Socialist Standard April 2021 1 Introducing the Socialist Party

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

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2 Socialist Standard April 2021 Editorial A woman’s lot

Every so often a terrible event takes 24 March). There have been rises in the ‘professional’ occupations and some place which reveals the inhuman nature incidence of rape. As the perpetrators are have become political leaders, women of the capitalist system. In May last invariably male, the focus has been on are still disproportionately employed year, the killing of George Floyd shone male behaviour. So there are suggestions in the lower-paid and less secure jobs a spotlight on the racism inherent in that young boys should be educated at and usually earn less than their male capitalism. On 3 March this year, the a young age to respect women and girls. counterparts. Under capitalism, women’s abduction and murder of Sarah Everard, The government has proposed sending bodies have been sexualised through the while she was making her way home plain-clothes officers into nightclubs and pornography industry and are frequently from a friend’s house in South London, Jenny Jones of the Green Party advocated used for the promotion of commercial laid bare the misogyny and sexism that a punitive curfew on all men after 6 products. is rife in modern society. This triggered pm. However, none of these measures This does not mean that women and an outpouring of anger among women at address the root of the problem. men have interests that are diametrically what they see as a society that engenders If we are to combat misogyny and opposed to each other. On the contrary, violence directed at them. This anger was sexism, we need to look beyond working-class women and men have further fuelled when the police roughly individual male behaviour. With the rise more in common with each other than handled women attending a vigil in of private property society, descent was they do with their counterparts in the Clapham Common on 13 March, and by traced through the male line, which capitalist class. They are both exploited the revelation that the alleged killer is a allowed mainly men to accumulate by the capitalist system. serving police officer. private wealth and become dominant in Therefore, working-class women and In the UK last year 118 women were the emerging ruling classes. The nuclear men must work together, not to work murdered by men. The pandemic has family, with the man at its head and for palliative reforms that only treat the witnessed a spike in instances of violent the woman’s role mainly as mother and symptoms of the problem, but to get rid abuses. According to a YouGov poll, 86 housekeeper, became the basic unit of of the capitalist system altogether and percent of young women in the UK have social organisation. As social production establish socialism, where everyone, said that they have experienced sexual moved away from home-based cottage regardless of gender, can participate harassment, with 71 percent of women industries to large-scale industry and equally. A political movement where of any age reporting the same (Four-fifths manufacturing, women’s social power women are not treated as equals is not a of young women in the UK have been was further eroded. Although women revolutionary socialist one. sexually harassed, survey finds, Guardian, have made advances in the better-paid

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Socialist Standard April 2021 3 The Price of Everything LAST YEAR, you will not be astonished the field. If they have to provide detailed publish several articles based on their to learn, a great many peer-reviewed recommendations on papers that should research in academic journals, in effect research papers on Covid-19 were have been ‘binned’ by the journal’s editor, moving responsibility for evaluating published. Upwards of 75,000, to be that’s less overall incentive for the reviewer doctoral research from university exact, with another 10,000 or so available and more useful research time wasted. committees to journal editors and on pre-print servers, i.e. awaiting peer That might just be one overworked and reviewers’ (bit.ly/2OwkAv6). So much for review (New Scientist, 16 December - bit. jaded view though? the appliance of science. ly/2OwgvqM). Great, you might think. Not according to psychologist Stuart Well ok, but papers are at least reliable The brainiacs of the world rolling up their Ritchie: ‘We think of science as being this because they’re full of citations of other sleeves and getting down to business on a objective thing that […] produces all these work, right? Right, but 90 percent of somewhat pressing matter. The world of scientific papers, which are almost sacred papers are never cited at all (Smithsonian, science should be delighted. things. But a lot of people don’t see how above), so citations tend to come Er, not exactly. Papers are being shunted the sausage is made. […] In a lot of cases, disproportionately from a very few papers. out at the rate of 4,000 a week, and who the science is useless, not worth the paper Then these citations in turn spawn further can possibly read all that? Scientists it is written on’ (New Scientist, 19 August citations, in an ever lengthening and say they’re not reading but drowning, 2020 - bit.ly/3qLYDoZ). In his view, the uncritical chain, until the original paper and they want new smart tools to wade review system isn’t up to much either. can end up all but forgotten. through it all (bit.ly/3bNJIGD). Even if reviewers try to check, they usually To give one example, low-fat diets have But still, it’s been an unusual year, so can’t get access to the raw data, so they been a nutritional shibboleth for decades, you’d expect a tsunami of research papers, can’t really verify what they’re reading. yet when the lo-carb craze kicked off a few wouldn’t you? Actually, this is no different And on top of that, they can often guess years ago and sent seismic shocks through from any other year. Scientists have for a where a paper has come from, despite the the weight loss industry, some researchers long time been decrying their ‘attention supposed anonymity, so bias can creep in. actually looked again at the published decay’ in the midst of an ever-increasing But even so, it can’t be right that people research on dietary fat. It turned out that flood of academic studies (Independent, are writing useless papers, surely? What all the established ‘knowledge’ about fats 11 March 2015 - bit.ly/3eEQiB0). And incentive is there to do that? Are they in diets, and the official advice given by the their libraries need a lot of magazine simply incompetent? Here the in-house US and UK for decades, stemmed from just subscriptions too. No one knows how editor becomes especially illuminating. 6 studies in the 1970s. Even those studies many scientific journals there are, but To paraphrase the conversation: ‘You were heavily qualified by the researchers several estimates point to around 30,000, have to understand how the system at the time, with some saying dietary with close to two million articles published works. The way academics are judged advice based on them should never have each year (bit.ly/2OrH4h4). is in terms of publications. These days, been issued (bit.ly/2NilfzI). What everyone Alright, but presumably all this stuff most staff in university departments don’t assumed was rock-solid science in reality must get read eventually? have tenure, they have to write funding stood on very shaky foundations. Again no. A 2007 study estimated that bids to cover their wages. If they are Wasted effort is bad enough at the half of all academic papers are read by managing research projects, they have best of times, but when humans are only three people, their author, and two to write even more extravagant funding faced with a crisis on the scale of the journal editors (Smithsonian Magazine, 25 bids to cover their workers’ wages as Covid pandemic, capitalism’s cash-fixated March 2014 – bit.ly/3csJpjG). well as their own. Funding agencies approach to science reveals itself as Yes, but all the same, it’s all worthwhile get their money ultimately from the hopelessly inept. It’s a no-brainer to say research, isn’t it? government, and they are also under the that researchers should not write bad You’d presume so. But a recent cosh to justify what they have funded. papers in the first place. But for that to discussion with a friendly in-house editor How do they do that? By promising the happen, the pressure for funding would in the field of epidemiology sheds a government ‘deliverables’. What are these have to come off, so that they could stop somewhat different light on things. It deliverables? Generally, academic papers. chasing their own tails. Could capitalism seems that much of what gets sent to Government bean-counters aren’t best do this? Unlikely. It hates unquantifiable high-impact journals is, basically, pretty low placed to tell good papers from bad, so returns. As they say about cynics, it grade. An editor’s job is to decide which it becomes a matter of ‘never mind the knows the price of everything, and papers are worth sending out for peer quality, feel the width’. The upshot is the value of nothing. But socialism, by review, but this editor says that 85-90% of that researchers pay the rent by writing making everything free, would do it at a the papers she receives effectively ‘go in vast numbers of papers, many of which stroke, scrap the entire byzantine funding the bin’, with only around 10-15% going will never be read. The whole thing is a hierarchy, from government down, and out to peer review. Some journals save funding merry-go-round, driven not by the scrap the capitalist money system that money by not bothering with an in-house needs of science so much as the needs of engenders the whole ludicrous business. sifting process, and send everything people to chase their next pay cheque.’ Then researchers would be able to straight out to review, but this inevitably To make matters worse, there’s ‘a focus on the real work of expanding our creates a bottleneck. And reviewers, it growing trend in doctoral education knowledge, instead of churning out sops needs to be borne in mind, don’t get paid, to dispense with the traditional PhD to fulfil the next funding bid. their motivation being assumed to be dissertation and replace it with the PJS keeping abreast of new developments in requirement for doctoral students to

4 Socialist Standard April 2021 workers space to organise’, and this is important and essential so Was Trump a fascist? that workers can plan for a society to supersede capitalism and be able to vote to set up that society when they decide to do Dear Editors, so. However, we cannot agree that Trump could have seriously carried out threats to remove workers’ space to organise (i.e. I subscribe to the Socialist Standard (and in former years to their long established democratic ‘rights’) and to close down the the Western Socialist) and reside in Boston, US. I am writing in American electoral system. Did he even make such threats? So, response to articles in the Standards of Sept, Oct, and Dec 2020 given that such a thing was not seriously on the agenda, a vote concerning the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum ness of the US for Biden was indeed a vote for Tweedledee. presidential candidates. You are right to say that Biden’s policies may well be more anti- As soon as I was old enough to vote I enthusiastically voted for Russian and anti-North Korean than Trump’s, but all this is part Democrat Lyndon Johnson for president and two years later for of the international capitalist power game to gain influence over Republican Ed Brooke for US senate because both had proclaimed trade routes, raw materials and markets. And since the rulers of themselves peace candidates while running against open all these countries are playing that same power game, we should warmongers. Shortly after the votes were counted both turned neither support or sympathise with any of them and certainly not into war candidates. I grew wise to the shell game and between suggest, as you seem to be doing, that there is anything in the 1966 and 2020 never voted for a Democrat or Republican for any least ‘socialist’ or ‘democratic’ in the horribly misnamed ‘People’s but the most local offices. Over the years I cast ballots only for Democratic Republic of Korea’. candidates promoting socialism of various sorts. As a long-time reader of the Socialist Standard, you will This election I voted for Biden with no illusions that he would obviously know about the kind of socialist society we advocate other than avidly promote the interests of the capitalists and – moneyless, wageless, marketless and based on common likely engage in more antagonistic relations with Russia and ownership, social cooperation and free access. In view of this maybe the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The reason it seems a little surprising that you should view Ignazio Silone’s I cast that ballot was that Trump was openly indicating that he novel Bread and Wine as ‘a stunning depiction of life in a was moving towards creating a fascist dictatorship. Hardly a free society’. Our reading of it is that it is the story of a brave joking matter. individual desperately struggling to survive in the genuinely In your editorial ‘How real is democracy today?’ you state ‘ ... fascist society that was Italy in the 1930s. – Editors. we must not read into this that capitalist democracy is a sham that workers should have nothing to do with ... the workers were not handed their democratic rights on a plate, they had to struggle for them...’ These rights: speech, assembly, religion, freedom from unreasonable search & seizure and the rest are extremely valuable and deserve being protected – to that end I have membership of the American Civil Liberties Union. The state is regularly engaged in attacking these rights but the system of capitalist democracy allows workers space to organize. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco showed us what fascism is. When a Trump is Credit: Alisdare Hickson Alisdare Credit: openly threatening such a thing I decided a vote for Biden was a wise thing. Fraternally STEVE KELLERMAN PS For a stunning depiction of life in a free society I recommend the novel Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone.

Reply: You say that Trump was ‘openly indicating that he was moving towards creating a fascist dictatorship’ and that this was ‘hardly a joking matter’. Apart from the fact that little that capitalist leaders do is ‘a joking matter’ and indeed can sometimes be a matter of life and death for workers, this does not mean that one of these leaders can at will take over the state and set up a fascist regime, Hitler or Mussolini-style. As recent articles in the Socialist Standard have pointed out, the US, as a developed capitalist state with a longstanding electoral process, has a well-entrenched mechanism for preventing an individual from exercising unrestrained personal power. The result of the November election helps to illustrate that, but, even had it gone the other way, Trump, despite his rhetoric and all else, would still not have been able to set up his own autocratic rule. In fact he would have stumbled on, attempting, always unsuccessfully, to tame the capitalism system and the anarchic market forces which dictate its ups and downs, much the same as Biden is doing now. You are right to say that capitalist democracy, limited as it is, ‘allows

Socialist Standard April 2021 5 COOKING THE BOOKS

as a defender of Big Business and its economics editor of The Times, pointed Tories increase profits showed the extent to which the out very pertinently: Labour Party is committed to maintaining ‘The rescue should ensure that the tax on profits capitalism more or less as it is (as well consumer, who accounts for two thirds One of the surprising measures as assuring the capitalist class that their of national output, is able to start up announced by Rishi Sunak in his interests will be in a safe pair of hands if the economic engine. The more difficult budget on 3 March was the increase of he becomes Prime Minister). Given this, bit is keeping it going. That requires corporation tax from its current level Starmer’s position was not without logic: business investment. There, the chancellor of 19 percent to 25 percent in 2023. if you support capitalism, driven as it is unveiled a big new policy – a temporary Corporation tax is a direct tax on profits, by the pursuit of profits, and wish to take two-year capital ‘super-deduction’. For so not something to be expected from on the responsibility of administering it, every pound spent on machinery or the traditional party of Big Business. you have to accept that profits have to be equipment, a company will be able to allowed. Rumours that this might be on the get 25p back in lower corporation taxes. cards completely wrong-footed the Sunak’s defence to business for raising Unlike any previous recession, businesses, Labour Party. Keith Starmer had asked the tax on their profits from 2023 was in aggregate, have built up a £100 billion Johnston at PMQs on 24 February that in the intervening two years they cash buffer. The government wants them whether he would not ‘agree with me could get a generous tax break on new to spend it’ (Times, 4 March). today that now is not the time for tax investment in equipment and machinery. No doubt they will spend some of it, increases for families and businesses’. According to another cabinet minister, but this ‘big new policy’ is yet another This led to an article in The Times the Oliver Dowden, businesses ‘are sitting on measure to try to get a horse to drink. following day headed ‘Tory rebels and very large amounts of cash’ (Times, 11 Just as horses won’t drink unless they are Labour ready to block corporation March); in other words, on profits that thirsty so businesses won’t invest unless tax increase’. To be fair, this brought have not been re-invested. The aim of there’s a prospect of profit. The super- protests from some Labour MPs who the so-called ‘super-deduction’ is to get deduction might not work, any more than remembered that in its manifesto for the business to invest these, a recognition low interest rates or quantitative easing 2019 general election the Labour Party that what in the end drives growth is have. Business will invest but will it be had proposed to increase corporation business investment rather than consumer more than they would have done anyway? tax to 26 percent. spending. With the lifting of the anti- That depends on the prospect of profit covid restrictions, consumer spending will Starmer backed down but the fact which no government can control. grow next year but, as Philip Aldrick, the that he was prepared to present Labour

The new quarterly journal of the World Socialist Party of the United States is being printed in London The first 2 editions are now available to order priced £5 for each edition including UK P&P (£8 overseas)

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6 Socialist Standard April 2021 Socialist Election Activity

In the elections on 6 May the Socialist Party is contesting the Cardiff Central seat in the Welsh Assembly and two wards in Folkestone in the Kent County Council elections. Some 43,000 election manifestos will be distributed in Cardiff by Royal Mail while in Kent about 26,500 electors will be offered the choice of voting Socialist.

‘Great Resets’ The pandemic has led to much thrilling talk about Great Resets and rethinking the future. Wales’s 6th election since devolution is taking place on 6 May. Do you think that’s going to cause a Great Reset or even much change at all? You know very well it won’t. And why not? Because most of the candidates don’t want change. Instead they will be wittering on about how they propose to fix the faulty system we live under - capitalism - so it’s maybe a tiny bit better for you and yours. But every politician says this. In every party. In every election. And they never really fix anything. The reason they can’t fix capitalism’s problems is because capitalism IS the problem. If you want to vote for these hopeless ‘fixers’ on 6 May, go right ahead. If you expect change, don’t hold your breath. But one of the candidates isn’t saying any of this. Brian Johnson of the Socialist Party of Great Britain says you can’t fix capitalism, because it only works for the tiny minority who possess most of the wealth. And if you can’t fix it, you certainly shouldn’t vote for it. Especially as there’s an alternative. Capitalism has revolutionised our science and technology so that we can now produce a global sufficiency of the basics of life. That means we could abolish buying and selling, take the world back from the rich, and run it collectively as a communally owned resource. It’s not ‘human nature’ that’s causing poverty, inequality, wars and global warming. It’s the fact that we have a 21st century planet being trashed by an obsolete 19th-century economic system that gives all the power to the tiny minority. Universal free access would be simpler, cheaper, faster, smarter, a genuine Great Reset. Vote for Brian Johnson if you like the idea of real change. Alternatively, there’s always your trusty ‘fixers’.

Further information and offers of help: [email protected] Phone: 02920-615826.

We can do better than this! The residents of Folkestone know all too well the powerlessness of life under capitalism. The system that demands that nothing is made, built or planted unless someone, somewhere can profit from it. The construction of monstrous blocks of ‘high end’ apartments along Marine Parade – with the harbour next - have nothing to do with solving Folkestone’s housing crisis, and everything to do with raking in huge profits for developers. Developers are not paid to care about the homeless, those living in sub-standard accommodation or the young struggling to afford rocketing private rents at a time of rising unemployment and economic crisis. But it’s easy to blame developers. They are as much at the mercy of the profit system as the rest of us - although their wealth cushions them from its worst effects. Doubtless they would much rather build beautiful homes that fit the scale of Folkestone and meet the needs of local people. But that’s not why houses are built under capitalism. Now imagine a society where all of us, not just in Folkestone but across the world, actually own the resources of the world. Where we decide together what we build based on people’s needs, not just the demands of the profit system. Then what could Marine Parade, the harbour and Princes Parade look like? In this election only the Socialist Party stands for the total abolition of the profit system and its replacement by a global society based on the common ownership and democratic control of all the resources of our amazing planet. It’s time to consign capitalism to the dustbin of history.

Further information and offers of help: Email: [email protected] Mobile: 07971 71556

Socialist Standard April 2021 7 Contact details website: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb email: [email protected] UK BRANCHES & CONTACTS Cornwall. Contact: Harry Sowden, Contact: Richard Botterill, 21 Pen-Y-Bryn Rd, All meetings online during the pandemic. 16 Polgine Lane, Troon, Camborne, TR14 9DY. Gabalfa, Cardiff, CF14 3LG. 02920-615826. See page 23. 01209 611820. [email protected] LONDON East Anglia. Contact: David Porter, Eastholme, North London branch. Meets 3rd Thurs. 8pm at Bush Drive, Eccles-on-Sea, NR12 0SF. 01692 INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, NW5 582533. Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs 2RX. Contact: Chris Dufton 020 7609 0983 Rd, Hethersett, NR9 3JD. 01603 814343. LATIN AMERICA [email protected] Essex. Contact: Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Contact: J.M. Morel, Calle 7 edif 45 apto South London branch. Meets last Saturday in Billericay, CM12 0EX. [email protected]. 102, Multis nuevo La loteria, La Vega, Rep. month, 2.30pm. Head Office, 52 Clapham High Cambridge. Contact: Andrew Westley, Dominicana. St, SW4 7UN. Contact: 020 7622 3811. [email protected]. 07890343044. West London branch. Meets 1st Tues. 8pm. AFRICA Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace (corner IRELAND Kenya. Contact: Patrick Ndege, Sutton Court Rd), W4. Cork. Contact: Kevin Cronin, 5 Curragh Woods, PO Box 13627-00100, GPO, Nairobi [email protected] Frankfield, Cork. 021 4896427. Zambia. Contact: Kephas Mulenga, [email protected] PO Box 280168, Kitwe. MIDLANDS NORTHERN IRELAND West Midlands regional branch. Meets Belfast Contact: Nigel McCullough. ASIA last Sat. 3pm (check before attending). 02890 930002 Japan. Contact: Michael. japan.wsm@gmail. com Contact: Stephen Shapton. 01543 821180. Email: [email protected]. SCOTLAND AUSTRALIA Edinburgh branch. Meets 1st Thurs. 7-9pm. Contact: Trevor Clarke, NORTH The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace (above [email protected] North East Regional branch. Victoria Street), Edinburgh. Contact: J. Moir. Contact: P. Kilgallon, c/o Head Office, 52 0131 440 0995. [email protected] EUROPE Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN. Branch website: Denmark. Contact: Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund Lancaster branch. Meets 3rd Mon, 3pm, http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/ 9, Floor 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby J. Friends Meeting House, Meeting House Lane. Glasgow branch. Meets 1st and 3rd Tues. at Germany. Contact: Norbert. Ring to confirm: P. Shannon, 07510 412 261, 7pm in Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill [email protected] [email protected]. Road, Glasgow. Contact: Peter Hendrie, 75 Norway. Contact: Robert Stafford. Manchester branch. Contact: Paul Bennett, Lairhills Road, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0LH. [email protected] 6 Burleigh Mews, Hardy Lane, M21 7LB. 0161 01355 903105. Italy. Contact: Gian Maria Freddi, 860 7189. [email protected]. Via Poiano n. 137, 37142 Verona. Bolton. Contact: H. McLaughlin. 01204 844589. Dundee. Contact: Ian Ratcliffe, 12 Finlow Spain. Contact: Alberto Gordillo, Avenida del Cumbria. Contact: Brendan Cummings, Terrace, Dundee, DD4 9NA. 01382 698297. Parque. 2/2/3 Puerta A, 13200 Manzanares. 19 Queen St, Millom, Cumbria LA18 4BG. Ayrshire. Contact: Paul Edwards 01563 541138. Doncaster. Contact: Fredi Edwards, [email protected]. COMPANION PARTIES OVERSEAS [email protected] Lothian Socialist Discussion @Autonomous Centre Edinburgh, ACE, 17 West Montgomery Socialist Party of Canada/Parti Socialiste SOUTH/SOUTHEAST/SOUTHWEST Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA. Meets 4th Weds. du Canada. Box 31024, Victoria B.C. V8N 6J3 Kent and Sussex regional branch. Meets 2nd 7-9pm. Contact: F. Anderson 07724 082753. Canada. [email protected] Sun. 2pm at The Muggleton Inn, High Street, Maidstone ME14 1HJ. Contact: spgb.ksrb@ WALES World Socialist Party (India) 257 Baghajatin ‘E’ worldsocialism.org. South Wales Branch (Swansea) Block (East), Kolkata - 700086, 033- 2425-0208. South West regional branch. Meets 3rd Sat. Meets 2nd Mon, 7.30pm (except January, [email protected] 2pm at the Railway Tavern, 131 South Western April, July and October), Unitarian Church, High Road, Salisbury SP2 7RR. Street, SA1 1NZ. Contact: Geoffrey Williams, 19 World Socialist Party (New Zealand) Contact: Stephen Harper spgbsw@gmail,com Baptist Well Street, Waun Wen, Swansea SA1 P.O. Box 1929, Auckland, NI, New Zealand. Brighton. Contact: Anton Pruden, 6FB. 01792 643624. [email protected] South Wales Branch (Cardiff) World Socialist Party of the United States. Canterbury. Contact: Rob Cox, 4 Stanhope Meets 2nd Saturday 12 noon (January, April, P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA 02144 USA. Road, Deal, Kent, CT14 6AB. July and October) Cafe Nero, Capitol Shopping [email protected] Luton. Contact: Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive, Centre, Queens Street, Cardiff. LU2 7LP.

8 Socialist Standard April 2021 The ‘Polar Silk Road’ GREENLAND IS a self-governing territory the world, it has no intention of being left withdrew from the EU in 1985. of Denmark, and has a Gross Domestic out in the cold. Klaus Dodds, professor of ‘An independent Greenland could, Product of around $3 billion – similar geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University for example, offer basing rights to to the Faroe Islands, another semi- of London, explained ‘The Chinese have either Russia or China or both,’ said Fen autonomous Danish possession. That GDP made no secret that they have their eyes Hampson, head of the international is about to change if the multinational on the Arctic’s fish and minerals.’ security programme at the Canadian mining corporations have their way. In 2016, Denmark reversed plans to Centre for International Governance Various mining companies are vying sell a former naval command centre after Innovation think tank, noting the desire for mining rights. Greenland’s royalties a Hong Kong-based company, General by some to fully secede from Denmark. expect to be around 1.5 billion Danish Nice Group, emerged as a bidder. Later ‘I am not saying this would happen, but crowns ($245 million) each year from a in 2018, the then US Defense Secretary it is a scenario that would have major Chinese-linked corporation – equivalent James Mattis successfully pressured geo-strategic implications, especially to roughly 15 percent of Greenland’s Denmark not to allow China to finance if the Northwest Passage becomes a transit route for shipping, which is what is public spending, such revenues could three commercial airports on Greenland, give it leverage over politicsCredit: Shekhar in Greenland. Yadav happening in the Russian Arctic.’ over fears they could give Beijing a military Already disputes on policies towards The melting ice means long-distance sea foothold. mining have caused ructions within passages, such as the Northern Sea Route ‘China can access Arctic resources Greenland’s government. (NSR) from eastern Siberia to the North through foreign investment,’ Michael Greenland possesses vast resources of Atlantic, are increasingly navigable. Sailing metals known as ‘rare earths,’ the world’s Byers, an Arctic expert at the University a container ship from China to northern biggest undeveloped deposits, according of British Columbia said. ‘And foreign Europe via the NSR can substantially to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). investment is a lot cheaper than trying to shorten the journey time via the Indian They are crucial in modern technology conquer something.’ Ocean and Suez canal. manufacturing and the renewable energy Whereas environmentalists fear All this competition over territory, industry. The prices of many rare earth large-scale mining could harm the trade routes, resources and mining rights elements have jumped in anticipation of remote island’s pristine eco-system, are disputes about the division of spoils rising demand for electric vehicles. China many of the 56,000 Greenlanders, while between our masters. It is they and not accounts for about 90 percent of global worried about pollution, see mining as us who exercise power. Our Greenland supply and back in 2010 China threatened the key to develop their economy which fellow-workers will eventually come to to cut off its sale of rare earth metals to will end the economic dependence comprehend that their ‘independence’ Japan so there exists concerns about the upon Denmark and set Greenland will be in name only and should not need to reduce reliance upon China. Other on the road to full sovereignty. Long be fooled by extravagant promises and states require a counterbalance to any before the UK’s Brexit, Greenland lucrative pledges. market control that could be exerted by held a referendum and subsequently ALJO a single large producer and Greenland’s huge deposits could secure a solution for many years to come. Always with an eye for valuable real estate, Trump in 2019 offered to buy the island (In 1946 Harry S. Truman offered Denmark $100 million for it.) A year after Trump’s failed bid, the United States announced a $12.1 million economic aid package for Greenland to increase its influence. Apart from its potential assets another reason for American renewed interest is that China is expanding its interests in Greenland. China views Greenland as a part of what they call the ‘Polar Silk Road’ and one of the interested mining companies happens to be partly Chinese- owned. China may be a thousand miles away but as the second largest economy in Socialist Standard April 2021 9 Warring Windsors by Trump supporters in the US or those of Marine Le Pen in ome socialists will have loftily ignored last month’s media frenzy over the Meghan and Harry interview, dismissing in those two republican countries. Sit as puerile celebrity trivia of no concern to socialist France.The anachronistic And incidentally, ‘batshittery’ tourism ofseems it all towas rub entertainingly along just fine revolutionaries. Quite right too. But some of us were probably summed up by Patrick Freyne in the Irish Times: ‘The glued to our TVs, agog for scurrilous gossip, just like hundreds contemporary royals have no real power. They serve entirely of millions of others around the world. Everyone loves a bit of to enshrine classism in the British nonconstitution. They scandal. live in high luxury and low autonomy, cosplaying as their ancestors, and are the subject of constant psychosocial with their knives stuck in each other’s backs. If history for projection from people mourning the loss of empire’ (8 March workersSocialists has will always not beprimarily surprised meant to find the rulinghistory class of inter-class families - bit.ly/3l5dXvL). struggle, for the dominant class it’s been a history of intra- Even so, this hardly explains the global fascination with class struggle, involving war, betrayal, adultery, child murder, the UK royalty. Joking aside about the average intelligence gluttony, poisonings, incest, rape and every other depravity by of the UK royal-lover, what’s in it for the gawping masses in which they fancy themselves our social betters. Maybe the UK other countries? Presumably the Hollywood fairytale of it royals don’t murder each other as much as they used to but all. In capitalism, in theory, anyone can get rich through hard make no mistake, underneath each Windsor breast beats the work. In practice everyone knows that’s a load of hokum. But icy heart of a Plantagenet or a Borgia. in a fairytale, anyone just might fall in love with a handsome prince or princess, and be swept off their feet to an orchestral how they, with the backing of their fawning media admirers, canBut possibly two things carry really off the do effrontery baffle socialists. of describing The first themselves thing is about that? as ‘working royals’. This audacious bit of stagecraft can surely scoreWhat’s and also a shower intriguing of Disney is what fireworks, the rest andof the what’s ruling not class to love get out of the royals, given that the ‘taxpayers’ money that the word ‘work’ out of pays for them really allonly recognition. succeed through These a collective willingness to redefine derives from the business coddled, self-important owners. No doubt the parasites are given British state, having little everything they could possibly want, riches, even less since Brexit, luxury, sycophantic andoverseas virtually influence no military and adulation at every turn, capability worth talking and yet it’s still not enough about, relies heavily on the for them. Now they have to prestige of old tradition, take from us the only thing and UK industry too they don’t possess – the sees a commercial virtue right to call themselves in being touched with workers. Never mind that the fairy dust of royal they live on rent from land patronage. The prestige ownership and interest of a thousand-year rule from investments, and in is a marketable asset that Trump, for all his money business deals, to say and self-aggrandisement, nothingsome cases of the profit roughly from just couldn’t buy. Next to £100m a year for the the British royals, even the ‘Sovereign Fund’, and most respectable global never mind the untold politician looks like a (literally, because it’s a secret) private royal wealth and assets. jumped-up used-car salesman. But are they really worth the Nope, just like anything’s a poem or a piece of art nowadays considerable fortune the capitalist class pays them every year if somebody says it is, and anyone’s a woman if they say they to perform merely light ceremonial tasks? are, a royal is a worker if they self-identify as such. Perhaps Well, it doesn’t really concern socialists either way, in one us workers should all self-identify as royals in that case sense. Republican countries are just as capitalist and just as (probably true, genetically speaking), and demand to be brutal to their workers as monarchical ones, and sometimes treated as their social equals in turn. more so, which is why we wouldn’t bother advocating republican reform. A commodity is no more socialist for being discussion, in an advanced capitalist country in the 21st royalty-free. But it makes you think, doesn’t it? If workers are century.The other There baffling are hardly thing any is why royal we families are still left having anymore this as so mesmerised by tinsel and glitter that they can’t even agree countries around the world have sensibly dispensed with such to put a bunch of pampered parasites out to grass in favour of archaic mediaevalisms. But not the UK. When King Farouk someone who, for all their capitalist faults, is at least electable, of Egypt was overthrown and forced to abdicate in 1952, he they’re probably not going to support a socialist revolution is supposed to have remarked that soon there would only be anytime soon. At the moment, the republican voice is fairly quiet, despite these latest public squabbles by the royals, and Diamonds and Spades. egregious accusations of child sex that have done the rounds five kings left in the world, the kings of England, Hearts, Clubs, lately. But if the voice grows again, and swells to a chorus, understand. Of course we know it’s all wrapped up with rabid socialists can at least see that as an encouraging sign. nationalismThis is something by red-top socialists readers find and genuinely those of thehard Daily to Heil, PJS but you don’t need royalty for rabid nationalism, as shown

10 Socialist Standard April 2021 demo or protest, citing health concerns.

currently going through parliament, protestors causing ‘annoyance’Under the couldPolice, theoretically Crime, Sentencing be jailed and for Courts up to 10Bill, years. The government has passed almost 400 new laws and regulations in the past year, only a few of which have been approved by parliament. Online social media groups are now being censored. The Department for Education has instructed schools not to use materials from organisations working to overthrow capitalism.. There have been state shut-downs of the internet all over the world. Protestors have been using the internet

Governments are increasingly resorting to shutdowns in timesto organise of crisis, online arguing and tothey assemble are necessary and protest for public offline. safety or curbing the spread of misinformation. Misinformation potentially meaning information contrary to what the government wants you to have. The worst offender is not t may not have not escaped the notice of some, the irony some openly authoritarian state but India, the so-called of the police response to the vigil for Sarah Everard ‘largest democracy in the world’. In Germany Netz GD is I a network enforcement law which compels social media policemen man-handling women, peacefully gathered to companies to remove ‘hate speech’ and other illegal content, mournon Clapham the death Common. of Sarah There a 33-year-old were scenes woman of big snatched burly from the street and murdered, allegedly by an off-duty police code. This has been criticised by the Human Rights Watch sayingillegal content‘this law as sets defined a dangerous in the 22 precedent provisions for of other the criminal anger over domestic violence, street harassment and sexual governments to restrict speech online by forcing companies to assault,officer. Women mainly perpetratednot only came by to men mourn against but womento express and their girls. censor on the government’s behalf’. The protest had been ruled unlawful due to the restrictions card is the only acceptable document used for everything felt that this was too important to adhere to the rules. Also fromIn China opening the a citizen bank account identification to registering number for system a mobile or ID of the 2020 Coronavirus legislation, but women obviously phone. It is used to buy train tickets and pass through security for organising a demonstration of about 40 people protesting checkpoints and can be inspected by police for any reason; againstin March the a 61-yeargovernment’s old nurse paltry was 1 issuedpercent with pay a increase £10,000 for fine these cards also state the holder’s ethnic identity. Boris NHS workers. Johnson had at one time scoffed at the idea of ID cards and Governments need to keep control, even if this means moment we have to have special permission by way of a form States are passing ever more draconian laws, whittling away orreferring permit to to China travel said out ofit wouldthe country, never remindinghappen in Britain.one of the At oldthe perceivedquashing dissent freedoms and workers stifling thinkanti-establishment they have. Laws ideas. that are USSR. There is the ongoing debate in parliament regarding the rushed through in response to calamities like the attack on the introduction of health passports which seem highly likely now despite murmurings to the contrary. supposed to be temporary, however, these laws so often never How long before these ‘ID’ cards carry more information getUSA repealed. Twin Towers and the Coronavirus pandemic were and are than our supposedly private health status? The USA Patriot Act, designed to counteract terrorism, was At the moment surveillance technology is mostly used for signed into law by George Bush in October 2001 six weeks law enforcement and selling us stuff but information could after the attack on the towers. The Act expanded the abilities theoretically be shared with companies or departments of law enforcement for surveillance, including the tapping without our permission and used to monitor us. of domestic and international phones, and abuses of the Act An article in the South China Post (18 November) tells us: led to government spying on innocent individuals. It had to ‘Facial recognition technology has been increasingly be periodically reviewed because of concerns that certain deployed by countries to secure access and improve provisions could be used to violate privacy rights. Most of the surveillance especially during the pandemic. The technology Act, however, been written into permanent law. is controversial not just because data leaks are common but because of its potential to exacerbate racial or gender biases’ and 11 of the Human Rights Act which refer to freedom of (bit.ly/30VRHeD). expressionIn 2020 the and UK freedom Coronavirus of assembly Act over-rode and association. Articles 10 The In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, several Guardian (3 November) commented: companies including IBM, Microsoft and Amazon announced ‘Protections for protestors are set to be removed from the they would either pause selling their facial recognition technology or stop producing it entirely. exemption that permits demonstrations to take place with We are now encouraged to snitch on our neighbours for additionalCoronavirus conditions rules under to mitigate the second the national spread of lockdown. the virus Anis not following the rules, snitching on those in receipt of expected to be omitted from fresh regulations being drawn up from this Thursday. The police had allowed and facilitated Workers turning on workers leaving the establishment some demonstrations, however there have been questions unfettered.‘undeserving’ benefits or lately on Covid ‘non conformers’. as to whether the prohibitions on demonstrations were The Socialist Party does not advocate reforms but we do impartially and proportionately policed’. denounce the worst excesses the state can dish out. What we Once the pandemic has subsided and we go back to no cannot afford is complacency and the conviction that it could restrictions as promised, one wonders whether these laws will never happen here. be repealed or will they be dragged out every time there is a CARLA D

Socialist Standard April 2021 11 en years ago, I found myself the recipient of several promote aggressive angry emails, all sent to my work email address. policies, armament, TMy crime had been to write a letter to a student chauvinism, newspaper in which I criticised a student’s proposal to make discrimination it compulsory for university staff to wear a red poppy. The on the grounds of details of this affair aren’t relevant here and my opinions race or religion’. Such groups and no communist or socialist should have anything to do with movements are theabout thing). the red Presumably poppy are unaware easy to findof the elsewhere irony, one (in outraged summary: still with us, of nationalist emailed me to say that the Second World War course, and they should be countered today’, and also wrote to my line manager recommending that at every turn. But we would argue that for socialists, it Iwas be disciplinedjustified, since for assertingit guaranteed otherwise. ‘the freedoms For many that on we the enjoy right, doesn’t make sense to suppress repellent social and political this is what free speech really means: freedom of speech for views – something Marcuse himself recognised would be me and for the people who agree with me. ‘undemocratic’ (albeit, in his view, a necessary step towards But some – perhaps an increasing number – of those on achieving a more genuine democracy). In general terms, the left of politics are also eager to no-platform or ‘cancel’ expressions of prejudice and hatred should be permitted, their real or supposed ideological opponents. Weaker not because there exists some ideal ‘free market of ideas’, but manifestations of cancel culture include ostracism, blanking, because it is only by discussing and debating them that their ghosting and gossip-mongering – the tactics of an online vile nature can be exposed. As John Milton famously put it in left that often seems hellbent on plumbing the depths of his Areopagitica ‘Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever infantilism, narcissism and moralism. Sometimes leftists go knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? even further, attacking the validity of free expression itself and Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing’. seeking to curtail it. In the ‘wokest’ corners of the web today, We understand the appeal of cancel culture. After all, many appeals to the principle of free discourse are often mockingly of the most prominent free speech advocates in today’s public parsed as ‘muh freeze peach’ and the essential foundation of sphere are unpleasant conservatives such as Toby Young, who radical political debate – being able to write or say what you think in dialogue with (or opposition to) others – is more and channel to complain that you can’t say anything these days. more ridiculed as the outdated obsession of centrist squares, Butseems we to should pop up not every embrace five minutes cancel culture on a British just because television right out-of-touch boomers, or, to use the argot, ‘literal fascists’. wingers oppose it. For one thing, free speech, as Thomas Left-wing suspicion of free speech is nothing new. To cite Scanlon argued long ago, is a good in itself, regardless of any a classic example, Herbert Marcuse’s essay on ‘Repressive consequences its exercise might have: this is because freedom Tolerance’ (1965) attempted to justify the denial of freedom of expression – including the freedom to hear others’ speech of speech and organisation to ‘groups and movements which and make judgements about it - is important to us as rational, autonomous persons who can and should be able to make up our own minds about particular issues. Moreover, it’s not clear that cancelling even works very well. The conservative and alt-right wingnuts and hatemongers who complain the loudest about being no-platformed – we’re thinking here of Young, Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson – are actually well-connected and powerful operators who, when

alternative outlets for their opinions. Depriving such characterscancelled, usually of their have platforms little difficulty is therefore in finding generally counter-productive: all too often, it only allows them (and their deluded working-class supporters)

before trotting off to their next lucrative media gig. to posture as the victims of a left-wing PC purge the oxygen of publicity; quite the opposite, in fact. CancellationAnd what about does notthe starveless elevated these toxic targets edgelords of of

12 Socialist Standard April 2021 cancel culture? Marx, with his usual sarcasm, ventriloquised the Prussian press censors of his day, mocking their hypocrisy: ‘Freedom devastating for the lessCancellation well-connected. can be who misuse­ speech to tell lies and the brain to plot. Speech It is becoming quite of the press is a fine thing. But there are also bad per­sons, commonplace for per­sons to misuse­ them!’ In fact, Marx opposed censorship ordinary people andthroughout thought his would life. beAnd fine anybody things suspectingif only there Marx were of no bad who offend against capitulating to liberalism in this regard should think again. dominant public As Eric Heinze argues, Marx defended free speech not as opinion on issues a bourgeois right, but as something more fundamental: a such as trans foundational philosophical praxis that makes possible the very rights or Brexit to suffer reputational damage or to lose work discussion of rights. and income . And there is little doubt that such personal Today, we socialists make up a tiny minority of the population and we have very little political and social clout. Indeed, the hostile environment created by cancellation To change this situation, we need to be able to explain to alignsand financial perfectly ruination with the is individualist, often intended aggressive, by the cancellers. competitive other members of the working class what socialism is and dynamics of contemporary capitalism – the ‘abyss of failed sociality’ as Axel Honneth has so cheerily put it – and the like an impossible task: even in relatively ‘open’, liberal social sadism and ‘humilitainment’ that now mars large parts societies,why everybody the major will mediabenefit organisations, from it. Sometimes as well this as seemsall the of mainstream media culture. other institutions of capitalism, are overwhelmingly ranged On social media, cancel culture often involves the vicious policing of speech, pile-ons and denials-of-service for the most misrepresented in both right- and left-wing media. But we minor of offences against political orthodoxy by relatively mustagainst make us and use communist of whatever ideas relatively are vilified, democratic marginalised spaces and and powerless individuals. As Kristina Harrison has put it , opportunities do exist to shout about socialism. To attempt cancel culture, in its dismissal of nuance and dissent, tends to deny free speech to our opponents simply on the grounds to elevate ‘not debate and politics but moral absolutism, that they hold repellent or false views, meanwhile, would be authoritarianism and hysteria, the tools of the witch-hunter’. unprincipled and counter-productive; ultimately, it would only Like the witch-hunter, the canceller moves readily between make it even easier than it already is for those in power to criticising the ambiguous behaviours or statements of her silence us. targets to making essentialist assertions about them, so S.H. misguided, ambiguous or problematic remarks about, say,that racialpublic or figures trans issuesor social automatically media influencers become who racists make or transphobes. This point was made well by the late Mark Fisher in his critique of left-wing call-out culture, ‘Exiting cancellee,the Vampire’s makes Castle the ‘.same Veteran and BreadTuber many other Nataliepoints in herWynn far-reaching (aka. Contrapoints), critique of herself the same. a prominent And it should go without saying that Karl Marx himself would not have been impressed by no-platforming and cancel culture, although some leftists seem to be confused about this. A meme recently on Facebook consists of a four-panel cartoon depicting alt-lite rent-a-gob Milo Yiannopoulos moaning to Karl Marx about panel of the sketch, Marx silently picks up Milo andviolations throws of him his overfreedom a clifftop. of speech. It’s a In fun the image, final to be sure; but it’s also misleading. In reality, the Free­dom of the Press ‘ (1842), for example, Marx fiercely defended freedom of speech. In ‘On Socialist Standard April 2021 13 So far so good, and these are all valid and important points. But what does the Review say about what lies at the heart of the problem, and how to solve it? According to Dasgupta, the problem is

is market failure, as mosttwo-fold: natural the assetsfirst part are undervalued or even free, and so we do not invest in them; in addition, it is an institutional failure because governments subsidise the destruction of Nature The Dasgupta Review: 600 pages on how capitalism (for example by supporting fossil fuel companies) at the rate destroys Nature, with no mention of capitalism of ‘US$4 to 6 trillion per year’, while giving only US$68 billion (or about 1 percent of the ‘destruction fund’) for its protection. n February a 600-page review commissioned by the This formulation of the main problems, however, raises Treasury titled ‘The Economics of Biodiversity’ was several questions. It assumes that the market is somehow Ipublished. The author — Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor unable to cope with this particular problem, so it needs to be regulated by governments, and that the governments in out to analyse the effect of the economy on Nature, describing turn are not doing their jobs well — which is why we have how,Emeritus at current of Economics rates of atconsumption, the University the of loss Cambridge of biodiversity — set will soon be too expensive for us and may likely kill us, and assuming that the market normally takes into account real suggested that the way out of the crisis is to give up GDP as the coststhis crisis of materials on our hands. and services. Calling Yetthis in a ourmarket globalised failure economy,means measure of economic progress. where one person’s wages are hundreds of times higher Global warming enjoys a lot more attention than than another’s; where you can get millions for making your computer perform incredibly complex calculations (like emissions is, underestimating the likely impact of biodiversity bitcoin mining) that help nothing or nobody at all and require lossbiodiversity could prove loss tobut, be as a deadlybeneficial mistake. as slashing As the greenhouse Dasgupta gas enormous amounts of electrical power; where it is cheaper Review points out, many ecosystems, including tropical to ship ‘sustainable’ clothes from around the world, only to forests, wetlands and coral reefs, have already been degraded trash them into ‘recycling’ containers that will be shipped beyond repair, which ‘could have catastrophic consequences all the way back to never get recycled; where the price of for our economies and well-being’. oil went negative last year — in this economy, undervalued assets are not an error or an exception. In fact, it is rather a Humanity’s impact common occurrence that we must acknowledge if we want to Humanity’s impact on the natural world is severe: animal populations have dropped by around 70 percent since 1970, Of course, government subsidies to fossil fuels facilitate and only 4 percent of the world’s mammals are wild; in effect, exploitationunderstand theof Nature, forces influencingbut what Dasgupta the current fails crisis. to see is that we are living during the sixth mass extinction of life on the the driver of this exploitation, and the motivational principle planet. And it is not only about living beings: according to at the very foundation of the whole current economic system, the Review, only in the last two decades, the stock of ‘natural capital’ per person fell by 40 percent. What Dasgupta means and this is why it is being exploited. Yet somehow professors by ‘natural capital’ is not only the share of animals and plants is making a profit. It is simply profitable to exploit Nature, per global citizen, but also their share of breathable air, up excuses, thinking up complex theories and explanations drinkable water and soil in which to grow food; so the rapid —of economicsall this only and to avoidcompany facing CEOs up togo the out truth. of their As way long toas makewe reduction of these most basic prerequisites for life is truly growth and accumulation of capital the biggest impetus forhave productive a monetary, activities, for-profit we economic will continue system to be that plagued makes by squanderalarming. Fringethe valuable high-tech resources solutions we urgentlyor short-term need forfinancial our wastefulness, perverse luxury, inequality, dehumanisation, veryfixes survival.that do not tackle this problem head-on would just and, yes, rapacious exploitation and loss of the very natural The Review states: ‘Our economies and well-being depend environment that gives us life and nurtures us. on our most precious asset: Nature. Our demands far exceed Nature’s capacity to supply us with the goods and services we Set up to fail rely on’, so that to keep the present rate of consumption, we What should we do then in order to solve this “market and would need 2 to 4 Earths by 2050 (depending on the speed institutional failure”, according to the Review? of population growth). Once an extinction tipping point is reached, it is exceedingly expensive or impossible to reverse that our economies are embedded within Nature, not external the damage; which fundamentally calls into question the to Dasguptait.’ The almost notes exponential that the very economic first step growth is to ‘understand in the last prosperity of future generations. 100 years, with all the resources it has been devouring, does

14 Socialist Standard April 2021 not seem very likely to be sustainable for much longer, as we reason it has been so elusive thus far is this very disconnect between the powers-that-be, on the one hand, demanding that capitalist theory has been debating a way out of this a fair distribution of wealth and, on the other hand, actively conundrumwould run out by ofdevising forests variousto burn schemesand fish toto catch.reroute He almost is aware promoting and rewarding the accumulation of capital. all economic growth from resource-intensive activities such In his third recommendation, Dasgupta proposes to create as heavy industry into the virtual and services areas (like supra-national institutional arrangements to charge for software development, entertainment, etc), so that it would the use of Nature, and to then use this money to support get decoupled from resource use, and we would be able to happily continue to invest in the market and make more and institutions to integrate Nature-related considerations more money, ad infinitum. intothese their arrangements. strategies. Finally,He calls he on suggests businesses that and the financial ultimate He takes a bold step in his Review when he explains, with responsibility for sustainability lies with us as individuals. some calculations and copious literature citations, that this Conclusion inevitably lead to increased spending, and that almost always involvesis not likely the touse be of possible. raw materials. Simply Evenput, increased virtual activities profits Review, especially considering that they come from an are not ‘free’. For instance, data processing centres require establishedAll in all, there economist. are definitely At the many same valuable time, the points proposed in the increasingly large amounts of energy (for perspective, Bitcoin conclusions and recommendations show that, functioning for has a carbon footprint comparable to that of Argentina), and so long within the system, Dasgupta is unable to see beyond over 60 percent of the world energy still comes from burning its borders, to think outside the box, and so is oblivious to the fossil fuels. Dasgupta emphasises that the current path presents above all else, and at the expense of everything else, and which extreme risks, and that truly sustainable development would isunderlying leading us imperative all on the marchof capitalist to devour logic the that planet demands itself. profits That need a ‘different path, where our engagements with Nature would explain why in the 600 pages of the Review the word are not only sustainable, but also enhance our collective capitalism is only mentioned once, and even that referred wealth and well-being, and that of our descendants’. He offers to a description of some academic economics theory that three broad recommendations of solutions, not one of which, had nothing to do with our current biodiversity crisis or its however, directly addresses the clear logic of capitalist, for- underlying processes.

estimated that, if valued in monetary terms, non-monetary Ineffectiveprofit destruction recommendations of Nature. componentsIn his article of ‘Thethe economy, Non-Monetary such as Economy’, household Edgar labour S. Cahn and civic activity, would be equivalent to almost 50 percent of GDP (bit.ly/38oxVfY ). This shows that, as social and intelligent restrictions’The first recommendation rather than pricing is to reduce mechanisms. demands In otheron Nature words, animals, we are happy to work for what we believe is Dasguptaby increasing advises efficiency against and relying utilising on the so-called market ‘quantity because necessary and will help our loved ones and our communities, using the usual interventions of price controls is unlikely to even when we are not getting paid. work. What will work now, according to him, is to ban certain If we are serious about surviving and leaving our planet practices, for example to fence off more and more natural to our descendants in a liveable state, without a huge habitats and prohibit any kind of commercial activity there. environmental debt impossible to settle, what we really While it is encouraging that the Review acknowledges that need is not just to abandon GDP as the measure of economic markets are not the key to solving this problem, government success, but to urgently abandon altogether the monetary, for- regulation — even though there are several examples of successful species recovery or habitat restoration — will not resource administration as the truly humane, sustainable and be able to reverse the effects of the overall economic system fairprofit system economy of social itself and and economic to embrace organisation the socialist that system respects of that is fundamentally based on the principle of resource consumption and growth. Such restriction measures are akin ROY AUSS Nature and the scientific principles of its management. haveto attempts seen happen to stop time the flowand timeof a river again. with an obstacle — the waterThe (orsecond money) recommendation will inexorably is findto ‘change its way our around, measures as we of economic success’ from GDP, which does not take into account animal species or human happiness, to something Dasgupta callsthings ‘inclusive you don’t wealth’. directly This use new for profit-making,measure of economic like rare success while decreasing the pool of available natural resources, yourwould overall include measure natural of assets, wealth so would if you notgain grow. a monetary This new profit concept, however, is proposed as a means to improve national accounting systems. What happens when you eat into another country’s natural wealth? It is common practice nowadays that developed countries import raw materials for their technologically sophisticated exports from poorer countries that have little else to offer the globalised market (and trade agreements and IMF loans make sure it stays that way). To really work, this system would have to have all countries in the world agree to it, and so far even a seemingly straightforward worldwide tax agreement that would help alleviate the burden of tax evasion seems beyond reach. Maybe the

Socialist Standard April 2021 15 Questioning Nationality own label) is merely to identify an accident of birth. It is no he ten-yearly census once again literally poses the question of nationality. The Socialist Standard runs the admission, is vertically challenged and of a placid demeanour. Toccasional article on ‘How I became a socialist’ to which Withmore asignificant beaming smilethan that.he informed I have a allfriend he knew who, thatby his a DNAown test this is a companion piece, ‘Why I am an internationalist’. revealed he was, at least in part, of Viking stock. I begin with a report of migrant labour being used to undercut wages and actually displace local workers from their between the reluctantly itinerant lead miner migrants and employment and eviction from their homes. This, naturally, thoseTo return of today briefly who tocross Friar’s continents, Goose, the is distanceonly difference having to be caused resentment and a reaction that became violent travelled. The cause of migration remains constant, in the resulting in the authorities responding with decisive force. modern era it is capitalism. If this incident seems to have been missed in these days of Direct economic necessity, such as brought sub-continent all-revealing social media, that’s because it occurred in 1832 workers to the Lancashire and Yorkshire textile towns, lays on the south bank of the Tyne at Friar’s Goose. The mining the imperatives of capitalism bare. People largely don’t community there had been in a protracted dispute with the uproot themselves and their families without good cause local coal owner who determined to break the strike. and capitalism exploits the imperative of need for its own To this end migrant labour was brought in to replace the local workers, some from as far away as Derbyshire and However, capitalism, driven by its absolute need to pursue profitable ends. workersCumberland, were where victims lead of amining common was foe, in sharp decline. With profit, can manifest its competitiveis economic. nature Trade routes,in extreme resources, form, capitalism.the benefit of historical perspective it is clear that both sets of war. Whether cross bordercontrol or civil, of the the levers root of armedstate and/or conflicts Lead mining had ceased to be corporate power all too often lie at the heart of the burgeoning industrial Not unreasonably, people will move revolution,profitable while promised coal, richat the dividends. very awaybottom from of martial battle zones conflict. if they can. All the more so if labour costs could But, even if the prospect of being be minimised. Unemployment and the killed or injured recedes, the local prospect of poverty were wielded to devastation of homes, workplaces and pitch one group of workers against basic services can make life virtually another, keeping them divided and thus untenable, especially in the short term. effectively powerless. And for the poor the short term is all One hundred and twenty years or so they have. after this event the world was blessed Whether it’s your lead mine being by my emergence, in a maternity hospital named for the local closed two hundred years ago or your village/town bombed pit. Not on Tyneside though, where I would move to a couple out yesterday, you essentially face the same dilemma, to stay and try to survive, or move and try to survive. For all that racism manifests itself, capitalism is ultimately of However,decades later, those but two in economic a Lancashire monarchs town ruled were by already King Coal equitable, it will exploit any and all whatever their skin tone, relinquishingand Queen Cotton. their power and both had largely been deposed language, dialect or point of origin. For its own purposes it will by the time I deserted their realm in the early 1970s. By which encourage people to consider how their apparent differences time a sizeable community of migrants, on this occasion textile make them somehow special, unique, perhaps in some workers from the Indian sub-continent, had settled in the town. After all, it would be disastrous for capitalism if (when) Economic decline fostered resentments and would undefinable way superior to others. eventually lead to the election of British National Party members as town councillors. They proved to be so people realise that their differences are superficial, spectacularly useless as councillors their moment was brief, settingdetermined people by apart.circumstance not race or ethnicity. Cultural but again indicative of how capitalism, whether consciously or diversityI will continue can be a to positive, look at thebut resultseven culture for the is football not a fixed team thing, I not, can stimulate misdirected resentment and anger. was born to follow, which is about as deep as my support goes As already indicated, I moved away from the town and these days. It is an example of how capitalism has become settled in the North East. However, I maintained my allegiance transnational. The club was one of the founders of the football to the football club, a curse I eventually visited on my Gateshead-born son. So was I merely a Lancastrian living 1870s and 80s. in economic exile, all the more so now that I’m domiciled in league reflecting the economic power of local capitalism in the South Yorkshire? my fresh and saltwater metaphors) in the soccer shark pool, A reason I was born in Lancashire is that one great granddad recentlyOne hundred bought and out fiftyby an years American later it deal is a usingminnow leveraged in (to mix migrated from the then North Riding of Yorkshire in search of work. His son, my granddad, married a woman whose family seems. hailed from the Trough of Bowland which was split between financeFor the to vast raise majority the capital. of people, My club? the Rather working like class my ofcountry, the it Lancashire, and the North and West Riding of Yorkshire. world, there needs be to be a recognition and acceptance of On the maternal side, my grandmother was many the one answer to the surely hackneyed question of, what race generations Lancastrian, but her husband was of Devonian am I? The human race! stock via Wales, another example of economic migration. So, I The national question, as posed by the census, merely am the offspring of migrant labour. This is by no means an unusual story, rather it is the to socialism, means making that question is as obsolete as a norm. To say I am a …………………………… (please add your confirms the limits of capitalism. To push beyond those limits, DAVE ALTON Cumberland lead mine. 16 Socialist Standard April 2021 but in other areas there were problems. The rate of infant mortality increased slightly in England in 2017, while over a third Giants Unslain of children aged 10 or 11 in England were obese or overweight. n 1942 Sir William Beveridge published a report under the And again it was the poorest areas that had the most problems. unexciting title Social Insurance and Allied Services. It has Further, it was recently reported that black women in the UK are Ibecome famous as the founding document of the post-war four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or welfare state, and has supposedly led to major improvements childbirth, with those in deprived areas more likely to die. in the lives of most British citizens. In fact, it achieved very Ignorance was described by Beveridge as something that ‘no much less than this, as the report itself just referred to ‘a democracy can afford among its citizens’; after all, capitalism needs redistribution of income within the wage-earning classes’, a reasonably educated workforce. In the 1930s the vast majority of and stated that its proposals for social insurance should merely ‘aim at guaranteeing the minimum income needed for and the proportion of the population attending university was well subsistence’. The following year the Socialist Party published belowchildren that left in school other atcountries, age fourteen such withas Germany no formal and qualifications, the US. a pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty, which concluded Things have changed since then, of course, but many problems that the proposals would ‘level the workers’ position as a remain. The National Literacy Trust states that one adult in six whole’ and so would indeed be ‘a redistribution of poverty’. is functionally illiterate, with ‘very poor literacy skills’, and so as Want (i.e. poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. HowBeveridge has the identifiedbattle against ‘five these giant faredevils’, inwhich the nearly were capitalised eighty studentshas difficulty from reading poorer onbackgrounds unfamiliar struggletopics. In with England parts in of 2019, the years since the report was produced? On its 75th anniversary, educationone in thirteen system, of those especially aged the16–64 transition had no toqualifications. university. Many Stephen Armstrong wrote in The Guardian (10 October 2017) By squalor was meant primarily housing conditions. Shelter that, after the period of relative prosperity that lasted till reported in 2019 that 280,000 people were recorded as being the late 1970s, the giants were now ‘creeping back into the homeless in England, i.e. one in every two hundred people mainstream of our daily life’. Not very much has changed in (and one in 52 in London). And 220,000 had been threatened the short period since then. Let’s look at each giant in turn, with homelessness that year. It is generally accepted that

At the end of last year it was reported that more than a million is undocumented. People are forced to sofa-surf or live in dire ofcombining the UK’s poorestgeneral peoplepoints andare regularlystatistics struggling with specific to pay examples. for hostelsthese figures or B&Bs. are Livingan underestimate, on the street as has so anmuch appalling homelessness effect food. Independent food banks reported a doubling of the number on a person’s mental and physical health, reducing their life of emergency food parcels handed out in 2020 compared to the expectancy by many years. year before. The Trussell Trust stated that ‘half of all households It is not just being without a home that causes problems. A visiting food banks struggled to afford essential goods such as recent article in The Guardian (12 January) dealt with a block debts’ (Guardian 1 December). This is a welfare system which four and a half days after the mains pipe exploded and the isfood supposed and clothes to keep because people they above were the repaying level of goingUniversal without, Credit PFIof flats consortium in Islington that where managed residents it simply went failed without to carry water out for the ensuring that they do not have to choose between eating and necessary repairs. More widely, an estimated 8.4 million people heating. But it clearly fails to provide even ‘the minimum income in England are living in a home that is unaffordable, insecure or needed for subsistence’, in Beveridge’s words. unsuitable, according to the National Housing Federation. But squalor (or unsafe living conditions) need not just be a underlying cause. According to one analysis, an extra 700,000 matter of housing, and the growth of large cities is another factor. peopleCovid had has been increased thrust the into numbers poverty in by poverty, the pandemic. but it is In not all, the It was recently ruled by a coroner that the death of a nine-year- over 15 million people (nearly a quarter of the population) old girl in London in 2013 was partly caused by air pollution, were living in poverty, and for the great majority of those the

Turning to disease, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has specificallyIdleness, nitrogenBeveridge dioxide said, ‘destroysand particulate wealth matter and corrupts pollution in disruption caused by Covid was not responsible. men’.excess The of WHO depression guidelines, that mainly began thein 1929 result had of traffic led to emissions. mass the population, more than one in four children between ten stated that, among the poorest and second poorest fifth of unemployed in 1930. Reducing this was widely seen as essentialunemployment, for the withhealth one-fifth of the economy. of the workforce being and fifteen experienced moderate or severe mental health difficulties. The poorest fifth have at birth a healthy life three months to October 2020, the UK unemployment rate Europe,expectancy but aroundin the UK fifteen the rise years slowed less than dramatically the least betweendeprived wasUnemployment 4.9 percent, 1.2 figures percentage go up andpoints down higher over than time. a Inyear the 2011fifth. More and 2015; generally, austerity life expectancy and reduced is increasingspending on in healthWestern earlier. The rise is partly due to coronavirus, of course, and services are at least partly to blame for this, according to a there were a quarter of a million fewer vacancies than a year 2017 article in the British Medical Journal. The same article before. The annual decrease in employment was the largest noted that there were major disparities between health care in annual reduction since 2010. In all, 8.6 million people were the north and south of England, with economic disadvantages economically inactive, and a record number had been made being responsible for the north being left behind. redundant. Moreover, many jobs nowadays are zero-hours. So A 2019 report from the World Health Organization noted idleness has certainly not been overcome. The point here is not to over-emphasise the dire conditions Kingdom compared to other high-income countries in the EU. so many face now, or to understate the appalling situation in Overthat five-year a million cancer people survival experienced rates ‘catastrophicare worse in thespending United on the 1930s. Rather, it is to show how little has been achieved health services’, primarily on over-the-counter medicines. in nearly eight decades despite the best efforts of reformers, and to point out how many problems remain. The giants of the 30s and 40s still haunt present-day society, and it will take a thereLast had year been the improvementsRoyal College of in Paediatrics some areas, and such Child as betterHealth revolutionary change to do away with them completely. healthpublished checks a report for those State with of Child diabetes, Health and 2020. improved This noted oral health,that PAUL BENNETT

Socialist Standard April 2021 17 COOKING THE BOOKS but a conflict of interest between two a show of strength. The government Profit-sharing groups of capitalists over sharing out the compromised by amending the legislation revenue and profits from advertising. to provide for voluntary revenue and profit- Aussie-style Facebook depends for a large part of its sharing agreements to be tried first. The When in February Facebook temporarily income on selling space to advertisers. So first one that Facebook negotiated was stopped Australian users seeing, posting do newspapers. As Facebook and Google’s with Murdoch’s News Corp. The details or sharing articles from Australian audiences are larger and growing these have not been disclosed but no doubt newspapers there was widespread tech giants have been more successful Murdoch will be satisfied with his share. condemnation, and not just from than newspapers whose sales have That the issue was not one of the people Australia. Most presented it as a case been dwindling. Some, however, of the versus a tech giant but one capitalist of the people versus a tech giant. Julian advertising is placed alongside articles group against another should have been Knight, the Tory chairman of the House produced by newspapers. Newspaper evident from the fact that the legislation of Commons Digital, Culture and Sports owners have long complained about this: was introduced by an openly pro-capitalist Committee, declared ‘We represent the ‘For years, news organisations around government which had no particular ‘ire’ people and I’m sorry but you can’t run a the world have been pushing for fairer against big corporations. Far from it. It was bulldozer over that’, adding, sounding like profit-sharing between themselves and acting on behalf of one. Just as governments a left-wing activist, ‘and if Facebook thinks the likes of Facebook and Google on in Britain, Canada and other countries will it’ll do that it will face the same long- news content distributed on social media be if/when they introduce similar legislation. term ire as the likes of big oil and tobacco platforms. Some of the industry’s leaders, The Australian government made no companies’ (reut.rs/38n7cQJ). like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, have attempt to disguise what it had in mind: The GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook won government support to propose ‘Australian authorities say they drew up and Apple) tech giants are unpopular relevant regulations’ (bit.ly/3qty4F9). the legislation to ‘level the playing field’ in left-wing circles for a number of It was no accident, then, that the first on profits between the tech giants and reasons: being multinationals, their tax- move to try to force Facebook and Google struggling publishers. Of every A$100 dodging, and for the way they mine their to share some of their profits should have (£56; $77) spent on digital advertising in users’ personal information to attract come from Australia as who there says Australian media, A$81 goes to Google and advertisers by allowing these to aim ads ‘newspapers’ also says ‘Murdoch’. In April Facebook’ (bbc.in/3kWcVSI). tailored to the individual user. So, many last year the government responded by Activists who joined in the chorus anti-corporation activists joined in the proposing a law to force Facebook and against Facebook were being used to dispute on the side of the Australian Google to share some of their advertising help pick chestnuts out of the fire for the government. In fact, however, the issue revenue with Australian news corporations. newspaper corporations, while Julian was not the people versus a tech giant Google complied but Facebook put on Knight is just a windbag.

18 Socialist Standard April 2021 KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON WITH THE CLICHÉS WHEN OUR leaders want a quick and the crowds of poverty-stricken with their realised they couldn’t get away with easy way to try and boost our morale they bundles besieging the shelters and tubes, turned out to be profitably popular 70 often lazily turn to invoking ‘blitz spirit’. and the appalling conditions under which years later. Predictably, the notion has been stirred multitudes of people spend the greater Rather than suggesting that ‘blitz up during the pandemic by, among others, part of their time in the Underground spirit’ doesn’t exist because of its shaky the Queen, Health Secretary Matt Hancock stations have to be seen to be believed’. foundations, the documentary says that and Labour head Keir Starmer. BBC One’s The cocktail drinkers were using shelters the idea is better expressed through the recent documentary Blitz Spirit With Lucy in places like the Savoy hotel, where the stories of how ‘ordinary people’ coped Worsley aimed to uncover the meaning Communist Party organised a protest during the air raids. These are recreated behind the platitude. As Worsley says, against the disparity of provision. by actors presenting the diary writings ‘blitz spirit’ is a ‘benchmark of Britishness The ‘blitz spirit’ myth has endured by its of six Londoners. Nina Masel went from – something we can call upon in times of folk memory ignoring the uncomfortable shop work to a paid job with the Mass crisis’, a jingoistic mix of stoicism, rule- details which go against its narrative. It Observation project to record people’s following and optimism. has also been manufactured through experiences, until she resigned, incensed The phrase glosses over the fear several striking images from the war, all that her contributions were being turned and pain suffered during the blitz, the of which are distortions of what really into propaganda. Frances Faviell, an campaign of air raids on British cities happened. Photographs (and reports) artist and socialite, received just a week’s by the German state’s forces during the printed in newspapers were subject to training as an auxiliary nurse before Second World War. Between September strict rules to avoid revealing the extent finding herself having to treat the terrible 1940 and May 1941, over 40,000 people of the destruction. Those published were injuries caused by the bombing. Two air were killed and more than two million carefully selected to manage people’s raid precaution wardens are featured: houses were damaged or destroyed. perceptions, such as the image of St Ita Ekpenyon, who moved from Nigeria Britain’s wartime government thought Paul’s Cathedral untouched while smoke to study law, and Barbara Nixon, an out- that public morale would suffer without drifts around, proudly displayed on the of-work actress. Also included is Frank its propaganda, so the idea of ‘blitz spirit’ front page of the Daily Mail. The picture Hurd, a full-time firefighter who was killed developed. And it’s lasted through the was held up as a symbol of London’s while tackling a burning building. The decades, despite the myths around it ‘indomitable spirit’, but it had been sixth person is Robert Barltrop, a teenage being exposed in many books and articles cropped to downplay the damage to warehouse porter who volunteered as a before this latest documentary. nearby buildings. The uncropped version firewatcher when the war started. The ‘Blitz spirit’ has connotations of appeared in a contemporary German programme doesn’t go into his life after everyone pulling together amid the newspaper, with the opposite intention. the blitz, when he enrolled with the RAF bombing, but society’s divisions meant Another memorable photo shows a until a bout of tuberculosis prevented him this couldn’t happen. One way that milkman casually carrying a crate of from taking part in conflict. Rejecting the people were literally divided was through bottles over the ruins of a street. This military and what it represents, Barltrop their nationality: at the start of the war, was staged, with the photographer’s joined the SPGB in 1946, having first heard 27,000 foreign nationals living in Britain assistant posing with a borrowed coat and about the party before the war through (80 percent of whom were Jewish) crate, and contrived to be acceptable to conversations in his local shoe repair shop. were arrested and held in camps amid the censors. The ‘Keep Calm And Carry During his many years as a member he suspicions of spying. Another division was On’ poster was one of three designed was an editor, writer and illustrator for the Socialist Standard The by wealth: not only were people in poorer in 1939 by the Ministry of Information , and his 1975 book Monument areas more likely to be hit by bombs, but with the aim of raising spirits. It was is a readably anecdotal history the most well-off had better safeguards never distributed and millions of copies of the party. than the shoddily-built public surface were pulped due to the view that the How these six, and millions of others, shelters. London Underground stations slogan was patronising. The poster was dealt with the horrors of the bombing was indeed brave and often selfless, if that’s were a preferred option to these, although forgotten about until a surviving copy was what’s meant by ‘spirit’. But the notion of the government banned their use as unearthed in a bookshop in 2000. In a ‘blitz spirit’ is different, meant to evoke a shelters until angry crowds persuaded the canny commercial move, it was licenced to warm, patriotic reassurance during a crisis, authorities to open the gates. Despite the be reprinted and subsequently appeared keeping calm and carrying on without protection they offered, the stations soon on mugs, t-shirts, cushion covers and asking questions or looking beyond the became overcrowded and unhygienic. other tat as the last decades’ favourite propaganda. As such, it remains a useful As the Socialist Standard reported in cliché. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ is myth for capitalism’s apologists. November 1940, ‘while one reads of supposed to mean a patient resilience, but MIKE FOSTER cocktails drunk in comfortable deep it really translates as ‘put up and shut up’. shelters by well-to-do people, one sees A sentiment which wartime propagandists Socialist Standard April 2021 19 Reformist essays each according to ability to each according workers to overthrow capitalism are to need’. So though framed in terms of, for given short shrift. In his chapter, ‘What is example, the replacement of ‘production Socialism?’, Stephen Bronner explains how for profit with production for social need’, Leninist ‘democratic centralism’ can only when looked at closely what is usually lead to authoritarian rule by a minority. envisioned is a ‘fairer’, more ‘equal’ form of Smulevicz-Jucker (‘Democratic Socialism the money system. contra Populism’) sees Leninism as calling So while in his essay ‘Essential for ‘an elite party leadership to determine Socialism’, Fernando Gasparin argues the working class’s true interests’. correctly that struggles over reforms are, A number of writers too remind us in Rosa Luxemburg’s words, ‘a labour that Marx, regardless of how his writing of Sisyphus’ and that ‘each reform has been used and abused over the successfully rolled up the hill can roll last 150 years, did not see socialism (or back down again’, this does not prevent communism, and we are reminded that him arguing that ‘socialism needs a the words were used interchangeably by constitutional provision providing for Marx) as state ownership but as common An Inheritance for Our Times. public democratic control of banks and ownership, entailing the abolition of the Principles and Politics of Democratic financial institutions’. Nor is it uncommon wages system and free access to all goods and services. Rohini Hensman, in her Socialism. Edited by Gregory in the collection to find references to ‘Marx and Engels on Socialism’, correctly Smulewicz-Zucker and Michael J. socialism coexisting with the market, points out that in Marx’s concept of Thompson. OR Books, 2020. 412pp. as in the chapter by David Schweickart entitled ‘Marxist Market Socialism’. In socialism ‘all class divisions will have been another chapter, ‘Socialism and the abolished... Products will not be sold as commodities, and there will be no money. This book announces itself as ‘a reader Democratisation of Finance’ by Fred Block, Labour time will be minimised and free that includes essays in the form of there is reference to ‘a democratised time will be maximised. Since capitalism both personal accounts and intellectual financial system’ as part of the ‘regulatory is global, it follows that socialism would arguments from activists and theorists apparatus of socialism’. Most of the be global too’, and ‘Marx and Engels advocating a democratic socialist outlook’. contributors find it difficult to envision repeatedly make it clear that there will be The essays, 30 in number, are written the stateless society that socialism must no state in a socialist society’. mainly by American academics, but the be. For Lester Spence, for example, in his Support for this vision seems to language used by most is not overly essay entitled ‘The Democratic Socialist be present in some of the essays in academic making it a fairly readable Imaginary’, ‘democratic socialism’ is this collection. For example, Barbara collection and with a political range far defined as ‘a state form that combines wider than just the USA. Epstein, in ‘What Socialism Means’, public ownership of the means of states: ‘Socialism refers to the goal of The editors’ introduction sets the scene production with a form of government an economically egalitarian society trenchantly: ‘The mass-consumption based on popular elections and popular based on cooperation rather than on society erected over the course of the means of creating government policy competition and the exploitation by some twentieth century for the purpose of and state institutions’. Elsewhere the of the labour of others.’ Peter Hudis generating never-ending surplus for the currently popular concept of a guaranteed (’Democratic Socialism and the Transition few and political quiescence for the many basic income figures strongly, as do to Genuine Democracy’) reminds us of has metastised into a global form of life’. other ‘socialist’ ideas such as ‘worker Rosa Luxemburg’s dictum that ‘there is The society they are talking about here cooperatives’ and the ‘model’ of no socialism without democracy and no of course is capitalism and most of the Scandinavian social democracy. democracy without socialism’ and makes contributions that follow are directed at On the positive side, there seems at it clear that socialism needs ‘a global proposing ways in which capitalism can least to be general agreement among transformation’. Yet that writer, like others be improved on or replaced by something contributors that what happened in who seem to express support for this view better, usually referred to as socialism. Russia in 1917 and developed from of socialism, tend in the end to fall back The trouble is, as we all know, there are that was a bogus, or at least distorted, on ‘in the meantime’ or (as one writer many ‘versions’ of socialism and most of version of socialism (‘state domination, puts it) ‘incremental progress’ reformist the contributors, however well intentioned, a hierarchically organised command prescriptions of one kind or another. This propose ‘socialisms’ that most Socialist economy, ruthless industrialization, ‘in the meantime’ mentality (which is in Standard readers would not recognise antidemocratic political institutions’, as fact a prescription for never getting to as the society of common ownership one writer puts it) and that those groups socialism) is well encapsulated by Hudis and democratic organisation that the on the Left who still see some virtue in himself when he states: ‘Democratic Socialist Party has put forward over the Lenin’s Bolshevik takeover and put the socialism requires involving masses of 117 years of its existence. What the essays failure of the Soviet system down to Stalin people in a political project that fights mainly argue for is a variety of more or prevailing over Trotsky are also barking for and secures needed reforms while less radical reshapings of capitalism but up the wrong tree. And in a number of focusing on the long-term need to not its abolition with the establishment these essays, the modern-day supporters transcend capitalism.’ of a moneyless, marketless system of of Lenin and Trotsky who still insist on In the midst of all this, however, production and distribution based on ‘from the need for a vanguard party to lead the book does contain some strikingly

20 Socialist Standard April 2021 pithy insights into the pathology of infinitesimal gene changes over millions are advantages that can be extracted on capitalism and also into the essential of years have produced us and the world an ongoing basis by certain economic features of socialism. Examples are: we live in. Dawkins’s writing contains a actors … via economic, political or legal Lester Spence’s description of schools self-deprecating, dry sense of humour that mechanisms potentially open to influence as ‘spaces designed to inculcate market comes to life as he reads the book aloud. by them.’ The list contained in the behaviour in parents, students, staff and Alternating voices between Dawkins and ellipsis in our quotation contains not just administration’; Wilson Sherwin’s (‘Less Ward provides a nice listening contrast while capitalists but also wage-earners, so it is also setting apart examples, clarifications, Work For All! Reclaiming a Forgotten clearly a very broad definition. The original and segments of greater detail. Dawkins Socialist Aspiration’) characterisation of Tous rentiers! and his wife live in a world that is perhaps French edition had the title , an increasingly brutal workplace as ‘hustle more scientific on a daily basis than most of suggesting that everyone is a rentier. culture’; Steve Fraser’s standout piece us, so the book takes great care to vary the As an initial example, pharmacists in in the collection (‘Capitalism, Socialism delivery of information for greater emphasis France are paid about three times as much and Democracy’) where he states: ‘No and easy understanding. as their UK counterparts, since the French matter what its form, capitalist democracy Dawkins’s goal in The Blind Watchmaker government has very strict regulations commodifies its world and first of all its was to remove any doubt that anything about where new pharmacies can open, human inhabitants. They live as vessels of but scientific fact is behind the origin of and disallows pharmacy chains such labour power and as empty receptacles of the universe. Just because something – as Boots. So the extra income derived the goods and services and delusions of like human beings or the universe – is from the lack of competition in France consumer culture’; and finally Smulewicz- complex does not mean that it cannot be is an instance of rent. For a case more in Zucker quoting Kautsky’s description of explained. Dawkins works hard to help keeping with the profits of companies, listeners understand the smaller-than- socialism as ‘the abolition of every kind of consider the cost of medicines, some microscopic changes that evolved through exploitation and oppression, be it directed staggering amounts of time. To paraphrase of which are a thousand times more against a class, a party, a sex, or a race’. the author, do not draw conclusions expensive in the US than in France, HOWARD MOSS from your own inability to understand owing to the power of US pharmaceutical something. The truth of Darwinism comes companies in enforcing patent and Evolution explained in its acceptance of physics, probability, property rights there. More generally, and the unending march of time. The in the US the top one percent’s share of author (and speaker) helps listeners out national income is now back to the level at by using examples that are easy to grasp: the start of the last century. for example, the evolution from wolves to Real estate prices in London and Hong domesticated dogs. Or how echolocation Kong far outstrip other cities, even New in bats clearly shows the evolution of a York and Tokyo. This is an example of trait necessary for survival of a species. propertarianism, whereby income derives It is an altogether interesting read that particularly comes to life when listened from two kinds of property: land and to in audio format. Highly recommended real estate, and knowledge (the latter for anyone who would like to learn more being exemplified by the medical patents about the origins of the universe and the mentioned earlier). This is part of the ‘new existence of life on Earth. phase’ of capitalism that Askenazy claims PAUL EDWARDS to have identified: rents from property rights and rents from the labour of the All rentiers now? ‘unproductive’. But it is not entirely clear The Blind Watchmaker. Why the what is meant by this last point (other Evidence of Evolution Reveals a than how low many people’s wages Universe Without Design . are), though the author does argue that By Richard Dawkins. Audiobook employment is being increasingly divided narrated by: Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward. into low-wage and relatively high-wage types, with medium-wage jobs being cut and people with degrees more and more This is an audio version of Dawkins’s well- finding themselves in low-paid jobs; this is known book, narrated by Dawkins and his known as job polarisation. wife, actor Lalla Ward. The watchmaker In addition, it has to be asked to what idea belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that extent rentier capitalism is really a new just as a watch is too complicated and development, and whether it is truly a functional to have sprung into existence by different kind of capitalism. The book accident, so too does this apply to all living sometimes seems to imply that ‘ordinary’ things with their far greater complexity. exploitation by the extraction of surplus Charles Darwin’s discovery that challenged Philippe Askenazy: Share the value no longer exists or has had its scope the creationist argument through natural Wealth: How to End Rentier much reduced. But after all, capitalists have selection – the unconscious, automatic, Capitalism. Verso £16.99. always benefitted from ‘economic, political blind, yet essentially non-random process or legal mechanisms’ to enforce and Darwin discovered – is brought to life in (Translated by Gregory Elliott) increase their profits. And Askenazy offers this book. Dawkins and Ward provide a highly no real ideas on how to end capitalism, engaging read of Dawkins’s critique of rentier or otherwise, beyond strengthening creationism. The audiobook follows an As the subtitle suggests, this focuses trade unions, which may help workers updated edition of the book from 2006 on one kind of capitalism, the rentier defend their wages and conditions but and provides intricate explanations, by variety, based on the receipt of rents. cannot transform the system. way of witty examples, of why random, Askenazy adopts a broad definition: ‘rents PAUL BENNETT Socialist Standard April 2021 21 50 Years Ago Up in arms If the success of a movement is to be judged by the amount of popular misconception about it, then Women’s Liberation Movement have almost won. Discontented women have traditionally been a target for lewd contempt from gentlemen, and any dissatisfaction with their social conditions is often treated as a projection of sexual frustrations. Thus any woman who has ambitions above being a shorthand typist at work, a housewife at home, or a sexual vehicle in bed, is liable to be Turner Credit:Jenny dismissed as a shrivelled spinster, or a hairy lesbian, or at any neurosis too easily exploited to sell cars, hair sprays, washing rate someone in need of a good, cleansing orgasm. machines, suitcases, toothpaste, politicians—but a pleasure. To It was this sort of contempt which gave such licence for reach that we need all of us to be conscious of our role in society the maltreatment of the Suffragettes, who could be kicked and the reasons for it. From there we will not be far from the will and punched and mauled by the police and subjected, by the to change our roles by changing society. gentlemen of London, to such indignation as would under other (Socialist Standard, April 1971) circumstances have earned a court appearance for indecent assault. When the last Miss World contest was disrupted by Obituary a few Women’s Lib members Bob Hope, who is not a famous anthropologist or psychiatrist or sociologist, but who was earning Pat Bentley a few bucks as compere to the flesh parade, could attribute the incident to the only possible cause that the demonstrators were After a long illness, sadly our Comrade Pat Bentley died at junkies. Of course, Hope was in trouble; his gag writers had not the beginning of March. Pat, along with her husband Philip supplied him with material for such an eventuality. (...) Bentley, was an enthusiastic member of Bolton Branch, having joined in 1978. On moving to Shropshire, they remained The aims of the Women’s Liberation Movement—a free Bolton Branch members, attending meetings whenever association between men and women, pure of the contaminations possible. Along with other Bolton members, Pat and Philip of capitalist society—can be attained only when capitalism is no later transferred to Manchester Branch, where she continued more. Conditioned as we are to capitalism’s degradations, it is to attend meetings. difficult to imagine what the freedom of socialism will be like. How At this sad time, our sympathy goes put to Philip and their it will feel, for a woman and a man to associate only because they daughter Eleanor. like and respect each other. How it will be when sexual activity MANCHESTER BRANCH is not a matter of conquest and possession, not a suppressive

22 Socialist Standard April 2021 Meetings All Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord. Please contact the Forum Administrator on [email protected] for how to join. open mind on reforms which might Wednesday 28 April APRIL 2021 benefit the working class. What are THE FAQ WORKSHOP, 19.30 GMT + 1 DISCORD EVENTS some past examples, and are there SOCIALIST DESERT ISLAND FILMS any today which we welcome? We’ve done books, we’ve done Wednesday 7 April Friday 16 April music, now it’s cinema’s turn. Films “DID YOU SEE THE NEWS?” FRIDAY NIGHT TALK 19.30 GMT + 1 don’t just entertain, they also portray 19.30 GMT + 1 THE SOCIAL NATURE OF social realities. What films would you General current affairs quiz and MUSICAL TASTE recommend to someone interested in discussion. Speaker: Wez socialism? Friday 9 April Deconstructing the idea that musical Friday 30 April FRIDAY NIGHT TALK 19.30 GMT + 1 taste (or any art form) is purely FRIDAY NIGHT TALK 19.30 GMT + 1 UNWRAPPING DEMOCRACY: subjective. VIRTUAL MAY DAY RALLY WHAT AND HOW? Wednesday 21 April Speakers to be announced Speaker: Leon Rozanov THE FAQ WORKSHOP, 19.30 GMT + 1 With digital technologies as a core RE-IMAGINING THE SOCIALIST of social organisation of the future, STANDARD a look deeper into what democracy What would give it wider appeal, or really is, and why it often fails. Can perhaps make it more fun, without we reinvent the concept of the rule of dumbing down its ideas? the people? Friday 23 April Wednesday 14 April FRIDAY NIGHT TALK 19.30 GMT + 1 THE FAQ WORKSHOP, 19.30 GMT + 1 THE CLIMATE AND WHAT REFORMS MIGHT SOCIALISTS BIODIVERSITY CRISIS WELCOME? Speaker: Glenn Morris We oppose reformism, but keep an Declaration of Principles

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

Socialist Standard April 2021 23 We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill science fiction writer envisage a race to Don’t Panic ‘Despite the damage coronavirus Mars? There is, indeed, kudos to all the lockdowns did to the world’s economy, thousands of workers across the world – 2020 marked a record high in global these mulitiple landings are collectively an military spending, according to a new achievement on a par with the launching report. As always, the US was in the lead, of Sputnik 1 just forty years after the fall accounting for 40.3 percent of the world’s of the Czars. Returning to the present, military expenditures at $738 billion. we are informed: ’Internet sleuths claim The report, released by the International to have decoded a hidden message Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), says displayed on the parachute that helped total military expenditures added up Nasa’s Perseverance Rover land safely to $1.83 trillion in 2020, a 3.9 percent on Mars.... They claim that the phrase increase from 2019 (news.antiwar.com, “Dare mighty things” – used as a motto 25 February). This news comes as no by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – was surprise to socialists: we have said for encoded on the parachute using a pattern over a century that war is endemic to representing letters as binary computer capitalism. We recall that the Obama– code’ (theguardian.com, 23 February). Biden Administration promised to do away The phrase is used in an 1899 speech by with nuclear arms once and for all, but Theodore Roosevelt, in which he said: ’Far instead committed $1 trillion to building better it is to dare mighty things, to win Commenting on billionaire Elon Musk’s the nuclear stockpile and modernising glorious triumphs, even though checkered SpaceX’s Starship project which may nuclear production facilities. Commenting by failure, than to take rank with those someday send humans to Mars, Shannon on an earlier admininistration, the late poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor Stirone, in an article titled ’Mars Is a Carl Sagan, a visionary and humanitarian suffer much, because they live in the gray Hellhole: Colonising the red planet scientist, observed: ‘For me, the most twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.’ is a ridiculous way to help humanity’ ironic token of [the first human moon Oscar Wilde described us ’poor spirits’ (theatlantic.com, 26 February), writes: landing] is the plaque signed by President more accurately and succiently when he ’Legitimate reasons exist to feel Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to said : ’To live is the rarest thing in the concerned for long-term human survival. the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace world. Most people exist, that is all’. But I question anyone among the richest for all Mankind.’ As the United States was War without end? people in the world who sells a story dropping seven and a half megatons of ’Humanity is waging a “senseless of caring so much for human survival conventional explosives on small nations and suicidal” war on nature that is that he must send rockets into space.’ in Southeast Asia, we congratulated causing human suffering and enormous Neither misleaders nor multi-millionaires ourselves on our humanity. We would economic losses while accelerating the can save us. Sagan says : ’Our planet is harm no one on a lifeless rock’. destruction of life on Earth, the UN a lonely speck in the great enveloping What about life on Earth? secretary-general, António Guterres, cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will Another (probably) lifeless rock has has said. Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN come from elsewhere to save us from been invaded by a swarm of robots. Of ourselves. The Earth is the only world multiple attempted Mars landings by report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the known so far to harbor life. There is robotic, unmanned spacecraft, ten have to nowhere else, at least in the near future, date been classsed as succesful. Did any devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions to which our species could migrate.’ Yet of early deaths every year’ (theguardian. more positively he also stated: ’Humans com, 18 February). Such news would have evolved gregariously. We delight in not have surprised the astronomer and each other’s company; we care for one Marxist Antonie Pannekoek. Writing in another. Altruism is built into us. We 1909 he observed: ’Natural resources are have brilliantly deciphered some of the exploited as if reserves were infinite and patterns of Nature. We have sufficient inexhaustible. The harmful consequences motivation to work together and the of deforestation for agriculture and the ability to figure out how to do it. If destruction of useful animals and plants we are willing to contemplate nuclear expose the finite character of available war and the wholesale destruction of reserves and the failure of this type of our emerging global society, should economy. Roosevelt recognises this failure we not also be willing to contemplate when he wants to call an international a wholesale restructuring of our conference to review the state of still societies?’ (Cosmos, Futura, 1987, p. available natural resources and to take 358). Pannekoek, who died in 1960 just measures to stop them being wasted. as humanity entered the space age, Of course the plan itself is humbug. The would concur: ’It is time for mankind to state could do much to stop the pitiless ensure itself of material abundance by extermination of rare species. But the establishing a free, self-managed world- capitalist state is in the end a poor society of productive labor, thereby representative of the good of humanity. It freeing its mental powers for perfecting must halt in face of the essential interests its knowledge of nature and the universe’ A History of Astronomy of capital’. ( , 1951).

ISSN 0037 8259 Published by the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN Tel: 0207 622 3811 24 Email: [email protected] Website: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb Blog: http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/ Socialist Standard April 2021