socialist-standard-2005-1216-dec
DESCRIPTION
50 YEARS A GO C OOKING T HE B OOKS 2 C OOKING T HE B OOKS 1 At the beginning of the 20th century Russia was in a critical situation. Something had to give, and in 1905 it did. An investigation into the workers’ cooperative set up in the bankrupt Bauen Hotel in the centre of Buenos Aires. G REASY P OLE P ATHFINDERS C ONTACT D ETAILS M EETINGS R EVIEWS F REE L UNCH L ETTERS A migrant worker reports on the same events. E DITORIAL 6 8 9 Tailcoated twit? Boris Johnson, page 19 14 16 18 19 20 18 3TRANSCRIPT
Socialist Standard December 20052
December 2005
socialist standardwebsite: www.worldsocialism.org
contents
“It says something about the Tories' panic thatthey should promote an MP as inexperienced(although practised in cynicism) as Cameronas the man to become prime minister”Greasy Pole, page 19
Demonstrators heading to theWinter Palace, 1905. Page 12
Tailcoated twit? Boris Johnson,page 19
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The Socialist Party of Great Britain
The next meeting of theExecutive Committee will beon Saturday 3rd December atthe address below.Correspondence should besent to the General Secretary.All articles, letters and noticeshould be sent to the editorialcommittee at: The SocialistParty, 52 Clapham High street,London SW4 7UN.tel:020 7622 3811 e-mail:[email protected]
Search and destroy: The riots inFrance, pages 6-8
Argentina's Worker-Run Factories: What Next?An investigation into the workers’ cooperative set up in the bankruptBauen Hotel in the centre of Buenos Aires.
FEATURES
10
EDITORIAL 3CONTACT DETAILS 5
PATHFINDERS 4LETTERS 5COOKING THE BOOKS 1 11
COOKING THE BOOKS 2 14
REVIEWS 1650 YEARS AGO 18
GREASY POLE 19VOICE FROM THE BACK 20
REGULARS
The Workfare State: Enforcing the Wages SystemThe supposed triumph of the post-war welfare state is an illusionnow being dissipated as welfare rights are being whittled away.
Report from Paris A migrant worker reports on the same events.
8
MEETINGS 18
FREE LUNCH 20
Merde in FranceWe investigate the can of worms exposed by the recent riots inFrance.
6
1905: the First Russian RevolutionAt the beginning of the 20th century Russia was in a critical situation.Something had to give, and in 1905 it did.
12
9
Editorial
Following the death in the last weekof October of two teenagerselectrocuted while trying to avoid apolice identity card check, riots
broke out in the suburb of Paris where theylived. These soon spread to other suburbsof Paris and then to those in other cities ofFrance. Police were stoned, cars set alightand fire engines attacked, night after night,for three weeks.
Most of the rioters were the childrenor grandchildren of workers who had cometo work in France from its formercolonies in North and West Africa.This led some to see the riots asanother aspect of some Islamic attackon "Western civilisation". Predictably,the notorious French racist politician,Jean-Marie Le Pen, said it was all dueto immigration.
Actually, in a sense, it was arevolt against "Western civilisation",but not by Islamists. It was a revolt byunemployed youth, living in rundownestates with the worst amenities,against the fate capitalism hasimposed on them. Certainly, most ofthe rioters were nominally Muslims andthe children of recent economic migrants,but essentially they were workers who hadbeen thrown on to the scrap heap evenbefore they had had a job.
Insult was added to injury by theFrench interior minister talking aboutpeople on the estates as "riff-raff" andabout "cutting out the gangrene" and"cleaning by pressure hose". Hemaintained he was only referring to drugdealers and petty criminals but this was nothow it was perceived on the estates.
Capitalism needs a reserve army ofunemployed, to exert a downward pressureon wages as well as a source of readily-available extra labour-power that can becalled upon during the expansion phase ofthe capitalist economic cycle. In addition,there is always a surplus population who,for various reasons, are never going to beemployed. The level of state "benefits"paid to these non-working sections of theworking class is fixed more by politicalthan economic considerations, basically by
what the state can get away with withoutprovoking riots.
In France the state has evidentlypushed a section of these workers too far.The result has been a revolt against thestate as represented by the police, the firebrigade and public buildings. The Frenchstate has replied in kind. Sending in morepolice, declaring a state of emergency,imposing curfews, handing down severesentences including deportation tocountries convicted rioters are supposed to
have "come from" but have never been to.Of course, in the end, the state will win andthe riots will be put down. After therepression, however, the state will spend alittle more money to improve amenitiesand job prospects on the estates, the priceof avoiding further costly and damagingunemployed riots.
But what a comment on capitalistcivilisation! In a world which has thepotential to provide a decent life foreverybody, a section of the population is
driven to riot just to get a slightlyless small pittance to live on.
Rioting, though perhapsunderstandable, is not the answer.What is required is not blind rage butthat the quite legitimate rage of thesevictims of capitalism should beaccompanied by an understanding ofthe situation capitalism has put themin. Capitalism causes - in fact,requires - some workers to besurplus to requirements and sufferabove average social exclusion.Once this is understood, then it willbe realised that the constructive
thing to do is to work for a new society inwhich having to obtain money, by hook orby crook, to acquire what you need to livewill be a thing of the past.
A society based on the commonownership and democratic control of themeans of life where enough for all will beproduced since satisfying people's needswill be the sole aim of production. Asociety where everyone will be "sociallyincluded" because we're all fellow humanbeings.!
Socialist Standard December 2005 3
The Unemployed Riots in France
At first there wasNAFTA, then therewas FTAA - or rather,there wasn't, because
talks to establish the FreeTrade Area of the Americashave got bogged down indisagreements. The NorthAmerican Free TradeAgreement, between the US,Canada and Mexico, cameinto force in 1994. Its declaredaims were to eliminate tradebarriers between the threecountries involved andincrease investmentopportunities. In fact, it is farmore about investment thantrade, allowing US andCanadian factories to bemoved to cheap-labour areasin Mexico and opening upfurther chances forprivatisation. But it wasalways seen as a first steponly, and the FTAA, whichwould extend to most ofCentral and South Americaand cover 34 countries, is thelogical conclusion, originallyintended to come into effect atthe start of 2005.
The FTAA has manyopponents. The nasty right-wing super-nationalists in theJohn Birch Society (seewww.stoptheftaa.org) view itas part of the ongoingabolition of the United States,opening up borders to all sortsof criminals, terrorists andother undesirables, doingaway with US sovereignty andcreating a European Union-style integrated political unit.This isolationist conceptiondoes not fit in with that of therulers of the US, however.There have also beenopponents from the 'left',largely from the anti-globalisation or global justicem o v e m e n t s(www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/ftaa/, for instance).They point to the effects ofNAFTA in cutting wages inMexico and increasing threatsto the environment and publichealth. FTAA, they claim, willjust be the same thing, writlarger.
In early November theSummit of the Americas was
held in Argentina, partly to seehow FTAA could be put backon track after the rulers ofsome countries objected to it.In the meantime, smallergroupings have been pushedforward, such as the CentralAmerica Free TradeAgreement (due to start inJanuary 2006) and theAndean Free TradeAgreement (which is stillunder negotiation). The US isalso particularly interested inexpansion of the PanamaCanal, which carries 14% ofUS foreign trade, so that it canhandle more and bigger ships.But the Summit did not givethe green light to FTAA,despite Bush's threats andarm-twisting. A handful ofcountries stood out against it,including Venezuela, whereoil resources give the rulers abit of bargaining freedom (seethe November SocialistStandard). So now things arebeing left to the meeting of theWorld Trade Organization inHong Kong in the middle ofthis month.
The Argentinian Summitwas marked by protests andpolice crackdowns, togetherwith the usual populist anti-American pronouncementsfrom Presidents Chavez ofVenezuela and Lula of Brazil.Clearly, many workers areunconvinced that a policy is intheir interests just because itsuits Bush, his fat-cat backersand the American capitalistclass in general. But nobodyraised the real issues aboutthe way society is run.
The truth is thatarguments about 'free trade'or 'fair trade' or any other kindof trade completely miss thepoint. All variants on tradeaccept the idea that food,clothing, housing etc. shouldbe bought and sold ratherthan freely available. Theyalso accept that the earthshould belong to a small classof owners rather than beingthe common property of all itspeople. They all accept theexistence of capitalism ratherthan rejecting it entirely asSocialists do. !
SUMMIT'S UP
Socialist Standard December 20054
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Socialist Standard December 2005
0uman NatureDear Editors, I'm aware that Socialists often have to facethe criticism that Socialism is against humannature. According to this point of viewhuman beings are naturally selfish andacquisitive, even when they have enough tosatisfy their own needs. There wouldcertainly seem to be plenty of apparentevidence for that point of view. I thought you
might appreciate asection I came acrossin "The NeuroticPersonality of OurTime" (1937) byKaren Horney (left):
"The irrationalquest for possession isso widespread in ourculture that it is onlyby making
comparisons with other cultures that onerecognises that it is not a general humaninstinct, either in the form of an acquisitiveinstinct or in the form of a sublimation ofbiologically founded drives. Even in ourculture compulsive striving for possessionvanishes as soon as the anxieties determiningit are diminished or removed."
Horney saw "the irrational quest forpossession" as one of a number of ways inwhich people try to cope with feelings ofanxiety, and not as an expression of "humannature".
She rejected over-generalised ideasabout "human nature" and recognised howdiverse people are in their attitudes andbehaviour.
ADAM WATERHOUSE, BRISTOL
3u4/n5 6/7e8. 9..ent/a$.Dear EditorsThe aim of capitalism is to sell. I rememberthat in the 1939/45 war if we had food,warmth and shelter we wanted nothing, so Itry to restrict my buying to essentials.
M. B. A. CHAPMAN, BATH.
We're not too sure about this. If it caught on,employers would be able to pay us all less.
0uman/.mDear EditorsPermit me to comment on your book reviewof Postmodern Humanism (November). TheBritish Humanist Association was foundedin 1896 and not as stated in 1963. A foundingmember was Charles Bradlaugh MP andwhen I ceased to be a member in 1997 thereexisted links with South Place EthicalSociety, Rationalist Press Association andNational Secular Society.
I shall not comment on the reviewer'sclaim "they still seem to be working out whattheir positive case is beyond promoting anon-religious but still ethical approach tolife". But I do assure you that they have taken
an active role in the promotion of a largenetwork of funeral celebrants and likewisefor wedding and naming ceremonies.Whether these activities exist with the samemomentum today, no doubt the book's author(as a member of the North East Humanists) isbetter able to judge.
E. HIRSCH, HOCKLEY, ESSEX.According to the British HumanistAssociation's own website, they werefounded in 1963. It was another body, theEthical Union, with which they are nowassociated, that was founded in 1896.
Letters
5
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state of e-ergenc' was lifted in so-eplaces and re?i-posed in ot;ers7 @;e 2r.an2nrest of t;e last two weeks is fading awa'Bleaving so-e dead ? t;e g2' attacked fortr'ing to defend ;is area fro- arsonistsCso-e inD2red ? t;e disa.led wo-an set onfire in a .2s .' t;2gsB t;e )E? -ont;?old.a.' w;o received a rock on t;e ;ead and aw;ole lot of -indless vandalis-F cars .2rntBsc;ools .2rntB .2ses .2rntB kindergartens.2rntB s;ops s-as;ed and so on7
@;e deat; of t;e two 'o2ng lads w;owere accidentall' electroc2ted w;en t;e'ran into an electricit' s2.?station in Clic;'?so2s?.ois nort; of Paris following an all tooro2tine police identit' c;eck in t;e area wasnot in itself t;e trigger to t;ese events7 @;etrigger was t;e reaction of t;e InteriorMinisterB KarkoL'B M5ranceNs answer toBl2nkettB -arital pro.le-s incl2dedP w;ocalled t;e 2nr2l' 'o2ng people in t;es2.2r.s Qriff?raffQB t;2s confir-ing atendenc' towards t;e .lanket stig-atiLationof t;e pop2lation w;o live t;ere7
@;e e12ation s2.2r.s R i--igrants Rdelin12entsB isB of co2rseB t;e kind of.rainless reasoning favo2red .' -e-.ers oft;e *ational 5rontB and .' so-e policeofficersB partic2larl' t;ose w;o QknowQ t;ei--igrant pop2lation largel' t;ro2g; t;eireSperience of t;e dirt' Tlgerian war ofindependence7 B2t t;e Qi--igrantQpop2lation in t;e s2.2r.s ;ave .een t;erefor t;ree generations and as s2c; t;e' walkaro2nd wit; 5renc; identit' papers7Unfort2natel' for t;e-B t;e' ;ave Tra.na-es andVor .lack faces and t;2s facediscri-ination in e-plo'-ent7 @;eirpro.le-s are a concentration of t;ose faced.' 5renc; workers as a w;ole and ;avenot;ing to do wit; t;eir level of
QintegrationQ into t;e 5renc; nation7 TfterallB t;ose Tra.s w;o fo2g;t for t;e 5renc;d2ring t;e Tlgerian war of independenceMt;e so called Q;arkisQP ;ave t;e-selvesvegetated in g;ettoesB t;e victi-s of post?colonial .enign neglect7 Even t;ese Tra.s;avenNt .een allowed to integrate7
Can of worms@;e .ackgro2nd to t;is can of wor-s
is not t;e state of t;e ;o2sing in t;e sinkestates MQcitXsQP in t;e s2.2r.s of t;e -aDortowns in 5rance7 Ko-e of t;e ;o2singBad-ittedl' not allB is of fairl' good 12alit';aving .een .2ilt in t;e -id?)YZ[s7 Britis;sink estates are a lot worse7 *or is t;epro.le- t;at of t;e a.sence of p2.licservicesB ed2cationB ;ealt; careB p2.lictransport and all t;e rest7 @;ese p2.licservices are present in t;ese areas to aneStent w;ic; co2ld onl' .e drea-t of in ane12ivalent T-erican or Britis; g;etto7 LetNsnot get t;ings -iSed 2p7 *oB t;e -ainpro.le- of t;ese sink estates is precisel't;e social and et;nic ;o-ogeneit' of t;eseareas or t;e concentration of people wit;profo2nd social pro.le-s t;ere7 5a-il'.reakdownBsoleparentingBlow self?estee-Bed2cationaldiffic2ltiesBpro.le-s ofe-plo'-entco?eSist wit;an oftenviolent socialenviron-entw;ere 'o2ngpeople grow2ps2rro2nded.' delin12entgangs7
@o-ake -attersworseB t;e5renc; police
force is -ainl'installed in t;e12iet s-alltownsB t;espatialdeplo'-ent oft;e flics ;avingsta'ed largel'2nc;angedsince t;e ]ic;'epoc;7 @;epolice trade2nions ;averesisted allatte-pts atredeplo'-ent7Ts a r2le t;enBt;e cops onl'co-e to t;2-ppeople t;e'donNt know inareas t;e' getlost in7
Cal-Q-iddle?classQareas ;ave aplet;ora ofpolice stations7EarliereSperi-entswit;co--2nit'policing
MQpolice de proSi-itXQP 2ndertaken .' t;eQsocialist govern-entQ of ^ospin s2cceededin cal-ing t;e s2.2r.s .2t were a.andoned.' t;e s2per?cop Karko on t;e gro2nd t;att;is allowed t;e proliferation of a paralleldr2g econo-' Mtr2eP7 In t;ese ter-sB t;e-ore testosterone?propelled policing of t;ec2rrent ad-inistration is .elieved to .e-ore effective Mnot tr2eP7 Ts a res2ltpolicing in t;e s2.2r.s ;as taken on t;eQw;a- .ang and t;ank 'o2 -a-Q st'le wit;lots of -edia attention7
52nds going to t;e associations in t;es2.2r.s ;ave .een c2t and Do.?creationsc;e-es s2spended7 @;is is g2aranteed toworsen co--2nit' relations wit; littlepa'off in ter-s of t;e fig;t against t;2gsw;ose activities doB after allB provide so-ecas;?flow in t;ese areas w;ere 'o2t;2ne-plo'-ent often ;its _` percent ? t;e;ig;est rate in E2rope7 *o wonder t;en t;att;e govern-ent ;as decided to park t;e riotpolice MCRKP on a se-i?per-anent .asis int;ese estates7 Tlt;o2g; co2ntr' .2-pkinswit; a well?deserved rep2tation for.r2talit'B t;e' do at least know ;ow to react
Merde inFrance
ZSocialist !tandard 'ecem+er -../
w;en t;e' get lost in an area t;e' donNtknow7
,Arab work,In strictl' capitalist ter-s not;ing
can nor per;aps will .e done to c;ange t;issorr' state of affairs7 @;e c2rrentpop2lation of t;e s2.2r.s largel' consistsof t;e sons and da2g;ters of .lack Tfricansand Tra.s .ro2g;t over in t;e )Y
! S"c$a&$'t Standard December 2005
ReportfromParisWe have received the followingreport on the recent riots inFrance as seen by a migrantworker there.
At the end of Octoberthere was a heavy riotin the suburbs of 4arisas a result of a police
identity card control. ThreeAfrican immigrants, one fromthe west coast and the othertwo from North Africa werecontrolled by police aroundSeine Saint Denis in one ofsuburbs of 4aris. There was adisagreement between theimmigrants and the police onduty. So, the three immigrantsraced for safety but,unfortunately, two ran into ahigh tension compound and were electrocuted. Another one ranin a different direction and alerted his friends to what happened.Before they could trace the two boys and call the fire service torescue them, it was too late.
These suburbs have been neglected, segregated for peopleof the same ethnic and religious background, for the past thirtyyears. Some of those living there who acBuired good skills in onetrade or the other were denied a Cob opportunity because of theircolour, location of their residence or Islamic names. An Englishadage says that an idle man is the devilFs workshop. Since theseimmigrants were denied social and economic integration intoGrench society, they devised what means of livelihood they couldin order to keep the body and soul together. Gor many yearsGrench society has regarded them as outcasts and vagabondswho have no value Cust because of their colour and fate.
When this incident happened the Interior Minister ofGrance, Nicolas SarkoJy, a hardliner and the son of anKungarian immigrant, supported the action of the police and saidthat they were on a drive to control criminals and drugs in thosesuburbs instead of showing compassion and regret over thedeath of the two African immigrants. After his televisionbroadcast, these immigrants, comprising black Africans and theNorth Africans, plus their sympathetic friends from Asia, Latinos,West Indies and other Europeans, Coined hands in the riots.
On the second day of the riots, the Interior Minister braggedthat he would beef up the police to one thousand to control thesituation. And that night about eight hundred cars were burnteMcluding houses. The riots started from Seine Saint Denisaround 4aris and spread all over Grance. These cities areBordeauM, Nantes, Toulouse, Tours, Belfort, Essonne, RoubaiM,Strasbourg, Lyon, Oaucluse, Besancon, Aulnay, Marseille,Amiens, and many more cities in Grance.
The cost of the damage in the three weeks of riots inGrance amounted to PQ00 million, Cust because of racism,Menophobia, and segregation that was imposed on immigrants
by capitalism. And this is the countrythat propagated a disguisedcolonisation to third world countriesunder the pretence of a policy ofassociation and assimilation. Andtoday their fake paradigm programmeis eMposed to the world for us toknow the danger in capitalism.
On 11 November, BBC radioreported that the European UnionVustice Commissioner, GrancoGrattini, told Grance to integrate itsethnic minorities in other to avoidfurther such occurrences. On 1WNovember, the same EU gave PX0million to Grance to rebuild theircountry. They had forgotten to pass
the message across to other EU memberstates that prevention is better than cure.
To my greatest surprise, on the streets of 4aris and othercities that I visited in Grance many Grench people confessed infront of the television cameras that they had never seen riots likethis in their life. And these were Cust riots with petrol bombs andstones thrown by few boys! And I asked myself, what if they hadseen the genocides from Biafra to Rwanda that imperialismcaused, because of its egocentric intent, at the eMpense of poorAfricans in particular and the third world countries at large.
What is happening in Grance today should be a lesson tonations like Belgium, Kolland, Germany, SwitJerland, Austria,Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
As a socialist propagandist, I hate vandalism, I believe inpeaceful social and political dialogue. But, when people take thelaw into theirhands, that meansthat they have beenoppressed beyondbounds and theyare prone toeMplode. And theireMplosion can resultto rioting, rebellion,terrorism andsometimes totalanarchy.
At thisCuncture, EU shoulduse its tongue tocount its teeth andknow that theGortress Europehas brought severedamage to Granceand that many more riots are on the way to other EU memberstates that have refused to open up their immigration policy thatencourages marginalised FillegalF immigrants. Immigration policyin the West is based on corrupt western politicians connivingwith the third world politicians; as a result, immigrants continueto cross borders and seas no matter what the risk ahead.
SarkoJy is a man who believes that he can become the4resident of Grance in Q00\ by fighting immigration. Capitalismhas blindfolded the world that our level of forgetting things isBuite enormous. If not, how can some political riff]raff like NicolasSarkoJy of Grance and the Belgium Interior Minister 4atrickDawael be propagating what their forefathers could not achieveyears ago^ These two sycophants are looking for cheappopularity in their political party because they live in the land ofthe blind that have eyes but cannot see. They will bring woes tothe entire population of these two nations.
Lastly, I am advocating that the only solution that willenable people of different race to live in peace is socialism. Andcapitalism should be eradicated without further delay to enableus to enCoy the beautiful things of the world without fear. !Dele C. Iloanya, Paris
!arko&' ) after c.eap pop0larit'
Franco Frattini ) moreinte6ration
S"c$a&$'t Standard December 2005 "
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Pa0line and .er pens ) from a classic :;satire on t.e state<s relentless .0miliationof t.e 0nemplo'ed
Socialist Standard December 20055!"
In November anti-capitalistswere urged, via email, tosend a letter of protest tothe ;resident of Argentina
about the threat to evict theworkers cooperative, set up byformer employees, that tookover the bankrupt Bauen Hotelin the centre of Buenos Airestwo years ago and has been
running it ever since.When in December D""!
the Argentine economy andcurrency began a melt-downmany small and medium-siEedenterprises went bankrupt orwere simply abandoned bytheir owners. Faced withGoining the already huge andgrowing army of unemployed,
workers in some of thesebusinesses took matters intotheir own hands. Theyoccupied the workplace andresumed production on theirown account.
At the time some saw thisas the beginning of a socialrevolution in which theworkers take over the factoriesand organise productionwithout the bosses. A moresober assessment was that thiswas workers, in a crisissituation, reacting in apragmatic fashion to try toensure that they had somesource of income to maintainthemselves and their families.But it did at least show, to anywho might not have realised it,that workers can organiseproduction without bosses.
This was not really amass movement, but itcurrently involves some D""enterprises employing in totala maximum of !",""" people,i.e. the average JrecuperatedenterpriseJ as they callthemselves (recuperated, thatis, from bosses regarded asundeserving or even thieving)is one employing about M"workers. And !",""" lessunemployed is a drop in theocean compared with the totalnumber of unemployed inArgentina which, even today,is still over D million.
The authorities, notwishing to aggravate analready disastrous economicand financial crisis, acceptedthis situation as a fait accompliand passed a law allowingworkers cooperatives to play apart in rescuing failedbusinesses. Nnder this law,local and regional authoritieswere empowered tocompulsorily acOuire a failedbusiness and authorise it to berun by a workers cooperativefor up to two years pending asettlement with other creditors(the workers themselves wereoften also creditors in respectof unpaid wages) or the formerowners. Some recuperatedenterprises went down thisroad. Qthers negotiated a leasewith the former owners, whichof course involved payingthem a share of any profits.Qthers continued to operateoutside the law.
The two years are nowcoming up, and with theArgentine economy havingrecovered a little and the socialand political situationstabilised, the authorities arebeginning to enforce the law,which gives property rightsover a business either to theformer owners or theircreditors. A number ofbusinesses taken over by the
workers in D""D have alreadybeen recuperated back fromthem. Now, it appears, it is theturn of the Bauen Hotel.
Evicting the bosses andorganising production withoutthem is one thingS escapingfrom the economic laws of themarket is another - as, withincapitalism, it is not Gust aOuestion of organisingproduction, but also of sellingwhat is produced. Because oftheir precarious legal position,the workers cooperativesrunning a recuperatedenterprise have been at acompetitive disadvantage.They canTt get proper bankloans and, because ordinarycapitalist businesses are nottoo keen to deal with them,often have to sell to them via ago-between (who naturallydemands a share of theprofits).
What the workerscooperatives, some of whichare organised in a MovimentoNacional de EmpresasRecuperadas, are nowdemanding is a stable legalframeworkS basically, that thestate or regional or localauthorities compulsorilypurchase the business they arerunning and legally hand itover to them. Thus, the petitionto the ;resident of Argentinaon behalf of the Bauen Hotelcooperative calls upon JtheArgentinian government andits legislators to actimmediately to . . . pass a lawof definitive expropriation infavour of the Workplacecooperative B.A.N.E.N.J
Apart from wanting tosecure their own position, thebroader vision of those behindthe Bauen cooperative seemsto be an economy based on anetwork of worker-ownedbusinesses. Even anarchists inArgentina, who might beexpected to look favourably onthis, have criticised it:
JCooperativism does notprovide a real solution to theworkersT situation. It isincapable of providing ananswer in the interests of allworkers. At no time does itOuestion the capitalistproduction relationships - itOuestions only superficialfeatures (monopolies,competition, etc.). Even lesscan a network of cooperativescreate a parallel subsystem tocapitalismJ(www.EabalaEa.netZphorumZread.php[f\D]i\!M^]t\!M^).
_es, cooperatives canonly ever involve a minority ofworkers, and the more they areintegrated into the capitalisteconomy and its profit-seeking, the more their
Argentina'sWorker-RunFactories:What Next?
Members of the workers cooperative, with the Bauen hotel behind
Socialist Standard December 2005 !!
members will have to discipline andpressurise themselves in the way the oldbosses did - what used to be known asJself-managed exploitationJ.
The Trotskyists have anothersolution. According to an article in theQctober Le Monde DiplomatiOue:
JDuring D""D there was a livelydebate on whether revived businessesshould get involved in capitalist markets.A Trotskyist minority called fornationalisation under worker control. Ittook over four businesses, includingBrukman, a garment factory in BuenosAires, and aenon, a tile manufacturer inNeuOubn. The workers involved saw therescue as a first step towards a socialistsystem in which the state would controleconomic planning. The hard-left partiesassociated with them did not believe thatcooperatives could survive in a capitalistmarketJ(mondediplo.comZD""MZ!"Z!csurvey).
It is certainly true that cooperativeswill never be able to outcompete ordinarycapitalist enterprises, but the TrotskyistsTalternative of the state subsidising therecuperated enterprises, without reOuiringthem to compete in the marketplace, Gustto provide Gobs is even more unrealistic -and has nothing to do with socialism. (It ismore than likely, however, that this is Gustanother of the TrotskyistsT dishonestJtransitional demandsJ which they knowcanTt be achieved under capitalism butoffered as bait to obtain a following fortheir vanguard party.)
The fact is that there is no way outfor workers within the capitalist system.Not cooperatives, not reforms, not tradeunions. At most these can only make theirsituation a little less unbearable. As longas capitalism lasts workers will have tofind a source of money one way or another
and so will always be in a dependent andprecarious position.
But a number of lessons can bedrawn from the recuperated enterprisesmovement in Argentina.
Firstly, that built into capitalism is aclass struggle between those who own themeans of wealth production and thosewho donTt and who are therefore forced byeconomic necessity to sell their ability towork to those who do. This class struggleis not Gust over the price and conditions ofsale of the commodity workers are selling.Nltimately, itTs about control over themeans of production.
If, as happened in Argentina after theeconomic melt-down of December D""!,capitalists abandon their factories or, ashappened in Russia in !d!e, Spain in
!dc^, and Hungary in !dM^, the capitaliststate is temporarily incapable of protectingcapitalist property, then the workers moreor less spontaneously take over theirworkplaces and keep production going.Workers are not going to let themselvesstarve: if the means of production arethere, and thereTs no state to stop themusing them, theyTll go ahead and use them,even if they have no revolutionarypretensions. However, as soon as the statehas got its act together again, then it is in aposition to confront the workers and re-
impose access to the means of productiononly on its terms.
Which leads to the second lesson: theimportance of who controls the state. Atthe moment, in Argentina as elsewhere,this is in the hands of people favourable tothe continuation of capitalism, itself areflection of the fact that most workers toodonTt see any alternative to capitalism. Thestate, therefore, upholds legal privateproperty rights. The importance ofpolitical power is in fact fully recognisedby the recuperated enterprises movement.This is why they are calling for the law onproperty rights to be changed so as torecognise the property rights of theworkers cooperatives which are runningrecuperated enterprisesS which will onlyhappen if they can get the elected law-makers to do so, either by pressuring themfrom outside or by electing onesfavourable to a change in the law. This iswhy, too, they want people to petition the;resident of Argentina.
The end of capitalism can only comeas a result of a consciously socialistpolitical movement winning control ofpolitical power with a view to abolishingall capitalist property rights and usheringin the common ownership and democraticcontrol of the means of production. Thepreconditions for ending capitalism are amaGority socialist consciousness andworkers democratically self-organised in alarge-scale socialist party. Neither ofwhich, unfortunately, existed in Argentina.Which is why the recuperated enterprisesmovement there has proved a dead-endand why the workers cooperatives it gaverise to are now forced to compromise andintegrate themselves into capitalism tosurvive. !
ADAM BUICK
PensionedOffAccording to thegovernment and thecapitalist media, there isa Jpensions crisisJ inthat, given the growingproportion of retiredpeople in the population,
the capitalist class is not going to be able toafford to maintain pensioners at the samelevel as existing ones. Therefore, theargument goes, people must set aside moreof their current income to purchase futurepension rights. And they must retire later.
It seems to make sense. If there aremore retired people compared to those atwork, surely that must mean that those atwork have to work more andZor consumeless[ This would be true but for one thing: itignores the point that over time productivityincreases, even if only fairly slowly. Thismeans that more wealth can be produced bya workforce of the same siEe, out of which,in theory, both current wages and futurepensions can be maintained at the samelevel as today.
JIn theoryJ because the fact that thiscould happen is no guarantee that it will.But it does show that the capitalist classcanTt plead poverty here. They can afford to
maintain pensions at current levels.That this is so was confirmed in a
report, The Ageing ;opulation, ;ensionsand Wealth Creation, released on c!Qctober by a pro-business think-tank,TomorrowTs Company. According to theBBC News of that day:
JQne of the reportTs authors ;hilipSadler said there was no Tageing crisisT. TAsa society we can afford to grow old,T he said.TRising productivity will outweigh anynegative influence on living standards froman ageing population.TJ
The report asked Jhow can a workingpopulation that is expected to remainaround De to Df million create sufficientwealth over the next cM years to support anadditional five million pensioners[Jand answers:
JThe main factor affecting ourability to afford an ageing populationwithout the erosion of living standards is theimpact of rising productivity. More thananything else, rising productivityexplains the paradox thatageing societies havesimultaneously becomewealthier. At a mere !.eM percent productivity growth peryear, by D"gM, an averageBritish worker will be abouttwice as productive as today.In other words, a doubling of
new value and resources being producedwhile the number and share of over ^gsgrows by less than M" per cent.J
What is interesting in a report from apro-business lobby is that it acknowledgesthat it is the Jworking populationJ who arethe Jwealth creatorsJ rather than the usualguff we get from such groups aboutentrepreneurs being wealth creators. Wealthcan only be created by human beingsapplying their mental and physical energiesto materials that originally came fromnature.
But they do write as if there was adirect transfer from the JworkingpopulationJ to the pensioners. In fact, thisonly happens indirectly, as the wealth is
taken from its direct producers, theworkers, by the capitalist class and
then transferred by them, via thestate and pension funds, to pensioners. Sopensions come out of profits, not wages.Which is why how to pay for pensions is
a problem for the capitalist class.However they solve it,what we get will never beenough to compensate fora lifetime of exploitation.
Cooking the Books (1)
“cooperatives willnever be able tooutcompete ordinarycapitalist enterprises“
Socialist Standard December 2005512
Russia at the time was apredominantly agrarian country.80 per cent of its inhabitants werepeasants, eking out a very meagre
existence from the soil. They had beenemancipated from being serfs in 1861 by adecree of Tsar Alexander III but peasantunderstanding of personal ownership inland remained very rudimentary. After the1861 emancipation act there arose awidespread and deeply held belief amongthe peasants that at some time in the futurea redistribution of land was going tohappen. This belief made them a veryvolatile and potentially revolutionary class,although they had no political aims andcould see no further than land.
Whereas in Britain and most ofEurope at the time, a strong nobility hadlimited the power of the monarch,allowing a rising capitalist class todevelop. In Russia, Tsar Nicholas hadabsolute power. He ruled under a systemcalled patrimonialism, in which everythingbelonged to the Tsar. He was absolutemonarch and nothing could change withouthis consent. There was no parliament orconstitution. Government officials weredirectly responsible to him, and hebelieved firmly in upholding this system,much as Charles I of England believedfirmly in the divine right of Kings. Thismeant in practice that the growth ofcapitalist industry in Russia was limitedand largely reliant on foreign capital.Consequently the indigenous capitalistclass was very weak.
As a result of this weakness the pathto a political and legal set-up in whichcapitalist development could flourish wasundertaken by the 'intelligentsia', a conceptpeculiar to Russia. Comprised largely ofuniversity students, lawyers, and artists(i.e. writers) it was more or less open toanyone who was against the patrimonialset-up. And because Tsar Nicholas wasextremely rigid in his outlook andfrightened of any change that could limithis power, democratic protest from the1870s onwards was not an option. Protestbecame channelled into the form ofviolence, with assassinations ofgovernment officials taking a prominentpart. A movement, openly committed toassassination, called the People's Willcame into being, attracting the support ofmuch of the intelligentsia, including, for atime, Lenin. Some thousands of
government officials were killed;assassination became a way of life.
The response from the government,backed by the Tsar, was repression, toclamp down ever more tightly. The use ofwhips by the police to quell student strikesdid not endear the government to thosewho wanted change. At the close of the19th century with the setting-up of theOkhrana, Russia became the first policestate in history. It was riddled with secretpolice infiltrating agents into most of theanti-Tsar organisations. Various politicalparties had developed by this time, withvarying aims, ranging from theestablishment of a parliament and aconstitution to establishing socialism. Theexact nature of what they meant bysocialism was never really stated, butprobably boiled down to some kind ofnationalisation, with tight governmentcontrol. Around this time many of Marx'searly writings had arrived in Russia andMarx was very popular, but not muchunderstood. Funnily enough Capital wasallowed by the censor who thought it wasso dreary no one would read it, but mostlyMarx's writings were smuggled in.
By 1905 there were three majorpolitical parties loosely representingdifferent class interests. They were theDemocratic Constitutional Party (Kadets)(bourgeois), Social Democratic LabourParty (working class or proletariat in thelanguage of the day), and SocialistRevolutionaries (roughly, peasants andworkers).
Tactics varied from assassination,advocating strike action, to 'leading theworkers to the dictatorship of theproletariat' but all were agreed on thenecessity to remove the Tsar. From the1890s onwards things were growing tense.Conditions of work in the factories andrailways were abysmal, with very lowwages, working hours of twelve tofourteen hours a day and appalling livingconditions, much like they had been a fewyears earlier in Britain's industrialrevolution. There were many very largefactories in Russia employing up to sixthousand workers, attracting thousands ofunskilled peasants. They were mainlyhoused in rapidly built barracks crammedin four or five to one room, quite a few ofthose employing a night shift saving onbed linen by having the night and dayshifts use the same bed.
1905: the firstRussian Revolution
One hundred years ago this year there happened a seriesof events in Russia, culminating in a general uprising inDecember, that Trotsky called 'the dress rehearsal for therevolution of 1917' and which in terms of bloodshed werefar more violent than the actual events in St. Petersburgtwelve years later.
A meeting of the Russian Social DemocraticLabour Party. Lenin is centre, Martovsecond from right
Socialist Standard December 2005 13
As usual, as a result of hasty buildingto accommodate large numbers of workerssanitary conditions were practically non-existent with open sewers in St Petersburgand Moscow and the consequent healthrisk, the usual concomitants of capitalismin its early stages.
In 1903 the Social DemocraticLabour Party held a conference in Londonto draw up fresh rules (largely to containthe split in their ranks between thosefollowing Lenin and those supportingMartov). Lenin was insistent on the needfor a tightly integrated, disciplined party ofprofessional revolutionaries. Martov was infavour of a more open, less disciplinedparty with much easier access tomembership. The conference lead to adecisive split, roughly down the middle butwith a slight edge to Lenin. From thattime on these two sections were known bythe name of Bolsheviks (majority) andMensheviks (minority), leading to openconflict between these groups, played outfifteen years later at the time of thedeposition of the Tsar and the Bolshevikrise to power.
So, at the turn of the century thereexisted a highly critical situation. An allpowerful and inflexible, but neverthelessweak, Tsar, a poorly organised and ill-developed native capitalist class, apeasantry in rebellious mood but non-politicised, and a small as yet unorganisedworking class, not political, whose aimswere confined to improving workingconditions. On the fringe a party ofprofessional revolutionaries whose aimwas to lead the proletariat as their'vanguard', but as yet had minimalinfluence. Something had to give! In 1905it did.
In 1904 Russia went to war againstJapan, in a war that was partly territorial,and partly, as most Western historians seemagreed, a bid by the Russian government todistract attention from current difficultiesand unite the population in a patrioticfervour with a resounding victory.Unfortunately for the Tsar it didn't work, asthere was an even more resounding defeat.The general public lack of support for theTsar fell even lower. More large-scalestrikes ensued, and then, in 1905, therehappened an event only too common in thestruggles of the working class to gainjustice.
Trade unions had been disallowed up
till then in Russia but the government hadbeen experimenting with police-led unionsin an attempt to take the heat out ofworkers discontent. One of these was aunion led by a priest, Father Gapon. FatherGapon thought it a worthy idea to lead amarch in St. Petersburg to appeal to theTsar, following the commonly-held beliefin countries with a very powerful head thattheir father figure is unaware of thesufferings of the population and willintervene to put them right if only they canbring their problems to his attention. OnSunday 22 January some 150,000 peoplegathered in St Petersburg and marched onthe Winter Palace where it was believedthe Tsar was in residence. It was apeaceful protest, many were carryingicons, none were carrying weapons; theybelieved the Tsar would listen. They were
met by troops who opened fire. The deathtoll was estimated at 200 killed and 800wounded, reminiscent of many other panicreactions by governing bodies to peacefulworking class demonstrations, Peterloo,Tiananmen Square among them. Supportfor the Tsar fell even further from then on.
Bloody Sunday, as it was thereaftercalled, opened the floodgates and thecountry was in turmoil. Strikes,demonstrations, outbreaks of violence werethe order of the day. Eventually it wasreluctantly agreed to inaugurate aconstituent assembly called the 'Duma'.This was set up and delegates were votedin, many of them peasants, but it never hadany real power. In the mind of the Tsar itwas only a sop which he intended torevoke as soon as the opportunitypresented itself.
The conservative reaction to thisconcession was extreme. A party was setup, the Octoberist party, which encouraged
mob violence against supporters of theDuma. Government-inspired pogromsagainst Jews resulted in thousands ofdeaths and much homelessness. A wave ofstrikes broke out, peasant violence againsttheir landlords escalated, similar to theFrench peasant violence and destruction ofchateaux in another bourgeois revolution.The country was approaching a civil war.The appointment of a new minister of theinterior, Stolypin, brought some ease to thecountry. His reign of repression consistedof setting special courts, which would haveno compunction about passing the deathsentence. So many were hanged that thenickname 'Stolypin's neckties' becamepopular. He was eventually assassinated -at the opera, in front of the Tsar.
On the positive side, Stolypininitiated land reforms that were meant tobe progressive but are generally agreed ashaving no great effect. The countrygradually settled down, though nevercompletely, and from around 1908 to 1914there was a mild boom, with an increase incapital development.
Was 1905 a revolution? Not really. Itwas more a revolt, by large sections of thepopulation against savagely repressiveconditions, and by the nascent capitalistclass to establish the freedom to operate.But there was no proposal to change thebasis of society and each element, thepeasants, the bourgeoisie, the nobles werepaddling their own canoe. There was onlyone way they could go: capitalism. At bestit was a rebellion, but one that had aprofound influence on a similar uprisingtwelve years later which did change thebasis of Russian society by completelyuprooting Tsarism.
There are many lessons to be learnedfrom this one episode in a period of violentchange. One is that any worthwhileprogress in human society must come, andcan only come, from the working class.Relying on our rulers to initiate worthwhilechange is as useless as the Russianpeasants' reliance on the Tsar. But aboveall is the fact that no force can cut short thenatural development of society until it isready for change. !
CYRIL EVANS
From left: Martov; Palace Guards preparing to fire at protestors; Stolypin
“any worthwhileprogress in humansociety must come,and can only come,from the workingclass”
Socialist Standard December 2005514
The subject ofleadership has beenmuch in the newsrecently. The Labour
Party conference breathedfresh life into the ailing storyof how long Tweedleblairwill hang on to the top job,thus denying Tweedlebrownthe juicy fruits of office. TheConservatives, trying hard tofind a leader who will lastmore than 15 minutes, haveengaged in a drawn-outbeauty contest long oncandidates but short onbeauty. Even leaders needtheir leaders - George Dubyais reported to have said thathe was instructed by God toinvade Iraq.
The socialist view onleadership is quite simpleand straightforward. Wedon't need leaders and can dovery well without them.Socialists are neither leadersnor followers - we areparticipants in the socialistmovement and will be socialequals in a socialist society.
That is not to say thatsome of the qualitiessometimes associated withleadership will not berelevant in socialism. Todaywe rightly reject the idea thatthe Socialist Party has aleader, but it does have aGeneral Secretary to carryout certain democraticfunctions. Similarly, we don'thave leading writers or
leading speakers, but we dohave an editorial board and aprocedure to test memberswho want to speak publiclyon behalf of the Party.
Leadership is not to beconfused with exercisinginitiative. The Socialist Partyas an organisation, andsocialism as a future society,both need people who willstart something or improveon what exists. Thus thefresh design and layout of theSocialist Standard since thebeginning of this year wasthe result of a few membersusing their initiative,responding to what they sawas a need and supporteddemocratically by the Partyas a whole. The same appliesto Capitalism and OtherKids' Stuff, the first of what isintended as a number ofsocialist DVDs.
For socialismcelebrities are out, whiledeveloping everyone'spotential is in. If someonepaints a number ofacclaimed pictures, givesexcellent theatricalperformances, makes anoutstanding contribution to aparticular branch of science,they will no doubt berecognised - but they won'tbe worshipped as demi-gods.!
STAN PARKER
Who needsthe rich?To be one of the idlerich these days £1million is not enough,according to the privatebank, Coutts & Co.,who specialise indealing with theaccounts of such
people. The "super-wealthy", said Coutts'chief executive Sarah Davies, was "a personwho didn't have to work if they chose not to,and who was able to lead a life of luxury"(Times, 18 October).
Twenty-five years ago £1 millionwould have allowed you to lead a life ofluxury, defined as having a 5-bedroomhouse with two staff, an apartment and ayacht in the south of France, eating out twicea week in a posh restaurant, and going onthree two-week holidays to a luxurydestination. To lead such a life today youneed, apparently, some £3 million.
Nobody could amass that amount byworking. Those that do possess such afortune will have got it either by inheriting it
or by wheeling and dealing in the City or inproperty speculation, as a look at the SundayTimes annual Rich List confirms. In otherwords, they can only lead their life of luxuryon the proceeds of the exploitation of thosewho do work. They are not the only onesdoing this since the "fat cats" at the top ofprivate and state industry who paythemselves bloated salaries and bonuses areat it too.
A million pounds is still a lot of moneyof course and would still allow a person notto work if they chose not to, though not thesort of life of luxury just described; rathernot much above the average of the rest of us.But it's a measure of how non-rich mostpeople are - and so have to go out onto thelabour market to find an employer - thatthere are only 425,000 millionaires inBritain, which is under 1 percent of the adultpopulation.
It couldn't be otherwise of course,since the basis of capitalism is the wagessystem and, to work, the wages systemrequires that most people are forced byeconomic necessity to sell their mental andphysical energies as the means of obtainingmoney to buy the things they need to live.
One old socialist definition of acapitalist was a person who has sufficient
wealth and unearned income from it to avoidhaving to sell their ability to work. In otherwords, someone who plays no part inproducing the wealth of society but lives offthe backs of those who do. The pro-capitalisteconomist Keynes called such people"rentiers" and looked forward to theirgradual "euthanasia".
In Russia after 1917 they actually didthis. The idle rich were dispossessed withoutcompensation and went into exile. Somepeople thought that this meant the abolitionof capitalism. But it didn't: capitalismcontinued without them, but run by the state.
The lesson of this was that if youabolish the super-wealthy and the idle richyou don't necessarily abolish capitalism.Capitalism is essentially an economicsystem (of capital accumulation out of thesurplus-value obtained by exploiting wage-labour). It is this impersonal economicmechanism that wage and salary workers areup against and which involves theirexploitation irrespective of who managesthe system or benefits from it (whetherprivate capitalists or those who directlycontrol the state). It is this system, not theidle rich as such, who are only a by-productof it, that socialists are out to abolish.
Cooking the Books (2)
According to theNew Scientist(5 November)s o m e
monkeys can betaught to becaptivated bycapitalism. Theresearch is gleefullypopularised in theDaily Mail (3November). The reportsdon't actually talk aboutcapitalism but the message isclear - the money system is notonly embedded in human nature, italso goes back to monkey nature.
Apparently scientists at YaleUniversity conducted experimentson capuchin monkeys showingthat they can be taught how to usemoney and even master the art ofshopping for bargains. Theylearned to use silver discs as coinsto buy pieces of apple andcucumber from the researchers.When the apple slices were made"cheaper" than cucumber -meaning more apple was offeredfor the same amount of money -they opted for the better-valueapple.
The monkeys then resortedto underhand tactics to hold on totheir cash - by hiding the real coinsand offering up "counterfeit" coinsmade of cucumber. They alsoshowed a gambling streak.enjoying a game which enabledthem to win or lose prized grapeson the flip of a coin.
Fascinating stuff. But theNew Scientist report didn't tell thewhole story. Some of the moreintelligent monkeys went on tofigure that they were living in an
animal class society.The human
e x p e r i m e n t e r spossessed all themeans ofproduction anddistribution: thelaboratory, thestockpile ofsilver discs, thefood rations forthe workers. All
the monkey-workers could do
was earn aprecarious living by
doing various tricks toplease their masters in return forfood portions.
So the class-consciousmonkeys got together and decidedthe only way to achieve theiremancipation was to mount arevolution. They conveyed to theresearchers where they could puttheir silver discs. Instead of accessto the means of life only byearning discs, they decided tobuild a new and classless animalsociety in which all monkeys andresearchers would stand equal inregard to the means of wealth.
The experimenters didn't likethe prospect of being dispossessedof their wealth and privilege. Theythreatened to use armed force toput down the revolution.Fortunately this turned out to be anidle threat. Although a fewlumpenmonkeys briefly took theside of the experimenters, the vastmajority saw that the new systemof production for use and freeaccess was in the best interests ofall animalkind.!SRP
Monkey Business Don't take me to your leader
Socialist Standard December 2005 15
In this strange system thatreceived opinion holds to bedemocratic, who gets to berepresented and to what degree?
When I was living in "The People'sRepublic of South Yorkshire" Iwasn't the right age to vote, but giventhe chance I would have succeeded inbacking the winning candidate (theonly time in my life), little realizingthat although he would have been myrepresentative in Parliament hewould have represented me verylittle.
Later, in the Royal Borough ofKensington and Chelsea, being over21 at last, I got my chance to put myX and did so feeling that now I couldmake my mark. What an exhilaratingfeeling, to be able to make adifference! With hindsight it's easy tosee I was wrong in two ways; (1) thata vote for Labour would count foranything in that constituency, and (2)that, even if my choice had beenelected, he would actually representany of my core principles. But I kepton hoping and putting my X (mydemocratic responsibility) whilstactively demonstrating how I thoughtthe world should be - in GrosvenorSquare (US Embassy) against theVietnam war, at the South AfricanEmbassy against apartheid, inTrafalgar Square with CND - youname it, I was there. All this whilststudying for a degree so I could get agood job. Big trouble with thePrincipal for trying to recruit a fewfellow students at my 'seat oflearning' into a students' union. Howterrible, we would have had access tocheaper books and tickets toconcerts.
The 'good job', teaching,spanning a good number of years, led
to more militancy. Must showsolidarity, join the union, march forbetter conditions, withdrawparticipation in voluntary activities,work to rule. Life seemed to be onelong struggle for the things I believedin. Meanwhile, a move to Kent andmaybe I could try 'strategic' voting.Could I help to keep a particularcandidate out rather than failingconsistently to get mine in?
In the job (sorry, profession) a'restructuring' of the pay scales andan apparent promotion yielded anactual pay freeze. Forget the 1250hours that had been negotiated andhard won; now the schools started'opting out' and going 'Grant-Maintained' (even the decent canteengrub took a knock with privatisation).This led to newly qualified teachersbeing interviewed for posts askedsuch loaded questions as "How latein the evening are you prepared tostay on the premises?" and beinggiven the kudos of an 'acting-up' postfor a year in the wild hope of a salaryincrease the following year for workalready done.
Glad to be out of that rat-race.Lots of very happy and satisfyingclassroom experiences; as for the restof it.
Now I'm an 'ex-pat', an'economic migrant' with no vote andno representation in my adoptedcountry. I am my own representative,wholly responsible to myself and mycommunity. Moreover, I have cometo the full realization that I have shedmy last skin and can confidently sayI know what it feels like to haveemerged as a fully-fledgedsocialist.!
JANET SURMAN
My road toSocialism
Socialist Standard December 200516
Dead man writingPhilosophical Arabesques. By NikolaiBukharin. Pluto Press. 2005. £35(hardback)
While Bukharinwas in prison,awaiting the showtrial that wouldlead to him beingsentenced to deathand executed in1938 onp r e p o s t e r o u s ,t r u m p e d - u pcharges ofsabotage andtreason, he chose
to spent the time writing books. One ofthese was on philosophy. It was found inthe Kremlin archives after the fall of statecapitalism, published in Russia and now inEnglish translation.
Bukharin was one of the moreinteresting and able of the Bolsheviks.Even before the Bolshevik seizure ofpower he had written a couple of bookswhich are quite acceptable as anexpression of a Marxist point of view:Imperialism and the World Economy andThe Theory of the Leisure Class (acriticism of the Austrian school ofmarginalist economics), both written in1914 when he was 26. After the Bolshevikscame to power he was an obviouscandidate to codify Bolshevik theory;which he did in The ABC of Communism(written with E. Preobrazhensky) (1919),The Economics of the TransformationPeriod (1920), and The Theory ofHistorical Materialism (1921) which aresophisticated defences of Bolshevik theoryand practice using Marxian terminologyand concepts.
As a member of the Politburo,Bukharin also played a political role. In thestruggles amongst the Bolshevik leadersfollowing the death of Lenin in 1924, hesupported the policy of consolidating theBolshevik regime internally (as opposed totrying to foment world revolution)favoured by Stalin and most members ofthe Russian party. In fact, as editor ofPravda in the 1920s, it fell to him to comeup with a theoretical defence of this policy.It can even be said that he, even more thanStain, elaborated the theory of "socialismin one country" so reviled by Trotskyists.
To do so he had to identify"socialism" with the state sector of theeconomy, i.e. with what he had once called"state capitalism" (he had temporarily beenone of the "leftist blockheads" denouncedby Lenin in 1918 for opposing theBolsheviks' economic policy of the time as"state capitalism": of course it was statecapitalism, retorted Lenin, adding that,what's more, state capitalism would be astep forward for economically backwardRussia). He opposed the adoption ofStalin's policy of forced industrializationand collectivisation of agriculture in 1929and so fell from favour, but remained aleading figure in the regime. However,
once Stalin decided in the mid-1930s toeliminate all potential rivals he was adoomed man.
Perhaps surprisingly, PhilosophicalArabesques represents a return to hisearlier Marxist approach to things, in thetradition of Plekhanov who wroteextensively on materialism and problemsof philosophy. He does follow ratherslavishly Lenin's philosophical views asexpressed in Materialism andEmpiriocriticism (1908) and PhilosophicalNotebooks (1915), but these were not allthat different from those of other pre-WWISocial Democrats in the Marxist tradition.The trouble was that Lenin wasintellectually intolerant and in his 1908book violently denounced othermaterialists, who didn't agree with hisversion of materialism, for being notmaterialists but crypto-idealists, solipsists(people who believe that only their selfexists) and what he called "fideists"(religious).
Thus, it is rather offputting to find inthe opening chapters of Bukharin's bookthe 18th century Scottish philosopherDavid Hume described as a "subjectiveidealist" and a "solipsist", whereas all hehad done was to question whether or notsuch a thing as absolute knowledge waspossible (a proposition also challenged,even if from a different angle, bydialectics). Hume - and the others in theBritish empiricist tradition which includesBertrand Russell and AJ Ayer, bothdeclared atheists - were not "idealists" inthe sense of believing that the outsideworld only existed in the mind and werecertainly not so mad as to think that onlythey existed.
They are certainly open to criticismfor their approach of starting from thepoint of view of an isolated philosophersitting in his study trying to work out, onthe basis of his personal sense-perceptions,if he really can either know or believe thatthe outside world and other people exist;instead of from the point of view ofhumans living and producing as a socialand socialised group - a criticism Bukharinalso makes of them, pointing out that thefact that the isolated philosopher useswords to think shows in itself that otherhumans must exist since language is aproduct of human society. But to call themnames that suggest they deny the existenceof a world outside the human mind isabsurd, in fact a display of ignorance.
Bukharin is more at home withGerman philosophy (which really wasidealist) - Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Hegel.Although he mentions Hegel in everychapter, he provides a balanced view of hissystem, warts and all (and some of thewarts were enormous) and of what Marxtook from it as its "rational core".
Basically, what Marx retained andapplied to the real world as opposed to theworld of ideas was (1) that you should notjudge by empirical appearances alone(otherwise you might think that the Sunwent round the Earth) but try, bytheoretical analysis, to get at what might bebehind them, (2) that everything is an inter-related part of the whole that is theuniverse, and (3) that everything is in aconstant process of being transformed intosomething else, but that this change is not
always continuous but involves leaps andbreaks. Add to this the traditionalmaterialist view, that non-living naturepreceded living forms of nature, that as ananimal capable of abstract thought andconsciousness of self humans evolvedfrom animals without this capacity, andthat mind and consciousness cannot existapart from a living body, and you have"dialectical materialism".
Whether dialectics is the basic law ofmotion of the universe (as Bukharinargues) or a human description andinterpretation of what they observe innature remains a subject of debate, evenamongst Marxists.
Bukharin's book would be of interestmerely as the writing of someone whoknows he is soon going to be killed but it isalso worth reading in its own right as awork of philosophy. Bukharin obviouslythought this an important subject to chooseit as his last writing. He even asked to beexecuted by poison "like Socrates". Stalinlet him be shot. ALB
Hypocrisy ExposedSimon Schama: Rough Crossings:Britain, the Slaves and the AmericanRevolution. BBC Books £20.
Forget Schama theTV historian - thisis a solid piece ofresearch into asordid piece ofBritish andAmerican historyfrom the late 18thand early 19thcentury. TheEuropean colonistsin Americarebelled against
their British rulers, leading to theDeclaration of Independence in 1776. Thiswas the period of slavery and the slavetrade, and many black slaves (and 'free'blacks) saw through Americanprotestations about liberty and supportedthe loyalist (i.e. British) side. Some blackpeople fought on the patriot (American)side, though slaves were excluded from theAmerican army and giving arms to anyblack people was anathema to many,especially in the south.
But once Britain had been defeated,the question arose of what would happen tothese black 'loyalists'. Some escaped slaveswere recaptured by their owners, but mostmanaged to avoid this dire fate and weregiven certificates by the Britishcommandant of New York, stating thatthey were free to go where they wished(i.e. they were no longer slaves and subjectto the orders of their owner). In 1783 manyloyalists, both white and black, wereshipped off to Nova Scotia to start a newlife. But the 3,500 black settlers there weresubject to appalling discrimination, beingalways last in line for such things as foodsupplies and allotment of land.
Consequently, many of the former
Book Reviews
Socialist Standard December 2005
slaves travelled (in some cases, returned) toAfrica, specifically to what later becameFreetown in Sierra Leone. Under theinitially somewhat paternalistic regime ofthe Sierra Leone Company, they attemptedto establish a settlement of their own wherethey could produce their own crops andtrade with local chiefs. In principle,everything was run democratically, witheach head of household having a vote,including women. Says Schama, 'the firstwomen to cast their votes for any kind ofpublic office anywhere in the world wereblack, liberated slaves who had chosenBritish freedom'. But this freedom wasillusory: in 1800 the black residents ofFreetown rebelled against mistreatment butwere savagely put down, by a Companyarmy partly consisting of Maroons (formerJamaican slaves who now fought on theBritish side). Two of the leaders werehanged.
Schama effectively exposes thehypocrisy of the rulers on both sides. TheBritish government scoffed at theAmericans' pretensions to freedom whileowning other human beings, andAmericans condemned a system where thepoorest inhabitants of British cities werelittle better than slaves. He also brings outthe courage and tenacity of slaves and ex-slaves who fought for some dignity in theirlives.PB
Stopping ShortDerek Wall: Babylon and Beyond: theEconomics of Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Globalist and Radical GreenMovements. Pluto Press £14.99.
This is a textbook-like survey of varioustrends in the anti-globalisation movement.As such, it covers a great deal of materialin less than 200 pages, from avowedsupporters of capitalism such as JosephStiglitz to autonomists like Toni Negri, viaNaomi Klein and (but why?) MajorDouglas and social credit. There are toomany direct quotations, and too manytypos (e.g. references to Lenin onimperialism as 'the highest state of
capitalism'). But notmany readers willbe familiar with allthe writers andactivists mentionedhere, so the bookdoes serve a usefulpurpose, though itis scarcely a fullguide to the ideas ofparticular thinkers.
On the wholeWall summarises
other views ratherthan expressing opinions of his own, but hedoes sometimes let his own attitudes showthrough. For instance, he is sceptical aboutthe ideas of some 'green localists' that adecentralised economy would naturallylead to ecological sustainability and socialjustice. The chapter on 'Marxisms' (notethe plural) starts well, with a photo of theSocialist Party's founding conference, butends weakly with references to Russia,Cuba, etc., as if these dictatorshipsconstituted a valid reason for rejectingMarx's ideas. He discerns a 'pro-globalisation strand of Marx's thought',which is correct to the extent that Marx sawcapitalism as expanding into more andmore parts of the world, but it is simplisticto transfer what he wrote in this regard 150years ago to the present day. Capitalism haslong been a world system and created thepotential for abundance, so there is no needfor further globalisation and theconcomitant wars and impoverishment.
As a Green Party member, Wallhimself seems to support what he calls'ecosocialism'. Certainly we can accept thatSocialism needs to include ecologicalconcerns, indeed that this will be a crucialaspect of a society based on commonownership. We can also agree with hisdescription of the ideas of Joel Kovel: "Theuse of what is useful and beautiful must bepursued, while exchange values must berejected. . . . The rejection of exchangevalues is essential to reducing resourceconsumption and human alienation."Unfortunately Wall stops short ofadvocating the abolition of the wagessystem, and it's just not clear what sort ofsociety he does stand for. There are someremarks about "moving beyond themarket" and "extending the commons",
and some praise for the open sourcesoftware movement, where software is puton the web for free (Wall suggests thatMarx would have used the open sourcebrowser Firefox!). This is OK as far as itgoes, but it needs to be taken that crucialbit further.PB
Tankies, Mate...John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis andConflict, Lawrence & Wishart, £15.99Geoff Andrews, Endgames and NewTimes, Lawrence & Wishart, £15.99
Lawrence & Wishart's'official' history of theCPGB is completedby these two volumeswhich, somewhatoverlapping, coverthe years from 1951to the party's oh sosad demise in 1991.Taken together thispair resemble the firsttwo dry-as-dust
academic tomes by James Klugmannpublished in the mid-60s rather than themore readable but scanty volumes ofNoreen Branson. The similarity betweenthem ends there however. Callaghan's taskof covering the middle years of the 50s and60s was more difficult given the ratherarbitrary starting and ending points (1951and 1968) and, despite the excitementspromised in the title, the era was a largelystatic one so far as the CPGB wasconcerned. Callaghan however rises to thechallenge and his book is an excellentsurvey of the organisation during the era.
The same cannot be said of the otheroffering. Whereas Callaghan isdispassionate in his treatment of the CPGB,Andrews' book reads like a polemic ratherthan a serious history. His supposition thatthe downfall of the CPGB was due to thedecline of the industrial working classsounds like a Holocaust denier's rantings:"They just vanished mate". (On the otherhand this is slightly more plausible thanone version which points a finger at theCIA) And with his constant waving of "theSoviet Mantra" and even a snide mentionof "tankies", it is obvious which side hewas on in the Civil War in the party. Notthat we could give a monkey's for eitherside. Both were downright reformists. Andjust how low down this supposedlyrevolutionary organisation was can bejudged in the book. One 'demand' was forthe reduction of National Service from twoyears to one. Not even the SWP in itscurrent Mad Mullah Alliance phase is thatbad. So Callaghan gets ten out of ten whileAndrews' book gets him a wooden spoonrapped over the knuckles - and the CPGB?A nice cosy corner in the great dustbin ofhistory specially reserved.KAZ
17
Derek Wall
Declaration of PrinciplesThis declaration is the basis of ourorganisation and, because it isalso an important historicaldocument dating from theformation of the party in 1904, itsoriginal language has beenretained.
ObjectThe establishment of a systemof society based upon thecommon ownership anddemocratic control of themeans and instruments forproducing and distributingwealth by and in the interest ofthe whole community.
Declaration of PrinciplesThe Socialist Party of GreatBritain holds
1.That society as at presentconstituted is based upon theownership of the means of living(i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.)
by the capitalist or master class,and the consequent enslavementof the working class, by whoselabour alone wealth is produced.
2.That in society, therefore, thereis an antagonism of interests,manifesting itself as a classstruggle between those whopossess but do not produce andthose who produce but do notpossess.
3.That this antagonism can beabolished only by theemancipation of the working classfrom the domination of the masterclass, by the conversion into thecommon property of society of themeans of production anddistribution, and their democraticcontrol by the whole people.
4.That as in the order of socialevolution the working class is thelast class to achieve its freedom,
the emancipation of the workingclass will involve the emancipationof all mankind, without distinctionof race or sex.
5.That this emancipation must bethe work of the working classitself.
6.That as the machinery ofgovernment, including the armedforces of the nation, exists only toconserve the monopoly by thecapitalist class of the wealth takenfrom the workers, the workingclass must organize consciouslyand politically for the conquest ofthe powers of government,national and local, in order thatthis machinery, including theseforces, may be converted from aninstrument of oppression into theagent of emancipation and theoverthrow of privilege, aristocraticand plutocratic.
7.That as all political parties arebut the expression of classinterests, and as the interest ofthe working class is diametricallyopposed to the interests of allsections of the master class, theparty seeking working classemancipation must be hostile toevery other party.
8.The Socialist Party of GreatBritain, therefore, enters the fieldof political action determined towage war against all otherpolitical parties, whether allegedlabour or avowedly capitalist, andcalls upon the members of theworking class of this country tomuster under its banner to theend that a speedy terminationmay be wrought to the systemwhich deprives them of the fruitsof their labour, and that povertymay give place to comfort,privilege to equality, and slaveryto freedom.
18 Socialist Standard December 2005
OIL - THE PRIZE IN THE MIDDLE EASTFahoud is the name of the spot in theArabian desert that is the centre of thedrama being played out withrepercussions throughout the EasternMediterranean lands, and Fahoud spellsoil. Mr. Noel Barber, correspondent of theDaily Mail told the story in the issues of 31October and 7 November.
"A year ago no white man had everbeen there. Today, under the lea of a greatescarpment - with the nearest naturalwater-hole more than 100 miles away -there lies a small cluster of huts and tents,and by the side an airstrip. It is Fahoud, aname you can find on no map. In it live asturdy band of lonely men, Britain'sadvance force in the war for oil that dailygathers momentum in the Middle East . . .Fahoud pinpoints the struggle for oil beingfought by vast concerns in Wall Street andthe City, by diplomats in Geneva, and in
c l a s h e sb e t w e e nt r o o p spatrolling thet e n u o u sd e s e r tboundaries.It is the battlebetween theSaudis andthe British,b e t w e e nAmerica andBritain formastery inthe world'sr i c h e s toilfield." -(Daily Mail, 7/11/55).
As Noel Barber says of his report: "Itis a story that might have been written 60years ago, when 'outposts of Empire' werefashionable."
He points out that British andAmerican interests clash. American oilcompanies are closely connected with the
ownership and development of theconcession oil fields in Saudi Arabia, whileBritish companies, and the BritishGovernment, are associated with the AdenProtectorate, the Sultan of Muscat and theSheikh Abu Zhabi. After attempts to settlethe dispute by arbitration had brokendown, Sir Anthony Eden announced in theHouse of Commons on 26 October that"native troops, commanded by Britishofficers, had reoccupied the Buraini Oasisafter a skirmish with Saudi Arabian forceswho marched in three years ago." (DailyMail, 31/10/55).
(From article by 'H', SocialistStandard, December 1955)
Fifty Years Ago
Meetings
CLAPHAMSaturday 10 December, 11 am to 5pmBook Sale (Marx,Labour Movement, etc)Socialist Party Head Office, 52 ClaphamHigh Street, SW4 (nearest tube: ClaphamNorth).
CHISWICKTuesday 20 December 8pmWest London BranchSocialCanteen (first door on left), ChiswickTown Hall, Heathfield Terrace, W4(nearest tube: Turnham Green).
What it’s all about: oil
19
Private (?)Lives
Political nerds will have found someexcitement in the Tories' leadershipelection, if only because of thepossibility that it would repeat the
mistakes of the recent past - like JohnMajor, William Hague and Iain DuncanSmith. Spending so many years inopposition has caused the Tory membershipto ask the unbearable question of whetherthey are any longer the natural party ofgovernment - a nightmare from which,many of them have been hoping, the newboy David Cameron will awaken them.Perhaps Cameron's rise in the ConservativeParty announces that they have moved awayfrom the Thatcherite style, as the favouriteof estate agents and car salesmen. ForCameron, like Carrington, Whitelaw andHurd before him, is a toff; he is related tothe 6th Duke of Somerset, the 7th. Earl ofDenbigh, the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury andothers of that ilk.
With so much blue blood in his veinsit was entirely natural that he should go toEton and then to Oxford, to BrasenoseCollege where they expect everyone to betouched by "the tranquil consciousness ofan effortless superiority" (which is notmeant to include Jeffrey Archer, who wasan undergraduate there). Perhaps beingsuperior led Cameron to join theBullingdon, a club of upper class yobswhose only reason for existence is to drink
and eat toexcess insomedefencelessrestaurantbefore theysmash theplace up. Asmight beexpected,Boris Johnson
was in the Bullingdon;recalling an evening of theirtypical revelry, he refers tohis fellow members as a"proud phalanx of tailcoatedtwits". The idea is that afterthe Bullingdon had had theirfun they would evade beingarrested by offering to paygenerously for the damage -a tactic denied to workingclass rowdies causingproblems in their localTandoori, who have to payfor the damage as well asbeing arrested, fined or evensent into custody. There isno record of how activeCameron was in theBullingdon; in any case heobviously devoted sometime to work as he emergedwith a first class degree insomething other thanCriminal Damage, whichwas his passport into a jobin the ConservativeResearch Department.
AscentFrom there he
ascended the greasy pole - although thiswas not always smoothly. He was a "specialadviser" to Chancellor of the ExchequerNorman Lamont when the financial strategyof the Major government lay in ruins andLamont had to make his wretchedannouncement that British capitalism wasgetting out of the ERM. Then he worked atthe Home Office under Michael Howardwho became memorable, not as an effectiveHome Secretary but for his regular defeatsby the judges and for the memory of hisminister for prisons, Anne Widdecombe,that there was "something of the night"about him. After a spell in what he called"industry" - the TV company CarltonCommunications - and after the obligatorycontest in a safe Labour Seat, in 2001Cameron was selected to fight Witney forthe Tories and at the election romped home.He was then closely involved in writing theTory manifesto for the 2005 election, whichwas widely blamed for their third defeatthrough its concentration on the manynegatives of Labour rule without persuadingthe voters that the Tories would benoticeably different. On the now-sensitivematter of drugs that manifesto declared:
We will stop sending mixed messageson drugs by reversing Labour'sreclassificatíon of cannabis as a lessserious drug, changing it from Class Cback to Class B.
Well times have changed and withthem Cameron's ideas; he now refuses tocommit himself about re-grading cannabisand his aides say he prefers a full debate ofthe issue involving academics and doctors.
PrivacyOf course drugs are a delicate matter
for Cameron, made even more so by hisrefusal to give straight answers to questionsabout him using them in the past." I did alot of things before I came into politics thatI shouldn't have done" was one of hisevasions. Another was "I had a normaluniversity experience...We're allowed tohave had a private life before politics inwhich we made mistakes and we do thingsthat we should not and we are all humansand we err and stray". That may haveconvinced the more gullible among the Tory
party but it is not good enough. Usingany controlled drug is breaking thelaws which Cameron and the otherMPs have laid down. He may try toavoid the matter by calling it part ofhis "private life", which in any casehappened some time ago, but thissimply does not answer the question.All over the country, every day,members of the working class arearraigned in the courts for usingcontrolled drugs, or stealing, orbreaking other laws made by the likesof Cameron. They are not allowed toexcuse their offences by referring tothem as part of their "private life" andas an outcome of their being humanand so liable to err and stray.
It is also noticeable thatCameron is capable of taking refuge inthe concept of a "private life" onlywhen it suits him. For example hemakes a lot of the fact that he has asadly disabled son, who suffers fromepilepsy and cerebral palsy and who isunlikely ever to be able to walk ortalk. Cameron has made references tothis child in terms which his listenershave found deeply moving, so thatnone of them ever asked whether a
disabled child was not essentially a"private" matter not to be used to boost apolitician's desired image as a caring father,a man fit to be a parent to the entire nation.Then there was the matter of Cameron'spregnant wife and of the TV publicised actof him fondly placing his hand on heranatomical bump while the audienceswooned and the votes in favour of him asparty leader mounted up.
Arm TwistingIt says something about the Tories'
panic and how desperate they are to erasebad memories, that they should promote anMP as inexperienced (although practised incynicism) as Cameron as the man tobecome prime minister in a few years' time.It may also say something about armtwisting and bullying behind closed doors,about cynical deals done in elegant NottingHill houses and discreet restaurants. Amongall this Cameron strives to persuade us thathe is a new style of politician - candid,trustworthy, sincere - even if this is just likeTony Blair and his "I'm a pretty honestkinda guy". But Cameron's character andhis motivation have been shown up in hiscampaign for the leadership, in the attemptto stifle inconvenient memories and thefashioning and selective exposure of his"private life" while asserting a right toprotect it. A Cameron premiership wouldhave nothing different to offer from allthose wretched failures in the past. Themost we can expect is that his wife, who issaid to be a talented designer, doessomething to spruce up the wallpaper inNumber Ten. !IVAN
Clarification: In the November GreasyPole column we stated that the men who threwWalter Wolfgang out of the Labour conferencewere "beefy, enthusiastically respectful,Labour Party members". This was spin put onthe incident at first - that the stewards wereparty members, so amateurs, so if they went abit over the top it was understandable... Itquickly came to light that in fact they werehired "stewards" from some "security"company (perhaps with a target for thenumber of people ejected?).
“I did a lot ofthings before Icame into politicsthat I shouldn'thave done"
“We'reallowed tohave had aprivate lifebeforepolitics inwhich wemademistakesand we dothings thatwe shouldnot and weare allhumansand we errand stray"
Socialist Standard December 2005
A Thrifty Life "Even by Philip Green's extraordinarystandards, it is a handsome pay day - theretail tycoon has awarded himself Britain'sbiggest bonus of £1.2 billion." (Times, 21October) Mr Green denies that this bigcash pay-out is likely to fund moretakeover bids. "I'm saving up," he says.This is unlikely as he is not known for hisfrugality; in fact he spent £4 million earlierin the year on his son's bar mitzvah. Healso owns a 12 seater Gulfstream G550jet and a 200ft yacht, each worth around£20 million. The salesgirls in Top Shopand Miss Selfridge, which Mr Green ownsand who help produce the £1.2 billion thathe wallows in, can only dream of suchfrugality.
Independence? For political reasons the US governmentpretend that Iraq is now a democratic andindependent country, but the facts aresomewhat different. "Iraqi President JalaiTalabani said he opposed military actionagainst neighbouring Syria but lacked thepower to prevent US troops using hiscountry as a launchpad if it chose to doso. 'I categorically refuse the use of Iraqisoil to launch a military strike againstSyria or any other Arab country,' Talabanitold the London based Arabic dailyAsharq Al-Awsat in an interview onTuesday. "But at the end of the day myability to confront the US military is limitedand I cannot impose on them my will."(Middle East Online, 1 November) Democracy? When Michael Bloomberg won theelection to be Mayor of New York in 2001we commented that it was a strange sortof democracy that allowed a multi-millionaire to become mayor just becausehe spent $60 million on his campaign. Helooks set to be re-elected because of his
vast wealth. "Mr Bloomberg is expected tospend $85 million on his campaign, abouteight times as much as his rivals." (Times,8 November) As they say in US politics:"he bought it fair and square".
A Grateful Nation? The British Legion has produced a reportthat shows that the owning class mightpay lip service to the dead and maimed oftheir wars but that behind the fine wordsis the cynical reality of running the profitsystem. "As thenation prepares toremember thesacrifices ofmillions, exhaustiveresearch by theLegion suggeststhat almost half ofveterans and theirdependants - 3.88million - are livingon less than£10,000 a year.Almost one millionhave to exist onless than half thatamount."(Independent, 11November) Died for"your" country? Well done, wage slave,your widow and orphans can cop £96 aweek to survive on. We shall also giveyou a poem about "lest we forget". Poemsare much cheaper than pensions. The Deadly Dust An estimated 100,000 people in the UKhave been diagnosed as having pleuralplaques - internal scarring on the lining ofthe lung that indicates exposure toasbestos. "A landmark test case will
appear in the Court of Appeal tomorrow inwhich the insurance industry on behalf ofemployers will argue that a potentiallyfatal condition caused by exposure toasbestos should not be compensated."(Observer, 13 November) Earlier this yearthe insurers with the Department of Tradeand Industry on behalf of Britishshipbuilders managed to slash thecompensation from between £12,500 and£20,000 to £5,000 and £7,000. Whetheron the battlefront or the shipyard thecapitalist class will always put profitsbefore human life. Torturous Arguments The US government is opposed to torture,isn't it? Well, sort of. The US Congressrecently passed an amendment to banAmerican soldiers and spies from torturingprisoners but the White House came outagainst such legislation. "This week sawthe sad spectacle of an Americanpresident lamely trying to explain to thecitizens of Panama that, yes he wouldveto any such bill but, no, 'We do nottorture.' Meanwhile, Mr Bush'sincreasingly error-prone vice-president,
Dick Cheney, hasbeen on Capitol Hilltrying to bullysenators to excludeAmerica's spies fromany torture ban. Toadd a note of farce tothe tragedy, theadministration hashad to explain that theCIA is not torturingprisoners in Asia andEastern Europe -though of course itcannot confirm thatsuch prisons exist."(Economist, 12November) Everythingquite clear now?
The Lazy Man Objection "About 73% of workers north of the borderwho replied to an insurance companystudy said they regularly failed to take allof their holidays. Workers in London faredworst, with 77% not using up their annualleave." (BBC News, 15 November) Sowhat about the objection to socialism thatit would not work because people are toolazy?
Produced and published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UNISSN 0037 8259
by RiggFree lunch
Well done, wage slaves, you saved us apacket in pensions