socialiststandard-2006-1224-aug

Socialist Standard August 20062

website: www.worldsocialism.org

6 Globalisation - what does it mean? We begin a two-part article on the continuing surge in capitalist globalisation.This month we deal with the globalisation of capital.

9 Foreign takeovers: a non-issue A recent poll shows public opinion in Britain is becoming increasingly perturbedby the changing ownership of the companies that make up the British economy,but does it matter to workers who owns the company that exploits them?

10 Who Are the Looters? A year after hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans we look at what was a mediaobsession at the time.

12 For whom the bell tolledThis summer has seen commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the begin-ning of the Spanish Civil war remains a conflict shrouded in myth, heroism andcontroversy.

14 The Battle of the SommeThe recent 90th anniversary of the human tragedy of the Somme saw the politi-cians, the churches and the organisations charged with remembrance givinghistory a makeover.

contents3 Editorial

The Middle East

4 PathfindersRadioactive days; the sting

5 Letters Galloway defended; banningextremists; Ugandan civil war

5 Contact Details

11 Cooking the Books 1Was there an alternative?

13 Cooking the Books 2Commodity markets

16 ReviewsChomsky; “Marxists”; PensionsMyth; “Red Elvis”

18 Meetings

18 50 Years Ago Drugs and the death penalty

19 Greasy Pole Be kind to a hoodie

20 Voice from the BackThe price of oil; a tale of three virgins; science and profits

20 Free Lunch

REGULARSFEATURES

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THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAINThe next meeting of the Executive Committeewill be on Saturday 5 August at the addressbelow. Correspondence should be sent to theGeneral Secretary. All articles, letters andnotices should be sent to the editorial com-mittee at: The Socialist Party, 52 ClaphamHigh street, London SW4 7UN.TEL: 020 7622 3811 E-MAIL: [email protected]

AUGUST 2006

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socialist standard

6

Editorial

Once again in the Middle East inno-cent workers are being killed anduseful structures destroyed. Theimmediate cause was the capture

in a raid from Lebanon of two Israeli sol-diers but the ultimate isssue was, onceagain, who controls this oil-rich region: theUS and its allies or various local elites?

All states are artificial and illegitimatebut Israel is particularly so. Set up bycolonists from Europe on the basis of fablesrecounted in a book supposedly emanatingfrom a god, it has been armed and financedby the United States as its only reliable allyin the region. Over the years it has acted asAmerica's gendarme there to deal with sec-tions of the local Arab ruling classes whohave sought to challenge US domination.These sections, in their turn, have identifiedIsrael for what it is and have sought todestroy it and have been able to win consid-erable popular support.

This is not to say that Israel is underdirect US control. The rulers of Israel havetheir own agenda and can, and do, act inde-pendently of their protector. But that's aprice the US has to pay to avoid sending itsown troops to fight and die there. The USwould like some compromise solutionbetween Israel and local Arab elites but inthe meantime gives Israel a virtual freehand, only issuing ritual appeals to it toexercise restraint.

Hezbollah, the Shiite militia inLebanon, is armed and financed by twostates whose regime the US has vowed tochange: Iran and Syria. It is entirely possi-ble that the present crisis was deliberatelyprovoked by Iran, which has ambitions tobe the dominant regional power, as a meansof bringing counter-pressure on the US inthe diplomatic trial of strength going onover its nuclear programme, a means ofshowing that it too is not without bargain-ing counters. Israel, incidentally, is without

doubt already a nuclear power, whichshows up the US hypocrisy over the spreadof nuclear weapons.

So, as a conflict over which states andruling classes should dominate the region,no working class interest is involved exceptin so far as it is they who are its innocentvictims and need the killing, maiming anddestruction to stop. Socialists are alwaysspontaneously on the side of the oppressedagainst the oppressors and the massive useof overwhelming force by the state of Israelclearly exposes it as the oppressor. But justbecause we sympathise with the victims ofIsraeli oppression does not mean that wefavour the solutions popular amongst them.

A Palestinian state would be a capital-ist state. "Anti-imperialism" is the slogan oflocal elites who wish to dominate the regionin place of the US, a situation which wouldstill leave the mass of the population thereexploited and oppressed with the eternalproblem of finding enough money to buythe things they need to live.

Capitalism is a war-prone societywith a built-in clash of interests betweenstates over markets, sources of raw materi-als, trade routes and strategic points to pro-tect these. In the Middle East the conflict isover oil, and strategic points to protect itssupply and transport, which has already ledto many wars there.

The only lasting way out is to get ridof capitalism and replace it by a world soci-ety of common ownership and democraticcontrol. On that basis, the resources of theworld, including oil, could be extracted andused for the benefit of all the people of theworld. Poverty and misery in the MiddleEast, as elsewhere, could be ended once andfor all. The waste of arms and the horrors ofwar would disappear.

Socialism is, quite literally and with-out exaggeration, the hope of humanity.

Socialist Standard August 2006 3

More slaughter in the Middle EastIntroducingThe Socialist PartyThe Socialist Party is like no other polit-ical party in Britain. It is made up of peo-ple who have joined together becausewe want to get rid of the profit systemand establish real socialism. Our aim isto persuade others to become socialistand act for themselves, organising dem-ocratically and without leaders, to bringabout the kind of society that we areadvocating in this journal. We are solelyconcerned with building a movement ofsocialists for socialism. We are not areformist party with a programme ofpolicies to patch up capitalism.

We use every possible opportunity tomake new socialists. We publish pam-phlets and books, as well as CDs, DVDsand various other informative material.We also give talks and take part indebates; attend rallies, meetings anddemos; run educational conferences;host internet discussion forums, makefilms presenting our ideas, and contestelections when practical. Socialist litera-ture is available in Arabic, Bengali,Dutch, Esperanto, French, German,Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish andTurkish 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 the move-ment which you will be able to bring 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.


Anyone who expressed shock, surprise, horror or helpless mirth atthe government's decision to give the go-ahead to a new round ofnuclear power stations in the UK deserves a slap and a stronginjunction to wake up and smell the plutonium. This was alwaysgoing to happen, so get used to it. Some people may have thought,in the wake of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and the revela-tions of gross and grotesque safety infringements by nuclear com-panies in the 70's and 80's, that nuclear's goose was cooked, andthat public opinion was irreversibly set against its comeback. Suchoptimists underestimate the power of creeping propaganda by thestate and overestimate the collective memory of the public. What,besides a lot of bilge about new safety procedures and new ideasabout waste disposal, has really swung it for the nuclear lobby isthe increasing fear that we, in the West, are either going to behostages to the mullahs in Iran or those commies in Venezuela foroil, or hostages to the Russian mafia for gas (who have shownthemselves quite capable of turning off the taps if they don't get theprice they want). Blair's government have played a clever game ofbuttering up the public with so-called energy reviews, which werereally about acclimatizing public opinion to the inevitable. Thegreens have been effectively neutralized, being unable to find away out of the environmental frying pan of fossil fuels without hit-ting the fire of nuclear fission, while emerging research into windpower has set back alarmingly the time necessary for this technolo-gy to start being a net carbon saver, from an estimate of 18 monthsby the wind turbine industry itself to between 8 and 16 years byindependent researchers, on a projected 25 year turbine life span(New Scientist, July 8).

And could there be another and darker reason why nuclear isback on the agenda and the same money is not going to be spenteither on renewables, or even more sensibly, insulating houses andfinding ways to reduce consumption? The original reason for thenuclear programme was that not only could you run steam turbineswith the resulting water vapour but you could also build bombs tovaporize your political and economic rivals, and the reasoning stillholds good, in a world of ageing nuclear arsenals and an emergentsuperpower, China, whose expected ruthlessness in suppressingglobal competitors may be judged by its ruthlessness in suppressingits own people.

But the bitterest pill for environmentalists to swallow is thatthe government's case on nuclear is actually pretty hard to fault.Renewables provide about 4 per cent of the UK's energy supplyand the most massive expansion programme imaginable is notgoing to increase that amount to a significant level for decades,

whereas the threat of strangulation from global suppliers of oil andgas is immediate and stark, as are the spiralling price rises. Whilethe USA and the UK may with impunity invade Iraq when itschieftain starts monkeying around with oil supplies, the same tacticis hardly going to work in Venezuela, heavily backed by China, orin Russia, which nobody has ever invaded without immediately andsolemnly wishing they hadn't. There are no other emergent tech-nologies. Fusion is still decades away, and always will be, accord-ing to the old joke. Cold fusion is, according to the accepted wis-dom, just a joke. As hydro goes bigger, the cracks in the dams startto appear, much to the embarrassment of Chinese engineers, andthe energy of wind appears to be best harnessed by building on, andeffectively destroying, millions of tons of peat bog, itself a massivecarbon sink.

If socialism were established tomorrow, the question ofnuclear energy would take a back-seat, behind more pressing ques-tions of food production. But it would re-emerge, amid a hotly dis-puted debate over energy consumption and reduction. A socialistsociety which had to find energy out of nowhere and with no timeto develop renewables, might conceivably go nuclear, at least for atime. But it is not a racing certainty, or even an ambling probability.If one were to take away the factors of capitalist competitive pro-duction which so completely influence the present controversy onewould be left with a more rational basis for planning, which wouldtake into account global minimum energy requirements, bothdomestic and industrial, rather than global optimum industrial per-formance to outdo business rivals. If Europe, for example, didn'thave to stay one jump ahead of South East Asia and China in man-ufacturing stakes, and if China wasn't in such an all-fired rush toindustrialise simply to compete on global markets, the question ofenergy might be approached in an altogether calmer and more glob-ally sustainable way. But in capitalism, the energy question is real-ly one of global dominance. The power at stake is really politicaland economic. Whether the source of that power is from nuclearfission, fossil fuels, or farting Friesians, is entirely beside the point.

TheStingThe ongoing warbetween main-stream scientists andthe homeopathic com-munity, which recentlysaw the Royal Veterinary Society obliged towithdraw a list of homeopathic vets from itswebsite after a storm of protests from the scien-tific community, has begun to assume farcicalproportions. Now holidaymakers are returninghome with malaria after refusing conventionalanti-malarial drugs in favour of homeopathic'alternatives' (BBC Online, July 13). An under-cover investigation by the group Sense About Science and BBC'sNewsnight programme revealed that homeopathic consultants weretelling people they didn't need the 'horrible' conventional drugs andcould safely use homeopathic medications, which on analysisturned out to be 99.99 per cent water with a virtually undetectablelevel of quinine. When challenged by Newsnight, the clinicsclaimed this was a mistake, and that clients were told to consulttheir doctors, a claim not supported by the secretly recorded inter-view transcripts. However, all this doesn't seem quite fair on thehardworking homeopaths. Being in a sympathetic mood,Pathfinders offers the following explanation: what the clinics reallymeant to say was that their remedies were indeed perfectly effec-tive, but only against homeopathic mosquitoes. The fact that mos-quitoes are usually in the habit of delivering large and potentiallydeadly doses of malaria is a disappointing reflection on theirunchristian natures but this can hardly be blamed on homeopathicclinics, who are only trying to help.

RadioactiveDays


Galloway defendedDear EditorsPik Smeet's article (July Socialist Standard)is yet another criticism of George Gallowaywhich to my mind, although there are per-haps some valid points made, is not reallyvery helpful in the immediate struggle thatwe of the Left need to advance against thecreeping neo-fascism excreting fromNumber 10 and Washington D.C.

Galloway, regardless of his personalmotives, is a voice in Parliament roundlycriticizing the murderous policies of thismutant 'ersatz' Labour Government and itsWashington cohorts. Where are the othervoices? Galloway is able to speak to themasses via the media. Maybe he's not a onehundred percent 'kosher' socialist but ordi-nary people are hearing him and know abouthim and are thinking about what he is saying.'It's no damn good refining our socialistideas, concepts and understandings amongstourselves. Socialists need to be out in thecommunity at large offering the light of rea-son to the people. Galloway, for all his faults, is doing that.LEO ALIFERIS (by email)

Reply:The message Galloway projects is hardly anadvance for the working class. We refrainedfrom retelling his ghastly support forSaddam Hussein: he went so far when heappeared on Big Brother as to claim that theIraqis supported and were happy with thatvile old-style fascist dictator; he even salutedHussein to his face for his "strength [his]courage, [his] indefatigability". Far frombeing a voice for the oppressed in the massmedia he is the voice of wealth and power in

the Middle East, and his role in the workers'movement is to poison it. Ordinary peoplehear this poison and think it has something todo with socialism. He and his ilk are just asgreat an enemy to the spread of socialistunderstanding as George > Bush, and theSocialist Party must oppose them - Editors.

Ban the ultra-right?Dear EditorsI read your article titled "the case againstcensorship" (March Socialist Standard). I amalso in favour of freedom of speech. It is truethat Islamists and racists as individualsshould be free to express their viewpointsand that atheists and socialists should also befree to criticise them by any unconditionalmeans they find appropriate.

Islam's "prophet" knew how to readand write and wrote the Qoran that reflectsthe tribal beliefs of barbarian Arabs wholived in pre-feudal socio-economic condi-tions but announced that was unable to readand write and that the "holy" book had been"posted" by god to his address in SaudiArabia.

Racists deny equal rights for non"white" and non "English" citizens of thiscountry and want to apply force and removethem from this bullshit country and alsoanswer workers' and socialists' demands forthe right of freedom of speech, press andorganization by police force, jail, torture andmurder exactly like terrorist Muslims. Inother words, they both represent social forcesthat want to add more dictatorship to thepresent level of dictatorship of capitalists andtheir murderous suppressive British regime.

I think that those Islamic organizations

that support and organize terrorist activityand also "white founded" organizations thatpreach for "white power" or even "Englishpower", should be banned from doing activi-ty, since every year quite a few "whites" anda few more "non whites" are killed by theseterrorist organizations.

When we can make workers accept thatultra right, whether it is Muslim terrorist orracist fascist, should not exist as an organiza-tion we would deprive the capitalist rulingclass of the use of the ultra right to suppressthe looming socialist revolution by usingthese ultra reactionary forces as its politicaland suppression machine representatives. SIAMAK HAGHIGHAT, London

Reply :We are opposed to appealing to the capitaliststate to ban any political ideas. It doesn'twork anyway - Editors

Civil War in UgandaDear Editors,There is a war which has been going on theNorthern part of Uganda for now 20 years.This is a war between the UgandanGovernment and the Lord's Resistance Armyrebel armed forces led by one Joseph Kony.

It is clear that any solution resultingfrom violence or confrontation is not lasting.It is only through peaceful means that we candevelop better understanding between our-selves. Though lies and falsehood maydeceive people temporarily and the use offorce may control human beings physically,it is only through proper understanding, fair-ness and mutual respect that human beingscan be genuinely convinced and satisfied.

There is one world and we exist as one

Letters

continued on page 17

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Contact Details


Following the downfall of state cap-italism in Eastern Europe the ideaof one global market soon foundcommon cause in neo-conservative

and neo-liberal circles. Indeed, for theseideologists of capitalism the world marketonly became truly global once the formerstate capitalist regimes threw open theirdoors to private finance and capital invest-ment from the G7 nations. Obviously, forsuch thinking to take hold it had to ignorea multitude of historical facts concerningthe economic development of capitalismand its eventual transformation into aworld system.

In 1865, for example the first globalregulatory agency was formed with thecreation of the International TelegraphUnion, along with the first global medicalresource, which we know as the RedCross. Also, if globalisation only tookplace when the G7 nations became G8(with Russia joining) then the new'thinkers' need to explain how two warscommonly referred to as world wars werefought over who was to dominate accessto global raw materials and a market thatwas already global. Another historicalfact that is largely ignored is that despitesupposed ideological differences the tradebetween the state capitalist regimes andthe rest of the world increased throughoutthe Cold War.

This is how the economist Keynesconfirmed - rather belatedly - in the after-math of World War One, the process ofglobalisation that had gone on until then:

"What an extraordinary episode inthe economic progress of man that age

which came to end in August 1914! . . .The inhabitant of London could order bytelephone, sipping his morning tea in bed,the various products of the whole earth, insuch quantity as he might see fit, and rea-sonably expect their early delivery uponhis doorstep; he could at the same momentand by the same means adventure hiswealth in the natural sources and newenterprises of any quarter of the world,and share, without exertion or even trou-ble, in their prospective fruits and advan-

tages; or he could decide to couple thesecurity of his fortunes with the good faithof the townspeople of any substantialmunicipality in any continent that fancy orinformation might recommend."

Coming from Keynes it would berather naive to expect him to describe thewave of globalisation that had taken placearound the turn of the twentieth century interms other than pro-capitalist ones. Forunlike Marx, who saw the main instrumentfor social change originating with the classconscious workers, Keynes was convincedthroughout his life that the capitalist classheld the centre stage, albeit with the needof some interventionist help from the state.Marx had also predicted the potential for

capitalism to become a global system,with its attendant economic, political andsocial consequences, when he and Engelsdrew up the Communist Manifesto in1848. And he confirmed, far earlier thananyone else, the trend for capitalism toevolve towards economic interdependencyand globalisation when Das Capital waspublished in 1867.

Spoils of warThe arguments over the benefits of 'protec-tionism' versus free trade that existed dur-ing the nineteenth century, and then in theperiods just before and then after the FirstWorld War, were never entirely resolvedwithin the capitalist class one way oranother. Fierce arguments raged with vari-ous policy initiatives and reversals, thoughfor most of the dominant states of the time(such as Britain) what passed for 'freetrade' gained something of an ascendancyby stealth.

But in terms of the globalisation ofthe system, the most crucial event tookplace rather later, towards the end ofanother war caused by competition overeconomic power and military interests -World War Two. Significantly, in the sum-mer of 1944 at Bretton Woods, NewHampshire the gangster representatives of44 countries held a meeting to hammer outa deal on global trade and sharing thespoils of (the latest) war. This includedthe creation of the World Bank and theIMF and the initial setting up of a GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),with the latter coming into force in 1948.

Although these new institutions

We begin a two-part article on the continuing surge in capitalist globalisation.This month we deal with the globalisation of capital

Globalisation - what does it mean?

“The Cold War itselfproved to be a nicelittle earner”


eased the existing rules on tariffs and themovement of currency, by seeking com-mon ground on exports and imports andForeign Direct Investment (FDI), they hadno powers to control new forms of protec-tionism that had been instigated by themajor powers in order to maintain theirmarket share and economic dominance.And this was reflected in what happenedshortly after the Second World War ended,when the US introduced the Marshall Planin 1949 involving $13.5 billion of loansby the US government to near-bankruptEuropean economies. All told $90 billionwas steered towards 16 countries thatagreed to move towards currency convert-ibility, lowered trade tariffs, who promot-ed exports to the US and who were 'toughon communism'. This not only meant thatthe US export market was protected inWestern Europe but was also, in retrospectthe first economic warning shots in thestart of the Cold War.

Cold War EconomicsThe Cold War itself proved to be a nicelittle earner for those countries in the"developing" world who allied themselvesto either East or West, with most of theproceeds ending up in arms deals ordirectly into the pockets of corrupt politi-cians and bureaucrats. Not that this both-ered the developed countries, for duringthis period of Cold War economics manydeveloping and undeveloped countriesfound themselves accepting loan agree-ments whether they wanted them or not -and with very favourable terms of borrow-ing at very low rates of interest, plus long-term payback dates. They seemed at thetime to have little to lose by becomingdebtor nations. As for the creditornations, both East and West, their aim dur-ing the cold war was to increase theirhegemony and market share by makingthe client debtor nations militarily andfinancially dependent on them as creditorstates and to gain the upper hand overtheir competitors.

The loans themselves came from avariety of sources: manufacturing andfinancial businesses, banks, donor states,the IMF and the World Bank being themain lenders. Much of this money waslent under a 'no risk' guarantee covered byExport Credit Agreements (ECA), whereindividual donor states with their exportagencies would underwrite the loansthrough aid contracts - specifying that thecapital investment could only be spent

through named companies established inthe donor state.

For instance, the Nigerian govern-ment could have decided to build a univer-sity, and could approach a donor state likethe UK to finance the project, both seek-ing agreement as to the profitability of theaid. The UK government would then stip-ulate that the university could to be builtby a UK developer and equipped byBritish manufacturers and key postsstaffed with British-trained personnel.Should the Nigerian government defaulton their repayments of the loan whatwould usually happen is that the UKwould agree to pay off the loan underECA if the Nigerian government issued abond tied to a percentage of Nigerian oilexports in order to cover the amountowed. This would ensure the capitalinvested stayed in circulation via petrodol-lars, despite the losses incurred.Obviously, deals like this could only con-tinue whilst there was sufficient confi-dence in the strength of the US-drivenWestern economies.

Crisis of Over-AccumulationDuring the early 1970s this changed dra-matically when loss of confidence overescalating costs of the Vietnam Warbecame evident with many countries sell-ing off their dollar reserves in favour ofgold. Unable to withstand this pressurethe US came off the Gold Standard in1971 and allowed the fixed exchange ratesystem that was pegged to the dollar tocollapse. The price of gold increased andthere followed a period of financial insta-bility which, in essence, reflected thereturn of economic crisis in the sphere ofproduction, with economic downturns inmajor western economies and growingunemployment. It was at this time that themain oil-producing cartel dominated bycapitalists in the Middle East (OPEC)decided to quadruple their oil prices.These events eventually flooded the NorthAmerican and European financial marketswith vast amounts of accumulatedpetrodollars searching for profitableinvestment that was difficult to find in themore 'traditional markets' of the post-warperiod. Due to the European EconomicCommunity (EEC) at the time being insuf-ficiently organised or integrated to attractthe massive amounts of capital in theOPEC countries, some of it filteredtowards the Pacific Rim, commonlyreferred to as the 'Asian Tigers'.

PROTECTIONISMAn economic policy designed to actively restrict importsinto a country, through means such as 'quotas' (whichonly allow for the import of certain maximum numbers ofgoods in a given period), or 'tariffs' (which place a tax onimports to make them less attractive to importers).Advocates of protectionism, such as British Tory politi-cian Joseph Chamberlain a century ago, have typicallyargued that it is a means for protecting domestic indus-try and agriculture from foreign competition. Historically,it has been most actively and aggressively taken up bystate capitalist countries of the political far right (e.g.Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the 1930s) and of thefar left (Soviet Union, China, etc) when attempting tochallenge other, more dominant, states.

FREE TRADEThis is a situation whereby the free flow of goods andservices is not inteferred with by state intervention andmeasures such as protectionism. In practice it is an ide-alist conception within capitalism that is never attainedcompletely because of the active role of the state in mod-ern capitalist nations, but advocates of free trade arguethat the nearer economies get to this situation, thegreater world growth and prosperity will be as there willbe fewer restrictions on production and trade. For obvi-ous reasons, it is a policy favoured more by powerful,dominant economies with a competitive advantage - buteven then, some selected elements of protecionism mayremain where needed (e.g. the US economy today).

Above: Marx predicted the potential for cap-italism to become a global system, whilstKeynes, below, convinced the capitalistclass held the centre stage with help fromthe state. Botom: The meeting of 44 coun-tries at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

8 Socialist Standard August 2006

With the exception of the MultifibreAgreement drawn up by GATT, much ofthis investment for Asia hit a variety ofprotectionist barriers on the export of capi-tal. Although GATT tried to get aroundmonetary restrictions with the introductionof the SWIFT system for electronic inter-bank fund transfers worldwide and othermeasures, the pressure for change in cur-rency regulations intensified throughoutthe 1980s as capitalism's trade cyclereturned with a vengeance with plummet-ing production and soaring unemployment.

Out of this emerged what came to becalled the 'Washington Consensus' instigat-ed by the neo-liberals within the USTreasury, IMF and World Bank who advo-cated a programme to free up capital assetsby: privatising state owned monopolies;reducing personal and business taxation;deregulating financial institutions; remov-ing restrictions on FDI; and reducing pub-lic spending, particularly on welfare bene-fits. Urged on by the collapse of the statecapitalist regimes who could not competeeconomically or militarily any longer withthe dominant Western economies, the pres-sure continued to intensify for deregula-tion of currency movement and the aban-donment of GATT, and its replacement bythe World Trade Organisation. This even-tually took place in 1995 and under it tradeand the movement of currency and capitalassets has had a much more straightfor-ward path to profitable markets.

Deregulation of currency movementand the removal of restrictions on FDI,however, proved to be just too late for thedeveloping countries on the Pacific Rim.By 1997 these countries had found theircredit was severely overextended, deliver-ing a lower rate of profit than predicted bythe pundits and speculators of the financialinstitutions. The unintended consequenceof the crisis in South East Asia was theacceleration of the movement of currencyinto other areas still - like China and India- where there were better prospects ofprofits.

This is the nature of capitalism forthe accumulation of capital is dependenton economic growth, regardless of the riskattached, and is essential to the workingsof a system that puts competition and thepursuit of profit, at each link in the chain -from production to distribution and even-tual sale to the consumer - above all else.

RisksWith the velocity facilitated by the inter-net, clearly the overall economic trend is

towards short-term profits through FDI,currency speculation and by squeezingmarket share of competitors, particularlyin manufacturing and services. But thatdoes not mean that the developed coun-tries are solely concentrating their invest-ments in the developing countries - farfrom it. The greater volume of trade andinvestment is still between the G8 coun-tries themselves who, forced by globalmarket conditions, have taken into accountthe relative economic, political and socialstability of the developed world, comparedto what they would sometimes gain from

relatively precarious investment in any ofthe developing, or even undeveloped coun-tries.

Generally, what is most noticeableabout this economic activity is that all thedeveloping countries targeted by the WorldBank, IMF and the WTO were selectedbecause they have access to sufficientenergy and water supplies to sustain ashort-term industrialisation programme,rather than sustained long-term growth.For example, China is scouring the worldfor all the uranium ore available and everydrop of oil necessary to accomplish its aimof overtaking Japan and becoming themain industrial nation in South East Asiaand second to the US globally. And Chinais currently finding it very difficult to meetthe increased demand for electricity andfor bottled and industrial water, and conse-quently using 47 percent of the world'scement to complete the damming of theYangzi, and meet their targets on urbanisa-tion and industrial capacity. In effect theChinese have soon come to realise thatwithout sufficient energy and water theirplans for long-term growth are unachiev-able. Although this economic targetingover energy and water resources isundoubtedly a high-risk strategy, and hasall the potential for military conflicts overessential resources, it is one explanationwhy the emphasis is on short-term profitand speculation.

What is also apparent is that the free-ing up of the movement on capital has notentirely been accompanied by a correspon-ding deregulation in the movement oflabour. Indeed, the restrictions on immi-gration have been tightened in some cases,and strictly enforced by some countries tohold back the flood of economic, andmostly illegal, immigrants chasing themovement of capital in the developed anddeveloping countries. These phenomenonhave led to the growth in human traffick-ing - and the casualties are being foundsuffocated in the back of lorries at Doverharbour, or drowned on a beach inMorecambe Bay or even crushed by a trainin the Eurotunnel.

There are also other risks associatedwith the pursuit of industrial growth in thedeveloping world, the most obvious onebeing the spread of AIDS, particularly inAfrica where it has been helped along by atenfold increase in the transportation ofcommodities. And then there's the risk thatthe increase in global pollution and theonset of global warming will put severepressure on the relocation of coastal com-munities. A less immediately obvious riskis of an increase in capitalist industrialgrowth in some countries facilitating andencouraging the manufacture of weaponsof mass destruction and their eventual usein competitive power struggles betweenstates. These and other risk factors canonly accelerate as the demands for moreenergy and water increase in line withindustrial growth.

The reasons why these patterns ofrisky economic activity are so pronouncedare many and varied, but all are nonethe-less based on capitalism's inherent compet-itive drive to maximise profits regardlessof the consequences. The actual growth ineconomic development in parts of thedeveloping world attracting investment hasbeen on a tremendous scale with develop-ing countries like Brazil, China and Indiasucking in vast amounts of capital toincrease their infrastructure and manufac-turing base. In particular the annual per-centage increase in GDP for China (9.8)and India (8.1) illustrates how theseeconomies are being dramatically reshapedin the interests of capitalism.BRIAN JOHNSON

Next month: the impact that the contin-uing surge in globalisation is having onpeople in the developing and undevel-oped countries.

India and China are being reshaped in the interests of capitalism

“China is using 47percent of the world'scement to completethe damming of theYangzi”


The poll, conducted by HarrisInteractive at the beginning of June,found that the acquisition of Britishcompanies by those based in other

countries is causing major concern, with"more than two thirds of people saying it isnow 'too easy' for overseas predators toacquire businesses here," (Financial Times,19 June 2006) and urging government inter-vention.

The poll comes after 18 months ofintense acquisition and take-over activity onthe London Stock Exchange that reaped acash bonanza for the shareholders of a num-ber of well-known companies and shows nosign of abating. The feverish activity hasbeen fuelled, in large part, by foreign-basedcompanies buying UK companies in dealsthat in the first 10 months of 2005 wereworth ú70 billion - twice the value of suchdeals for the whole of 2004. In one weekalone in November 2005, four potentialdeals involving P&O, Pilkington, O2 andMowlem were reputedly worth ú24 billion.

More recent events have aggravatedthe unease. The announcement that Peugeotwas to close its Ryton car factory, destroy-ing 2,300 jobs, was accompanied by persist-ent rumours that Gazprom, the Russian oiland gas company, is about to take overCentrica in a period of rising gas and elec-tricity prices. The timing of the Harris pollalso coincided with the finalisation of theSpanish company Ferrovial's bid for theBritish Airports Authority, which ownsHeathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead airports,among others.

The reason behind all this is not diffi-cult to discover. As noted in the Observeron 6 November last year, "The reason forthe activity is simple: five years of belttightening following the technology boomhas left UK plc in robust health. Returns onequity are higher than they have been foryears and cash generation has been strong,leaving balance sheets healthy." Since prof-its in these companies have remained'healthy' it is evident that it is the workingclass who have experienced the 'belt tight-

ening' - foregoing improvements in livingstandards, motivated, one suspects, by thefear of losing their jobs. Growth in compa-ny profits in the last few years is not theoutcome of a general increase in sales but aconsequence of cost savings. All too oftenthese savings are secured by holding downwages, intensifying working conditions and,where necessary, terminating jobs - thedestruction of the livelihood of men andwomen with all the misery and dislocationthis entails.

Behind the concern expressed in thesurvey is the misguided belief among work-ing people that they have a stake in makingsure that companies retain their Britishownership. Many appear to hold the viewthat foreign companies cannot be trusted tomaintain existing employment levels andhave the unsubstantiated conviction thatworkers will enjoy greater job securitywhen the ownership of their workplaceresides with people born in the same coun-try. It is taken it for granted that those whoown the factories, raw materials and land,and those who sell their labour power forwages and salaries within the same country,automatically share a 'common interest,'when the opposite is actually the case.

Capitalism has divided the world intotwo irreconcilable but interdependentgroups - the working class and the capital-ist class. Despite the fact that the interestsof these two classes are antagonistic, therelationship is also strangely symbiotic. Theworking class own no means of producing

wealth and are dependent, through wagesand salaries, on those who do, while theowners of the means of production aredependent on a subordinate working class tosustain their position of power and privi-lege. The working class exchange labourpower for money which allows them to gainlimited access to the necessities of life. Inthis exchange the worker produces valuegreater than that of their own labour power.This value belongs to the capitalist.

Calls for the 'right' to work, sometimesheard in times of economic depression, aretherefore no more than a demand for the'right' to be exploited by anyone willing tooffer employment. Arguments about 'fairwages' are simply abstractions thatacknowledge the power of the capitalistclass to dictate the condition of life over thesubordinate working class. Society aspresently organised cannot be operated inany other way and workers who never lookbeyond this truism fail to comprehend thatan alternative society that does not workagainst their interests can be established -but that society is not capitalism.

Production in capitalist society isgeared strictly to the generation of profit -extracted from the working class whengoods are produced and released when theyare sold on the market to those who havethe money to buy. Individual companies aredependent on generating and attracting capi-tal to reinvest in order to continue operat-ing. Capital always chases profit, movingfrom less successful companies to thosewhere profit expectation is higher, withoutregard to the effect on employment orhuman welfare. Capital does not discrimi-nate between the relative merits of the prod-ucts and makes no distinction between theproduction of bombs and the production ofbandages as long as the risk is as low andthe activity as profitable as possible.

Wage labour and capital are in con-stant conflict. The capitalist class is continu-ously seeking to reduce the workers' shareof the social product to expand the accumu-

Foreign takeovers: a non-issue

A recent poll showspublic opinion in Britainis becoming increasinglyperturbed by the chang-ing ownership of thecompanies that make upthe British economy, butdoes it matter to work-ers who owns the com-pany that exploits them?

“Globalisation is thenewest name for aprocess that hasbeen ongoing sincecapitalism was firstestablished”

continued on page 17

From a recent Amicus handout urging the boycottiong of Peugot

What is the first priority of gov-ernment in the wake of disas-ter? Saving lives? Lookingafter the survivors? Disposing

of the dead and preventing epidemics?Think again. At best these things

come second. The first priority of govern-ment in the wake of disaster is exactly thesame as its first priority at other times:maintaining or restoring "order" - that is,its powers of coercion. Moreover, the firstpurpose of "order" is to protect and enforceproperty rights. From this point of view,the main threat posed by disasters likeHurricane Katrina is not the threat tohuman life and health, to the environment,or even to the economy. It is the threat of"chaos," the threat to "order" and "civiliza-tion," but above all to property, arisingfrom the temporary breakdown of govern-ment.

The "looter" symbolizes and drama-tizes this threat, conjuring up images ofViking warriors on the rampage, barbaricviolence, evil incarnate. Of course, theseparticular "Vikings" were all the more ter-rifying for being black. In the days thatfollowed the hurricane, the media stirredup racist fears of the poor black people ofNew Orleans, spreading rumours (the fash-ionable expression is "urban myths") latershown to be exaggerated out of all propor-tion, if not completely unfounded. Forexample, in the week following Katrina thenumber of murders was average for thecity (four) (see Ivor van Heerden and MikeBryan, The Storm, pp. 124-8).

All in all, we shouldn't be tooshocked or too surprised to learn that at 7p.m. on Wednesday August 31, 2005 mar-tial law was declared in the flooded city.Mayor Ray Nagin told police officers tostop rescuing people and focus solely onthe job of cracking down on looters. Thiswas just two and a half days after the hur-ricane made landfall and with thousands of

people still stranded in attics and onrooftops.

In one typically heroic encounter,police officers chased down a woman witha cart of supplies for her baby, handcuffedher - and then didn't know what to do withher. All the jails were flooded. By the endof the week that problem was solved. Anew makeshift jail was set up at theGreyhound bus terminal, with accommoda-tion for 750 prisoners. This was the firstinstitution in the city to resume normalfunctioning.

True, it could have been worse. Afterthe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 peo-ple were shot dead as looters while forag-ing in the wreckage of their own homes(see G. Hansen and E. Condon, Denial ofDisaster, 1989). .

Why did people loot? Or to use lessloaded language, why did they take thingsthat didn't belong to them without payingfor them?

One man answered a TV interviewerwho had asked him why he was looting byasking in turn: "Can you see anyone topay?" The stores had been abandoned by

their operators, but people still needed thethings stored there. They needed food andfresh water, dressings for their wounds,new clothes to replace those ruined byexposure to the "toxic gumbo" of the

floodwaters. Most of the so-called lootingwas of this kind - for the satisfaction ofdesperate need. In any sane society thatwould be a good enough reason for takingthings.

Two paramedics from San Franciscowho found themselves trapped in NewOrleans wrote about the Walgreens storeon the corner of Royal and Iberville Streetsin the French quarter. The owners hadlocked up and fled. Milk, yogurt, andcheese could be seen through the windowin the dairy display case, spoiling in theheat.

Should we expect the parents of hun-gry and thirsty children not to break in,even at the risk of being pursued by thepolice? Would they have been good par-ents had they failed to do all in their powerto see to their children's needs? And whatof storeowners who choose to let food goto waste rather than give it to needy neigh-bours? My first impulse is to wax lyricalabout the sheer meanness of their behav-iour. But probably they made no such con-scious choice. As businesspeople theymust have thought of the food and drink intheir store not as products for assuaginghunger and thirst, but merely as commodi-ties for profitable sale. If they could nolonger be sold they might just as well go towaste.

There were looters who acted not justfor themselves and their families but forthe benefit of the local community. Forinstance, the young men who collectedmedical supplies from a Rite Aid for distri-bution among elderly neighbours. Or theman who distributed food from a Winn-Dixie store to the 200 or so people holedup at the Grand Palace Hotel. "He was try-ing to help suffering people, and the ideathat he was looting never crossed hismind."

Socially responsible people of thiskind are sometimes described as "comman-

A year after hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans we look at what was a media obsession at the time.

Who Are the Looters?

Far left: JabarGibson drivingevacuees by busto Houston. Left:Mayor Ray Nagin,who told police tostop rescuingpeople and crackdown on looters.


“the looters of NewOrleans are keepingup an old Americantradition and shouldreceive credit asgood patriots”

Was there analternative?Mrs Thatcher alwaysmaintained there wasno alternative to thepolicy her governmentwas pursuing in the1980s of putting pro-

motion of profits before meeting people'sneeds. When challenged about cutting ben-efits and social services, she replied: ThereIs No Alternative. When confronted withprotests about closing factories andcoalmines, her reply was the same: TINA.

Socialists were inclined to agree. Weknew that capitalism - the profit system -runs on profits and that all governments,taking on as they do the management ofcapitalism, sooner or later have to apply itspriority of profits before people. TheThatcher government was merely doing thissooner rather than later and with undis-guised glee. Not that capitalism can neveroffer reforms but, since the post-war boomcame to an end in the early 70s, previousreforms had become too expensive and hadto be cut back to ease the burden of taxationon profit-seeking business.

Proof that there is no alternative under

capitalism to putting profits first has beenprovided by the Blair government whichtook over in 1997. They have continued thesame policy, even if they have been moremealy-mouthed about it, calling it "mod-ernisation" and even "reform".

Now, in a bid to out-Blair Blair, thenew Tory leader wants to kill off Tina. TheTimes (22 May) reported that "DavidCameron will tell business leaders todaythat there is 'more to life than money' as heattempts to make a clean break withThatcherism".

The pre-released text of his speechexplained:

"Wealth is about so much more thanpounds or euros or dollars can ever meas-ure. It's time we admitted that there's moreto life than money, and it's time we focusednot just on GDP, but on GWB - generalwellbeing. Wellbeing can't be measured bymoney or traded in markets. It can't berequired by law or delivered by govern-ment. It's about the beauty of our surround-ings, the quality of our culture, and aboveall the strength of our relationships."

Most people probably feel like this,but capitalism as an economic system can-not take into account "general wellbeing"precisely because this can't be quantified inmoney terms. Capitalism is all about mak-ing and accumulating monetary profits and,

in pursuit of this, not only ignores but actu-ally degrades "the beauty of our surround-ings, the quality of our culture, and thestrength of our relationships".

Cameron, naturally, disagrees. Thenext Tory government, he said, willembrace "capitalism with commitment"(Times, 23 May), presumably to make itpromote people's general wellbeing.

The trouble is that Cameron himself isa product of the degradation of "the qualityof our culture". He's just an image designedand packaged by the same people who try to(mis)sell us washing powder, deodorantsand private pensions, only with the aimchanged to attracting votes rather than sales.To expect such a product to change capital-ism's priorities is just absurd.

The next Tory government will be nodifferent from the present Labour one. Itwill continue to promote the general com-mercialisation of life and the reduction ofhuman values to monetary ones. People willcontinue to be reduced towards becomingisolated atoms competing against each otheron the market place, with the consequentweakening of "our relationships".

That's the tendency under capitalism,which no government can reverse. There isno alternative. Or rather, there is, but notwithin the profit system.

Cooking the Books (1)

deering" or "requisitioning" the goods theyseize. That may well be how they viewtheir own actions. In legal terms, however,only government officials, as representa-tives of duly constituted authority, have theright to commandeer or requisition proper-ty in an emergency. Private citizens whodo so, whatever their motives, are engag-ing in theft and may be penalized accord-ingly.

Consider the feat of Jabar Gibson.This resourceful young man, purely on hisown initiative, found a bus that was still inworking order (the city authoritiesassumed that all buses had been ruined bythe floodwater), took charge of it, filled itup with evacuees, and drove them toHouston. This was the first busload ofevacuees to reach Houston after the storm(at 10 p.m. on Wednesday August 31). Thepolice were forewarned that a "renegadebus" was on its way; if they had intercept-ed it Jabar might have been arrested andcharged with theft. Fortunately he was inluck: he got through to his destination, tobe greeted by Harris County Judge RobertEckels. Presumably his crime has been for-given.

Of course, not all looters wereresponding to real personal, family, orcommunity needs. Some were simply tak-ing a rare opportunity to acquire covetedthough nonessential consumer goods. Forothers looting (and shitting in) fancy stores

was a form of social protest or "empower-ment," an outlet for pent-up anger againstthe endlessly advertised world of affluencefrom which they felt excluded.

Finally, there was a phenomenon thatI propose calling "entrepreneurial looting."Entrepreneurial looters gathered assetswith a view to later sale. As they got stufffor free, they could sell at any price andstill make a profit. For example, "urbanforesters" went after valuable lumber."Other entrepreneurs sold looted liquor. Thecases of large-scale organized looting byarmed groups (their weapons also probablylooted) that received so much publicitymust, I think, have been of this character.

Brinkley reports an interesting con-versation between Lieutenant ColonelBernard McLaughlin of the LouisianaNational Guard and a man selling liquor ata makeshift bar. When McLaughlin tellsthe bartender he is shutting him down, theman replies that he is "just being entrepre-neurial." Why shouldn't he make somemoney? McLaughlin gets angry at thisappeal to "true American" values. "This islooting. You looted that... That's a 15-yearfelony. That's a 3-year mandatory mini-mum sentence." The man submits andMcLaughlin proceeds to smash his bottlesone by one. And yet the preceding accountmakes clear that McLaughlin's real objec-tion to such bars has nothing to do with theprovenance of the alcohol. He doesn't want

the locals drinking alcohol because itmakes them more quarrelsome and disor-derly as well as further dehydrating theirbodies. Would he have allowed the bar tostay open if it was selling - or giving away-only looted fruit juice, soda, and bottledwater? Legally, however, looting remains"a 15-year felony," be its social conse-quences good or bad. Property is sacred.

The bartender might also have triedto point out in his defence that historicallyall capitalist enterprise is based on looting.Early capitalism looted land and otherresources from peasants (in Europe) andfrom indigenous peoples (throughout theAmericas and other colonial territories).The looting even extended to the kidnap-ping and enslavement of millions ofhuman beings, such as the ancestors ofmost victims of Hurricane Katrina. Marxcalled it the primitive accumulation of cap-ital. Looting is as American as cherry pie;the looters of New Orleans are keeping upan old American tradition and should sure-ly receive all due credit as good patriots.But... it depends on whose possessions youloot, doesn't it? STEFAN

(Sources: Douglas Brinkley, The GreatDeluge (New York: HarperCollins, 2006);Understanding Katrina website (under-standingkatrina.ssrc.org), Kaufman.)

“Looting is as American as cherry pie”


Armour patrols the streets


July saw commemora-tions for the 70thanniversary of thebeginning of the SpanishCivil war which lasteduntil 1939. Usually lit-tle heard of outside his-torian and left circles itremains a conflictshrouded in myth, hero-ism and controversy.

For most of the early 20th CenturySpain had been in turmoil, themonarchy fell, in 1931 - and liberalsand conservatives were still strug-

gling over the future shape of society.Trade unions - heavily influence by anar-chism (especially in Catalonia andBarcelona) were more like paramilitaryforces, fighting a pistolismo war withemployers and the state who were brutallytrying to suppress them into brutal poverty.The worker's movement was split, however,and there was a large Socialist Party (PSE,chiefly a Labour party of the traditionaltype) with its trade union federation theUGT, with the anarchists in the syndicalistCNT.

Some (these days, those with longmemories) use the example of Spain as anincident in which the capitalists would turnto arms and civil war to stop a rising social-ist movement, but this ignores several fea-

tures of the events that lead up to thecivil war.

Although often portrayed as awar to defend democracy from insur-gent fascists, it is fair to say thatpolitical democracy did not commandstrong support from all sides of thepolitical spectrum. Indeed, in 1934,Largo Caballero, the "Spanish Lenin",led an abortive revolt with a generalstrike that was crushed in Madrid,and the miners in Asturias managedto take control of their whole regionbefore being put down - a genuineuprising. This attempt at violent rev-olution terrified the professional andruling class of Spain, and set thestage for later tensions. By February1936 Caballero and the leadership ofthe Spanish Socialist Party were outof prison and instead part of thenewly elected popular front govern-ment which won by the slimmest ofmajorities.

This front consisted of liberals,Basque and Catalan separatists, thePSE and the Communist Party.Although the working class partieswere the larger, the liberals actuallyheaded the government - somethingwhich was not conducive to stablerule. The PSE itself was not united,ranging from Fabian-like reformiststhrough to die-hard revolutionaries.So it is clear that there was not a solidconsidered demand for revolutionarychange. The Asturias rising hadfrightened the horses, and the rightbegan to plot their own uprising.

In the background to all of this,political assassinations and murderscontinued apace - with partisans ofthe right and the left at each others'throats. Churches were burned down,political offices wrecked, chaos wasspreading throughout society. Thesort of everyday politically motivatedchaos we have seen so many timessince - currently in Iraq, for example.

At the head of the rightwingwere the Falangists, a genuinely radi-cal fascist grouping determined tosmash the socialists. They werejoined by conservative Catholics (rep-resenting a large landowning interest),monarchists and the military. Itwould be the military, under GeneralFrancesco Franco, who would pro-vide the main vehicle for the NationalFront's resistance.

On 18 July 1936 Franco issued a pro-nunciamento, the traditional announcementthat preceded Spain's many previous mili-tary coups. Unlike them, however, this wasa call for a massive social struggle, and onethat both sides had been waiting for.Carnage began immediately - radio officersshot their ship's captain rather than handthem over the order. The barracks inBarcelona was surrounded and eventuallyvanquishedafter bloodystruggle - anational gen-eral strikewas called.

Therefollowed asavage war -with esti-mates of thenumber who died varying from three hun-

Forwhomthebelltolled


dred thousand to a million. It was a thor-oughly modern war of the people in arms -aided with zeal, heroism and determinationagainst the organised efficiency of a profes-sional army. Although the advantage nomi-nally lay with the loyalist Popular Frontgovernment forces (they had the money)they were deeply divided and Franco tookthe bulk of the army - especially the experi-enced troops.

The "international community" reactedby imposing an arms embargo on both sides- the same sort of trick the Major govern-ment used to back the Serbs in their war inthe former Yugoslavia. Despite this embar-go, some of the great European powers sawthis as a chance to flex their muscles.Mussolini's fascist government sent troopsand armaments. The German Nazis sent theCondor Legion - and Spain quickly becamea training yard for the new form of aerialwarfare practised by the Luftwaffe. On theloyalist side aid was given by the SovietUnion through the auspices of itsInternational Brigades - recruited byCommunist Parties in various countries.Others, such as George Orwell, volunteeredindependently.

The international brigades to this dayhold a place of honour for many in Britain,especially among the Labour Party, some ofwhose members revere them as defenders ofdemocracy and anti-fascists leading the wayin a war that could have stopped fascismbefore the great slaughter of world war two.Many died, bravely; and their defence of

Madrid reads like something

from an epic poem. Their enthusiasm madethem have a great impact on the war, butnot enough to actually save political democ-racy in Spain.

What started as a local struggle quick-ly developed into an imperialist battle-ground, a proxy battle for the tusslebetween Germany and Russia. This aspectquickly overrode the local concerns - thecommunists were able to punch above theirweight of support thanks to their gift ofarms, and they quickly joined with govern-ment forces in suppressing the elements ofsocial revolution and independence thrownup by anarchist groups throughout the coun-try. Communist Party torture chamberswere discovered after some of their strong-holds fell.

This is the source of much of thepolitical recriminations springing from thatwar. Trotskyists accuse the anarchists offailing to organise a vanguard party andseize power (which was, apparently offeredthem, much as Baldwin offered the reigns ofgovernment to a shocked TUC in 1926).Anarchists point to the role of the Stalinistsin liquidating their advances, and point,with some justice, to their achievements.The Trotskyists accuse the Stalinists of sell-ing out Spain in order to demonstrate to thecapitalist powers that the USSR had nodesigns on spreading a world revolution.

In some areas revolutionary commit-tees controlled all the major infrastructureand industry - money was replaced by vary-ing types of voucher system (although insome places they simply instituted con-trolled prices and wages). Democracy ranthroughout the anarchist columns, withdemocratically elected officers accountableto their troops. The ad hoc nature of these

efforts- hero-ic andimagi-nativethoughtheywere -cou-

pled with the fragmentation of Spain, theongoing warfareand the continuedexistence of themarket throughoutthe supply chaineventually meantthat they weredoomed to failure.

EventuallyFranco triumphed,and went on to ruleSpain until his deathin 1975 - to thatrare reward for dic-tators, death inoffice. His periodof authoritarianrule, built on theback of smashing an independent workers'movement and suppressing the regionalisttendencies of the Basques and Catalansmeant that a reasonably orderly transition tocapitalist business as usual was possible.

The Spanish civil war has an immenseability for people to read their own interestsand perspectives into it. It was a melangeof heroism, imagination and derring-domixed with calculated cruelty, brutality,murder mayhem and brute stupidity. It isdifficult to blame anarchists who took uparms to defend themselves and their unionsfrom murderous bosses; but we can perhapslook to the rejection of political democracythat preceded the civil war and gave thearmed authoritarians the support they need-ed to break cover and launch their assault.

It is vitally important today to remem-ber that socialists must be the standard bear-ers of civilisation - the defenders of thepolitical democracy and the peace that wewill need to successfully manage the transi-tion to production for use. Rubble doesn'tmake a good basis for building socialism. PIK SMEET

Commodity markets"1p and 2p pieces are now worth more on thecommodities market than in the high street",reported the Times on 12 May. Pre-1992 cop-per coins are 97 percent copper and, as theprice of copper had reached a record high of$8,312 a tonne, they had, theoretically, cometo be worth more than their face value.

"Commodity prices yesterday", the reportwent on, "continued their bull run as traders bet that demandfrom fast-growing economies such as China would continue.Platinum, nickel, zinc and copper prices hit a new high".

Socialists, too, talk about "commodities". We say that capi-talism is "the highest form of commodity production"; that work-ers' ability to work is today a mere "commodity", bought and soldon a market; that people's needs, and life generally, havebecome "commodified".

The meaning that the financial pages of the papers attachto the word is much more restricted. For them, it refers only toprimary products, not just metals such as platinum, nickel, zincand copper but also to oil and to agricultural produce such ascoffee, sugar and wheat. These are indeed commodities in theMarxian sense in that they are items of wealth produced with aview to being bought and sold, but they are not the only thingsthat are commodities.

In the Marxian sense, anything produced with a view tobeing sold is a commodity. Capitalism is the "highest form ofcommodity production" in that under it most items of wealth areproduced as commodities. In addition, the human capacity towork, our mental and physical energies, take the form, as some-

thing bought and sold, of a commodity. In fact, this is what distin-guishes capitalism from "simple commodity production", wherethis is not the case. Under capitalism anything, even if not origi-nally produced to be sold, can, and increasingly does, take theform of a commodity, from honour, sex and influence to bodyparts and past works of art. There is a market for all thesethings. The tendency of capitalism is for everything to become"commodified".

But to return to the commodities of the financial pages, theTimes report was unusually frank in admitting that gambling isinvolved in "commodity markets". The primary products on saleon these markets have two types of price: a "spot" price, which isthe price on the day, and a "futures" price, which is a price atwhich someone agrees to buy or sell the product at some setfuture date.

The economics textbooks say this is to allow the users ofthe product to plan ahead. This is true but you don't have to besomeone who actually wants copper or oil or wheat or whateverto intervene on a commodity market. When you buy somethingthere is no physical transfer of the product but merely a changeof ownership.

Gamblers can offer to buy a product in the future at a givenprice even though they don't want it, in effect betting that the spotprice at that time will be higher. In which case they sell - transferownership - and walk away laughing with a bigger bank balance,while the product goes to someone who will use it to producesomething.

It's nice to know that while millions are suffering from mal-nutrition there are others gambling on the future price of wheat.What a way to organise the production and distribution of thethings humans needs to live and enjoy life.

Cooking the Books (2)

International Brigade outside Madrid 1936

American troops, International Brigade


The Allied warlords planned a mas-sive assault set for mid-summer1916. The offensive was to be car-ried through by the combined Allied

armies and was intended to break throughthe German lines on the Western, Easternand Italian fronts imposing a defeat of suchmagnitude on Germany as to bring a speedyend to the First World War.

Doubtless it all worked out well forthe generals and marshals as they threw clayrepresentatives of thousands of humanbeings into homicidal battle against oneanother on the sands table; But battles arenot won on sands tables and in the earlyspring of 1916 the Germans spoiled the plotby opening up a massive assault against theFrench city of Verdun which absorbedFrench divisions planned into the attack onthe Western Front at the Somme.

In the week before the 1st of JulyAllied artillery carried out a ceaseless bom-bardment of German positions on a five-mile stretch of the front. In all they fired 1.6million shells but many of the British shellsfailed to explode and the German fortifica-tions not only proved largely resistant to theshelling but also provided subterranean tun-nelling where soldiers could take refugefrom the bombardment.

Such was the confidence of the BritishCommand that an enervated German linewould crumble before the ferocity of amassed attack that they ordered their 11divisions to walk steadily across No-Man's-Land towards the German fortifications. At7.30 hours on July 1st the men arose out oftheir entrenchments in response to the blow-ing of whistles and proceeded to walktowards their objectives.

Immediately they were confrontedwith a deadly fusillade from Germanmachine-guns. Like lemmings they offeredtheir bodies like blades of grass before ascythe; wave after wave of them, the caredprodigy of wives and mothers learning thefalsehood of patriotism or paying the pricefor volunteering away from poverty or the

dull, hum-drum meanness of wage slavery.60,000 of them fell that day, 20,000 dead,the rest flawed statistics.

The chaplains were busy intoning theirprayers to a remorseless god and the gener-als, too, were brutal and remorseless for itdidn't stop; it continued the next day and forfour more months. In October the torrentialrains came changing the blood-soakedground into a quagmire where putrefying

human flesh mingled with the mud andobstructed men as they were striven to fur-ther slaughter. When this single phase of thehellish conflict was exhausted in mid-November those designated as 'British' were420,000 fewer while the French lost 195,00men and the Germans over 600,000. Therewere no generals killed or wounded and theAllied forces had advanced 5 miles overwasted, barren land.

The Somme, Passendale, Salonika,Suvla Bay, names of strange places thatbecame prominent in the lexicon of war andits brutalities. 'Men led by donkeys' was thepopular alibi for the monstrous slaughterand the ineptitude of warlords like theBritish Somme commander, Earl Haigbecame the focus of bitter criticism and sickjokes. There was no poetry now in thekilling; the avalanche of stereotypedtelegrams expressing official regret at thedeath of a husband or son began to speaklouder than the xenophobic vapourings ofpoliticians and the media and officialdom

may well have been haunted by the thoughtthat workers turned soldiers might catch onto the duality of their exploitation and thebrutally obvious fact that a social systemthat required periodic bloodletting was fatal-ly flawed.

Time has accounted for those who sur-vived the battle; those who ploughedthrough the detritus of decaying humanflesh and wept for dead comrades.

If you were a tourist from Marsattending the Somme commemoration thevital question you might want to ask is whywere millions of men, men of no propertyand no financial interests, men who hadnever met those they were now told weretheir enemies and with whom they did notshare a language that would allow them tocurse at one another, why were they killing?Why were they dying?

The answer is that they were fightingover markets and the political and economicappurtenances of trade; that war was, and is,simply a logical extension of a brutallycompetitive system of social organisationpredicted on profit and ongoing expansion;a system that dominated their lives, tookaway their human dignity and reduced themto the status of wage slaves and cannon fod-der.

So the question must be avoided at allcosts; capitalism's obsequious apologists, itspoliticians, its beholden clergy and mediahacks will change the script: Tell the foolshow brave they were and how proud theyshould be; that'll keep them happy to thenext time.

"Give a benediction, bless them with aprayer,

And tell them how the son of God waslonging to be there!"

In the circumstances of the conflictbravery is a empty virtue; an abuse of lan-guage that must surely add insult toinjury.RICHARD MONTAGUE

“There were no generals killed orwounded and theAllied forces hadadvanced 5 miles ”

The Battle ofthe Somme

The recent 90th anniver-sary of the human tragedyof the Somme saw thepoliticians, the churchesand the organisationscharged with remem-brance giving history amakeover.


Calling HomeOne aspect of globalisation is out-

sourcing or offshoring: movingjobs from a country where they'vetraditionally been performed to

another, usually on the grounds of lowerwages and therefore higher profits. This hasalready happened with many manufacturingjobs: work is now carried out in China andIndia rather than in Britain or elsewhere inWestern Europe.

But factories aren't the only work-places to be outsourced, for it also applies toone of the 'boom' occupations of recentyears, namely workers in the call centreswhich are often now the only way to contactyour bank, insurers or credit card company.A huge office-cum-warehouse whereemployees essentially just answer the phoneall day doesn't need to be in the same coun-try as the caller or the company's head office.After all, if you live in Dover it probablydoesn't matter if your call is answered bysomeone in Delhi rather than Darlington -indeed you may well not know where theperson at the other end of the phone line is.Hence many call centres operate in India,which has a ready and keen supply of edu-cated English-speakers. Workers there aregiven special classes in British TV, especial-ly soap operas, so they can engage in chit-chat with callers, who often want to do a bitmore than just talk about their bank account.Savings for the employers could be as muchas 50 percent over a similar operation inBritain.

But now it seems that all is not so rosyin the garden of the outsourced call centre(Guardian, 30 June). For one thing, workersin India have turned out to be not so docileor grateful for the work after all, as absen-teeism and staff turnover approach levelsfound in the UK. This is what happens withso many of the jobs resulting from globalisa-tion: they're boring, there's no career struc-ture, and workers are subject to a lot of pettycontrols such as the time taken for breaks.And for another, there have been complaintsabout poor service, and some companiesmake a point of advertising the fact that theirown call centres are still in Britain. There'sno doubt some prejudice operating here,against non-native speakers of English, but ifcompanies lose customers because of theirperceptions about call centres then they willsit up and take notice.

The sting in the tail of the Guardianarticle is the information that an Indian out-sourcing company is intending to set up alarge new call centre in Belfast, attracted bythe cheap property prices there. Capitalismtruly is a global system, and those who ownthe means of production will go to anylengths to boost their profits.PB

I've been toying with the figure $35 billionwhich I heard the other day - toying withit because I, like most folk I've spoken toabout it since, couldn't grasp the sheer

enormity of it. What did it actually repre-sent? So I decided to do my own in-homeresearch using the New InternationalistWorld Guide latest edition's figures (UN sta-tistics).

This is what I came up with:$35,000,000,000 is the equivalent of

(GNI is gross national income):1) 1 year's GNI of $35,000 for 1,000,000people in USA2) 1 year's GNI of $1,000 for 35,000,000people in the Philippines3) 1year''s GNI of $480 for 70,000,000 peo-ple in India4a) 1 year''s GNI of $240 for 140,000,000people in Mali or4b) 10 year's GNI for total population of 14million in Mali5a) 1 year's GNI of $100 for 350,000,000people in Ethiopia or5b) 5 year's GNI for total population of 74million in Ethiopia.

Now, if just one person owned all thatwealth they'd have to put it somewhere safe,in some kind of bank or shares or whateverwhere it would be safe and accumulate, e.g.a 1 percent return over 1 year would produce$350,000,000 in interest; a 5 percent return$1,750,000,000; 10 percent $3,500,000,000and so on assume compound interest kick-ing in and you'll have to do your own figuresor find an expert; however, you get the pic-ture.

Of course when you''ve managed toaccrue enough after a few years to be able togive away the lion's share without noticingany difference at all in your own life stylepeople will applaud you and say what a won-derful, altruistic person you are.

What would you choose to do withyour fortune? Beat malaria? Wipe out thedebt of several Highly ImpoverishedNations? Bring clean water to some of themillions without? Fund schools or hospitalsin perpetuity from your foundation's coffers?The possibilities are endless.

But, surely, one person wouldn't actual-ly have so much money! How would oneperson acquire enough in the first place to beable to put money to work to accrue moremoney? Simple, just use other people, lotsand lots of people, to do the work for lessthan it's worth to produce the goods on yourbehalf and pocket the difference.

The less you manage to pay your work-ers and the more you're able to sell yourgoods for to other workers, the better theprofit you'll make, enabling you to be the oneto choose how to improve life on the planet

for the unfortunate masses.How can it be, however intelligent,

hardworking, honest and/or altruistic, thatONE person's 'gift' can be equal to theincome of all the people of Ethiopia, men,women and children, for 5 years?

How can it be that one person shouldbe able to choose how to affect (or not toaffect) such a multitude of people, albeit in apositive way?

How can it be that so many peoplehave so little choice in their own lives?

It's the system, my friends, the systemthat puts profit above all else - how elsecould it work?

The system that uses and abuses peopleall around the world, the system that can'twork with full employment, universalhealthcare and satisfied bellies, but must relyon chasing profit around the globe whateverthe consequences for the planet and itsinhabitants.

Imagine 1,000,000 US citizens givingup their whole year's income.

Imagine the entire population of Malihaving no income at all for 10 years.

Imagine one man having that muchspare cash. I don't doubt that you knowwhich particular man I'm writing about - thesecond richest man in the world, WarrenBuffet, who's decided to donate not $35b but$37b to the charitable foundation of the rich-est man (Bill Gates) .

But what's $2,000,000,000? Well, 3years GNI for the Maldives . . .

Am I knocking Bill Gates, WarrenBuffet et al? No, I'm knocking the systemwhich allows, nay encourages, a smallminority to exploit the vast majority in anunequal relationship. The capitalist systemcannot work with equal relationships. Therehave to be (a few) winners and (many) los-ers.

Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness,the right to clean water, enough food, accessto health care, a comfortable home, to raiseone's children in a cooperative rather than acompetitive society in a well-husbandedworld environment in the knowledge thatthere is a sufficiency of all our basic needsand no good reason for anyone to go without.This is the only fair system.

If you're content with the status quothen carry on as before. However, if you'vetaken the time to read this far the chances areyou're not content. If you're sick and tired ofhearing the same old political fixes on offerand are looking for real answers then take afew more minutes to look at the only alterna-tive. It could be the best thing you'll do thisyear.JANET SURMAN

Thirty-five billion


Book ReviewChomskyWolfgang Sperlich: Noam Chomsky.Reaktion £10.95.

This is a volumein the CriticalLives series, so itopens with abrief biographi-cal sketch ofChomsky, notingthat he was influ-enced by writerssuch as AntonPannekoek andPaul Mattick. It'sgood to learnthat by his early

teens Chomsky was not just opposed toStalinism but was also "a pretty committedanti-Leninist". Then comes a chapter on hiscontributions to linguistics and philosophy,though to be honest you'd need to havesome prior idea of his views here to makemuch sense of Sperlich's presentation.

The main chapter is entitled 'PoliticalActivist', and it presents Chomsky's writ-ings on various political issues, concentrat-ing on his exposures of US foreign policy.This is a decent guide to Chomsky's attackson the US government, military and estab-lishment, from Vietnam to Nicaragua, theMiddle East to the aftermath of 9/11.Unfortunately there's little attempt at elabo-rating Chomsky's own views on how socie-ty should be organised, other than labellinghim variously as an anarcho-syndicalist anda libertarian socialist. He's quoted at onpoint as saying, "capitalist relations of pro-duction, wage labor, competitiveness, theideology of 'possessive individualism' - allmust be regarded as fundamentally antihu-man." Also that a consistent anarchist mustoppose wage slavery and private ownershipof the means of production.

Chomsky has often expressed his sup-port for 'left wing' governments in thedeveloping world. With regard to the presi-dent of Brazil, Sperlich writes, "I askChomsky if Lula da Silva shouldn't haveabolished the state of Brazil by now andintroduced council communism or anarcho-syndicalist freedom. Chomsky answers thatit's easy for us to say such things becausewe do not have to live with the conse-quences - Lula da Silva has to." PerhapsChomsky should have said that it was abloody stupid question, based on theassumption that a political leader can intro-duce a new social system.

The last chapter summarisesChomsky's work on the mass media as atool for suppressing the truth and presentinga pro-capitalist view of the world, for (in thetitle of one of Chomsky's books)'Manufacturing Consent'.

So this is a useful if unexciting guideto Chomsky's ideas. And until I readSperlich I didn't know there is a radio sta-tion called Radio Chomsky, even if it is inNew Zealand (see http://www.radiochom-sky.com/). PB

"Marxists"Phil Rees: Dining with Terrorists. Pan,£7.99.

When I listen toBBC correspon-dents talkingabout 'Marxists',which they fre-quently find inremote junglesand other deso-late places onthe planet, I amtempted to thinkof Cyril.

Cyril and Iwere youngtogether; he was academically bright,knowledgeable and had even what is nowcalled 'streetcred', virtues which earned himconsiderable grudging respect among us,his peers. His virtues became past tense,however. one summer's evening when fourof us, coincidentally apprentices in Irish'terrorism', were sitting around an open firewhere we were camping outside the coastalvillage of Cushendall in County Antrim.Probably the subject led to it, I don'tremember exactly, but Cyril announcedwith profound authority that he not onlybelieved in fairies but that he had actuallyseen and heard fairies! It cost him his cred-ibility; all his intellectual capability waseclipsed by that single absurdity.

The author of Dining with Terrorists,Phil Rees, was, and maybe still is, a BBCjournalist who has worked onCorrespondent and Newsnight and who hasspent gruelling spells in many of the world'strouble spots. He has dined with peoplewho have killed their political enemies orwho have - rather like Bush and Blair - setin train such killings and who for so doingor allegedly doing have become known tous through the media as 'terrorists'.

From his experiences he gives usgraphic word pictures of fearsome charac-ters and to his credit he tries to tell theirstory within the context of what we havebeen told about them by the western media.Indeed that is the raison d'etre of Rees'swork. It is his effort to define in 'moral'terms the meaning of the word 'terrorist' inlight of the awesome legal violence used byand in the control of the modern state, andthe brutal reaction that violence frequentlyspawns. It is a theme often pursued in theSocialist Standard and one expressed in theaphorism 'One man's freedom fighter isanother man's terrorist'.

Given such honesty of purpose it isregrettable that the author demeans hiswork by the undefined abuse of the term'Marxist': throughout the entire book heuses the word as though it was an essentialpre-fix to the words 'terrorist' and 'terrorism'that so confuses him.

In the fashion of the BBC and its jour-nalists, he makes no attempt whatsoever tooutline what he perceives to be Marxist orMarxism. Doubtless if he knew, he wouldrealise just how ridiculous it is to suggestthat, for example, FARC nationalists inColumbia are killing in order to establish awageless, moneyless society of commonownership and production for use.

Away from the often-repeated non-

sense about Marx and terrorism the book isboth interesting and informative but theinformed reader will find Rees's belief infairies more than a little distracting.RM

Pensions mythPhil Mullan: The Imaginary TimeBomb. Why An Ageing Population isnot a Social Problem. IB Taurus.

There are too many old people. They arebecoming an unsupportable burden on thepensions and health systems. If nothing isdone about it there will be a generation warbetween pensioners and the decreasing pro-portion of those of working age.

So runs the argument consistently putover by the media. But, according toMullan, it's a myth based on faulty statis-tics, disguising a hidden agenda by peoplewho want to cut pension and welfare bene-fits for other reasons and/or want to makemoney by selling private pensions.

He points out that while the propor-tion of over-64s in the population is indeedrising this is mainly a reflection of areduced birth rate in the past, which hasmeant a fall in those now in the 16-64 agerange. This has happened before in the lastcentury without the dire consequences nowbeing predicted. Most estimates, he says,don't take into account the reduced expen-diture on the under 16s that a fallen birthrate means nor the fact that a significantproportion of the 16-64s are also not work-ing, not just the disabled and the recordedunemployed but also many who are on"incapacity" benefit as early retirees whomcapitalism denies a job. Nor does it takeinto account the fact that over time the pro-ductivity of those at work rises nor that thehealth of the over-64s is improving.

So, for Mullan, the "pensions timebomb" is an imaginary threat, but not just apanic cynically stirred up by vested inter-ests. It is also a reflection of what he callsthe current "age of anxiety" where :

"The feeling of uncertainty and inse-curity influences discussion and debate inall sphere's of life. Politicians have lostpopular authority and have tended to limittheir objectives. The main idea coming outof political think tanks on both sides of theAtlantic seems to be that there are no more'big ideas'. Most Western governments haveadopted a narrower agenda of managingwhat exists rather than seeking to intervenein society in pursuance of more ambitiousaims. . . Interacting with the élite's loss ofnerve, the erosion of previous collectivitiesis a major source for this popular mood.The demise during the 1980s of tradeunions and of less formal mechanisms ofsupport, solidarity and community have leftpeople more on their own than ever to facethe problems of everyday life. The socialfragmentation and individuation that hasmade life seem more secure".

This pessimism, bred (we would add)by the inability of capitalism to meet needsand by the failure of reformism last centu-ry, is the fertile ground on which the vestedinterests concerned have been able to sowthis particular panic.ALB


Some people, including some socialists,used to get quite irritated about the waythat recorded laughter was inserted into,first radio, then television, shows thatwent under the generic heading of come-dy. But we have slowly got used to thisfeature of modern life in capitalist society.It is almost universal now. It is applied toquality comedy and poor comedy; thosewith real audiences and those with nopossibility of an audience at all in thelocation of the action. Like antidepres-sant drugs, canned laughter is prescribedfor nearly everybody. Because, let's faceit, much of the time, if you didn't laugh,you'd cry.

Many aspects of living in thisincreasingly dysfunctional world societyare moving in the same direction. InJapan, as well as North America andEurope shopping has become the diver-sionary avenue of seeking feel-good fac-tors. Clothes, to make us feel good about

our appearance; various types of car, tomake us comfortable about our statusamong our neighbours; health foods, tomake us feel healthy; exotic foods tomake us feel opulent; gyms, to make usfeel confident or even superior about ourphysical fitness and sexual attractive-ness. Houses, gardens, kitchens, etc.,etc. Our electronic gadgetry, from mobilephones and digital cameras to MP3recorders and players, offer us morepower to do things we hadn't eventhought of and probably will never try.

The planet is being pillaged,plundered and polluted to make com-modities for us to buy, partly because weneed them and capital must have theflow of profit, but increasingly in the effortto obliterate our basic hunger for free-dom, the one thing we cannot have. Likecanned laughter, the temporary lift we getfrom commodity gratification is artificial,false. It hides a bad joke.R.C.

"Red Elvis"Dean Reed: Death of a Comrade. Radio2, 11 July. Presented by Mark Lamarr.

For a time in the 1970s, Dean Reed wasprobably the best-known American in SouthAmerica and Eastern Europe. Though, as hesang, "Nobody knows me back in my hometown." Born in Denver in 1938, Reed was arock singer who never quite made the bigtime in the US. Understandably enough, hefelt that nobody who worked in Hollywoodcould keep their integrity.

When one of his records became a hitin Chile, he travelled there to perform andwas struck by the obvious inequalities inpower and wealth. He later settled inArgentina, but after some unwelcome atten-tion from the dictatorship he moved toEurope. His left-wing views attracted theattention of cultural bosses in Russia, and hewas invited there. He became a great successwith young people in eastern Europe, whowere keenly interested in Western popularmusic.

In 1973 Reed decided to move to EastGermany permanently. The secret police orStasi were initially suspicious of him andspied on him, but they later tried unsuccess-fully to recruit him as an agent. By the1980s, however, he was no longer a star inEastern Europe, as younger musicians fromthe West were touring there. He consideredreturning to the US, but remarks on radioand TV chat shows (e.g. comparing Reaganto Stalin and defending the Berlin Wall) ledto him receiving hate mail. In June 1986 hewas found dead in a lake near his home inEast Berlin - officially an accident but prob-ably suicide.

Mark Lamarr's programme containedinterviews with people who knew Reed andexcerpts from his (unexceptional) music. Italso made the point that he failed to see howordinary East Germans felt about the regimethat governed them and how they viewedhim as an establishment figure. So the rebelbecame another apologist for the Bolshevikdictatorship, one who certainly would havehad no place in a unified Germany.PB

Radio Reviewpeople in need of each other and with thesame basic needs. There is far more thatunites us than can ever divide us along cul-tural, nationalistic or religious lines.Together we can create a civilization worthliving in, but before that happens we needthe conscious cooperation of ordinary peo-ple across the world, united in one commoncause-to create a world in which each per-son has free access to the benefits of civi-lization, a world without frontiers or bor-ders ,social classes or leaders and a world inwhich production is at last freed from theshackles of artificial constraints of profit andused for the good of humanity.

War is not about our interests, butthose of the bosses who rob us so that theycan be rich and powerful. War is about thecompetition between capitalists. If we are todie it will be for them. Think about that asthe masters of war ask for your support inthe prevailing wars.

Why should we die defending what isnot ours and which we will never benefitfrom?

On the contrary our object is to obtainwhat is not now the possession of our class-the earth and its natural and industrialresources. The class war between the para-sites who possess and the workers who pro-duce-is the real struggle that need concernus. And to win that war we need not initiatethe violence which is characteristic of capi-talism's wars. The war we should advocate isthat which has to be waged on the battle ofideas-for the hearts and minds of the world'speople. And once we unite there will be noforce that will stop us taking the earth intoour common possession.

There is nothing natural about war. Arewe born with a desire to kill people whospeak a different language or who have adifferent skin colour? No! In fact peacefulcooperation is more fitting for human beingswho are potentially rational human beings.Once we live in a world of common owner-ship and democratic control of resources,there will simply be no reason to kill oneanother. No empires to build or markets toexpand or profits to increase.WEIJAGYE JUSTUS, Kabale, Uganda

letters continued

Canned Laughter

lation of capital and has become an uncon-trollable independent power without regardfor human need, seeking out opportunitiesto grow anywhere and everywhere acrossthe world. Globalisation is merely thenewest name for a process that has beenongoing since capitalism was first estab-lished.

Capitalism is an intensely predatoryeconomic system. In the competitive strug-gle for survival many companies may bedriven from business by competitors, whileothers, attracted by rising profits or a desireto suppress competition will be taken overor merged with rivals. Employment isdependent upon generating profit, whichmeans that the real function of the world'sworking class is not to make products orprovide services but to generate and thenincrease these profits. Working people inevery country are trapped in an economicsystem where they must sell - and therebyrelinquish control over - their physical ormental energies simply to earn money tobuy the things that enable them to resumethe same routine, week on week to the endof their working lives. This vicious circlewill continue until capital is abolished andcapitalism brought to an end.

The conclusion reached in the Harrispoll is indicative of worker confusion - amisguided belief that it is somehow lesspainful to be exploited by the portion of theowning class based within these boundariesthan by that based elsewhere. The cause ofpoverty and insecurity is not the threat of'foreign' companies but the economic sys-tem that sustains the international classmonopoly over wealth creation and drawsstrength by exploiting working people inevery country. As long as capitalism isallowed to continue it makes little actualdifference to the working class who ownstheir place of employment - they willremain expendable wage or salary earners.

For as long as workers are deceivedinto viewing the world from a 'national' per-spective, they will fail to understand theircondition in capitalism. The working classis deluded by nationalism. Such beliefsactively encourage people to co-operatewith their 'national' exploiters operatingwithin boundaries determined purely byhistorical accident. Nationalism concealsthe real nature of capitalism, turns workeragainst worker and serves to impede work-ing-class solidarity. The world's workingclass have no reason to be antagonistic toother workers but must unite against theircommon class enemy: the world's capitalistclass.STEVE TROTT

Foreign takeovers... continued

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 the com-mon ownership and democraticcontrol of the means and instru-ments for producing and distrib-uting wealth by and in the inter-est of the whole community.

Declaration of PrinciplesThe Socialist Party of GreatBritain holds

1.That society as at present consti-tuted is based upon the ownershipof the means of living (i.e., land,factories, railways, etc.) by thecapitalist or master class, and the

consequent enslavement of theworking class, by whose labouralone wealth is produced.

2.That in society, therefore, there isan antagonism of interests, mani-festing itself as a class strugglebetween those who possess but donot produce and those who pro-duce but do not possess.

3.That this antagonism can beabolished only by the emancipationof the working class from the dom-ination of the master class, by theconversion into the common prop-erty of society of the means of pro-duction and distribution, and theirdemocratic control by the wholepeople.

4.That as in the order of social evo-lution the working class is the lastclass to achieve its freedom, theemancipation of the working class

will involve the emancipation of allmankind, without distinction of raceor sex.

5. That this emancipation must bethe work of the working class itself.

6.That as the machinery of govern-ment, including the armed forces ofthe nation, exists only to conservethe monopoly by the capitalistclass of the wealth taken from theworkers, the working class mustorganize consciously and politicallyfor the conquest of the powers ofgovernment, national and local, inorder that this machinery, includingthese forces, may be convertedfrom an instrument of oppressioninto the agent of emancipation andthe overthrow of privilege, aristo-cratic and plutocratic.7.That as all political parties arebut the expression of class inter-ests, and as the interest of the

working class is diametricallyopposed to the interests of all sec-tions of the master class, the partyseeking working class emancipa-tion must be hostile to every otherparty.

8.The Socialist Party of GreatBritain, therefore, enters the field ofpolitical action determined to wagewar against all other political par-ties, 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.

18 Socialist Standard August 2006

While the controversy about theabolition of hanging has beencausing such a furore in thiscountry, a significant change inthe American law recently haspassed by almost without com-ment. This is the passing byCongress of the Bill aimed at thedrug traffic in the United States,which includes in its provisionsincreased penalties for traffickingin drugs and, in particular, thedeath penalty for those foundguilty of selling heroin to youngpeople under 18. The back-ground of the Bill, the drug traffic,was recently reported on by a UScorrespondent of the Economist(14th July, 1956). The picture ishorrifying.

According to theEconomist's correspondent theUnited States is said to havemore drug addicts that all theother Western nations combined,and the authorities are engagedin a constant battle against thetraffic. The main impetus to it isgiven by the needs of 60,000addicts who are prepared tospend anything from $10 to $100a day to satisfy their craving. Toget this money, many of themresort to crime, and it has beensaid that about half of the crimescommitted in large cities andabout a quarter of crimes in theUS are the result of this drive toget drugs.

The police seem to be ableto do little more than hold theirown. Smuggling is fairly easy,and rife. The product is small andexpensive, and profits are huge -nine ounces of uncut heroin canearn $50,000 when diluted forretail sale. New pedlars soonstep in to take the places of thosearrested and put in gaol.

Apart from the sale of suchvicious drugs as heroin, there is alarge business done in other lessdangerous drugs, much of itbarely legal. In the words of theEconomist :-

"But the narcotics problemextends beyond the underworld;it reaches on to the counters ofunscrupulous chemists.Housewives eager to lose weighttake amphetamines and do notrealise that they have becomeaddicts until it is too late. Officialsare also worried about the wide-spread use of barbiturates(sleeping pills). In theory theseare obtainable only with a physi-cian's prescription; in fact manychemists will sell them and usersdo not realise that addictionleads to grave dangers to mentalhealth".

Altogether a terrible story.And made even more dreadful bythe extension of the death penal-ty to try to deal with it.

(Article by S. H., SocialistStandard, August 1956).

Declaration of Principles

Drugs and the Death Penalty Central LondonSaturday 12 August, 1.30pm to 5.00pm

1.30 Welcome. Tea. Coffee. Biscuits.2.00 Debate:"WHERE DOES THEREAL POWER LIE IN CAPITALISM?"

Speakers:Bill Martin and Gwyn Thomas.

Room 7. Friends Meeting House(side entrance), 173 Euston Road,London NW1 (opposite Eustonmainline station). Nearest tubes:Euston, Euston Square

South LondonSaturday 26th August, 2.30pm

PEACE IN PALESTINE?Speaker: Gwynn Thomas. 52, Clapham High Street, LondonSW4 (nearest tube: Clapham North)

East AngliaSaturday 23 September, 12 noon to 4pm12 noon: Informal chat.1pm: Meal.2pm to 4pm: Discussion.

The Conservatory, back room ofRosary Tavern, Rosary Rd, Norwich.

Meetings

19Socialist Standard August 2006

Be kind to a hoodie

Although David Cameron, in his speech on youth offend-ing, did not actually advise us to get out and hug as manyhoodies as we could find, he should have suspected thathis speech about the need to "…understand what's gone

wrong in these children's lives" would be quick-ly summarised by the media in those sensation-alist terms. Perhaps he thought he was beingoriginal (he wasn't) or courageous (gamblingwould be more accurate) or progressive (in factit's all be thought of and said before). By thetime of his speech hoods and hoodies hadbecome, in New Labour speak and other suchtrendy verbiage, an issue. For example last Maythe Bluewater shopping centre in Kent bannedanyone wearing a hood, along with those whoswore or behaved in similarly challenging ways.But there were apparent problems in this asthere has yet to be a satisfactory definition of ahoody - does the term include the enthusiastswho gather on railway platforms to make a noteof train numbers? When does an anorak becomea hood, with all that implies in terms of a threatto mug old ladies who have just collected theirpension from the post office? If a hood is madeof the finest cashmere wool and sold in a trendyNotting Hill boutique is it still an aid to anoffender trying to hide their identity? And whatwould the genuine hoodie think about having afleshy Old Etonian approach him in the street,when he was out looking for an opportunity to do a bit of swiftrobbery, and start to hug him? Wouldn't that be enough to put any-one off a life of crime forever?

Hoodies for SaleBluewater said they were delighted at the effect of their measure,which they claimed was responsible for a marked increase in theircustomers - although how many of these were reporters andassorted media hacks is not known. Hood manufacturers made nocomment; the company Bon prix continued to advertise its wareswith pictures of pretty girls and muscular, handsome young menand slogans like "Ladies, your favourite hoodies at great prices…"Tony Blair was delighted - with his eye on the readership of theDaily Mail he recruited Bluewater's experience as justification forhis government's introduction of Anti Social Behaviour Orders.Amid the panic a few voices were raised in question - like HaroldWilliamson, a policy researcher at Cardiff University, who thought"We need more politicians who are courageous, who stand up andsay 'Look, this is a complex issue and we need to think about itseriously'". And there was David Cameron, adopting the role ofthe courageous politician who had something to gain by taking amarkedly different, possibly unpopular, line :

"The hoodie is a response to a problem, not a problem initself…But hoodies are more defensive than offensive. They're away to stay invisible in the street. In a dangerous environment thebest thing to do is keep your head down, blend in, don't standout."

And then, crucially:"…it's about family breakdown. It's about drugs, it's

about alcohol abuse, often it's young people who are brought up incare when they should be in loving homes."

Children ActsThis did not go down well with Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells(and, as we shall see, of Bromley and Chislehurst), who wouldhave preferred the traditionally tougher attitude Cameron hadexpressed only weeks before, when he assured the Centre forPolicy Studies that "We support tougher sentences" and"…improving the effectiveness of the courts, and the CPS, andmaking sure that our prisons really work". Furious Tory bloggers

declared that they would never vote for the party while he wasleader. Labour spin doctors, grateful for this opportunity to labelthe Tories as soft on crime, trotted out slogans about Hoody hug-ging. Nobody seemed to notice that Cameron was a bit out of

date, in that he was advocating somethingwhich once almost had the status of acceptedwisdom and was an article of faith amongLabour Party members. The Children andYoung Persons Act of 1969 was something ofa zenith in the post war reformist legislationabout crime. It was intended to deal withyoungsters who had committed offencesthrough local authority "care" rather than thecourts. Decisions about whether a youngoffender stayed at home or went into residen-tial care would be taken by Social Workersinstead of magistrates (which did not pleasemany a magistrate). The Act was driven by amass of enquiry such as the LongfordCommittee which was set up in 1964 by theLabour government and which concluded thatmany of the offences by youngsters could beaccounted for by their social conditions andthat, therefore, the remedy lay in an examina-tion of those conditions. In 1968 the HomeOffice stated that

"It has become increasingly clear thatsocial control of harmful behaviour by theyoung, and social measures to help and protect

the young, are not distinct and separate processes. The aims ofprotecting society from juvenile delinquency, and of helping chil-dren in trouble to grow up into mature and law-abiding persons,are complementary and not contradictory."

FutilityThat was a long time ago, before the political parties concludedthat there were more votes to be won through a repressive, ratherthan permissive, policy about crime and punishment. MichaelHoward was among the more adept at this, rousing Tory confer-ences with flaming speeches on the theme that prison worked,advising criminals that "if you can't do the time then don't do thecrime". Then there was John Major whingeing that what wasneeded was to "condemn a little more and understand a little less".And now there is Tony Blair and "tough on crime, tough on thecauses of crime" which, as time passes and the criminal statisticsdo not support Blair's optimism, has come to mean simply beingtough on crime. It will be interesting to see how long Cameron isable to persist with the policy of "understanding" and "loving"; hecould not have been encouraged by the result of the by-election inBromley and Chislehurst which, the first test of his popularitysince he won the Tory leadership, saw the 13,342 majority of thestaunchly right wing Eric Forth slashed to just 633.

Cameron is being accused now by his own membership ofchanging the Tory party so that it is almost indistinguishable fromthe Labour Party. Indeed, in the matter of the hoodies he has saidmore than Blair at his most ambitious would have dared to.Perhaps, like Blair and his drive to erect New Labour, Cameroncalculates that his best chance of winning power is to make thetwo parties so similar that it is not just impossible but also point-less to search for enough difference between them to be worth avote either way. But reality is clear. The politics of capitalism isthe process of choosing between two or more parties which to allintents and purposes are identical. To make that choice is crassfutility, while capitalism's problems, like violent crime, remainimpervious to all efforts to legislate them out of existence. Instead,why not go out and hug a hoodie?IVAN

“The political parties concluded that there were more votes to be won through a repressive, rather than permissive, policy about crime and punishment”

Go on, give him a hug- you know youwant to

The Price Of Oil Away back in September 2003 two work-ers were suffocated to death in a hugegas leak on Shell's Brent Bravo oil plat-form in the North Sea. "Bill Campbell, aformer senior manager with the oil giants,says vital maintenance work was ignoredand lies told to allow platforms to carry onproducing oil at all times" (Daily Record,14 June). The company were fined£900,000 for safety breaches, an amountthat is completely derisory when com-pared with their billions in profits everyyear. Bill Campbell, who worked in theNorth Sea for 25 years, went on BBCScotland TV to denounce the company,but they did not send a spokesperson todeny the charges. They were probably toobusy counting their profits to consider thedeaths of two expendable workers.

Lazy Workers? "Avoiding work is a full-time job andseems to be getting harder, at least inAmerica where Workaholics Anonymousnow has self-help branches in 35 cities.New figures suggest that employees areworking three hours a week more thantheir parents did, the equivalent to nearlyfour extra weeks a year" (Times, 21June). Socialists used to be told thatsocialism was impractical because theworking class were too lazy. That argu-ment certainly doesn't apply here.

A Tale Of Three Virgins Three sisters in Inverness featured in abizarre insurance policy. They insuredthemselves against having a virgin birth.The insurance company only cancelledthe policy because of religious pressure."The Catholic Church was not happyabout what we have been doing" (TheHerald, 23 June). What was their objec-tion we wonder? They don't believe in vir-gin births? They could not accept the

notion that the next Jesus might be aJock? A second coming could lead tomass unemployment in the Vatican?

Science And Profits Sir Ian Chalmers writing in the Journal ofthe Royal Society of Medicine states thatthe scientific record of clinical trials isbeing distorted by drug companies inorder to protect sales. "Patients' lives arebeing put at risk because drug companiescannot be trusted to publish unbiased clin-ical research, according to a leading sci-entist" (Times, 29 June). We are dealingwith capitalism, we are dealing with amulti-billion dollar industry, why shouldn'twe have distortion? After all that is howcapitalism operates.

Not Newsworthy? Every evening editors of The Sun, TheDaily Mirror and The Daily Mail have tomake a decision about what to splash ontheir front pages the next day. Shall it bePop Star Sniffs Cocaine, Soap Star VisitsBrothel or maybe Politician's Gay Secret?The senior policy officer for Water Aid,Henry Northover is hardly likely to makethe tabloid's headlines with the following."Imagine 20 Jumbo jets filled with children- that's the number who die every day

owing to lack of clean water and sanita-tion" (Observer, 2 July). We are trying toimagine 20 Jumbo jets full of childrencrashing every day, and frankly it makesus ill, but of course it is not newsworthy inthis mad society.

For The Good Times The end of the World Cup has left manysocial observers scratching their heads indisbelief. No violence, no hooliganism andno mindless madness? Can this be theworking class that the Daily Mail arealways warning us about? Tens of thou-sands of working men and women from allover the world, enjoying each others' com-pany, laughing, joking, dancing and whoknows what else. It would almost makesyou believe that world socialism is possi-ble, unless you read the Daily Mail ofcourse.

And The Bad Times Because of the proliferation of TV chan-nels advertisers are concerned about their"lack of penetration" into profit-makingareas. Even worse is the advent of VCRrecorders, where people watch shows anddelete the ads. The answers for thesehucksters is to sponsor sports events.Unlike soaps, that workers can look atlater, sports events are watched whilethey occur. This explains why the TVrights for NFL (American football) is $3.7billion, the World Cup $1.1 billion and whyyou had to watch those silly Budwieserads. Worse is to follow. "Images like agiant Coca-Cola bottle emerging from thecentre circle, can be projected onto thepitch" (Observer, 9 July). Perhaps theycould arrange a penalty shoot outbetween Pepsi and Coca Cola?Capitalism distorts everything, even ourleisure time.. .

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

Naebother, Joseph cuid

nae manage a secondcoming anyways....

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