi cient money to organizations after its demise, the A highly entertaining and enjoyable pay the workers at El Humoso. The Communist Party of Britain (CPB), memoir that deserves a wide charismatic mayor, Juan Manuel the group still associated with the audience, in Wales and beyond. Sánchez Gordillo, is taking a back Morning Star newspaper. The political DAP seat and is powerless to solve the journey he took, via meetings of the current problems. SPGB, an interest in the punk band Further, some rather unpleasant Crass and the anarchist group Class aspects of local life are mentioned. War is a fascinating one, though Two of the village’s elected councillors
20 Socialist Standard November 2014 are from the PSOE (roughly the Communities, International and Otherwise Spanish equivalent of the Labour Party). One of them tells Hancox THE CONCEPT of a community is proper communities in any real sense. A that those who do not agree with generally viewed in a positive light. similar point might be made about other the mayor (those who are not So people may speak approvingly of uses of the word, such as the business Gordillistas) do not bother to attend community involvement in some project, community, which presumably points to the assemblies, and many of those or community support for some idea. the capitalist class, especially one within who attend do so as a way of getting You may live in a thriving community, a particular country. They may share work. Some opponents have felt or one that is undergoing community the interest of deriving profi t from those uncomfortable staying in Marinaleda regeneration. they employ and of having their access and so have moved to live elsewhere. Dictionaries offer various defi nitions to markets and trade routes defended. Hancox comments that in this of community, often along the lines of Yet they hardly constitute a community and other cases it is impossible to ‘a social group residing in a specifi c in any other way, and are often at each distinguish facts and gossip, leaving locality and often having a common other’s throats in terms of competition the reader with no idea of where the cultural and historical heritage’ (adapted for sales and profi ts. They may resemble truth lies. from dictionary.com). A community can another group viewed in similar terms, Marinaleda carries on some be a place itself, or ‘a social, religious, the criminal community. Andalusian traditions of anarchism occupational, or other group sharing Another use, and a very frequent one, and anarcho-syndicalism, and shows common characteristics or interests and is the international community. This might that people can live without large perceived or perceiving itself as distinct be taken to refer to the General Assembly landowners and capitalists. But it is in some respect from the larger society of the United Nations, but it usually has not a socialist village, just one way within which it exists’. a rather more specifi c meaning. Noam of organising production to survive This last defi nition is the one that Chomsky points out (www.chomsky.info/ under capitalism. underlies such expressions as the gay articles/200209--.htm) that it often just PB community, the Jewish community or means the United States and some allies the scientifi c community . The common and clients, and he refers to this by the characteristics may include sexual label Intcom. The international community orientation, language or religion, among in this sense is those who rule the most others, and need have little or nothing powerful capitalist state plus those who to do with where people live. There is hang onto its coattails. Whenever you often an assumption here that members read or hear about the international of communities of this kind do indeed community, you should ask yourself who share the same interest, whatever that it really includes: does it perhaps mean a may be. People may claim to speak for a tiny but extremely powerful and infl uential particular community or to be community group of people who do indeed see leaders, though it is not always clear on themselves as ‘distinct in some respect what basis such claims are made. from the larger society’? Of course, it is Benedict Anderson wrote a book nice for them if they can pass themselves on nationalism called Imagined off as representing the consensus of the Communities, since nations could not be world’s population. ►
Farage ‘stabbing people in the back’ and how UKIP is his ‘ego trip’. Farage describes them as ‘the dregs of our A Barrage of Farage rejects’. Despite these concerns, UKIP’s rise continues, with SWITCH ON the BBC news and Farage leading the march to its mythical utopia, where chances are you’ll be greeted society’s ills have been magicked away along with by the sight of Nigel Farage’s immigration. UKIP’s brutal and face, usually stretched out in a blinkered politics have found smug grin. The BBC’s apparent support partly because of response to accusations that it gives a Farage’s slick, confi dent image. disproportionate amount of airtime to UKIP has been He realises that maximum to give it even more exposure, albeit with an expose of its media exposure drums up seamier side. On Panorama’s The Farage Factor (BBC1), followers, especially if he plays steely determined reporter Darragh MacIntyre hopes to up to his persona. Farage wipe the smile off Farage’s fi zzog. (like Boris Johnson) promotes Some of the dodgy practices MacIntyre reveals include himself as a likeable bounder Farage endorsing e-cigarettes after UKIP was given eager to crash through the £25,000 by an e-cigarette manufacturer, and an allegation usual way of doing things, but that Farage siphoned off more than his share of party he still subscribes to the status funds to pay for his publicity campaign. The programme quo, with his viewpoint being also points out that Farage co-chairs the ‘Europe of particularly harsh. And The Freedom and Direct Democracy’ group within the European Farage Factor shows that Parliament, which includes openly homophobic and far-right he behaves in the same members. Unfortunately, these claims aren’t explored in self-serving, shady way enough detail, perhaps because UKIP advised its staff not as other politicians. to co-operate with MacIntyre’s investigation. More vocal are MIKE FOSTER the former members with a disgruntled axe to grind about
Socialist Standard November 2014 21 Meetings ► The Socialist Party’s Object For full details of all our meetings and events speaks of the means of production see our Meetup site: being owned and controlled ‘by and in http://www.meetup.com/The-Socialist-Party-of- Great-Britain/ Socialist Party Head Offi ce the interest of the whole community’. This Sunday 23 November 3.00pm. means what it says: all the people of the ‘The Case Against Fracking’ Earth will own the land, factories, offi ces East Anglia Regional Branch Speaker: Darrell Whitehead. and so on in common. And we will form a 2.00pm, Saturday 8 November 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 true community, one with shared interests ‘Music, Recuperation and Capitalism’ 7UN. but not distinct from or in opposition to Speaker: Stair anyone else or any other group. The The Reindeer Pub, 10 Dereham Road, East Anglia Regional Branch global community of World Socialism will Norwich NR2 4AY truly be a positive notion, offering support 12 - 4.00pm, Saturday 13 December and opportunity for all those who are part The Quebec Tavern, 93-97 Quebec of it. Kent & Sussex Regional Branch Road, Norwich NR1 4HY PB 2.00pm, Sunday 9 November Business meeting with time for discussion ‘Lessons of the First World War’ Speaker: Steve Clayton West London Branch from page 18 Martlets Hall (Griffi n Room) 8.00pm, Tuesday 16 December government banned the import of Civic Way, Burgess Hill, West Sussex Seasonal Social cotton textiles from India in order RH15 9NN (about 6 minutes walk from Venue TBA to boost the native textile industry. Burgess Hill rail station) Tariffs, government regulation and Yorkshire Regional Branch war played a crucial role in the Yorkshire Regional Branch 1.00pm, Saturday, 20 December growth and spread of capitalism. 2.00pm, Saturday 15 November The Victoria Hotel Capitalism can take various forms, Debate with the Alliance For Workers’ 28 Great George Street including state capitalism, where Liberty Leeds LS1 3DL the major industries are owned Socialist Party Speaker: Bill Martin Seasonal Social by the government. The degree of The Red Shed, Wakefi eld Labour Club, government interference can vary 18 Vicarage Street, Wakefi eld WF1 1QX in its extent and its nature, but Picture Credits Cover: Mark Reckless – © Mobilelinkchecker whichever variant exists it is based West London Branch on class ownership, commodity 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-Share 8.00pm, Tuesday 18 November Alike 3.0 Unported licence. production, the wages system and ‘The UKIP protest vote: What does it Canary Wharf – © Diliff 2008, Creative exploitation. So yes, it really is mean?’ Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 capitalism, and it needs to be done Speaker: Adam Buick Unported licence. p8: Ebola, 2014, CDC Global, CCA 2.0 away with as soon as possible. Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfi eld Terrace, PAUL BENNETT p9: ‘Jack In The Green Sweeps’ dance – © London W4 4JN Janet Richardson 2006, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence. Glasgow Branch p16: Romany caravans, 2009, Trish Steel, SOCIALIST STANDARD INDEX 8.30pm, Wednesday 19 November CCA-BY-SA 2.0 FOR 2013 ‘The Hollywood Blacklist’ p19: Barnsley town hall, 2006, Alan Z, CC For a copy send 2 second-class stamps BY-SA-2.5, Gilbert Daykin, The Tub: At the Speaker: Vic Vanni end of the coalface, 1934 to: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham Maryhill Community Centre High St, London p20: Notes From the End of History – 304 Maryhill Road amazon.co.uk. The Village Against the World SW4 7UN Glasgow G20 7YE – amazon.co.uk. p21: Farage, 2014, David Iliff, CC-BY-SA 3.0 p24: Match, 2012, Jith JR, CC-SA 3.0 Declaration of Principles
This declaration is the basis of our a class struggle between those who possess the powers of government, national and local, organisation and, because it is also an but do not produce and those who produce in order that this machinery, including these important historical document dating from but do not possess. forces, may be converted from an instrument the formation of the party in 1904, its original of oppression into the agent of emancipation language has been retained. 3.That this antagonism can be abolished only and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic by the emancipation of the working class and plutocratic. Object from the domination of the master class, by The establishment of a system of society the conversion into the common property 7.That as all political parties are but the based upon the common ownership of society of the means of production and expression of class interests, and as the and democratic control of the means distribution, and their democratic control by interest of the working class is diametrically and instruments for producing and the whole people. opposed to the interests of all sections of the distributing wealth by and in the interest master class, the party seeking working class of the whole community. 4.That as in the order of social evolution the emancipation must be hostile to every other working class is the last class to achieve its party. Declaration of Principles freedom, the emancipation of the working The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds class will involve the emancipation of all 8.The Socialist Party of Great Britain, mankind, without distinction of race or sex. therefore, enters the fi eld of political action 1.That society as at present constituted is determined to wage war against all other based upon the ownership of the means 5. That this emancipation must be the work of political parties, whether alleged labour of living (i.e. land, factories, railways, etc.) the working class itself. or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the by the capitalist or master class, and the members of the working class of this country consequent enslavement of the working 6.That as the machinery of government, to muster under its banner to the end that a class, by whose labour alone wealth is including the armed forces of the nation, speedy termination may be wrought to the produced. exists only to conserve the monopoly by the system which deprives them of the fruits of capitalist class of the wealth taken from the their labour, and that poverty may give place 2.That in society, therefore, there is an workers, the working class must organize to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as consciously and politically for the conquest of to freedom.
22 Socialist Standard November 2014 In 2009 it bought a lower-league team 50 Years Ago ACTION in Leipzig, but this time it was renamed RB Leipzig to comply with sponsorship regulations (we should explain that A stretch of hard labour REPLAY the RB does not stand for ‘Red Bull’). Seeing Red Supporters of other German clubs have THE NOISE and the ballyhoo are over complained that it does not follow the for the time being, and another Labour IT GIVES you wings, according to the rules on clubs having members who government has scraped into power. The advertising slogan. That’s the energy express their views at general meetings. opinion pollsters can sit back with a sigh drink Red Bull, though the Austrian When they played RB at home, Union and claim vindication for their sampling fi rm behind it is far more than just a Berlin fans displayed a banner ‘Football methods, while Tory ex ministers can take soft drinks company. It owns a very culture is dying in Leipzig’. the rest which, some of them have been successful Formula One motor-racing The drink (they are a drinks company, unkindly hinting, their colleagues need so team and sponsors a series of air races remember) is a minor variant on a badly. that constitute a world championship. beverage originally developed in There is not much doubt that under It has a US record label, Red Bull Thailand. There have been claims Wilson’s leadership the Labour Party Records, but sport is clearly its main that it poses a health risk, and it has has managed to paper over some of the marketing tool in the quest to establish been banned in some countries, cracks between its various factions and an exciting image for the brand. It though no risk has been conclusively fi ght generally as a spends about a billion euros a year on demonstrated. It is the case, however, well planned and dis- sports marketing, which helps it to sell that since 2008 six athletes have died ciplined force. By com- over fi ve billion cans of the stuff each in Red Bull-organised events, from parison, the Conserva- year. extreme skiing to motorbike racing. tive morale sank lower The main audience targeted by the Forty-nine percent of shares in Red as the campaign went advertising is young men who are into Bull belong to Dietrich Mateschitz, who on and the foolish re- extreme sports of various kinds, and the has an estimated net worth of over $5bn marks of such politi- company’s ownership of sports teams and owns an island off Fiji. Red Bull cal clowns as Quintin is part of this whole campaign. In 2005 gives him profi ts. Hogg must have been it bought an Austrian football team and PB like so many plums renamed it Red Bull Salzburg: they won dropping right into the Labour leader’s the league title by a mile in 2013–14. lap. Just like their Tory and Liberal oppo- nents, the Labour Party fought the elec- tion on a mass of promises; promises to FREE solve the problems which they promised 3-month trial subscription to the to solve when they last rose to power nearly twenty years ago. Housing and Socialist Standard health, pensions and peace, educa- tion and unemployment, all those things which workers are so sensitive about, were given a merciless hammering by La- bour spokesmen up and down the coun- try. It was an astute campaign, and it just succeeded. But now that the pendulum has swung a little, let us ask ourselves how much Wilson’s promises are really worth. Does he really stand much chance of remedy- ing the countless ills which so many politi- cians before him have failed to remedy? The Guardian of October 12th called him “a man with a heart full of indignation and humanity” but what will they call him when we get the multitude of excuses when his government fails to deliver the goods? We For more details about The Socialist Party, or to request a 3-month trial subscription have had excuses from the Labour Party to the Socialist Standard, please complete and return this form to 52 Clapham High before. We had them in 1924 and again in 1931, when they blamed their failures Street, London SW4 7UN. on to the lack of a working majority. Will they try the same line this time, when their Please send me an info pack majority is so small? Let us prick that par- Please send me a trial subscription to the Socialist Standard. ticular balloon before it leaves the ground. The Labour Party have taken power in the Name...... full knowledge of their standing in Parlia- Address ...... ment. They say that they intend to give “strong” government and to carry out their ...... full programme. They are confi dent now. Let them remember this when the time ...... comes for apologies and excuses...... (from editorial, Socialist Standard, Oc- tober 1964) Postcode......
Socialist Standard November 2014 23 Billionaires And Poverty of low-wage jobs, and a labor market more and more squeezed. More people Millions of workers throughout the that can be diffi cult for young parents are relying on foodbanks than ever before world struggle to survive but it is not all to break into, according to specialists (MUNCHIES, 22 September). So while doom and gloom in capitalism– some in the fi eld. Nearly one in six children in politicians boast of an economic recovery people are doing exceptionally well. Massachusetts was growing up in poverty this is the reality for many workers. ‘The population of dollar billionaires as of last year, data from the US Census across the globe has increased by a Bureau show; in households with single Fantasy And Reality net 155 to 2,325 in the past 12 months, mothers, it was one in four’ ( Boston From time to time the world’s media turns according to the latest census....’ ( Times , Globe, 22 September). It speaks volumes its attention to such issues as climate 18 September). The Singapore-based for the awfulness of capitalism that change and the environment. We have Wealth-X, a consultancy that tracks the such poverty exists in one of the most such attention at present. ‘World leaders number of the extremely rich has come advanced countries in the world. including US President Barack Obama up with the following fi gures are holding a summit on climate for billionaires: US 571, China change at the United Nations. The 190, UK 130, Germany 123 aim at the New York meeting is to and Russia 114. galvanise member states to sign up to a comprehensive new global Spiritual Values? climate agreement at talks in Paris One of the myths that religious next year. ‘Climate change is the leaders often like to support defi ning issue of our time. Now is is that religious people are the time for action,’ UN Secretary- not concerned about material General Ban Ki-moon said ahead things and only spiritual values of the summit’ ( BBC News, 23 are of any worth. Despite September). After millions of words this some of them do not are spoken and pious resolutions too badly when it comes to are passed we can confi dently money. ‘Topping the Forbes predict the outcome will be the list is Bishop David Oyedepo same as in the past - nothing! with an estimated net worth As long as the profi t motive is of US$150m (about R1.6bn). the driving force of capitalism He founded the Living Faith the environment is of secondary World Outreach Ministry in concern. Nigeria which is Africa’s largest worship centre with a seating capacity of 50,000. Foodbank Reality Meanwhile, Back On Earth Oyedepo owns four private jets, a A PC site specialising on food issues With India successfully placing a satellite publishing company, a university, and a has come up with some alarming in orbit around Mars local politicians high school’ ( Sowetan, 18 September). statistics. ‘Maidenhead town centre is a were not long in basking in the glory. To prove that Oyedepo is not unique postcard-perfect vision of dreary British Narendra Modi, the prime minister, visited - according to the United States consumerism with its rows of coffee the Space Research Organisation and entertainment conduit ‘MonteOz’, TB shops, Greggs bakeries, chain clothing declared that India had a great scientifi c Joshua is only the tenth richest pastor in stores and mobile phone shops. You’d future. ‘While Mr Modi is eager to use the world. be forgiven, then, for thinking a queue the success of the mission to trumpet swelling at 9.20 AM on the high street India’s economic and scientifi c prowess An Awful System was for some sort of fl ash sale. In fact, as a rising global power, critics said that Everyone is aware of the poverty of many it was the queue for the local food bank. the mission was a waste of money in a children in countries in Africa and Asia but There’s been a staggering 163 percent nation where 43 percent of children under what is not as well known is the plight of rise in foodbank use compared to the the age of 5 are chronically malnourished many children in the USA. ‘The persistent previous fi nancial year, and over 900,000 and 33 per cent of its 1.2 billion people rise of child poverty in Massachusetts adults and children have received three lack access to electricity’ ( Times , 25 – confi rmed by last week’s census days emergency food and support. September). Becoming a global power in fi gures for 2013 – is the result of costly Despite signs of economic recovery, the a capitalist world where might is right is a day care and housing, the proliferation poor have seen their income becoming higher priority.
ISSN24 0037 8259 Socialist Standard November 2014 Produced and published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN