socialiststandard-2006-1226-oct

Socialist Standard October 20062

website: www.worldsocialism.org

6 Left, Right and Centre As the Party Conference season begins we look at politicians' politics.

8 Bored with politics? Politics is not just about the antics of career politicians - or at least doesn't haveto be.

10 Will Labour lose? The present Labour government appears to have run out of steam, but tradingone group of career politicians for another is not the answer.

12 Keynes's World (A Capitalist Utopia). Maynard Keynes imagined a society that would be centred on the pursuit ofenjoyment rather than accumulation, but like other reformists he couldn't fathoma future without money and commodities.

14 Zionism: myth and reality. Zionism misled many Jewish workers with its promise of a "homeland for Jews".A recent book examines the fate of the million or so non-Jews in the stateZionism established.

contents3 Editorial

Leaders

4 PathfindersWater Worlds 1 and 2

5 Letters Ted Grant; Royalty;

5 Contact Details

11 Cooking the Books Salt sellers

16 ReviewsHuman Cargo; Marx's Das Kapital;A Rebel's Guide to Marx; TheRevolution Will Not Be Televised

17 Meetings

18 50 Years Ago Mass Suicide

19 Greasy Pole Life after Blair?

20 Voice from the BackExploitation; American Dream; BigBrother, and more

20 Free Lunch

REGULARSFEATURES

SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS should be sent to The Socialist Party, 52Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.RATESOne year subscription (normal rate) £12One year subscription (low/unwaged) £7Europe rate £15 (Air mail)Rest of world £22 (Air mail)Voluntary supporters subscription £20 or more.Cheques payable to ‘The Socialist Party ofGreat Britain’.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAINThe next meeting of the Executive Committeewill be on Saturday 4 November at theaddress below. Correspondence should besent to the General Secretary. All articles,letters and notices should be sent to theeditorial committee at: The Socialist Party, 52Clapham High street, London SW4 7UN.TEL: 020 7622 3811E-MAIL: [email protected]

OCTOBER 2006

148

socialist standard

12

Editorial

Countless column inches and seeminglyendless hours of news reports have beengiven over to the leadership crisis theLabour Party is currently engulfed in.Speaking up for Prime Minister Tony Blair,former Home Secretary Charles Clark saidBlair would stand down when he was goodand ready to do so and he accusedChancellor Gordon Brown of "absolutelystupid" behaviour in challenging Blair,commenting that Brown needed first toprove his fitness to lead.

Fitness to lead? Now there's a thing.It assumes leaders have some specialqualification acquired over years of studyand self-sacrifice when the only realqualification is the ability to hoodwinkothers into thinking you possessknowledge and qualities they do not.Unlike other professions - doctors,surgeons, architects, physicists - whoseskills come via many years of hard slog -politicians require none whatsoever. Theonly requisite credentials needed whenstanding for election are that you are over21 years of age, not insane and with norecent prison record.

Despite this, many workers think wecannot function without leaders. This is afallacy and one perpetuated by the rulingclass to help them maintain their controlover our lives. Indeed, so prevalent is thisphilosophy, that from the cradle to thegrave we are taught to mistrust our ownintelligence and to feel somewhatinadequate, to look up to our 'betters andsuperiors' (schools, church, politicians,parents etc) for their expert guidance and toaccept without question the plans theydraw up for our future.

It is assumed by many that leadersrun the world. Well, we think it is we, theworkers, who run the world. Politicians

might make government policy, whichbecomes law, but it is we who build andwork the hospitals and schools. It is wewho build the bridges, roads and railways,ports and airports; all the products thathumans need to survive. It is we whoproduce everything from a pin to an oil-rigand provide humanity with all the servicesit requires - we the working class! We don'tdepend on leaders for these skills or fortheir guidance. They have no monopoly onour knowledge and intelligence or on theinventions we dream up to enhance thequality of life. If all the worlds' leaders diedtomorrow, few would really miss them andsociety would function just as before.

The concept of leadership hasemerged with class society and will endwhen we abolish class society, when weabolish the profit system and all that goeswith it. The master class have been allowedto lead because of their control over themeans of living and by virtue of theircontrol of the education system and theirmonopoly of the media and otherinformation processes.

It doesn't have to be this way. Thegreatest weapons we possess are our classunity, our intelligence, and our ability toquestion the status quo and to imagine aworld fashioned in our own interests.Leaders perceive all of this to be a threatand so will do anything to keep us in a stateof oblivion, dejection and dependency. Ourapathy is the victory they celebrate eachday. Our unwillingness to unite as aglobally exploited majority and to confrontthem on the battlefield of ideas is thesubject of their champagne toasts.

Remember this as the battle forleadership of the Labour Party hots up.

Socialist Standard October 2006 3

Leaders, get lost!IntroducingThe Socialist PartyThe Socialist Party is like no otherpolitical party in Britain. It is made up ofpeople who have joined togetherbecause we want to get rid of the profitsystem and establish real socialism. Ouraim is to persuade others to becomesocialist and act for themselves,organising democratically and withoutleaders, to bring about the kind ofsociety that we are advocating in thisjournal. We are solely concerned withbuilding a movement of socialists forsocialism. We are not a reformist partywith a programme of policies to patch upcapitalism.

We use every possible opportunity tomake new socialists. We publishpamphlets and books, as well as CDs,DVDs and various other informativematerial. We also give talks and takepart in debates; attend rallies, meetingsand demos; run educationalconferences; host internet discussionforums, make films presenting our ideas,and contest elections when practical.Socialist literature is available in Arabic,Bengali, Dutch, Esperanto, French,German, Italian, Polish, Spanish,Swedish and Turkish as well as English.

The more of you who join the SocialistParty the more we will be able to get ourideas across, the more experiences wewill be able to draw on and greater willbe the new ideas for building themovement which you will be able tobring us.

The Socialist Party is an organisation ofequals. There is no leader and there areno followers. So, if you are going to joinwe want you to be sure that you agreefully with what we stand for and that weare satisfied that you understand thecase for socialism.

July brought two publications coincidentally includingarticles on the same subject. Couched in terms so, sosoothing to the save-the-planet-sympathisers,Roughnews advises us that "we all need to limit ourpersonal impact on global warming" and whilstsupporting responsible tourism we should give thoughtto "how we can redress the environmental damagecaused by travel - in particular flights, the fastest growingcontributor to global warming". Great! Excellent idea!This has to be good news. We can continue to fly, asoften, as far as we choose and can also redress theenvironmental damage. And the solution? Offset youruse of carbon taken from the ground by enabling a treeto be planted somewhere in the world - and on a shorthaul flight this "costs no more than the price of a drink".

Rough Guides is also publishing a book in October,called Climate Change which, miracle of miracles, isactually a 'climate neutral' book meaning that "theamount of CO2 emitted in the book's production anddistribution, including everything from papermanufacture to the computers used by the author andeditor and the estimated carbon footprint of the book'sphysical distribution has been calculated" by the carbonoffset company Climate Care. To what end? So thatRough Guides (through increased retail price of thebook, presumably) will pay Climate Care to 'offset' thecarbon emissions by planting some trees somewhere, orby installing energy-saving light bulbs somewhere else,or a similar scheme supposed to mop up the carbonreleased. Apparently Rough Guides offsets all itsauthors' travel by paying Climate Care to take care of it.

No mention of how Climate Care benefits from thearrangement. It seems one can 'offset' all manner ofnasties now, from flying, car rental, to producing CDs, allthe while feeling good about 'putting something back'and being lulled into believing you have repaired thedamage done. (The World Bank estimated the globalcarbon market to be worth $11 billion at the end of 2005,10 times the previous year's value.)

However, the second July publication, NewInternationalist, has a different story to tell. It reminds usthat by unlocking the carbon in fossil fuels by mining it,burning it and releasing it as active carbon it disrupts thebalance of carbon in air, soil and seas. What is neededto address the problem of too much carbon dioxide inthe atmosphere is to reduce the amount of carbonreleased. Oliver Rackham, a Cambridge Universitybotanist and landscape historian is quoted thus, "Tellingpeople to plant trees (to solve climate change) is liketelling them to drink more water to keep down rising sealevels." Adam Ma'anit, the author of the article, gets togrips with reality and shows offsetting for what it is -companies being formed to take advantage of thegullible consumer, established companies jumping onthe bandwagon to increase their share of the market andthe misinformed punter alleviating their guilt whilst doingnothing to actually cut carbon emissions. Adam Ma'anit:"Climate change is an issue we shouldn't be 'neutral' on.Carbon offsets are at best a distraction and at worst agrandiose carbon laundering scheme." And, "Thesolution to climate change is social change." Anyseconders?J.S.

Carbon trading or social change?

Water World 1

"We were just standing around in ourshorts, stunned and amazed, trying tomake sense of it". Thus spoke one Inuitvillager, on describing winter temperaturesof 9ºC that should have been -30ºC(Independent on Sunday,27 August). As the Arcticwarms up twice as fast asthe rest of the world, andsea ice has shrunk in areaby a quarter and inthickness by a half, itsinhabitants are discovering thattheir igloos are heat traps, theirwater supply needs wells andtheir workplaces need air-conditioning. MeanwhileGreenland farmers - for they doexist - are starting to growbroccoli, cauliflower andChinese cabbage, while havingto make up, among theirthousand words for reindeer,some new words for thesalmon which are appearing intheir rivers, and the barn owls,hornets and robins which arenow adventuring to the farnorth. What the Inuit think ofglobal warming can be surmisedby the number of their houses andsnowmobiles that have startedfalling through the ice, and one caneasily see why they think "theworld is slowly disintegrating."Meanwhile in Siberia, roads andbuildings built on the permafrost arestarting to collapse, and the Permafrost

Institute inYakutsk hasrecently suffereda major flood(BBC Online, 12September).

Greenlandis the secondbiggest ice massafter Antarctica,with glaciers aslarge asManhattan andas high as theEmpire StateBuilding, and itis now meltingat a rate that hasalarmed eventhe alarmists.Evidence fromNASA satellitesand ground-basedresearchersconcluded inFebruary 2006that Greenland'sglaciers aremelting twice asfast as they werefive years ago.If the ice capwere tocompletelydisappear, whichit is quite likely

to do by the end of 2100 at this rate, globalsea levels would rise by 6.5m (21 feet)(BBC Online, 11 August). If this happens,New York, New Orleans and half ofFlorida including Miami, Tampa and FortLauderdale will be underwater.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Washingtonis facing rebellion from stategovernors all over thecountry to stop stalling over

Kyoto and do something,not least because their

own oil and gascompanies are alreadyone jump ahead with'greener' technologyand need the relevantlegislation to beenacted so they cancapitalize on it.Leading the way is DaGovernator, Arnold

Schwarzenegger, whowhen not terminating

crooks by state execution isso keen to display his green

credentials he sided with theDemocrats against his own party in

order to pass the Global WarmingSolutions Act, which aims to cap

emissions in California, the world's12th largest CO2 emitter, by 25 percentby 2020 (BBC Online, 1 September).But even Arnie is unlikely to hold backthe Arctic flood, because capitalism justdoesn't sit down and listen to reason, ashis Republican ex-buddies knowperfectly well. The reason they opposedhis cosy Californian carbon-capping

caper was because they knew perfectlywell that unless such a plan was federal, so

that nobody could get out of it, all theinvestment would leak out of the state intoneighbouring ones which were notrequired under their state law to worry soenergetically about the problem.

Water World 2

While the Inuit are fast running out of ice,a third of the world's population are facedwith a shortage of any water at all. Thesituation has arisen twenty years earlierthan projections forecasted, according to areport by the International WaterManagement Institute in Colombo, SriLanka (New Scientist, 26 August). Thereport states that while in some placesphysical shortage of water is to blame, inothers it is a question of lack of financialinvestment. So are they talking billion-dollar pipelines from the water sources tothe dry interiors in Africa, Asia and partsof China? Not a bit. The state-of-the-arttechnology is, wait for it, plastic bucketsand bags, lots of big ones, to catch thestuff as it falls out of the sky. Storing roofand road run-off, they argue, could doubleor triple food production in sub-SaharanAfrica and south-east Asia. Not only that,but saving water for 'unrainy days' in thisway could slow the expansion of rain-fedagriculture into virgin habitats from 60 percent by 2050 down to 10 per cent.

The predictable response of mostpeople reading this would be a HomerSimpson-like 'Duh'. You don't need to bean engineering genius to figure out thatwater butts are a good way of savingwater, so why in hell aren't they doing italready, you cannot resist asking?Presumably because in the capitalistscheme of things, poor Africans, Indiansand Chinese peasants don 't have the priceand don't rate the price even of a plasticbucket.

Water World 3

Socialists always welcome any sincereattempt to solve the world's problems,even if some of these attempts areinevitably misguided. One doesn't in allhonesty expect a great contribution to bemade by new-age mystics so it is nosurprise that when Madonna andhusband Guy Ritchie approached the UKgovernment with a scheme to clean upnuclear waste, using a deeply mysticalKabbalah water which they claimed hadreceived extensive testing in a Ukrainianlake, the government didn't show muchinterest in the Ritchies' esotericknowledge of Jewish mystical liquids andin fact showed them the door (NewScientist, 26 August). One might expecthowever that the government official whorecounted this story would show theappropriate respect for such eminentcelebrities, or at least a cool and precisescientific detachment. Instead, the officialdescribed the encounter as follows: "Itwas like a crank call…. The scientificmechanisms and principles were justbollocks." Lovely to see scientistsdescend to plain English occasionally.


High&Dry

2004Greenlandice meltshown inblack


Ted GrantDear EditorsFollowing on from your obituary of TedGrant, the Trotskyist founder of the"entryist" Militant Tendency (SeptemberSocialist Standard), I agree that he was nevera revolutionary; but just another reformermasquerading as a revolutionary.

I first heard Ted Grant speak at ameeting in High Holborn, of the so-calledRevolutionary Communist Party, just beforeits demise probably in 1947. At this meeting,I heard for the first time the claim that theSoviet Union was not socialist, or even a"degenerated workers' state", but in fact adictatorial form of state capitalism. Amember of the audience (of about 100) gotup and forcefully, as well as persistently,much to the annoyance of Grant and theother Trotskyist speakers, and argued that theeconomy of the USSR was state capitalist,and that the workers and peasants there wereexploited in much the same way aselsewhere. Shortly after, two of the leaderswho were at the meeting, Jock Haston andTony Cliff, both accepted the claim thatSoviet Russia was state capitalist.

And who was the speaker from theaudience? I learned later, when I knew theSPGB (from meetings on ClaphamCommon), that it was a man named SammyCash, a well-known and active member ofthe Socialist Party.

As you noted, Ted Grant was oustedfrom the Militant Tendency by a man calledPeter Taaffe, a thoroughly dishonestindividual who claims that his existing groupis the "socialist party", known by the mostappropriate acronym of SPEW.PETER E. NEWELL, Colchester, Essex

Dear Editors,The obituary on Ted Grant by DAP ratherimpressed me with its honesty and, even,generosity. I met Grant and Haston in 1948 atthe RCP HQ on the Harrow Road. Hastonwas a fun fellow; Grant seemed a bit like afrustrated priest.RICHARD MONTAGUE, Ballymena, Co.Antrim.

Royalty - an irrelevance?Dear Editors,On the road to Socialism there are powerfulinstitutions in the way. Monarchy, with all itsassociated inequalities and public loyalty, isa powerful support for capitalism. Itembodies wealth and privilege alongsideemotional adoration by the poor. Cromwellmanaged to remove a king, but soon after hisdeath the monarchy was re-established.

Why has it been as successful as aninstitution? It no doubt has its own methodsfor self-survival (modern PR experts, andyears of experience of being a monarch, plusperhaps a genuine love for the Britishpeople). Yet the institution can only survivewith public consent. None of the politicalparties that have attained power has botheredto question in any serious way the existenceof the monarchy; partly I assume becausethey dread the loyalty of the British people.

We have all been socialised into aculture that respects the royal family, at leastin principle (people may frown at certainincidents with the royals, but basically accepttheir existence). Submission to the monarchyis encouraged from the cradle to the grave,and even if cynical, a person may find it

difficult to resist a feeling of pride when amember of the royal family visits theirfactory or local area. Celebrities haveoccasionally returned MBEs, but they arefew and far between.

Vast arguments are put forward tojustify the royal family (e.g. encouragestourism and hence the pockets of the people)We are 'immersed' in royalist propagandaand culture. Yet how can it be right for onefamily to be so well provided for (houses,land, wealth, public adoration etc) whenother families struggle from day to day?

They also assist and legitimise otherpeople who have unfair amounts of wealth(in the past kings and queens have helpedeach other in difficult circumstances - whenthe peasants are getting above themselves forinstance).

The institution also puts unfair pressureon the members of the royal family. Thehorses the Queen must have sat on horses onrainy days to fulfil her royal duties; and theboredom of watching parade after parade!The lack of privacy - even minor scandalsblown out of all proportion, and thedifficulty of moving in privacy from A to B.

We are so 'brainwashed' into theadvantages of monarchy, that we grosslyunderestimate the disadvantages. Yet it takecourage for a politician to suggest to suggestwe abolish it - the inaction of millions ofindoctrinated people can be a formidablething to experience. Other politicians wouldcondemn his very words (in the hope ofgaining votes for their own parties!).

Are we all involved in a 'mother-figure'complex (or for ex-public school types -'matron')? Do we feel more comfortableknowing she is then looking after us? Or arewe being childish? Shouldn't we liberate her

Letters

continued on page 18

UK BRANCHES &CONTACTSLONDONCentral London branch. 2nd Tuesdayand 4th Monday, 7.30pm. CarpentersArms, Seymour Place, W1 (near MarbleArch). Corres: Head Office, 52Clapham High St. SW4 7UN Tel: 020622 3811Enfield and Haringey branch. Tues.8pm. Angel Community Centre,Raynham Rd, NI8. Corres: 17 DorsetRoad, N22 7SL.email:[email protected] London branch. 1st Mon.7.45pm. Head Office. 52 Clapham HighSt, SW4 7UN. Tel: 020 7622 3811West London branch. 1st & 3rdTues.8pm, Chiswick Town Hall,Heathfield Terrace (Corner Sutton CourtRd), W4. Corres: 51 Gayford Road,London W12 9BYPimlico. C. Trinder, 24 Greenwood Ct,155 Cambridge Street, SW1 4VQ. Tel: 020 7834 8186

MIDLANDSBirmingham branch. Thur. 8pm, TheSquare Peg, Corporation Street. Tel: Ron Cook, 0121 553 1712

NORTHEASTNortheast branch. Corres: JohnBissett, 10 Scarborough Parade,Hebburn, Tyne & Wear, NE31 2AL. Tel: 0191 422 6915 email:[email protected]

NORTHWESTLancaster branch. P. Shannon, 10Green Street, Lancaster LA1 1DZ. Tel:01524 382380Manchester branch. Paul Bennett, 6Burleigh Mews, Hardy Lane, M21 7LB.

Tel: 0161 860 7189Bolton. Tel: H. McLaughlin.01204 844589Cumbria. Brendan Cummings, 19Queen St, Millom, Cumbria LA18 4BGRochdale. Tel: R. Chadwick. 01706 522365Southeast Manchester. Enquiries:Blanche Preston, 68 Fountains Road,M32 9PH

YORKSHIREHull. Hull: Keith Scholey, 12 ReginaCt, Victoria Ave, HU5 3EA. Tel: 01482444651Skipton. R Cooper, 1 Caxton Garth,Threshfield, Skipton BD23 5EZ. Tel: 01756 752621

SOUTH/SOUTHEAST/SOUTHWESTBournemouth and East Dorset. PaulHannam, 12 Kestrel Close, Upton,Poole BH16 5RP. Tel: 01202 632769Bristol. Shane Roberts, 86 High Street,Bristol BS5 6DN. Tel: 0117 9511199Cambridge. Andrew Westley, 10Marksby Close, Duxford, CambridgeCB2 4RS. Tel: 01223 570292Canterbury. Rob Cox, 4 StanhopeRoad, Deal, Kent, CT14 6ABLuton. Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive,LU2 7LPRedruth. Harry Sowden, 5 ClarenceVillas, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 1PB.Tel: 01209 219293East Anglia Branch meets every twomonths on a Saturday afternoon (seemeetings page for details).David Porter,Eastholme, Bush Drive, Eccles-on-Sea,NR12 0SF. Tel: 01692 582533.Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, FirsRd, Hethersett, NR9 3JD. Tel: 01603814343. Richard Layton, 23 Nottingham Rd,

Clacton, CO15 5PG. Tel: 01255814047.

NORTHERN IRELANDBelfast. R. Montague, 151 CavehillRoad, BT15 1BL. Tel: 02890 586799Newtownabbey: Nigel NcCullough.Tel: 02890 860687SCOTLANDEdinburgh branch.1st Thur. 8-9pm.The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace(above Victoria Street), Edinburgh. J. Moir. Tel: 0131 440 [email protected] website:http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/Glasgow branch. 3rd Wednesday ofeach month at 8pm in CommunityCentral Halls, 304 Maryhill Road,Glasgow. Richard Donnelly, 112Napiershall Street, Glasgow G20 6HT.Tel: 0141 5794109 Email:[email protected]: D. Trainer, 21 Manse Street,Salcoats, KA21 5AA. Tel: 01294469994. [email protected]. Ian Ratcliffe, 16 Birkhall Ave,Wormit, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8PX.Tel: 01328 541643West Lothian. 2nd and 4th Weds inmonth, 7.30-9.30. Lanthorn CommunityCentre, Kennilworth Rise, Dedridge,Livingston. Corres: Matt Culbert, 53Falcon Brae, Ladywell, Livingston,West Lothian, EH5 6UW. Tel: 01506462359Email: [email protected] branch. 2nd Mon, 7.30pm,Unitarian Church, High Street. Corres:Geoffrey Williams, 19 Baptist WellStreet, Waun Wen, Swansea SA1 6FB.Tel: 01792 643624

Cardiff and District. John James, 67Romilly Park Road, Barry CF62 6RR.Tel: 01446 405636

INTERNATIONAL CONTACTSAFRICAGambia. World of Free Access.Contact SPGB, London. Kenya. Patrick Ndege, PO Box 56428,NairobiSwaziland. Mandla Ntshakala, PO Box981, ManziniASIAJapan. Michael. Email:[email protected]

EUROPEDenmark. Graham Taylor, Spobjervej173, DK-8220, Brabrand.Germany. Norbert. Email:[email protected]. Robert Stafford. Email:[email protected]

COMPANION PARTIESOVERSEASWorld Socialist Party of Australia.P. O. Box 1266 North Richmond 3121,Victoria, Australia.. Email:[email protected] Party of Canada/PartiSocialiste du Canada. Box 4280,Victoria B.C. V8X 3X8 Canada. Email:[email protected] Socialist Party (New Zealand)P.O. Box 1929, Auckland, NI, NewZealand. Email:[email protected] World Socialist Party of the UnitedStates P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA02144 USA. Email:[email protected]

Contact Details

As the Party Conference season begins we look at politicians' politics.

Left, Right and CentreToday politics is about achieving

political power, with the mainpolitical parties contesting tomaximise their share of votes in a

political market in the same way ascompeting companies do in their areas ofcommercial interest. Power and influencehas become an end in itself for politicalparties because those interests thattraditionally separated them have beenabsorbed into the tapestry of moderncapitalism. In Britain, for example, theConservative and Unionist Party evolvedout of the Tory interest which wascommitted to the landed aristocracy, theupper class, and those institutions like thechurch that promoted the concept of the'divine right of kings' and the socialstratification of society.

As the middle class - the bourgeoisie

or capitalist class - evolved and gainedstrength economically, it challenged thearistocracy for political control in order tothrow off the impeding legal structures offeudalism which confined and restricted itscontinued economic expansion. Thepolitical interest representing theburgeoning class interests of thebourgeoisie was known as the Whigs andsubsequently evolved into the LiberalParty.

In a property-orientated society suchas feudalism or capitalism all real wealth isproduced and can only be produced by thelabour power of a subject class. Thepatents granting ownership of land to thefeudal lords and barons may have derivedfrom a parasitic monarchy but the wealthand privilege enjoyed by the lords andladies of the manor was founded on the

labour of their feudal serfs.Similarly, the new revolutionary class

of capitalists needed the labourer to worktheir engines of production; the serf wouldbe converted from a feudal slave into awage slave under the illusion that theywere being given their freedom. Obviously,since the labourer was the key element inthe wealth-producing function of both thefeudal establishment and the new capitalistsystem of social organisation, the termsgoverning the future control of labour werea primary element of contention betweenthe old order and that of the nascentcapitalist class. This conflict of interestbetween the landed interest and theinterests of the bourgeoisie was reflected inthe post-revolutionary world of capitalistpolitics.

6 Socialist Standard October 2006

Left and rightThe terms 'Left' and 'Right' as politicaldesignations emerged innocuously out ofthe seating arrangements in the LegislativeAssembly of Revolutionary France in1791, when the royalist Feuillants sat onthe right side of the chamber and theradical Montagnards occupied the seats onthe left. This almost incidental occurrencewas to bring the terms 'left' and 'right' intothe lexicon of politics, where inevitablytheir wide generality would make themuniversally both an instrument of confusionand often a means of deliberateobfuscation.

By the middle of the 19th century theexpression of political conservatism wasregarded as 'right wing' while their liberalopponents were designated 'left wing'. Itwas not solely, however as labels forpolitical parties that the terms were tobedevil political consciousness butincreasingly the most irrelevant mattersthat could be construed as having politicalmoment found description within thespectrum of Left and Right.

So when the German and Frenchsocialist movements tactically retainedprogrammes of 'immediate demands' -reformist strategies intended to bring aboutwhat they hoped would be the piecemealevolution of capitalism into socialism -they inevitably became the political Left.The British Labour Party when it wasformed in 1906, unlike its continentalcousins, did not choose reformism as atactic but was founded on a strategy thatheld that inevitably and graduallycapitalism could be reformed intosocialism. It became the principal focus ofthe Left in Britain, lingering long after theLabour Party's pathetic failure to exerciseany real influence in government when itfirst got the opportunity to do so in 1923.

Inter-Left enmityFor decades Labour and Social Democraticparties throughout the world havecontended for political office and thepower of government on the claim thatthey were acting as bona-fide socialists.The multiplicity of left-wing groups,'tendencies' and parties, like the variousTrotskyist organisations and thefragmented periphery of 'the left', havetraditionally supported the main Labour orsocial-democratic parties in generalelections only to become implacablyopposed to their policies when they formedgovernments.

The basis of this inter-left enmity isalways related not to socialism but toaspects of capitalism and is based on thechastening reality of political power. In factpolitics within the left is similar to politicsoutside the left: it is all about capitalismand its endemic problems. Not only that

but right across the entire spectrum ofpolitics from so-called Left to Right andthrough Centre the basic ideas that areperceived as representing Left and Righthave been adopted and abandoned byparties of differing political complexions.

British politics currently illustratesthis point: the Blair government is pursuingviciously authoritarian policies and backingthe aggressive expansionism of aparticularly vicious United Statesestablishment. Judged by the absurdyardstick for determining positions on theswingometer of Left and Right suchpolicies would be seen as extremely right-wing. Conversely, the new Tory leader,David Cameron, is trying to lead his partyback to favour with the electorate withgestures of sympathy for the poor, theoppressed and the intellectually deprivedwhich he believes might fool people intothe belief that the Tories really do care. Infact policies wrongly seen by the pundits tobe essential parts of Labour's politicalstock-in-trade.

Historically, all three of the bigpolitical parties in Britain have advocatedor used nationalisation -- once the sacredcow of the British Left - when economiccircumstances have shown a need for sucha policy. Again, all three parties acceptedthe economic thinking underwriting thewelfare state and all three have acceptedthe Keynesian economic philosophy whenit was wrongly believed to be the panaceafor the intractable ills of the system and

especially the problem of managingeconomic demand.

Winning electionsThe reality of politics today is that politicalparties represent the corporate face oforganised groups of career-orientatedpoliticians whose cushy, well-paid jobs aredependent on selling old and failedpolitical formulae dressed in worthlessverbiage to a gullible electorate. It is not aquestion of honesty, sincerity or sagacity;wise and sincere people elected togovernment may indeed be able to softensome of the nasty features that capitalismthrows up, but a government endowed witha surfeit of wisdom and sincerity could notmake a system of economic anarchy andcompetition - a system predicated on theexploitation of the many by the few - runin the common interest.

Mere poverty and absolutedestitution, the gigantic organisation ofmass murder, which is war, homelessness,crime, social alienation and all the otherfeatures of the capitalist way of life are notcaused by stupid, brutal or insincerepoliticians; they are endemic to capitalism.That is the demonstrable assumption onwhich the case for socialism - our case - isbased; that is why we say it is social andeconomic system that has got to bechanged and not its politicalfunctionaries.¢RICHARD MONTAGUE

“'the left' have traditionally supported the mainLabour or social-democratic parties in general

elections only to become opposed to theirpolicies when they formed governments”

‘the serf would be converted from a feudal slave into a wage slave under the illusion thatthey were being given their freedom’

7Socialist Standard October 2005


If you ask people "what is a party?" theyare likely to reply something along thelines of "a group of people who want toget elected". If you then ask them why

they think these people want to get elected,the reply, if they're feeling charitable, willbe "to do things for the country" or "tohelp other people". If they're not feelingcharitable, they'll say "to help themselves"or that "they're just in for what they canget".

The truth - both as to what peoplethink and what politicians want - will besomething in between. Since up to 70percent of people turn out to vote atelections and vote for politicians and theirparties, they can't really think that all thatpoliticians want to do is to line their ownpockets or further their own careers. Theymust be giving them some credit forwanting to do more, otherwise they'd beexposing themselves as fools for voting forthem. And some politicians can show thatthey genuinely want to help other people,while at the same time of course making acareer and some money for themselves.

Being a politician is a sort ofprofession, like a lawyer or a doctor. Apolitician's trade is to get into parliamentor the local council to run theadministrative side of capitalism. To dothis, they must get elected and, to getelected, they must promise to do things forpeople; they must find out what's worryingpeople and then promise to do somethingabout it.

This is why parties don't needprinciples. Or, put another way, they onlyneed one principle (if it can be called that)and that's "get elected". In the past someparties, the Labour Party for instance, usedto campaign to try to win people over to

their point of view. Not any more. Todaypoliticians just promise people what theywant to hear.

Although Blair, Mandelson and NewLabour earned themselves a reputation forcynicism by the way they raised this to afine art, actually the best practitioners ofthis have been the Lib-Dems, who've longhad "focus groups" to tell them what topromise people in some area they'vetargeted. Now the Tories under Cameronare practising this in a more serious waytoo.

This kind of politics - which isdominant today - rests on a number ofassumptions and has a number ofconsequences.

1. It accepts the status quo. It acceptscapitalism and seeks merely to work withinit. Politics becomes a question of choosingthe best capitalism-management team fromamongst competing groups of politicians.

2. Politics becomes a profession. Youvote for a politician to do something foryou and you reward them for the serviceby voting for them.

3. Politics becomes an activity inwhich only a minority - the professionalpoliticians - participate. Most people's onlyinvolvement in politics is, literally, onceevery few years when they go and put an Xon a ballot paper. Then they go home andlet the person elected get on with the job.

4. Elections become more and more asort of referendum, a plebiscite on therecord of the outgoing government orcouncil. People's participation in politicsbecomes simply giving a thumbs up or athumbs down to the outgoingadministration. If they don't mind whatthey've done, they vote them in again. Ifthey're not happy then they vote in some

Bored with politics?

Politics is not just about the antics of career politicians- or at least doesn't have to be.


other lot.Politics becomes a spectacle in

which people are just passive spectatorswatching the goings-on of politicians.The media - especially TV - play to this,presenting politics in between elections asa soap. But it is not even a goodspectacle. It's boring and the actors areall second and third rate. It doesn't workeither. Nothing seems to change andnothing does change. The same oldproblems continue, with the professionalpoliticians only being able to tinker aboutand patch things up a little.

The end result is that politics in seenas completely boring and that peopledon't want to know about it, except in thefew weeks before a general election.People know that voting doesn't changeanything and that the only power theyhave is to vote the Ins Out (or In again)or vote the Outs In; to change themanagement team, while their day-to-daylives are unaffected and unchanged.

No wonder people becomeapathetic, resigned and cynical.

A different politicsCan things change? Yes, they could butit's not going to be through conventionalpolitics, only through a quite differentkind of politics. A politics which rejectsand aims to change the status quo. Apolitics which involves peopleparticipating and not leaving things up toothers to do something for them.

Besides involving peoplesurrendering their power to act to others,conventional politics is based on theillusion that what happens depends onwhat the politicians in power do; thatpoliticians really do control things; thatpolitics is in the driving seat. But thisisn't the case. It is the way society isorganised to produce things that is themain factor determining the way we liveand what happens - and what doesn'thappen. In other words, what is importantis the sort of social and economic systemwe live under, not which party ofprofessional politicians controls thegovernment. That's why changinggovernments changes nothing.

The present system - capitalism,with its class privilege, production forprofit and coercive state machine - is bynature incapable of being made to servethe common good; as a profit-makingsystem it has to put making profits beforemeeting people's needs. Before we canthink about achieving a better world, itmust go. What is needed, as a frameworkwithin which to solve the economic andsocial problems we now face, is aclassless society where productiveresources are held in common, wherethere's production to satisfy people'sneeds and not for profit and democraticadministration not government overpeople. In a word, socialism (in itsoriginal sense).

When more and more people realisethis they will begin organising for it, inthe places where they work, in theneighbourhoods where they live, in thevarious clubs and associations they aremembers of, but, above all, they will need

to organise politically. Who says"politically" also says "political party".So we are talking about a "socialistparty".

Unfortunately so associated has theword "party" come to be withconventional politics that many people(including our anarchist critics) imaginethat we, too, are proposing just anotherorganisation of political leaders forpeople to follow; that we're saying "votefor us and we'll bring in socialism foryou". But we're not. By "socialist party"we mean a party of people who wantsocialism, people organiseddemocratically to win control of politicalpower for socialism.

Obviously, a mass socialist partylike this does not yet exist, but it is ourview that, for socialism to be established,it should. Without having any delusionsof grandeur, we try to organise ourselvestoday in our small party in the same waywe think that a mass socialist partyshould organise itself: without leadersand with major decisions being madedemocratically either by a referendum ofthe whole membership or by a conferenceof mandated delegates and otherdecisions by elected committees. The"socialist party" would be a massmovement of people who wantedsocialism, not a party of professionalpoliticians or a party of professionalrevolutionaries or even of people whowanted to serve the people.

The same goes for participation inelections (since a mass socialist partywould contest elections). Here too, we tryto anticipate how we think a masssocialist party, when it emerges, shouldbehave. Its candidates should not seek tobe leaders, separate from those who votefor them, but should be standing asdelegates to be mandated by those whowant socialism. This is why when westand in elections all we advocate issocialism. Not reforms of capitalism, notpromises to do things for people, as theconventional parties do.

If you want a better world, you aregoing to have to bring it aboutyourselves. That's our basic message. It'sno good following leaders, whetherprofessional politicians or professionalrevolutionaries. In fact, followinganybody (not even us) won't get youanywhere. The only way is to carry out ado-it-yourself revolution on a completelydemocratic basis. Democratic in the sensethat that's what the majority want. Anddemocratic in the sense that that majority,rather than following leaders, organisesitself on the basis of mandated andrecallable delegates carrying outdecisions reached after a full and freediscussion and vote.

That's what politics can be, andshould be. And has to be if things areever to change.¢ADAM BUICK

“Being a politician isa sort of profession,

like a lawyer or adoctor”

Politicians? A shower, anabsolute ruddy shower!


The present Labour governmentappears to have run out of steam,but trading one group of careerpoliticians for another is not the

answer.An astute observer once said

"governments are not elected…they aredismissed". According to this view, after aparty has had a period in power theelectorate consciously aims to get rid of itby voting for a rival party in a decisionregarded as the "lesser of two evils". And itis undoubtedly true that every government -regardless of political banner - has alwaysended by alienating the electorate that oncesupported it. Many voters believepoliticians are dishonest or have becomecynical about elections, reasoning that "60-seconds of democracy" is small recompensefor five years of neglect and policies thatrarely express their preferences. If electionsare so meaningless, some reflect, then therecan be little point in voting - a sentimentborne out by low electoral turnout.

Despite being unable to find lastingsolutions to workers' problems, politicalparties must always try to combat voterdisillusionment. Behaving like chameleons,they must search for ways to improve their

image, reinvigorateold policies andgive theappearance thatthis time thingswill be different,this time theelectorate will begiven exactly whatit wants. Before the1997 generalelection the LabourParty successfullyengineered its ownmetamorphosis, re-branding policiesand redefining itsagenda. Thecommitment tonationalisationenshrined in the1918 Party

constitution was abolished and Trade Unioninfluence over policy - always moremythical than real - was publiclyabandoned. Its image, thus transformed,seemed revitalised and business, media andthe electorate acclaimed the party that nowcalled itself New Labour.

But nine years after the Labour Partywas enthusiastically swept into government,the same electorate cannot wait to dismissthem. Reviewing the May local electionsresults the Electoral Reform Societyconcluded the Labour government faces"wipe-out" in the next general election and"predicts that Labour stand to lose 149 of itspresent 355 MPs bringing its commonsstrength down to 206 - even worse than1983". Ministers have responded withconciliatory messages that Labour willlisten more closely in future and, in the

words of John Prescott, "renew itself afternine years in government" (Observer, 28May).

In the third week of June this year,Labour's tattered image took another knockwhen an Ipsos Mori poll revealed that onein four Labour supporters wants their partyto lose the next election. The poll deducedthat "the leadership is becomingincreasingly divorced from its own grassroots, 23 per cent agree Labour should bekicked out of power". Supporters wantedthe party to experience "a period out ofoffice to rethink what they stand for andwhat their vision is for the future". Amajority of those polled expects the nextgeneral election to end with either a hung

parliament or a Tory majority, believing are-launched Conservative Party to be morein touch with what ordinary people think. Inthe wake of hospital cutbacks, Home Officescandals and the 'peerages for cash' fiasco,Hazel Blears conceded, "the voters areangry that we have taken our eye off theball" (Observer, 18 June).

At the end of June, Labour Partyfortunes went from bad to worse. In thedouble election in Blaenau Gwent - whereParliamentary and Welsh Assembly by-elections were held simultaneously - anembittered electorate took revenge byvoting down both Labour Party candidates.The elections were prompted by the deathof Peter Law, who had defected from

Will Labour lose?

“TheElectoralReformSocietyconcludedthe Labourgovernmentfaces"wipe-out"in the nextgeneralelection.”


Labour and succeeded inoverturning a 19,000 Labourmajority in 2005. Until it waslost, Blaenau Gwent, whose pastMPs include Aneurin Bevan andMichael Foot, was regarded asLabour's safest seat. Defeat inthe Assembly election deniedLabour of the majority it hopedto regain in the Welsh Assembly.

The wave ofdisillusionment is not justconfined to Labour voters,however, with disaffectionspreading inside the LabourParty itself. Labour Partymembership has declineddramatically since 1997 and isnow below the 200,000 mark -the lowest level since RamsayMacDonald split the party in the1930s. The membership hasgrown weary of being implicatedin what the media call a"conspiracy of lies," andresentful of arrogant leadership.A YouGov poll presented to the Compassconference on 17 June found that only 25percent of Labour Party members believethey influence Party policy, while three-quarters felt policy had been hijacked byrich donors whose influence has grown asmembership has shrunk. The Labour Party,desperately short of funds and like many ofthe electorate struggling with debt -estimated at £27 million -, must eitherdepend on millionaires or turn to statefunding, a move not popular with thepublic.

Aware of growing hostility, manysenior members are distancing themselvesfrom Prime Minister Blair by announcingthat the Labour Party under Brown'sleadership will revitalise itself and re-brandunpalatable policies. "The trouble with thecurrent approach is that we will go out ofpower for 15 years," grumbled MichaelWillis, speaking to the Compass conference.Like many, he blames Iraq and Blair'spresidential style for the electorate'sresentment (Guardian, 19 June). Everyeffort is being made to show 'clear water'between Labour under Blair and whatLabour might be like under Brown. "Toomany traditional Labour supporters felt thegovernment had taken their goodwill forgranted and said government was gettingmore difficult," said Ed Balls, EconomicSecretary to the Treasury. Brown's politicalallies promise greater Party equality,reducing dominance of Whitehall and"restoring progressive politics" (Guardian,19 June).

But if forecasters can be believed itnow seems likely, irrespective of whoactually leads the Party, that Labour willlose the next general election. Yet does itreally matter which party forms the nextgovernment?

Capitalism is a splintered society;divided not just by sectional ownership ofthe means of production but by theeconomic rivalry of independent statesstriving to exercise authority over givengeographical areas. Conventional politicalparties endorse the framework of capitalismand compete to win control over the stateand to administer the economic systemwithin its boundaries, which necessarilymeans perpetuating the wages system andthe persistent hardship for wage and salaryearners. The policies propounded by these

parties are similar becausethey are manifestations of thesame political imperative - acontinuation of capitalism -and are distinguishable onlyto the extent that theypropose different organisationmethods to administer thesame economic system.

Voters votegovernments out becausethey appear incompetent,incapable of finding solutionsto the daily problems thatconfronts wage and salaryearners. But government cannever solve these problemsbecause their permanentsolution lies only in theabolition of capitalism andthe wages system. Economiclaws that politicians arepowerless to change andleave little room formanoeuvre determine whatpoliticians do and how they

must react. It is not the deceitfulness ofpoliticians that is the problem but rather theeconomic structure of society.

But it is not just political parties thatrefuse to think outside the framework ofcapitalism. Most wage and salary earnersrarely question the structure of society andpassively support the system that alwaysworks against them. In misguidedexpressions of defiance that flow fromfrustration and lack of understanding, votersrepeatedly swap Labour governments forConservative, or Conservative governmentsfor Labour - as they have on seven separateoccasions since the second world war - inthe hope that it will somehow make adifference. They are always disappointed bythe outcome. Mandating a political party toadminister capitalism means that workerssurrender political power to their classenemy and condone the continuation oftheir own exploitation, their insecurity andtheir poverty - a lesson that workers seemunable to grasp as the same mistake isslavishly repeated over and over again.

But while trading one group ofcareerist politicians for another can neverbe the answer, changing society's economicstructure is the only answer.

Capitalism exists only becauseworkers allow it to exist. Changing thestructure of society, however, is not assimple as changing political allegiance to aparty. Capitalism is based firmly on aprinciple of leadership, where a minority insecret makes decisions and the excludedmajority is told what they should do andhow they should think. Changing theworld's economic structure by convertingthe means of production from classownership to common ownership requiresthat workers individually understand whatthey want and actively combine to changetheir condition. Socialism cannot bedelivered by leaders and is achievable onlyby the concerted action of a politicallyconscious mass movement without directionor leaders, for only then will the majoritybecome the decision-makers.

The task may be daunting but mustbegin somewhere. Workers would do wellto start by considering whether capitalism -under any political party - is really thefuture they want. ¢STEVE TROTT

“Labour'stattered

image tookanother

knock whena poll

revealed thatone in four

Laboursupporterswants their

party to losethe next

election.”

Salt sellersDoctors andnutritionists have longknown that too muchsalt is bad for you as,by raising bloodpressure, it increasesthe risk of strokes andheart attacks. So, itwould seem only

normal that a body bearing the name"Food Standards Agency" shouldconcern itself with the amount of saltthat food companies put into thefoodstuffs they offer for sale.

But the Food Standards Agencyhas to operate within the context of acapitalist economy where allbusinesses, including food companies,aim to make the biggest profits possibleon behalf of their shareholders. As aresult it has to be careful not to try toset "unrealistic" standards, i.e.standards that would reduceprofitability.

In 2005 the FSA put out aconsultative document with proposals toachieve a 40 percent reduction inpeople's average salt intake by 2010.The food industry was appalled andimmediately began lobbying to have theproposals watered down.

Salt has been used to preservefood since the dawn of civilisation andbefore. It also adds a distinctive flavourto food. The food industry was quick toseize on this in their counter-arguments. Reducing the salt content oftheir products, they said, wouldincrease the risk of food poisoning (asif, these days, there weren't alternativesto salt as a food preservative). It would,they went on, make their products lesstasty to consumers, whose interests ofcourse they put above all else, etc, etc.

Times journalist Dominic Kennedyused the Freedom of Information Act togain access to the documentssubmitted to the FSA by the foodindustry. What even he called "the mostnakedly honest" argument came fromNestlé who submitted that:

"Salt is a major constituent inmany products - and it is a cheapingredient. Reduction in salt levels,even by a very small amount,significantly increases the overall costof manufacturing the product, mainlybecause the ingredients used for thereplacement of salt are much moreexpensive, e.g., herbs or meat extracts"(Times, 3 August. See alsotimesonline.co.uk/britain, search for"pro-salt campaign").

In the end the FSA agreed tolower its proposed standards. Hencethe title of Kennedy's article "How thesalt campaign was scuppered". In asociety geared to human welfare, ifdoctors and nutritionists concluded thattoo much of some ingredient (whethersalt, or sugar or fat since it's the samestory there) was detrimental to people'shealth then, production not being in thehands of profit-seeking enterprises, theamount of the ingredient going inmanufactured foods would be fixedtaking this, and only this, into account.

But capitalism is not a societygeared to serving human welfare.

Cooking the Books

Maynard Keynesimagined a society thatwould be centred onthe pursuit ofenjoyment rather thanaccumulation, but likeother reformists hecouldn't fathom afuture without moneyand commodities.

Markets, profit, money, andprivate property seem as naturalas the air we breathe to mostpeople. Like Adam Smith, they

believe that the "propensity to truck, barter,and exchange one thing for another" is anaspect of our human nature. So it isnaturally assumed that commodity exchange

will continue to exist in the future, and thatthe only realistic way to overcome theproblems we face is through a reform ofcapitalism. This is the "common sense" oftoday. And from this perspective, socialistsappear to be unrealistic dreamers.

Certainly, socialists do dream of a newform of society, but our conclusion thatfundamental social change is necessary isbased on an understanding of today's reality.We know from experience and study thatthe serious problems which humanity faces,such as poverty and war, arise naturallyfrom the capitalist system itself. Historyalso teaches us that other forms of societyhave preceded capitalism, so this system isneither eternal nor rooted in "humannature." And we also have an idea of how toachieve socialism by means of arevolutionary political movement.

The aim of this article, however, is notso much to refute the claim that socialistsare unrealistic, as to throw this samecriticism back at those who believecapitalism will somehow work out itsproblems in the future. This reformist view,quite frankly, is a daydream. To concocttheir capitalist utopia, reformists have tooverlook the nature of capitalism as a class-

divided system of production for profit, notto mention the fact that profit stems fromsurplus value obtained from workers.

The unreality of the reformists'standpoint becomes clear if we look at anyof their depictions of a better future undercapitalism. The view of the economist J.M.Keynes seems as good as any to consider,particularly since his stature has been high(at times) among both capitalists and self-styled leftists.

Keynes's predictionIn a 1930 article entitled "Economic

Possibilities For Our Grandchildren",Keynes predicts a far better world in ahundred years. He does not attach any labelto his future society circa 2030, but it is saidto be a world where the "economicproblem" has been solved. This is defined asthe problem of scarcity, which he describesas the central economic problem that hasconfronted humanity throughout history.Overcoming scarcity will mean that people's"absolute needs" (as opposed to subjectiveneeds) are fully met.

The solution to the problem ofscarcity, Keynes says, is a continuation ofthe capital accumulation and technicalinnovation that have been raising thestandard of living since the dawn of the"modern age" (capitalism) followingcenturies of stagnation. He views capitalaccumulation in material terms, noting thatif capital increases at two percent a year,"the capital equipment of the world willhave increased by a half in twenty years,and seven and a half times in a hundredyears." He encourages the reader to "thinkof this in terms of material things - houses,transport, and the like."

This steady capitalist growth is thebasis for Keynes's bold prediction that thestandard of life in "progressive countries" ina hundred years' time "will be between fourand eight times as high as it is to-day," evenadding that it "would not be foolish tocontemplate the possibility of a far greaterprogress still." Expressed in qualitativeterms, he says that once economic scarcityhas been overcome, we will be able to"devote our further energies to non-economic purposes."

What scarcity?Before further examining Keynes's

solution to "economic scarcity," it is worthconsidering whether scarcity, at least as heunderstands it, is indeed our main problem.

Keynes is hardly alone in raising theproblem of scarcity. In a popular universitytextbook by Harvard professor GregoryMankiw, who chaired the Council ofEconomic Advisors under George W. Bush,students are informed on the very first pagethat, "Scarcity means that society haslimited resources and therefore cannotproduce all the goods and services peoplewish to have - a society cannot give everyindividual the highest standard of living towhich he or she might aspire" (Principles ofEconomics).

Here this problem of scarcity is bothan explanation and a justification for whysome people have a less than ideal life. Butif society's resources are so limited, how canthe rich (like Mankiw himself), and theultra-rich, justify their own disproportionateconsumption? The fact that a singleindividual, Warren Buffett, has 35 billiondollars on hand to donate to a charity run byanother multi-billionaire, suggests that the"scarcity" some of us face does not stemfrom the limited resources of society.


Keynes'sWorld (ACapitalistUtopia)


The fact that the economic scarcity ofcertain individuals is an artificial condition,related to class divisions, should have beenperfectly clear to Keynes. Already a centuryearlier, the Swiss economist Sismondi hadbeen shocked to see first-hand howmiserable workers in England were despitethe tremendous advances in the output ofproduction. The artificial nature of"scarcity" under capitalism becomes evenclearer during a crisis, when factoriesremain idle because production is notprofitable and commodities rot on shelvesfor a lack of customers.

Keynes wrote his article at the outsetof the Great Depression, so he could notcompletely ignore the mass unemploymentof the time. Yet, in his article,unemployment is dismissed as "growing-pains from over-rapid changes" or a"temporary phase of maladjustment." Hewas confident that in the long run thingswould work out, which is a bit rich comingfrom a man who reminded us that "in thelong run we are all dead." Today, more than75 years later, these growing pains continue.The "scarcity" resulting fromunemployment seems unlikely to end anytime soon.

Keynes's way of framing the problemin terms of scarcity, and finding the solutionin increased production, only makes sense ifit is assumed that we are already dealingwith a socialist society. That is, in socialism,where there is social ownership of themeans of production and the aim ofproduction is to directly meet human needs,any expansion of material production orincrease in labour productivity wouldpotentially raise the standard of living forevery member of society.

Things are a bit different undercapitalism. We know from experience, forexample, that the introduction of newtechnologies or increased productivity willnot necessarily result in a shorter workingday or improved standard of living. Thisseemingly illogical state of affairs is notsurprising when we consider that technicalimprovements are only made to gain acompetitive advantage that will result inhigher profits.

Keynes chooses to ignore the obviousfact that the pursuit of profit underlies

technical innovation, making it seem insteadas if every increase in production undercapitalism will directly raise the standard ofliving for the population as a whole,bringing us that much closer to the end ofscarcity.

Neighbourly thinkingHow will we know when economic

scarcity has become a thing of the past?Keynes writes: "The course of affairs willsimply be that there will be ever larger andlarger classes and groups of people fromwhom problems of economic necessity havebeen practically removed. The criticaldifference will be realised when this state ofaffairs becomes so general that the nature ofone's duty to one's neighbour is changed."

He argues that the number of affluentmembers of society will increase to thepoint that people's way of thinking changes.Instead of being "economically purposive"(selfish), people will be generous towardseach other. It is not at all clear, however,how "general" this state of affairs will haveto be for a magical transformation inconsciousness to take place.

The absurdity of Keynes's dreamspeaks for itself. Why would a personsuddenly begin acting in a neighbourlyfashion one day, if the competitive systemthat had fostered his avarice were still verymuch in place? Moreover, it takesconsiderable wealth today for a person to beable devote his or her "energies to non-economic purposes." And even those able toretire from the business world, to engage inphilanthropy and the like, appoint other"economically purposive" characters tomanage their affairs. At any rate, few peopleare satisfied even after their "absoluteneeds" have been met, and most seek toaccumulate a bit more just to be on the safeside. It should be obvious that the generalway people think and behave will onlyfundamentally change once we are free ofthe insecurity that the competitive capitalistsystem breeds.

To his credit, Keynes does seem a bitdisgusted by the selfish way people actunder capitalism in its present form. But ina strange twist of logic, he argues thatselfish behaviour will some day set us freefrom selfishness. In fact, he warns us not tostart acting too generous, too soon: "But

beware! The time for all this is not yet.For at least another hundred

years we must pretend toourselves and to every

one that fair is foul andfoul

is fair, for foul is useful and fair is not.Avarice and usury and precaution must beour gods for a little longer. For only theycan lead us out of the tunnel of economicnecessity into daylight." Apparently, theroad to paradise is paved with badintentions.

"Economic bliss" Keynes's depiction of what he jokingly

refers to as "economic bliss" is very brief,but he does manage to effectively contrastthe stunted nature of present-day life with afar more civilised existence in the future.He notes, for example, that people willbegin living for the sake of enjoying thepresent, rather than endlessly accumulatingfor tomorrow. Instead of the fawning overthe rich, people would value those "who canteach us how to pluck the hour and the dayvirtuously and well, the delightful peoplewho are capable of taking the directenjoyment in things."

Keynes also points out that even afterwe are free of economic scarcity, manypeople will have a strong desire to work. Hesuggests, for instance, "three-hour shifts ora fifteen-hour week" would probably be"quite enough to satisfy the old Adam inmost of us!" It is not clear whether thiswork is actually necessary, or just a way forpeople to occupy their time, but Keynes isright to suggest that work can be a source ofhuman satisfaction (if taken in the properdosage), which refutes the idea that no onewould bother to work in socialism.

Compared to the joie de vivre thatcharacterizes life in his future world,Keynes says that today's love of money "asa possession" would seem a "somewhatdisgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensitieswhich one hands over with a shudder to thespecialists in mental disease." And he looksforward to the day when "all kinds of socialcustoms and economic practices" that are"distasteful and unjust" can at last bediscarded. Although, true to form, he feelsobliged to remind us that such habits are"tremendously useful in promoting theaccumulation of capital," which is hismotive force of history.

Many of Keynes's observations,ironically enough, are applicable to life insocialism, but his clear assumption is thatthe system of production from the days ofeconomic scarcity remains more or lessintact. Even though money will no longerbe loved as a possession, it will still becherished "as a means to the enjoymentsand realities of life." In other words, peoplewill still have to pay for whatever theyconsume. This naturally means thatproducts are produced as "commodities"for exchange, and therefore the means ofproduction are in the hands of privateindividuals or groups of individuals.Keynes even admits that there will bepeople in the future with "intense,unsatisfied purposiveness who willblindly pursue wealth," although heassures us that we "will no longer beunder any obligation to applaud andencourage them."

In short, Keynes looks to afuture where people are generousand enjoy life to the fullest eventhough production is carried out

with profit in mind and money stillmakes the world go round. To which

socialists can only respond: Dream on! ¢MICHAEL SCHAUERTE


Zionism:myth andrealityZionism misled many Jewishworkers with its promise of a"homeland for Jews". A recent bookexamines the fate of the million orso non-Jews in the state Zionismestablished.

In 1999 when Susan Nathan went to live in Israel under the Lawof Return her head was "full of romantic notions of Zionismand the Jewish state." Some three years later she moved fromTel Aviv to live, as the only Jew, in the Arab town of Tamra in

the Galilee. Her book, The Other Side of Israel (published byHarper Collins last year), tells the story of her "journey across theJewish-Arab divide", and gives a rare insight into the Jewish statefrom the perspective of the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

The journey began when she was a patient in the Hadassahhospital in Jerusalem, where she was surprised to find Israelis andPalestinians sharing the same ward, and Palestinians who wereIsraeli citizens: Israeli Arabs. The real shock came when anOrthodox woman was visited by her husband who had "a pistol onone hip and a rifle slung casually over his shoulder" - no one elseseemed surprised by the presence of an armed civilian. He toldSusan Nathan in a strong American accent that he had requisitionedan Arab home in East Jerusalem and never left home without aweapon. The reply to her suggestion that he would be better off inthe Jewish Quarter of the Old City was "All of East Jerusalembelongs to the Jews."

More questioning came a few months later when she wasinvited to help with a student organisation - Mahapach, inconnection with their work for disadvantaged communities in Israel,

"particularly theindigenous Arabpopulation andthe communityof Jews ofMiddle Easterndescent...theMizrahim." Sheknew of the latterbut where did theArabs live? Whyhad they beeninvisible to herduring her firsttwo years inIsrael?

She was tolearn that onemillion Arabsshare the state,and that about aquarter of themare internalrefugees. Shewas "profoundlyshaken" by herfirst visit to anArab area - thetown of Tamra,made as part ofthe research forMahapach. It

was strikingly different from any Jewish area she had seen, withobvious, chronic overcrowding.

At the home of Dr Asad Ghanem (head of politics at HaifaUniversity) she heard about the discrimination exercised against theArab population "in all spheres of Israeli life." In Arab communitiesthere are thousands of homes judged illegal by the state and underthe threat of demolition: in Tamra there are 150 such homes. Theauthorities' version is that the widespread illegal building is the actof law breakers, people squatting on land or not wanting to pay fora licence. So the police bring bulldozers "at crack of dawn" todestroy illegal homes. 500 Arab homes were destroyed in 2003.

Arab families are forced to build illegally because the staterefuses to issue them with a building permit. Even when, as in DrGhanem's case, the home is built on land owned by his family forgenerations the permit is still refused: he pays regular heavy fines toward off demolition. He asked Susan Nathan if she had made aliya,and it was difficult to answer. Her privileges as a Jewish immigrantwere at the expense of his people, "sitting in his home the realityfinally hit me. The intoxicating power trip had come to an abrupthalt." And the task of becoming informed had begun: the unlearningof her "lifelong Zionist training."

The Zionist myth is that the "Jews had reclaimed an empty,barren land - 'a land without people for a people without land'- wehad made the desert bloom, we had filled an uninhabited piece ofthe Middle East with Kibbutzim, the collective farms that were thepioneering backbone of the state in its early years." Prior to 1948there had been aggressive colonising of the land by Jewishimmigrants, and a campaign of land purchases funded by the JewishNational Fund, but only 7 percent of Palestine had been purchased.

The other side of Israeli Independence in 1948 is for thePalestinians the Nakba (the catastrophe) the loss of their homelandto the Jewish state. 750,000 Palestinians were driven from theirhomes and country. A map in the book marks the position of the 400villages which were emptied and then destroyed by the army. TheKibbutzim were built on the land of destroyed villages. Around ahundred villages survived, as did Tamra because it was not on themain route of the Israeli army and was a small communityproviding "a useful pool of cheap labour in the area." The originalvillage had a population of 2,000, the number was swelled byrefugees cleared from other villages. Photographs exist from 1948


which show "a sea of Red Cross tents" in which the refugees werehoused for some years. One third of the present inhabitants ofTamra are internal refugees. A sizeable number of the 150,000Palestinians who remained inthe country and became Israelicitizens ("by accident ratherthan design"), were classified as"present absentees", and hadtheir homes, land and bankaccounts appropriated by theCustodian of Absentee Property.There is no instance of anyproperty being restored toformer Arab owners orcompensation paid.

ApartheidDispossession still

continues in various ways.Planning laws restrict Arabcommunities both in number -to the 123 listed in 1965 - andin area, even though thepopulation has increased. Israelis an apartheid state whichenforces policies of ethnicsegregation. Dr Uri Davies, aJew who, like Susan Nathan,lives in an Arab town, is quotedas applying the term apartheidin a specific sense to mean "theregulation and enforcement ofracism and xenophobia in law."He defines the core element ofan apartheid state as "thestructure of laws that allows thecolonising population to exploitthe resources of the state -mainly land - to thedisadvantage of the nativepopulation."

Though it is not publicly admitted "racistemployment practices and the exclusion of Arabsfrom wealth generating sectors of the economy arethe bedrock of state planning policies." Mostcomputer systems do not list Arab communities.Arabic is the second official language, yet peopleare not allowed to use it at work - a woman wassacked from McDonalds for doing so.

There are two separate school systems, withmuch less money spent on Arab children. There isintensive surveillance of the Arab educationsystem, teachers are effectively "banned fromteaching about the Nakba…or about their people'sconnection to Palestinians in the West Bank orGaza" and the refugee camps in other countries. InHaifa the Arab Parents' Forum failed in an attemptto register their children at Jewish schools for2004: Arab pupils are in a separate registrationarea.

Susan Nathan believes that what happened inthe 1948 war is at the root of conflict in the MiddleEast. The price of creating a homeland was toinflict the "Jewish story of dispossession andwandering on another people - the Palestinians."She makes a distinction between making acomparison, quantitative judgements about thedegree of suffering, and drawing a parallel whichsuggests "one set of events can echo another."Zionist organisations, she says, like the JewishNational Fund and the Jewish Agency should bedisbanded and the apartheid system ended; thereshould be equality between all citizens.

An old man told her of the time when it waspossible to travel by train from the Galilee to all ofthe region's biggest cities "when the borders existedas no more than the lines on maps produced by thearea's British and French rulers." Socialists neversupported Zionism but opposed it as yet anothernationalist delusion as what we aspire to is a worldwithout national frontiers in which free movementis possible and where all people live together asequals.¢PAT DEUTZ

Palestine, 1948, after thevillages were destroyed.

Palestine - 1948. Some of the 804,767 Palestinian men, women, and children who were forced to becomepermanent refugees.


Book ReviewsTravelling PeopleCaroline Moorehead: Human Cargo: aJourney among Refugees. Vintage£7.99.

The title says it all really: human beingsshunted from one place to another, inresponse to political events, and treated asobjects to be kept at arm's length or sent backas quickly as possible to wherever they camefrom. There are perhaps 12 million refugeesin the world today, and twice that number ofinternally displaced people (IDPs), who getless attention, and also less financial supportwhen they return to their homes.

Caroline Moorehead visited a numberof areas where refugees live (or survive isperhaps a better word) and talked to manypeople. She starts in Cairo, full of 'lost boys'from other parts of Africa, originally mainlyfrom Sudan but now increasingly from SierraLeone, Ivory Coast, and elsewhere. Manyasylum-seekers from Africa travel first toItaly, to Sicily and to Lampedusa, a smallisland less than 100 miles from the coast ofTunisia; many drown on the way there.

Between Mexico and California is afence designed to reduce the flow ofMexican migrants northwards. The border isdeliberately kept semi-closed, as the USneeds some (but not too much) cheapMexican labour power. But it is still policedin a draconian manner: for instance, a canalwhich provides a possible crossing point hasbeen converted on the US side so that it'shard to climb out once you've swum over.Over two thousand people have died tryingto cross the border, ten times the numberwho lost their lives trying to escape over theBerlin Wall.

Meanwhile, Australia has an extremelytough line on asylum, following its earlierracist 'White Australia' policy. Would-bemigrants from Indonesia and elsewhere insouth-east Asia have a hard time even gettingthere, following the introduction ofOperation Relex, which involves navalvessels and aircraft turning back boats ofasylum-seekers. Many of those who actuallymake it to Australia may be locked upindefinitely, despite having committed nocrime.

Some Palestinians who fled theirhomes when Israel was established in 1948have spent over fifty years in refugee camps- not many, though, because life in a refugeecamp is hard and few can survive that long.Many more in number are the children bornin camps, to parents who were themselvesborn there too.

Often, also, refugees are driven tosuicide since their stories of violence backhome may not be believed. One youngIranian killed himself in Newcastle in 2003,leaving a note that said, 'You have to killyourself in this country, to prove that youwould be killed in your own country.'

One encouraging aspect of the book isthe way that local people, from Sicily toAustralia and Newcastle, have rallied tosupport and help refugees in their midst. It isone thing to rail against those who areallegedly coming to steal jobs or live asscroungers, but it is quite another toencounter the hopelessness and destitution ofpeople who just want somewhere to livewithout persecution and bring up theirfamily.

Moorehead makes a number of goodpoints: that migration is 'the unfinished

business of globalisation', and that nobodywants to be a refugee. 'Why', she asks,'should something as arbitrary as where oneis born determine where one is allowed tolive?' The answer, sadly, is that undercapitalism, artificial lines on maps divide theworld into different camps, which enablethose who own the earth to defend their bit ofit and to make claims on other bits. Asensible society would have no concept ofrefugeehood or any of the other states ofoppression so movingly described here.PB

Das KapitalMarx's Das Kapital by Francis Wheen.Atlantic Books, 2006.

In a series of"Books ThatShook TheW o r l d "w h i c hi n c l u d e sP a i n e ' sRights ofMan andD a r w i n ' sOrigin ofS p e c i e s ,W h e e n ' sb i o g r a p h yof DasKapital (to

give Capital its original German title) isfairly short at 130 pages including index.Wheen has already had a critical andcommercial success with his biography ofthe man himself, Karl Marx (1999) and thiswork seems likely to do the same.

Das Kapital was planned to be the firstof six volumes, but Marx only saw the firstvolume through to publication. The secondand third volumes, and the volumes entitledTheories of Surplus Value, were all compiledfrom Marx's notes after his death. Apart froma brief Introduction, Wheen's book is dividedinto three chapters: gestation, birth andafterlife. There are no notes, bibliography orguide to further reading and although Wheenis mostly content to let Marx speak forhimself he does occasionally paraphrase andin one place he is seriously mistaken. Wheenexplains that value (socially necessarylabour-time) may differ from price andsometimes price may be higher than value,but Wheen adds, "under a socialist systemthis surplus would be redistributed for thebenefit of the workers" (p.33). Marx neverargued this and the whole thrust of DasKapital is that value, price and profit cannever work for the benefit of the workers.Marx also, incidentally, never argued forredistribution, preferring instead to judge thesuccess or failure of a social system by itsability to produce for human need. Wheen isrightly critical of commentators who readinto Das Kapital things which are not there(e.g. increasing "immiseration" orimpoverishment of the proletariat), but thathas not stopped him falling into the sametrap here.

Controversially, Wheen claims thatDas Kapital should be thought of as a workof art and this was Marx's stated intention.Das Kapital is usually depicted as a work ofscience, but Marx seems to have consideredart and science to have similar objectives -

that is, to see through surface appearances("the veils of illusion") to reveal theunderlying reality. And yet it was the lateLouis Althusser who maintained that therewas an "epistemological break" in Marx'swriting, with the early artistic orphilosophical work being only of marginalinterest, whereas the later works such as DasKapital contained his mature and scientificthinking. But as Wheen points out, inAlthusser's posthumous memoir he admittedto being "a trickster and deceiver" and onlyever studying "a few passages of Marx."Althusser and his work on Marx was a fraud.But even if Althusser was not a con-man, thedistinction between an early and a matureMarx does not withstand serious scrutiny.

The alleged impact of Das Kapital ontwentieth century politics is wellsummarised, including the fall of the Russianempire and China's contradictory claim to be"Marxist-Leninist" (Wheen insists that"'Market-Leninist' would be rather moreapt"). The framework for viewing these andother events, argues Wheen, is to be found inMarx's writing on capital. For as Wheen putsit:"Far from being buried under the rubble ofthe Berlin Wall, Marx may only now beemerging in his true significance. He couldyet become the most influential thinker of thetwenty-first century."LEW

Marx's partyA Rebel's Guide to Marx. By MikeGonzalez. Bookmarks. 2006. 60pp. £2

While factuallycorrect on thedetails ofMarx's life, thisSWP bookletsuffers (as youwould expect)from as i g n i f i c a n tdistortion ofMarx's views.

Marx ismade out to bea proto-SWPer,obsessed with"building theparty". In actual fact, while Marx did use theword "party", before the 1870s it was not inthe sense of an organised vanguard, butrather as those, whether organised or not,who wanted communism (or socialism, thesame thing), more what we would today calla current of opinion than its subsequent senseof party as an organisation.

Marx did, during the period ofGermany's aborted bourgeois revolution of1848-9, favour communists organisingthemselves as a distinct group to try to pushthe bourgeois revolution to its limits andbeyond. But, once this period was over, heargued for this communist organisation to bedisbanded.

Later, when he was active in theInternational Working Men's Associationfrom 1864-1872, he advocated the workingclass organising into a distinct political party.By then "party" had begun to take on itsmodern meaning and Marx was associatedwith an organisation in Germany called the"Social Democratic Workers Party" (SDAP)


Media Review Meetings

Socialist PartyAutumn DelegatesMeeting 2006Saturday 14 October 10.30 to 5.30pm. Sunday 15 October 11.00 to 5.00pm

Venue: Head Office, 52 Clapham HighStreet, London SW4.

which, after merging with another group,became in 1875 the "German SocialistWorkers Party" (SADP). (It later changed itsname to Social Democratic Party ofGermany - SPD - which still exists today, asa reformist party.) Marx referred to it simplyas the workers' party.

So, Marx's conception of party was thatof an open, democratically-organised massparty, not a vanguard of self-appointedprofessional revolutionaries.ALB

Venezuela and ChileThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised.Video by Kim Bartley and DonnachaO'Briain. 74 minutes. Available fromPower Pictures - Screen Scene, 41Upper Mount St, Dublin 2.http://www.chavezthefilm.com

In 1992 Hugo Chavez, a junior parachuteofficer, tried to seize power in Venezuela in atraditional South American coup. He failedand spent some time in jail. He then triedanother way and in 1998 was electedPresident, with 56 percent of the votes cast;he was re-elected in 2000 with a 60 percentvote. In elections held to a constituentassembly in 1999 his supporters obtained120 of the 131 seats.

Chavez is a populist nationalist andradical reformist not a socialist, but hisprogramme of radical reforms and movingfrom private capitalism towards statecapitalism threatened the vested interests ofpowerful private capitalist groups.According to anarchist and anti-parliamentarist theory, which says that evenif power can be won via the ballot box forradical change it can't be retained, whatshould have happened next was that thepowerful groups whose interests werethreatened should stage a coup and unleash abloody repression. As, for instance, in Chilein September 1973:

"Socialism cannot come through theParliament. If we look at a country like Chilewe can see why. In 1973 the people elected amoderate socialist government led byPresident Allende. This democratically-elected government was toppled by a CIAbacked military coup. Repression followedin which the workers movement wassmashed and thousands of militants lost theirlives" ("What is Anarchism?",www.struggle.ws/pdfs/whatis.pdf)

(This statement is both factually wrongand logically flawed. Allende becamepresident in 1970 and so was notimmediately overthrown as is suggested.And if he was a "moderate socialist", i.e. amere reformist like the Labour and SocialDemocratic parties of Europe andAustralasia, there have been plenty of othersuch governments, which have not beentoppled in a coup; in fact, most haven't.Having said this, socialism cannot comethrough electing such governments but forquite other reasons than that they come topower through elections.)

On 11 April 2002, true to anarchisttheory, a group of top Venezuelan armyofficers and business leaders did stage acoup. Chavez was arrested and taken to asecret destination where he was put underpressure to resign (he refused). It sohappened that an Irish film crew, which had

come to make a documentary about Chavezand Venezuela, was actually in thepresidential palace at the time. TheRevolution Will Not Be Televised is afascinating and instructive record of howevents unfolded over the next few days(together with material from the originally-planned film and lots of Spanish with sub-titles): the dejected ministers, the installationof the usurper president, the recapture of thepalace by the presidential guard, the arrest ofsome of the plotters, the pro-Chavez streetdemonstrations and the return of Chavez twodays later. He is still there.

So the coup failed. It failed becausethose who had voted for Chavez wereprepared to take to the streets to back uptheir vote and because the bulk of the armedforces remained loyal to the constitution andthe constitutionally-elected president. Theanarchist theory that power obtained by theballot box to effect radical changes can't beretained was disproved by experience.

What happened confirms rather ourview that a socialist majority can both winand retain power via the ballot box if thatmajority is sufficiently organised anddetermined and if there is no question as totheir democratic legitimacy. If pro-capitalistelements were to stage a coup after asocialist election victory it could prove to beeven more short-lived than in Venezuela inApril 2002. The slogan that anarchists andother chant on demonstrations that "thepeople united can never be defeated" isactually true, to back up an electoral victorytoo.

The film is being shown at theAnarchist Bookfair in London this month. Itwill be interesting to see how they willexplain away the events it records. Perhapsthey'll change the text of their leaflet to:

"Socialism may be able to comethrough the Parliament. If we look at acountry like Venezuela we cannot see whynot. In 1998 and 2000 the people elected aradical reformist government led byPresident Chavez. An attempt was made in2002 to topple this democratically electedgovernment but it failed because thegovernment enjoyed majority popularsupport and the loyalty of the armed forces".ALB

Note of correctionThe article "September 11, 2001:Reflections on a Somewhat Unusual Act ofWar" (September Socialist Standard) refersto arguments that it states were made byanti-war analyst Rahul Mahajan in his bookThe New Crusade: America's War onTerrorism (New York: Monthly ReviewPress, 2002). In fact, these argumentswere drawn from another book by the sameauthor: Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S.Power in Iraq and Beyond (New York:Seven Stories Press, 2003

In the August issue we stated that"China is using 47 per cent of the world'scement to complete the damming of theYangzi" (p. 8). In the September issue wewrote that China was using "almost 70percent of the world's cement supplies on asingle dam project" (p. 9). Both figurescan't be right. In fact, both are wrong.China is generally calculated as using 47per cent of the world's cement (see, forexample,http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/125468/1/1893) but not all of this is for theYangzi dam project.

Manchester BranchMonday 23 October, 8.15 pm‘CAPITALISM, PUBS AND BEER’Hare and Hounds, Shudehill, City Centre

SOCIALIST STANDARD INDEXAn index to articles in 2005 can beobtained by sending two first-classstamps to Socialist Standard, 52Clapham High Street, London SW47UN

This declaration is the basis of ourorganisation and, because it is alsoan important historical documentdating from the formation of theparty in 1904, its original languagehas been retained.

ObjectThe establishment of a systemof society based upon thecommon ownership anddemocratic control of the meansand instruments for producingand distributing wealth by and inthe interest of the wholecommunity.

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, there isan 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 the emancipationof the working class from thedomination of the master class, bythe conversion into the commonproperty of society of the means ofproduction and distribution, andtheir democratic control by thewhole people.

4.That as in the order of socialevolution the working class is the

last 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 class itself.

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, nationaland local, in order that thismachinery, including these forces,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 of theworking 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 field ofpolitical action determined to wagewar against all other politicalparties, whether alleged labour oravowedly capitalist, and calls uponthe members of the working classof this country to muster under itsbanner to the end that a speedytermination may be wrought to thesystem which deprives them of thefruits of their labour, and thatpoverty may give place to comfort,privilege to equality, and slavery tofreedom.


Under the title "Do not willingly contribute to the masssuicide of the human race" the Empire News (24 June,1956) had the following:

"The highest radioactive depositin a single day from a thermo-nuclearweapon test was 100 microcuries asquare mile at Milford and 25 atHarwell. Daily deposits at Harwell andMilford, however, are generally similar.Danger from these radioactive particlesis very slight, say scientists. But one ofthe radioactive substances, known asstrontium 90 may be deposited in grasswhich is cropped by animals. This getsinto their bones and may cause cancer.So the experts warn: limit the numberof atom tests. Fears that rainwater maybe contaminated from the Monte Belloatom test have arisen in Queensland,Australia, and people have beenwarned not to drink it for a few days."-The above was taken from a newsitem, "Atom-Rain Tests."-(Empire News, 24.6.56.)

But such is the nature of capitalism; that eventhough the rival Governments know they may beinstrumental in causing the "virtual suicide of the

human race." They dare not let up; for fear ofconceding an advantage to their rivals; yet they have

the effrontery to call capitalism acivilised society! Why, by comparisonwith this, even the most senselessbutchery in history seems like sanity.The human race may be virtuallydying on its feet; and still the peopledo nothing about it; when will they getwise; and act on their own behalfinstead of waiting and hoping forsomeone else to put the world rightfor them?

Workers of the world, put notyour trust in leaders. Instead fashionthe world the way you want ityourselves by organising forsocialism; then you can rest secure inthe knowledge that the onlydevelopments which will beundertaken will be those which will beof benefit to all.

(From article by Phil Mellor, Socialist Standard,October 1956)

Declaration of Principles

MASS SUICIDE

and her family, as well as the public, from aninstitution that goes hand-in-hand withunequal society? Draw a line under historyand move on?PAUL WILSON, Brighouse, West Yorks.

Reply:Obviously if the monarchy is still around atthe time socialism is established it would beabolished immediately. Suchinstitutionalised privilege can have no placein a society of equals. This said, we don't seeany point in wasting time campaigning to getit abolished under capitalism. Whether or nota capitalist state is a monarchy or a republicmakes no difference to the economicstructure of society, which is the root causeof the problems wage and salary workersface today. Just look at the USA, which hasbeen a republic since the 18th century -Editors.

letters continued

ObituaryJoe RichmondJoe Richmond died a few months ago. Hewas a marvellous member. He taught mewhat little I know about the MaterialistConception of History and he was thebest member I ever heard on Engels'sTransformation From Ape To Man. Hewas a great guy. He was a shipwright onthe Clydeside and came across thesocialist case from a trade unionbackground (as an apprentice he hasbeen involved in the unofficial - and illegal- 1944 apprentices' strike). He laterbecame a school teacher. I rememberhim best as a lecturer at the Glasgowbranch rooms in Berkley Street usingfretwork pieces of wood to show how the

continents were formed. Years later ontelevision I saw the same thing. He wasalso an attender at various classes on philosophy at extra-mural GlasgowUniversity courses where heembarrassed the lecturers with hiscorrections about the works of Hegel,Engels and Marx. After retiring Joeemigrated to Australia to be near his twosons. He rejoined the Socialist Party andkept up his interest in political matters. Wehave had many great members, he wasone of the best. To his wife Anna and hischildren we extend our sympathies. Thanks a lot Joe, RD

19Socialist Standard October 2006

Is ThereLife AfterTony Blair?

Even by the standards we have come to expect from them,it was an outrageous piece of New Labour spin to tell usthat the leadership handover between Tony Blair andGordon Brown would be "smooth and orderly". For one

thing Blair and his cronies must have known that announcing hisintention to resign on some unnamed, unpredictable date in thefuture ensured that the handover would take place after a longperiod of chaos as a succession of hopefuls - and no-hopers -pushed themselves as potential leaders. We had already had the slybriefing about Gordon Brown's alleged "psychological flaws"(which must apply to many politicians). The infighting could havebeen prevented by settling on a firm date but whenever this wasraised with Blair he brushed it aside by saying that he would gowhen he had done his job of clearing up a few trivial matters likecrime, the wars in the Middle East and Iraq, the NHS, education,poverty…The very idea is laughable, that there will ever, can ever,be a day when a political leader can pass into well earnedretirement because they have succeeded in making all thenecessary adjustments and improvements to society, so that fromnow on all will be smooth and orderly. While there is no evidencethat Blair is an avid student of history it is clear that he hasabsorbed many of its essential lessons in the sleazier arts of politics.

MorrisonWhat can be said, on that score, about Gordon Brown? When

he made that deal, across the Granita table, with Blair, did he nothave an inkling of what he was committing himself to? Was heentirely innocent of any doubts about politicians' readiness to keeptheir word? Did he not reflect on the examples of other nominatedheirs to a party leadership who had failed miserably to achieve it?When the Attlee government was elected in 1945 the DeputyLeader of the party was Herbert Morrison, a canny, cocky politicaloperator with the common touch. In contrast, Attlee wasunderstated, not to say drab; when he was made Leader in 1935Hugh Dalton, who was later Chancellor of the Exchequer,bemoaned "…a wretched and disheartening result…And a littlemouse shall lead them". After Labour's emphatic win Morrisonmade it clear that he had no intention of agreeing to Attlee as PrimeMinister and that, before he accepted he job, Attlee should submithimself to a vote of confidence by the Parliamentary Labour Party.

This was the kind of situation which, in recent times,must have provoked an incandescent row between Brown and Blair.Attlee, however, was in a different mode. After his election triumphhe went quietly with his wife for tea at the Great Western Hotel inLondon and it was there, among the delicate china and the scones,he was told that King George VI was anxious to fill the vacancy fora new government for British capitalism and would he please go toBuckingham Palace to set the royal mind at rest. Attlee took theview that the monarch should not be kept waiting while theParliamentary Labour Party made up its mind so he went at once tothe Palace where "without quibbles" as he put it, he accepted thetop job. (He got his vote of confidence the next day - as if anhysterically triumphant, desperately ambitious, party would everhave dreamed of denying it to him).

ChurchillAttlee later described the notion of Morrison being party

leader as "fantastic" - seriously out of touch with reality. Hecontinued as leader after his government were defeated in the 1951election, leaving Morrison to sulk and snipe, fretful in theknowledge that the longer Attlee stayed on the weaker his chancesof succeeding. It was clear at that time that if the Labour Party wasto have any hope of clawing their way back into government theywould need to undertake a comprehensive overhaul of their policiesand presentation but Attlee was too weary after his years ingovernment to do anything about it. That was probably the time forhim to retire but instead he kept going, which had the effect ofstifling Morrison's leadership chances (Morrison was, of course,convinced that this was the motivation). After Labour was defeatedagain, in 1955, Attlee carried on for a few months and thensuddenly resigned, going to the House of Lords. The delay in hisgoing had had its effect; Hugh Gaitskell had emerged as thelikeliest leadership candidate and he won the ballot over both

Morrison andAneurin Bevan,leaving Morrisonto nurse his bitterdisappointment.

The Torygovernment whichfollowed had itsown inheritanceproblems forWinston Churchillhad always madeit clear that hewould besucceeded asleader by his

Deputy Anthony Eden; for example in 1942 Churchill told the Kingthat if he failed to return from one of his trips abroad Eden shouldbe asked to take his place. In spite of the Tories' calamitous defeatin the 1945 election Churchill hung on as leader (in any case henever made any secret of his reluctance to take account of hisparty's wishes). But he was bored in opposition and he might haveresigned then except that his "Iron Curtain" speech seemed torevive his confidence in himself as an historic figure so he stayed,while playing on Eden's loyalty by throwing out occasional hintsthat he would hand over in the near future - rather like Tony Blairtoday. At the same time Churchill made it clear that he wouldregard any suggestion that he should resign as base treachery. Evenwhen he had a succession of strokes, notably in 1949 and 1953,which progressively disabled him, he kept himself in the job. Itseemed as if he would never go.

EdenThe grinding pressure of disappointment aggravated Eden's

emotional and medical difficulties; at the time of Churchill's 1953stroke Eden was convalescing abroad after an operation, whichprevented him taking over. In any case Churchill, in the words ofhis son Randolph, "fought his way back to health with a Romanmastery of mind over flesh" so that he was still Prime Ministerwhen he turned 80 in November 1954. He resigned in April 1955and Eden came at last into his inheritance, except that it was aprocession of disasters. Under scathing criticism from a normallyloyal Tory press - the Daily Telegraph ranted about "changes ofmind by the Government; half measures; and the postponement ofdecisions" - the breaking point for him was his obsessive butdoomed attempt to revive the standing of British capitalism in theMiddle East by the Suez invasion (his wife later told how at timesshe had felt as if the Suez Canal was running through their livingroom). By now a very sick man, virtually living on prescribeddrugs, Eden gave up and went to the West Indies to recuperate.After all that waiting, he had been Prime Minister for less than twoyears.

SpiteA common factor in these episodes, as with the present clash

between Blair and Brown, is the absence of any differences inpolicy. The disputes were not about whether to run capitalism butwho should be allowed to indulge their ambitions by doing so.From those roots a tangled growth of spite and venom hasflourished, in which Brown abruptly ceased to be the assumed,widely welcomed, successor to Blair and instead became the targetof vicious personal attacks, some of which originated from peoplewho were themselves far from blameless. "Compulsive obsessive","autistic" and "childish vanity" were among the kinder assessmentsof Brown. Perhaps most audacious of all was Charles Clarke'scharge that Brown is a "control freak", which overlooked the factthat when he was Home Secretary Clarke was a relentless,determined advocate of Identity Cards. The winnerof this "smooth and orderlyprocess" among contestants wholay down laws which aredesigned to instruct us how tobehave will be whoeveremerges with the leastshreddedclothing andthe fewestwounds. ¢IVAN

Julius Caesar alsoenjoyed a ‘smooth andorderly handover’.

The Inequalities Of CapitalismA good example of the class division inmodern society can be seen when welook at the wealth of the top 0.1 percent ofthe population in the USA. "An analysis byDavid Cay Johnston in the New YorkTimes found that the average annualinflation-adjusted income of this groupincreased by 2.5 times, to $3 million (£1.6million), from 1980 to 2002. The averagenet worth of those on the Forbes 400 listhas mushroomed in the past 20 years,rising from $390 million (£206 million) to$2.8 billion (£1.48 billion)" (Times, 17August). As for you and your family,"inflation adjusted" how are you doing? Alittle less than $3 million this year I wouldimagine.

Pardon Our French Nothing sums up capitalism better thanthe article that appeared in the ObserverMagazine (27 August) when dealing withthe former member of the WorkersRevolutionary Party John Bird, who itdescribes as an entrepreneur. We thinkthis might mean con man but we neverwent to French classes. This enterprising

person may be more familiar to you as theowner of the magazine The Big Issue -yes the one you bought because you feltsorry for the lady outside the bus station.Here is the owner of that magazine on thehomeless and how he feels about it. "Fiftyyears ago a homeless person wasn'tallowed to sleep rough or beg. They'd geta menial job but they were part of society.Nowadays they pay nothing. They are

infantilised. And it costs us £60,000 tokeep each one of them in that state." Wemust go to French classes. Perhapsentrepreneur really means "arrogantowning class bastard."

Exploitation It is a basic premise of socialists that allwealth that is produced inside moderncapitalism is the product of the workingclass and that the capitalist class live offthe surplus value that the working classproduce. Now we have such pillars ofcapitalist society as the Observer andReuters agreeing with us. "The 20 largestquoted companies in the UK make anaverage of over £96,000 pre-tax profit peremployee, according to research carriedout by the Observer. ... BG, formerlyBritish Gas, made by far the most -approximately £445,000 .." (Observer, 27August). Are you understanding thesefigures? On average your employer consyou out of more than £1,800 a week andin the case of BG over £8,000 a week.Why aren't you a socialist? Are you ashareholder in BG?

The American Dream There is a popular misconception aboutthat as the USA is the world's mostdeveloped capitalist country and the mostproductive the American workers must bewell off. A recent report from theWashington-based Economic PolicyInstitute shows that this is not true."Adjusted for inflation, average wages inthe US are now lower than they were in2000 - so the benefits of the rapidincreases in productivity ... are not beingpassed to the workers. In fact, as the NewYork Times reported last week, officialfigures show that wages and salaries nowmake up the smallest part of GDP sincerecords began in 1947.... In 1965, CEOsearned 24 times more than the averageworker; by 2005 it was 262 times. ...Thetop 20 per cent of asset-holders nowcontrol 85 per cent of all America'swealth." (Observer, 3 September)

Bones of Contention The National Museum of Kenya is to re-open next year after extensiverenovations. It will feature a special exhibitThe Origins Of Man which will display the

key fossil finds of Africa's Great Rift Valley- considered by many to be the cradle ofhumanity. All round celebrations locally,you may imagine. Not a bit of it. "It'screating a big weapon against Christiansthat's killing our faith," said BishopBoniface Adoyo, who is leading the hide-the-bones-campaign." (Observer, 10September). This individual is chairman ofthe Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, whichclaims to represent churches of 35denominations with 9 million members. Nosurprise there, he is carrying on the longtradition of Christian suppression ofscientific enquiry.

Big Brother Is Watching You George Orwell's 1984 was a dystopiawhere every move of the worker wasmonitored, but Orwell's nightmare hasarrived. "Learn that truth, and learn it well;what you do at work is the boss'sbusiness. Xora and SurfControl are justsome of the new technologies that havesprung up in the past two years peddlingproducts and services - software, GPSvideo and phone surveillance, eveninvestigators - that let managers get toknow you really well. The worst mole sitsright on your desk. Your computer can berigged to lock down work files, restrictWeb searches and flag e-mailed jokesabout the CEO's wife. 'Virtually nothingyou do at work on your computer can't bemonitored', says Jeremy Gruber, legaldirector of the US National WorkrighsInstitute, which advocates work placeprivacy" (Time, 11 September). The articlegoes on to quantify how widespread thissnooping is. 76 percent of employerswatch your use of the Web, 36 percenttrack the content and time spent on thekeyboard. 38 percent hire staff to siftthrough your e-mail and 38 percent havefiredworkersover thelast 12monthsformisuse ofthe e-mail.

Produced and published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UNISSN 0037 8259ISSN 0037 8259

by Rigg

socialiststandard-2006-1226-oct

Documents

socialist party ofgreat

politicians politics

party conference season

antics of career politicians

challenging blair

clapham high street

london sw4

over21 years of age