Socialist Standard July 2009

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1SocialistStandard July 2009

July Standard bdh.indd 1 23/6/09 14:33:36


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2 SocialistStandard July 2009

SubScription orderSshould be sent to The Socialist Party, 52Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.rateSOne year subscription (normal rate) 15One year subscription (low/unwaged) 10Europe rate 20 (Air mail)Rest of world 25 (Air mail)Voluntary supporters subscription 20 or more.

Cheques payable to t Ss p G b.

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The next meeting of the Executive Committeewill be on S 4 J at the addressbelow. Correspondence should be sent tothe General Secretary. All articles, lettersand notices should be sent to the editorialcommittee at: The Socialist Party, 52 ClaphamHigh street, London SW4 7UN.

: 020 7622 3811-m: [email protected]

July 2009

3 eThe Democratic Circus

4 PathsChimps, Chumps & Cheetahs

5 ls

6 M WCommunism in Japan

7 cThe Irate Itinerant

8 ps tg

8 c ds

9 ckg bks 1Spot the Difference

19 ckg bks 2Clutching at Green Shoots

20 rvwsNo chief, no god; globalization;

revolutions; Cartoon Karl.

21 Mgs

22 50 ys agRace & Violence

23 Gs pHoggs ditch

24 V m bk

24 f l

contents

website: www.worldsocialism.org

reGularSfeatureS

Ws bnp?Is a punch-up the only solution?

W oss?Xenophobia ourishes in Africa too, encouraged by state-building.

l gs - w smCapitalist states have started to acquire land outside their bordersagain.

t nw: w w v w w s vA look back at the present day from a future time when socialism hasbeen established.

Ws nw Smw?Mores Utopia and the meaning of socialism

socialist standard

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The Socialist Party is like no otherpolitical party in Britain. It is made upof people who have joined togetherbecause we want to get rid of the prot

system and establish real socialism. Ouraim is to persuade others to becomesocialist and act for themselves,organising democratically and without

leaders, to bring about the kind ofsociety that we are advocating in this

journal. We are solely concerned withbuilding a movement of socialists forsocialism. We are not a reformist partywith a programme of policies to patchup capitalism.

We use every possible opportunityto make new socialists. We publishpamphlets and books, as well as CDs,DVDs and various other informativematerial. We also give talks and take partin debates; attend rallies, meetings anddemos; run educational conferences;host internet discussion forums, make

lms presenting our ideas, and contestelections when practical. Socialistliterature 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 getour ideas across, the more experienceswe will be able to draw on and greaterwill be the new ideas for building themovement which you will be able tobring us.

The Socialist Party is an organisationof equals. There is no leader and thereare no followers. So, if you are goingto join we want you to be sure that youagree fully with what we stand for andthat we are satised that you understand

the case for socialism.

IntroducingThe Socialist Party

Editorial

t ssg sw

The media has recently worked itself intoa frenzy over the authority of the PrimeMinister. The Euro-elections followeda spate of cabinet resignations. Everystatement, coded phrase, nod andwink from the apparatchiks has been

analysed. Whose side is Mandelson on?Will Milliband break ranks? And even,whats that badge that Blears is wearing?Kremlinologists used to try and nd out

what was happening in state capitalistUSSR by analysing the seating positionsof the party functionaries. A similar gameof smoke, mirrors, cloaks and daggersappears to apply to the democracies ofmodern capitalism.

This focus on the minutiae of ourleaders is what passes for democracyaround the world. Democratic decision-making has become a spectator sport.

Wed be as well reading our tea-leavesto nd out whats happening. Jeremy

Paxman could read the entrails of achicken on Newsnight for all it matters.And as the column inches grow and the24-hour rolling news channels multiply,year after year fewer people bother tovote.

It is in any case only every coupleyears or so that we get our hands onthe stub of a pencil to register our pitifulpreference. A few dozen crosses is yourlifetime quota to express your opinion.In the time between voting, wars can

start, economies may implode andclimates change. And you can bet theseissues wont all have appeared on themanifestos.

For world socialists, the presenceof leaders is the antithesis of genuinedemocracy. The dominance of the marketsystem must be removed before genuineparticipative democratic decision-making is possible. Crucially howeverit must not be forgotten that this is only

achievable on the basis of majoritysupport for socialism, by which we meana moneyless, wageless, classless andstateless society based on producingwealth for human need not the prot of

a few.But while the democracy that

capitalism provides (at least in mostdeveloped nations) is a pale imitation ofthe real thing, in our view it is usually stillsufcient to be used to help bring about

the end of capitalism.That doesnt mean that such a

transformation would be restricted

to parliament (far from it thetransformation to socialism will obviouslyresonate across all parts of society, andin many different ways). But it does meanthat any movement set on democraticrevolution should not ignore themachinery of government but instead callthe bluff of the democratic credentials ofthe capitalist state. Alongside many otherdevelopments in the wider revolutionarymovement, politically we need to setout with the intent to use the shoddypolitical mechanism of capitalism, albeitfor one purpose only, that of expressing

the majority support for the ending ofcapitalism.



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cms,

cms &

csAs evolved and unintelligently-designed

bald chimps everywhere must surelyknow, this year is the 200th anniversary ofDarwins birth. However they may be lessaware that it is also claimed to be the 400thanniversary of Shakespeares sonnets, the300th anniversary of the start of the industrialrevolution and, perhaps less debatably, the50th birthday for the Mini automobile (www.culture24.org.uk/history/art66265).

Crowning all these trivial achievements this month is ofcourse the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.What can one say of this historic event? At the time it washard to overhype. One small step for a man, one giant pokein the eye for the Russians, it supposedly gave us velcro,teon and digital watches, but more to the point, it promised

to launch the bone-throwing chimp species, Kubrick-like, intothe galaxy.

And, er, that was it. Apollo the space overture was notfollowed by the opera. Since then the veterans who knewhow to get to the moon have all died or retired, and nowthe tyro NASA chimps are back where they started, arguingabout rockets and facing Obama funding cuts instead ofKennedy largesse.

What did it all mean? Not much, except to show thatin science, as in share prices, optimism can overrun thecliff-edge of experience, a fact which often escapes youngchimps who imagine that scientic progress is secure,

inevitable and limitless. Perhaps this is because, in the non-scientic world, we dont tend to hear about the null results,

the blind alleys or the dead-ends, we only hear the success-stories. This may mean, argues NASA climatologist PeterDizikes, that we foster unrealistic expectations of sciencein practice: The way we teach science is that Newton saidX and its correct, so learn this formula. This promotes theidea that science knows all the answers. Whereas when youlook at any actual working scientist, whether its in climatechange or medicine or building a nuclear power plant, the

stock in trade of science is uncertainty; its not certainty(www.salon.com, 19 June).

It doesnt help that capitalism is all about hard sells nothard truths, a blizzard of con rackets, snake oil cures, kwik-xes and pseudo-solutions that all too easily make us into

chumps who forget to ask the right questions. Too often themedia will breathlessly report anything scientists offer them,without any provisos or qualications, just to grab a slice of

reader attention. Grey areas require grey matter, but whosgot the time? To take a random sample of the latest newsitems, we learn, according to new studies, that boys whohave a warrior gene are more likely to end up in violentgangs (Yahoo News, 5 June), that squeamish people aremore likely to be conservative (Yahoo News, 5 June) andthat engineers are more likely to become terrorists (NewScientist, 13 June). There is not space here to detail all theways in which these studies may be misleading, misguided

or plain wrong,but sample size,experimenterexpectation andthe possibleexistence ofconicting

studies would bethree avenuesto explore forstarters.

A possiblefourth is fraud.When politiciansor bankers turnout to be corruptnobody raises aneyebrow. Whencatholic priests

turn out to be kiddy-ddlers the world reacts with weary

resignation. But when scientists ddle data everyone throws

up their hands in shocked amazement, because scientistsare for some reason expected to be above that sort of thing.

Yet there are some legendary cases of scientic

fraud, and it turns out that the latest and as yet unnamedaddition to the periodic table, element 112, was held backfrom recognition by years because one member of theteam was sabotaging the results by falsifying data (NewScientist, 20 June). Worse, scientic fraud may not be

rare but commonplace. A recent survey involving over11,000 academics found a third of scientists admittingto massaging research data and one in fty indulging

in outright fakery: When scientists were asked aboutcolleagues behaviour, 14 percent said they had witnessedresearch fraud and almost three-quarters said they had seen

questionable behaviour. Socialists wont be surprised tolearn that misconduct was most common in clinical, medicaland pharmacological research, where large grants areoften at stake (TimesOnline, 7 June). Naughty chimps! MeTarzan, you Cheetah.

Or should that be naughty orang-utans? A new paperthat ies boldly in the face of the genetic evidence suggests

that humans are biologically closer to the red apes than tochimps or bonobos, an idea which is causing widespreadsplutterings of derision in the scientic community.

Nevertheless New Scientist(20 June) sees t to lead with alofty editorial on why we should welcome scientic heresy,

even if its wrong: Alternative hypotheses should be givenan airing ... science that pulls up the drawbridge on new

ideas risks becoming sterile. How true, even if it does sounda little defensive from a journal which is drawing re for

being too sensational and populist.But heresy is risky, and scientists can be as conservative

and risk-averse as anyone else. Privately many scientistscould put together the same heresy socialists propose,which is that capitalism, once the friend and sponsor ofgood science, now is more its enemy than its ally. It controlsthe funds and the fundamentals, it calls the tunes, it formsthe corrupting context in which science does its work. In acapitalist world where politicians are vile, bankers are venaland priests are paedophiles, it can hardly be a revelation tond that science is as bent as everything else. But will they

speak out against the system which holds them in check?

Not while they have a vested interest in not doing so. Thatswhy we have to do it for them.



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Hypocrisy over

immigration

Dear EditorsThe perpetual media discussion

about immigration, convenientlyforgets the countless numbers of

people who have migrated fromthe British Isles (including Ireland

when it was part of the British Isles)over the past 400 years. Whenone considers for example that the

current population of the Republicof Ireland is some seven million

approximately, while the currentIrish descendant population in the

USA alone is estimated to be aroundseventy million (to say nothing ofthe Irish descendants in the other

former black countries of Canada/New Zealand/Australia/South Africa,

etc, etc), the hypocrisy of the anti-

immigrant debate becomes evident.

The same applies to the so calledwhite British historical emigration

to black countries around theworld. The white British descendant

population in East and South Africa,Oceania, North and South Americaetc runs into countless dozens of

millions.Further this debate ignores the fact

that Britain was built exclusively onthe prots generated by slavery and

the pillaging of its colonies. Priorto the 16th century England wasan impoverished backwater even

Christopher Columbus when he wastrawling the Royal Courts of Europe

to fund his New World adventure,never considered asking the English

Court for assistance, as England wasthe Haiti of Europe at the time.Anti-immigrant types need to

acquaint themselves with their ownhistory. Many of them fail to even

appreciate that they themselves are

recent arrivals in the British Isles

their Anglo-Saxon invader ancestorswere not here when the Romans with

their British based African regiments,were building Hadrians Wall.

The immigration debate needs tohave these facts discussed.Lalu Hanuman, Barbados

Reply:

We get your point, even if there is

some exaggeration. For instance, thepopulation of the Republic of Irelandis about 4 million not 7 million. And

the wealth of British capitalism wasnot built exclusively on the prots

of slavery and the pillaging of itscolonies. This was certainly a key

factor in the original accumulationof capital to start capitalism going,but after that the main source of

prots was and still is the unpaidlabour of the working class in Britain

Editors.

Letters

Who are the reallitter louts?

Ofcial statistics from the Home

Ofces Ofce of National

Statistics show that there is ahigh level of concern about the problemof litter. Indeed, of all crime and anti-social behaviour litter has the second

highest source of concern (33 percentof those surveyed felt a high level ofworry). Vandalism comes top of thelist (34 percent), both much higher thanracial harassment (8 percent) and fearof burglary (14 percent). Hardly a weekgoes by without a letter sent to localpapers on the subject. Now commonor garden street litter is hardly one ofthe worlds major problems, but mostpeople are primarily concerned withthings that affect them it is simply ahuman response to something rightbefore the eyes. People clearly wantand indeed should expect a decentlocal environment. What can be doneabout this problem? We examine a fewsolutions . . .S . 1: M s.

It might be suggested that morerubbish bins would solve the problem.Certainly this could have some effect.However my local area has plenty ofbins (empty ones) and plenty of litter.Putting the rubbish in the bins is clearlysomething different from putting the binsup in the rst place.

S . 2: t sg m

w.

A crackdown on litter louts nesor imprisonment can be a short termsolution particularly in areas with a

traditional respectof authority. Sucha policy has beencarried out verysuccessfully,for example inSingapore. However,whether large anddisparate societieshave the resourcesto deal with what

is basically a minorinfraction of thelaw in such a heavy-handed manner isdoubtful.S . 3: e.

A rather cheaper method than apoliceman on every corner would bea concerted campaign in the schools:Naughty children: dont throw thingson the street. However education (orwhat passes for it in these sad times)seems to be part of the problem. It isalmost certainly the case that the majorityof street litter is thrown by children oradolescents.

S . 4: av .If it really is the case that littering is

a product of alienation in the schools itmight be advisable to change the systemof schooling to one more child-friendly.At the risk of us being deluged withletters from irate alt-ed enthusiasts, theidea of nice schooling is ridiculous in aworld that is most denitely not nice. The

modern system of education generallyts the bill required - that of producing

(and reproducing) the ideal modernworker. Also again we hit the problem ofresources - who will pay for this intensive,alternative approach?

S . 5: a g .Very popular in Germany, the Green

Law of Return means that councils are

entitled to ship product wrappings back tothe factory of origin. A ton of crisp packetsdumped on the doorstep is a powerfulargument for making biodegradableor recyclable packaging. This comesclose to the problem and all credit herefor identifying the real litter louts. Butrecycling uses resources surely better,as far as is possible, not to producepotential litter in the rst place; however,

this cannot be expected from thosewhose business is to produce.S . 6: Ssm.

Litter, like most other problems of the

world, is a product of the current phase ofcapitalism. Consumption to the nth power(including snack foods, the main causeof street litter), within a background ofbuilt-in obsolescence determined chiey

by the great corporations, is the order ofthe day, all driven by the relentless questfor prot. Compounding the issue within

capitalism is the sense of alienation,especially among young people, theresult of the class ownership of societyand the commodifying of everydaylife all of which helps produce thecarelessness of littering. Powerless andvoiceless why should the litter lout

care? The streets really are not our own,nor can they be under capitalism.KaZ



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Surprisingly, the Communist Party of Japan still existsand, indeed, seems to be ourishing. Faced with the

Japanese economy in steep decline, and ever-growingunemployment, many Japanese workers are, in the wordsof the Guardian (24 April), turning to a new trend of cuddlycommunism. But are they? Is the JCP educating commonownership, production for use instead of prot and the abolition

of the wages system?The Japanese Communist Party was formed in July, 1922,

largely by anarcho-syndicalists who were quite inuential

among Japanese workers prior to 1914.Between 1922 and the end of the second world war, in

1945, the JCP was an illegal organisation, with an underground

membership which never exceeded 1,000. With legality itbecame a typical Leninist-Stalinist party, faithfully supporting theSoviet Union and advocating those reforms which it felt would

get support from the Japanese workingclass and, hopefully, bring it to power.

At rst the JCP supported the

American occupation, considering it aliberating force. Although consideringJapan to be a highly developedcapitalist state, it nevertheless claimedthat all feudal remnants must beeliminated before proceeding to whatit considered to be socialism actuallystate capitalism.

By 1947 the Communist Partyhad 100,000 members; and in the1949 general elections polled three

million (10 percent) votes. By the timeof the Korean war, the party ceasedto collaborate with the Americanoccupiers; and by 1951, it was reducedto a semi-legal status. With the Soviet-Chinese split, the JCP leadershiptended to side with the PeoplesRepublic of China, and was increasinglycritical of Khrushchev. By 1965 all thepre-Soviet ofcials were expelled from

the party.Nevertheless, despite all its

ideological problems, the JapaneseCommunist Party could claim almost300,000 members in 1966. Later, it fell

out with Mao and membership declined.It considered itself to be a completelyindependent, national Japanese party.

According to the Guardians Tokyocorrespondent, Justin McCurry, theJCP is barely recognisable from theparty of 30 years ago. It has seenits fortunes transformed after yearsof being dismissed as an irrelevanthangover from the Cold War.Membership is now said to be over410,000, with around 15,000 joiningsince 2007, of which 25 percent areunder 30. It is popular with students.The circulation of the partys ofcial

paper,Akahata (Red Flag), hasincreased from about one million six months ago to 1.6 millionnow, although in 1980 circulation topped 3.5 million.

The party owes some of its success to a novel, Kaniksen(The Crab Factory Ship), rst published in 1929, and forgotten

until last year when 500,000 copies were sold in a few months.It describes how shermen rebelled against their bosses.

Need the Japanese capitalist class worry? I doubt it. It talksabout welfare and jobs, and improving education. It has alsomade itself felt on the internet. With regard to the traditionalLiberal Democratic Party, the JCP says: We would co-operateon individual policies, but we wouldnt be part of a coalition.Of the 480-seat lower house of the Japanese parliament,the JCP has nine seats. It has, it proclaims, a commitment to

democratic change within the current framework of capitalism.And not a word about communism/socialism.peter e. neWell

Communism in Japan?

Communist

Party meeting in

Shibuya, March

2009



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Uk Branches &contacts

Londoncl Ld b. 2nd Weds.6.30pm. 2nd Wednesday 6.30pm. Coffee

Republic, 7-12 City Road, EC1 (nearestTube and rail stations Old Street andMoorgate).Eneld and Haringey branch. Thurs26th. 8pm. Angel Community Centre,Raynham Rd, NI8. Corres: 17 DorsetRoad, N22 7SL. email:julianvein@

blueyonder.co.uksu Ld b. 1st Tues.7.00pm. Head Ofce. 52 Clapham HighSt, SW4 7UN. Tel: 020 7622 3811W Ld b. 1st & 3rdTues.8pm, Chiswick Town Hall,Heatheld Terrace (Corner Sutton CourtRd), W4. Corres: 51 Gayford Road,London W12 9BYPimlico. C. Trinder, 24 Greenwood Ct,

155 Cambridge Street, SW1 4VQ.Tel: 020 7834 8186

MidLandsWest Midlands branch. Meets everytwo months on a Sunday afternoon (seemeetings page for details. Tel: TonyGluck 01242 235615

northeastn b. Contact: Brian Barry,86 Edgmond Ct, Ryhope, SunderlandSR2 0DY. Tel: 0191 521 0690.E-mail [email protected]

northwestL b. Meets every Monday8.30pm. P. Shannon, 10 Green Street,

Lancaster LA1 1DZ. Tel: 01524 382380M b. Paul Bennett, 6Burleigh Mews, Hardy Lane, M21 7LB.Tel: 0161 860 7189

Bl. Tel: H. McLaughlin.01204844589Cumbria. Brendan Cummings, 19Queen St, Millom, Cumbria LA18 4BG

Carlisle: Robert Whiteld.E-mail: [email protected]: 07906 373975rdl. Tel: R. Chadwick. 01706522365su M. Enquiries:Blanche Preston, 68 Fountains Road,M32 9PH

Yorkshire

Skipton. R Cooper, 1 Caxton Garth,Thresheld, Skipton BD23 5EZ.Tel: 01756 752621Todmorden: Keith Scholey, 1 LeeviewCt, Windsor Rd, OL14 5LJ. Tel: 01706814 149

south/southeast/southwest

su W b. Meets everytwo months on a Saturday afternoon(see meetings page for details). ShaneRoberts, 86 High Street, Bristol BS56DN. Tel: 0117 9511199Canterbury. Rob Cox, 4 StanhopeRoad, Deal, Kent, CT14 6ABLu. Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive,LU2 7LPrdu. Harry Sowden, 5 ClarenceVillas, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 1PB.Tel: 01209 219293

eastangLiaEast Anglia branch. Meets every twomonths on a Saturday afternoon (seemeetings page for details).David Porter,

Eastholme, Bush Drive, Eccles-on-Sea,NR12 0SF. Tel: 01692 582533.Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs Rd,Hethersett, NR9 3JD. Tel: 01603 814343.

Cambridge. Andrew Westley, 10Marksby Close, Duxford, CambridgeCB2 4RS. Tel: 07890343044

northern ireLandNewtownabbey: Nigel McCullough.Tel: 028 90852062

scotLandEdinburgh branch.1st Thur. 8-9pm.The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace (aboveVictoria Street), Edinburgh.J. Moir. Tel: 0131 440 0995 JIMMY@

jmoir29.freeserve.co.uk Branch website:http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/Glasgow branch. 3rd Wednesday ofeach month at 8pm in CommunityCentral Halls, 304 Maryhill Road,Glasgow. Richard Donnelly, 112

Napiershall Street, Glasgow G20 6HT.Tel: 0141 5794109. E-mail: [email protected]: D. Trainer, 21 Manse Street,Salcoats, KA21 5AA. Tel: 01294469994. E-mail: [email protected]. Ian Ratcliffe, 16 Birkhall Ave,Wormit, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8PX. Tel:01328 541643West Lothian. 2nd and 4th Weds inmonth, 7.30-9.30. Lanthorn CommunityCentre, Kennilworth Rise, Dedridge,Livingston. Corres: Matt Culbert, 53Falcon Brae, Ladywell, Livingston, WestLothian, EH5 6UW. Tel: 01506 462359E-mail: [email protected]

waLessw b. 2nd Mon, 7.30pm,

Unitarian Church, High Street. Corres:Geoffrey Williams, 19 Baptist WellStreet, Waun Wen, Swansea SA1 6FB.Tel: 01792 643624

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

InternatIonaL contacts

africa

Kenya. Patrick Ndege, PO Box 56428,Nairobi.Swaziland. Mandla Ntshakala, PO Box981, Manzini.Zambia. Kephas Mulenga, PO Box280168, Kitwe.asia

India. World Socialist Group, VillGobardhanpur. PO Amral, Dist. Bankura,722122Japan. Michael. Email:[email protected]

Denmark. Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund 9,oor 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby J

Germany. Norbert. E-mail:[email protected]. Robert Stafford. E-mail:[email protected]

coMPanIon PartIes

oVerseas

World Socialist Party of Australia.P. O. Box 1266 North Richmond3121, Victoria, Australia.. Email:[email protected] Party of Canada/PartiSocialiste du Canada. Box 4280,Victoria B.C. V8X 3X8 Canada. E-mail:[email protected] Socialist Party (New Zealand)P.O. Box 1929, Auckland, NI, NewZealand.

World Socialist Party of the Uniteds P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA02144 USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Contact Details

todayS price of oilPresident Alan Garcia labored Saturday to contain Perus worst politicalviolence in years, as nine more police ofcers were killed in a bloody

standoff with Amazon Indians ghting his efforts to exploit oil and gas ontheir native lands. The new deaths brought to 22 the number of policekilled seven with spears since security forces moved early Friday tobreak up a roadblock manned by 5,000 protesters. Protest leaders said atleast 30 Indians, including three children, died in the clashes. Authoritiessaid they could conrm only nine civilian deaths, but cabinet chief Yehude

Simon told reporters that 155 people had been injured, about a third ofthem with bullet wounds. (Associated Press, 6 June)

MeGa-death MarKetplaceThe annual Asia Security Conference, a forum for discussion, broughttogether some of the worlds main arms-makers with military chiefsnervously eyeing their neighbors moves and looking to upgrade defensesin a region full of long-running insurgencies, potential maritime disputesand growing wealth. Defense suppliers nd it very important to be here

to make a set of contacts, said Jonathan Pollack, professor of Asian andPacic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. Japans defense minister

told the gathering that the country, anxious about North Koreas latestnuclear test, would not strike rst but it was still looking to boost its air

force with Lockheed Martin F-22 ghter jets. Top executives from rms

such as Boeing, the Pentagons No.2 defense supplier, ew to Singapore

to rub shoulders with potential clients, as they look to expand foreign salesat a time when the Obama government is starting to cap defense projectspending. (Yahoo News, 31 May)

yeSterdayS price of oilRoyal Dutch Shell and the families of KenSaro-Wiwa, an executed Nigerian oppositionleader, and other activists hanged by the militarygovernment in 1995, on Monday agreed a $15.5msettlement in a New York court case stemming

from allegations the oil group was complicit in theexecutions. The settlement, in which Shell andits Nigerian subsidiary denied any liability, endeda 13-year campaign by relations and supportersof Saro-Wiwa to hold the company accountable.A spokesman for the plaintiffs said $5m of thesettlement to be paid by Shell would be put intoa trust fund to promote education and welfarein the Ogoniland region of the Niger delta. Thebalance would be shared among 10 plaintiffs afterlegal costs were met. Saro-Wiwa and eight otheractivists were hanged after leading a campaignagainst Shells activities in the region and thethen military-led government. ...Oil productionstopped in Ogoniland in 1993 when Shell ceasedoperations amid mass protests led by Saro-Wiwaagainst the environmental damage alleged to havebeen inicted by the companys operations. The

plaintiffs had alleged that at the request of Shell,and with its assistance and nancing, Nigerian

soldiers used deadly force and massive, brutalraids against the Ogoni people throughout theearly 1990s to repress a movement against the oilcompany. (Financial Times, 9 June)



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S differenceThe BNP has an economic policy? Apparently, and its notjust send all non-white people (and Poles) back to wherethey came from and give their jobs to British workers. Their

manifesto for last months European elections said:All the old parties are in the pockets of the banks and bigbusiness. Lab-Lib-Con all pretend to be worried about joblosses but have allowed globalisation to destroy jobs and dragdown wages . . . We will protect British jobs from cut-throatforeign competition and put British workers rst every time!

How they propose to do this can be found on theirwebsite:

Globalisation has caused the export of jobs andindustries to the Far East, and has brought ruin andunemployment to British industries and the communities whodepend on them. Accordingly, the BNP calls for the selectiveexclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets andthe reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that ourmanufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced inBritish factories, employing British workers. When this isdone, unemployment in this country will be brought to an endand secure, well-paid employment will ourish. (http://bnp.org.uk/tag/bnp-economic-policy/)

Thats easier said than done. Basically, its a proposal totry to isolate capitalist Britain from the world market. But thiscouldnt be done without making things worse.

It is nave to assume that if a British governmentimposed a selective exclusion of foreign-made goods, i.e.protectionism, the governments of other capitalist countrieswould just take this lying down. They would adopt similarmeasures aimed at selectively excluding British, i.e. forthem foreign, imports. British manufacturing exports wouldbe bound to suffer. Unemployment would return (if it everdisappeared) and secure, well-paid employment wouldwither not ourish.

The BNP was not the only party to advocate such apie-in-the-sky policy as a supposed way to secure jobs andend unemployment. Here is what the No2EU list, led by BobCrow of the RMT union and supported by the CommunistParty of Britain (Morning Star) and the ex-Militant TendencyTrotskyists:

Nation states with the right to self-determination andtheir governments are the only institutions that can controlthe movement of big capital and clip the wings of thetrans-national corporations and banks. . . . To revitalisethe economy, Britain must return to creating wealth basedespecially in manufacturing, hi-tech and trade across theworld . . . To return to an economy based on manufacturingrequires massive investment and where appropriateprotection of home industries. It is the only way to ensure jobsand a decent safe future for the peoples of Britain. (http://www.no2eu.com/economiccrisis.html)

They dont explain any more than the BNP where theprotable market for these extra manufacturing goods is

to come from. They, too, dream of a national capitalismpermanently providing high wages and steady jobs.

No wonder the groups that made up No2EU refuse todebate with the BNP. When it comes to economic policy, itwouldnt be much of a debate as they wouldnt nd much

to disagree about, especially as the BNP also advocatesthe renationalisation of monopoly utilities and services,compensating only individual investors and pension funds.We, on the other hand, are prepared to debate against both ofthem (together if need be, to save time) and put the socialistcase that, as capitalism is already a world system, there are

no national solutions to the problems it causes for workersand that the only answer is go forward to world-wide socialismnot back to the Nation State.

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p Q



10/24


Despite the high prole media campaign supportedby the churches and all the other parties to try to

stop this, the BNP did manage to get two MEPselected to the European Parliament in last months

elections. The BNP is an obnoxious outt and people arestupid to vote for it. It is no more able to provide an answer

to workers problems than the other parties. The problemsfacing working people and their families are not caused,

as the BNP claims, by immigration or immigrants andwill not be solved by the Fortress Britain they advocatewith British Jobs for British Workers. They are caused

The BNPs racistideology is hateful and

it is understandable

and to be welcomed

that most people dont

like it. But whats the

best way to deal with

them?afraid

Egging on the racists?



11/24


by capitalism which the BNP, like the other parties,supports. Even if all immigration was stopped and

all (recent) immigrants expelled this would not makethings better for those the BNP calls the indigenous

population.The other parties had a cheek in asking people to

vote for them to keep the BNP out. Thats because they

all support capitalism and it is capitalisms insolubleproblems that the BNP exploits to gain votes. Voting for

some other capitalist party to keep the BNP out is asstupid as voting for the BNP. Thats to vote to maintain

the conditions which allow the BNP to ourish.Others, on the Far Left, want to take a more

confrontational attitude towards the BNP. They say it is a

fascist party and that it should be physically smashedbefore it has a chance to smash political democracy. One

problem with this is that the BNP is not a fascist party.Some of its leaders have expressed pro-Nazi sympathies

in the past (and may well still harbour them) but, unlikethe Nazi party in pre-1933 Germany, the BNP is notblaming parliamentary democracy for causing working-

class problems. If it did, it wouldnt get the votes itdoes. It blames workers problems on immigration and

immigrants. So, it is anti-foreigner and racist, which is

objectionable enough, but thats not the same as fascism.The only effective way to deal with the BNP is to

confront their argumentshead on and that includes their

nationalism. The other parties cannot do this becausethey too are nationalists. The BNP is only expressingin an extreme form a nationalist position that they

themselves share. They have even tried to steal the BNPsclothes here by emphasising that they are against illegal

immigrants and vie with each other to boast how manythey have, or should have, deported. They encourage

nationalism by describing members of the armed forcesas heroes and by ying the Union Jack or even the

ag of St George (a traditional fascist emblem) on public

buildings. All grist to the BNPs mill.Like the BNP, the other parties claim that all British

people have a common interest as against the people ofother countries, i.e. as against foreigners. But this isnot the case. UK citizens are divided into two classes, on

the basis of their relationship to the means of production those who own them and those who dont , whose

interests are quite opposed. It is in the interest of thosewho own Britain to convince the rest of us living here that

we share a common interest with them in them acquiringand protecting outside markets and investment outlets.

To get us to support them is the role of the nationalismthat is inculcated into us from birth and reinforced everyday by the media.

The semblance of justication for this is that, ifemployers are successful in this, then they can offer more

and more secure jobs. In actual fact, however, those in

Defeat them how?

t v w

bnp f

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12/24


one country who have to work fora wage or a salary have a common

interest with wage and salaryworkers in other countries rather

than with our employers. Thatis the socialist, anti-nationalistposition which the Socialist Party

maintains against all other parties,not just the BNP.

Bash the Fash?The Far Left have made two

mistakes in trying to counter the

BNP. The rst has been to adopta policy of physically ghting with

them. The second has been toinvoke the BNP as a bogey to try

to gain recruits amongst post-warimmigrants and their families.

Beating somebody up neverchanged anybodys mind. Itprobably reinforces their views.

In any event, this is defeatist inassuming that people cant change

their minds. Which, fortunately,has been disproved many times.

For instance, the actor RickyTomlinson, who introduced theScargill Labour Partys Party

Political Broadcast in the recent

elections, was once a memberof the National Front, even acandidate for them in a local

election. Now he thinks that theEU not immigrants cause working-class problems. Still wrong, but no

longer a racist.What BNP members need is

not a kicking, but putting right.And the best way to do this is to

confront the ideas of their leadersin open, public debate. Thats why the Socialist Party isopposed to the policy of No Platform for the BNP. On the

contrary, we want them up on a platform to face socialistcriticism of their erroneous ideas and futile policies.

Organising particular immigrants as a group, as theSWP tried to do with Muslims through Respect (before

George Galloway threw them out and continued this withthe aid of other Trotskyist groups), is dangerous andplays straight into the hands of the BNP by introducing

communalist politics. If, says the BNP, Muslims canorganise as a community to defend and further their

communal interests, why cant the indigenous (read:white) working class do the same? Indeed, under

Nick Grifn, this is the successful strategy the BNP haspursued. The BNP, he argues, seeks to represent theinterests of indigenous workers as against immigrants

who, he claims, are being given preferential treatment bythe liberal Establishment. Its untrue, but it nds an

echo amongst some sections of the working class, thoughnot amongst those living and working in close proximity

with immigrants who have learned to regard second andthird generation immigrants as fellow workers.

In other words, two can play at communalist politicsand the BNP will always be able to make more progress

at this than the Far Left since they are appealing to amajority community. It is possible to detect a certain

jealousy amongst Leftists at the ability of the BNP tomobilise workers they would like to be able to mobilise

themselves. Indeed, the rivalry between the BNP and theFar Left, which sometimes nds expressed in physicalghting, can be seen as a rivalry between two leadership

groups one calling itself a vanguard, the other aspearhead to lead workers. To which workers should

adopt a plague on both your houses attitude.As capitalism is the cause of the problems workers

face these problems will continue as long as capitalismdoes. And as long as capitalism continues there willalways be parties like the BNP which scapegoat other

workers as the supposed cause of these problems. Theanswer is not to stop these parties by voting for other

parties or by physically ghting or banning them. It is to

organise on a world-wide class basis to end capitalism which, necessarily, involves a rejection of nationalism.ADAM BUICK

W bnp

mms

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13/24


It is not only in the West that black people are subjected to

racism and abusive languages by the host nations populationas bloody foreigners, parasites, aliens,refugees, etc,

but also Africans living in other African countries are grimlyaccustomed to the same abusive language. Matters havesometimes been getting out of hand in recent years. There is anirony that this is happening when many countries in Africa arebusy trying to organise a Union of African states to replace theuseless organisation that the OAU has been.

A few years ago, tens of thousands of Eritreans andEthiopians were expelled against their will when the twocountries started war (May 1998 till June 2000). The Eritreansand Ethiopians who happened to be respectively living in eachothers country had lived there for most of their lives, in somecases many of them didnt know their country of origin. Therulers of both sides accused each other, accurately, of human

rights violation.The reasons for these mass expulsions and violence are

almost always the same in each country. Patriotic citizensare quick to assert, nationalistically, that the outsiders havecome to take over their resources, their jobs and what have you.However, though the grievances of the masses may be relatedto economic factors, it is unreasonable to blame it on their fellowpoor workers.

In order to ward off unrest various tactics are employed bygovernments. One of them is creating divisions among the poorworkers by, for instance blaming foreigners and whipping upnationalistic feelings. In response to the ofcial propaganda,

the masses who are hungry and illiterate are taken in by thegovernment policy.

Since anger is emotional and overpowers reason, theleast provocation can result in misdirected violence, usuallymanifested in riots. The violence is usually turned loose on thealiens. This is the real cause of xenophobia: the rich pitting the

poor against the poor.In the past when Africa didnt have articial boundaries such

as there are today, wars and hatred were not as rife. Makingup nations has taken a great deal of building. There is almostno nation-state that has not had its boundaries drawn in blood.America was built on the bodies of the native population. It is aprocess that continues today in Africa. The effort, though, hasto be ongoing. States have required the use of an education

system, to standardise learning,

spread a national history and asense of shared culture.

Language became a factor inestablishing state power, and thusit became a factor in determininga nation. It is no coincidencethat nationalism is accompaniedby a mania for classifying,delineating and dening people

into categories. These practicalconsiderations were made explicitby the Polish Nationalist Pilsudski,who observed that it is the statethat makes the nation, not thenation the state.

In order to enforce the newsystem of property over the wholerange of its inuence, the ruling

class needed the state, and itslegitimising ideas of nationalismand the nation. Culture resides insets of ideas, values and practicesthat set out a sense of precedent,self and future possibility.Nationalism imposes the ideaof the nation, complete with itsinherent notions of territorialownership and property, upon a

culture, on the very self-image of the people within that culture.The idea of the nation functions as supreme good, beyond

the physical and mechanical functionings of the state, to whichany cause may appeal. It is a fantasy which can be used tocover up for problems and contradictions in the practice of thestates daily life. Its function is to legitimise both the state andclass rule, and sustain a large quantity of support, throughworkers who identify with the ideas of nationhood and believethemselves to be the same as, and have the same interests as,their masters.

Workers of course, do not share a common interest withtheir masters. It does not follow that if the national wealthincreases, or if trade increases, or even if prot increases,

that higher wages will be gained by workers. It might appearthat workers and employers share a common interest. In factthe interest of workers is conditioned by the interest of the

employer, in exactly the same manner as hostages held by akidnapper: unless the kidnapper/employer, demands are met,they will not allow the hostage/workers to have what they needto live.

In the powerful nations, history becomes a means of winningpopular emotions to the cause of stability. An inuential and well

funded nostalgia industry has long been used in these nationsto persuade workers that there is something great about beingthe nations subject.

The valid denition of a modern nation is a geographical

and political area in which goods and services are produced forthe sale on the market with a view to prot and with the general

class division of ruling and ruled. And the fact that the majorityof population owns little but its ability to work is evidence theworking class has no common interest with the minority ruling

class.Michael Ghebre

Xenophobia ourishes in Africa too, encouraged by state-building.

W

ss?

2008, a Mozambique immigrant burned alive in South Africa while the police look on



14/24


l gs - w

sm?

Capitalist states have started

to acquire land outside their

borders again.

At the start of capitalismland was grabbed

on a large scaleby Europeans in the

Americas, Africa and

Asia wherever therewere useful, desirable,valuable resources.Never mind the

indigenous populations,they could be bought

off cheaply or cowed intosubmission militarily. Accumulation was

the name of the game, on behalf of powerfulstates and royal families.

Colonies sprang up worldwide explaining,

among other things, the curious spread ofdifferent languages from relatively tiny nations

to huge continents across oceans English,Spanish, Portuguese and French - and

ultimately to the use of English/American asthe global business language.

It is now widely recognised that colonialism

was responsible for subjugating local populations,imposing governmental and legal systems and

generally exploiting and expropriating whatevernatural abundance or rare animal, vegetable or mineral

matter happened to be discovered. As time went onthe exploitation was taken over by corporations andcontinues not only unabated but increasingly rapacious,

bringing commodities to customers worldwide, degradingenvironments worldwide and impoverishing populations

worldwide whilst enriching a tiny minority.Now local populations are starting to ght back,

to protest against their treatment as second-class

or non-citizens, demanding land and water rights.Populations from China to South America and many

places in between are in struggles against domestic ortransnational mining corporations, against governments

over population dispersal for big dams and SpecialEconomic Zones, against food corporations and

agribusiness trying to enforce small farmers removalfrom their land in order to grow mono-crops for food and

bio-fuels specically for export.Against this back-drop of peasant/worker awakening

is the very latest emergence of a new form of colonialism

of land-grab by food insecure governments fearingfor the future of their own populations food needs and

also by food corporations and private investors looking for

new ways to make prots in this current economic crisis.Since March 2008 high-level ofcials from countriessuch as Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, India, South Korea,Libya and Egypt have been visiting countries with fertile

farmland including Uganda, Brazil, Cambodia, Sudanand Pakistan to strike deals which guarantee them sole

use of farmland to grow crops for export back to theirown lands. The reciprocity is foreign investment or oil or

technology deals.Another angle to this new colonialism nancial

returns is seeing all manner of players getting involved,seeking a new avenue for prot; investment houses,hedge funds, grain traders and others from the nance

and food industries, all looking to take control offertile soil with access to water supply in foreign

lands. Whilst governments are largely the onesmaking the deals for food security it has been

made plain that it is the private sector thatwill control the enterprises. Likewise, the

hunt for nancial returns is the businessof private investors. In both cases

foreign private corporations will

be taking control of farmland toproduce food not for the local

communities but for export backto the investor countries. Another

form of accumulation by driving

more local farmers from their landand stealing their livelihoods.

Here are three examples ofdeals struck so far (a full report is

available from www.grain.org plusan annex in table form of over100 cases of land-grab for offshore

food production; online there isalso a notebook of full-text news

clippings being added to continuouslyto which people can contribute by

emailing [email protected]).First, China has sealed 30 agricultural

cooperation deals which gives them access to

friendly country farmland in exchange for Chinesetechnology, training and infrastructure development

funds, in Kazakhstan, Queensland, Mozambique and thePhilippines (to mention a few) and to which China ies in

its own farmers, scientists and extension workers to growrice, soya beans and maize as well as sugar cane, cassava

and sorghum as bio-fuel crops.

Second, the Gulf States, short of water and productivesoil but rich in oil and money, have been hard hit by

the simultaneous rise in world food prices and fall inthe US dollar to which (most) of their currencies are

pegged. Their collective strategy has been to make dealsparticularly with other Islamic countries to which they

will supply oil and capital in exchange for guaranteesto farmland from which they can export the cropsback home. Deals have been and continue to be made

with Sudan, Pakistan and others in SE Asia, Turkey,Kazakhstan, Uganda, Ukraine, Brazil and others. From

the millions of hectares of farmland already leasedunder contract harvests are expected to begin this year,

particularly of rice and wheat.Third, Indias corporate agribusinesses and the

government-owned State Trading Corporation are lookingto produce oilseed crops, pulses and cotton abroad. Onedeal with Burma to enable India to have total control of



15/24


A collection of more than 3,000 inverted stamps has soldat auction in New York for more than $5 million:http://tinyurl.com/mg4pmy

One billion people throughout the world suffer from

hunger, a gure which has increased by 100 millionbecause of the global nancial crisis, says the UN:

http://tinyurl.com/mhr77q

Cancer is a silent disease in Africa and in thedeveloping world. World Health Organization (WHO)statistics shows that cancer kills more peoplein Africa than HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria combined.This is not a well-known fact, and a very disturbingone, especially since cancer diagnostics andtreatment are of very poor standard in most Africancountries. Take for example Ghana - a country withmore than 23 million people. They only have fouroncologists to diagnose and treat cancer patients.WHO estimates that if we dont take act now, more

than 11 million Africans may die of cancer in 2020:http://tinyurl.com/n6ayek

One in four men in South Africa have admitted torape and many confess to attacking more thanone victim, according to a study that exposes thecountrys endemic culture of sexual violencehttp://tinyurl.com/mcvv28

The Dalai Lama has encouraged Tibetans in exile toembrace the democratic system of electing a leader,saying it was essential to keep step with the larger worldand to ensure the continuity of their government:http://tinyurl.com/l53l53

Uganda has lost nearly a third of its forest cover since1990 due to expanding farmlands, a rapidly growinghuman population and increased urbanisation, agovernment report saidhttp://tinyurl.com/ma2798

The Senate unanimously passed a resolutionyesterday apologizing for slavery, making way for a

joint congressional resolution and the latest attempt bythe federal government to take responsibility for 2 1/2centuries of slaveryhttp://tinyurl.com/llnxgp

Nearly twice as many US army soldiers today are

either alcoholic or engage in damaging behaviour suchas binge drinking than six years ago, and experts blamethe rise on repeated tours in war zones:http://tinyurl.com/lv79mx

President Hugo Chavez is standing by his man in theMiddle East, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,even as hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iranians tookto the streets Wednesday for the fth straight day to

protest his claim to a landslide reelectionhttp://tinyurl.com/n84yz4

Zimbabwe is suffering persistent and serioushuman rights violations despite the formation ofa unity government four months ago, Amnesty

Internationals Secretary General Irene Khansaidhttp://tinyurl.com/mrmm9k

the agricultural process entails providing Burma with funds

to upgrade its port infrastructure. They are also doing dealswith Indonesia for palm oil plantations, talking to Uruguay,

Paraguay and Brazil about land for growing pulses andsoya beans for export back home.

How will the indigenous populations react to this latestthreat? This aggressive new policy of colonisation of landspecically for export crops and speculation is bound to

increase pressure on local populations, more of whom willbe struggling to feed their families working for wages, if

so lucky, at a pittance level. Populations who dont needto be bought off cheaply this time because their own

governments will willingly sell them out and who can easilybe subdued militarily should the need arise, this time by

the self-same governments police and armed forces.JANET SURMAN

ThenNow:

w w v

w w s

v

Part 1 Then: A look back at

the present day from a future

time when socialism has been

established.

It is strange to visualise now that the world up to and includingthe early years of this century was caught in a strangleholdof economic competition, national political boundaries and

the overriding requirement to make a monetary prot out of the

production and sale of property. Hardly anyone took seriously, oreven much considered, the possibility of living as complete equalswith collective ownership of the worlds resources.

Visions of a future society portrayed in the science ction

novels and lms of the time were almost invariably dystopian:civilisation might move out to the stars, but the prognosticationswere of ever increasing extremes of r ich and poor, harshergovernments and soaring crime rates. Fictional colonisations ofnew planets giving humanity a fresh start free from the shacklesof Earth were almost invariably based on money, employmentand prots.

The vast majority of people were limited in terms of what theycould do by the amount of money they possessed, since theonly way to obtain food, goods and services that they could notproduce themselves was to exchange money for them. Those whohad little or no money lived very poorly in a way we can scarcelyimagine now, indeed many of them died through lack of lifesnecessities. A minority, on the other hand, those in control of theworlds major resources, had more personal wealth than even the

most imaginative of them knew what to do with.Many people were reasonably well off by the standards of

the time. They would work for a living for around 40 hours each



16/24


week, and as long as they wereseen to be contributing to theiremployers wealth, they were paida monthly salary with which to payfor the necessities of life food,heating and shelter for themselvesand their immediate families.Many months they might have asmall surplus to save for future

use or spend during holidays fromemployment or on luxury items.

Employers, the owners ofcapital, were ever seeking new waysof increasing their prots and attempting to draw their workers

into their world, to get them to see things from their side, tobe inventive in creating ways of packaging new products, orre-packaging old products, to make them appear ever moreattractive. Workers were divided into a hierarchy, with the betterpaid ones, generally more imbued with the company ethosinstilled into them by the owners, assuming authority over thoselower down in the pecking order.

The vast majority of workers complied with their employerswishes through a need to carry on earning money. Employeesat all levels were constantly encouraged to think outside the

box in their efforts to please their employers; in reality workerand employer alike were unable to see the walls of the hugebox that contained them all.

Money permeated the whole of life and almost nothingwas exempt from the need to generate it, earn it or spend it.And because the owners of the worlds resources as a groupcontrolled the channels of communication, the messageexpressed or implied to the population at large was that thisstate of affairs was necessary and unchangeable and that theirleaders knew what was best for them.

Largely because of such propaganda, not all workers sawthemselves as exploited or even hard done by. People were, forthe most part, simply grateful to be among those whose skillsand abilities were seen as necessary and hence saleable. Andmany, such as doctors, teachers and care workers, performeduseful roles despite the often longer than average, stressfulhours they had to work and, in some cases, the paltry amounts

of money theyreceived in return.

But others werenot so fortunate.Millions worldwidewere unable tosecure or maintainthe employmentnecessary toprovide them withthe money to buylifes necessities.

Many people wereleft entirely totheir own meagreresources. Somewere forced to workalmost the wholeday long to securethe price of a mealand a bed, whilestill others had norecourse but tobeg. Many peopleunderstandablyresorted to thepeddlers of

alcohol, drugs andreligion, to therelative comfort

of an anaesthetised life on Earth or thevacuous promise of a second life free ofcare after death.

As is no doubt evident, money wasa form of rationing the less you had,the less access you had to the bestquality food and goods. This resultedin manufacturers producing a wholerange of goods at varying qualities and

hence varying prices, to ensure theycatered for, and therefore proted from,

the needy as well as the better off. Andbecause personal possessions were

hard-gained, people tended to be inordinately proud of themand jealous of others who had more.

People generally lived in a family unit typically comprising amarried couple and up to three or four children. This restrictedeconomic unit generally served its purpose in ensuring thatchildren were adequately looked after until they in turn wereready to do service to an employer; if it broke down, however,say by the married couple splitting up or one of them dying,this could place an intolerable burden on the one parent leftsupporting the children, usually with very little outside help.There was very little left of the extended supportive family or

community such as had existed even in earlier capitalist times.And if both parents died or were incapacitated, alternative careprovisions for the children were rudimentary at best.

Dependence on money, and the stress caused through lackof it, meant that arguments and outbreaks of violence werefrequent we cant afford it or where is the money goingto come from? were often heard among the members of thecocooned family units, even among the more comfortably off.Buyer and seller, employer and employee, even husband andwife, inevitably regarded one another as sources of nancial or

material gain, and hence, in part, as one anothers possessions.Sections of the working population were constantly

played off and made to compete against one another, eitherdeliberately or passively, on the basis of such irrelevantconsiderations as skin colour, nationality or even gender, inan attempt to keep them weak and divided. And the needfor capitalist enterprises to compete against one another intheir quest for prots inevitably led to wider conicts, resulting

time and again in failed businesses with the resultant loss oflivelihoods and, in extreme cases, in bloody and ruthless wars.

Factories and commercial centres tended to be concentratedin large urban areas, to and from which workers would have totravel on a daily basis in crowded trains or on congested roads.Despite the limited adoption of variable working hours, peaktravel times were unpleasant if not nightmarish.

It was also evident that capitalist society was incapableof addressing the problems besetting the environment whichcame to the fore in this period. As global warming increased,caused at least in part by man-made pollutants from wasteful,

inefcient technology, with increasingly erratic climate systemsresulting in the disappearance of much wildlife and an increasein the number of oods and res, however well-intentioned the

proponents of corrective action, remedies were always subjectto the constraints of what could be done protably and were

therefore never adequately effected, to the extent that some ofthe damage to the environment nearly became irreversible.

To think of the world as it was only so few decades ago hasbeen at best sobering and at worst traumatic; the conclusion Ireach is that this period of mans history is best left where it isconsigned to the history books or, better still, to the memory.

Next month Part 2: a look back from a future at the

changeover to socialism.

rod ShaW

Poles Apart? Capitalism

or Socialism as the planet

heats up

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17/24


MORES UTOPIA AND THE

MEANING OF SOCIALISM

T

he word utopia, together with its derivatives utopian

and utopianism, is a familiar part of our political

vocabulary. It originated as the title of a work by theTudor lawyer, statesman and writer Thomas More, rstpublished in Latin in 1516 as a travellers descriptionof a remote island. Utopiais a pun: it can be read either

as ou-topos, Greek for no place, or as eu-topos, goodplace that is, a good place (society) that exists in the

imagination.More invented the word, but the thing it represents is

much older. Plato in his Republicdiscussed the natureof the ideal city state. Medieval serfs took solace in theimaginary ease and plenty of the Land of Cockaigne.

Mores utopia, however, is the rst to embody a responseto capitalist social relations, which in the early 16th

century were just emerging in England and the LowCountries (in agriculture and textiles). As the rst modern

utopia, it has a special place in the emergence of modernsocialist thought.

Contents of Mores UtopiaThe work consists of two books. Book I is Mores

account of how he came to hear of Utopia. Book IIdescribes the Utopians way of life their towns and

farms, government, economy, travel, slaves, marriages,military discipline, religions.

More presents his story as true fact. Henry VIII sends

him to Flanders as his ambassador to settle a disputewith Spain and we know that this is true (it was in

1515; the dispute concerned the wool trade). Duringa break in the negotiations he meets his young friend

Peter Giles, who introduces him to an explorer, RaphaelHythloday, just back from a long voyage. There follows along conversation between More, Giles and Hythloday.

Giles and More urge Hythloday to put the vast

knowledge acquired on his travels to use by enteringthe service of a king. Hythloday refuses, arguing thatno courtier dare speak his mind or advocate wise and

just policies. This exchange is thought to reect Moresmisgivings about his own career in royal service.

The conversation then turns to the situation inEngland. They discuss the enclosure (now we call

it privatisation) of common land to graze sheep, theconsequent pauperisation and uprooting of the peasantry(your sheep devour men), the futile cruelty of hanging

wretches who steal to survive, and other social ills.This leads them to the question of remedies.

Hythloday declares that the injustice, conict and wasteinherent in the power of money can be overcome only by

doing away with private property. More objects that thiswould remove the incentive to work. (Sounds familiar?)Hythloday replies that More would think otherwise had

he been with him in Utopia.Utopia is, indeed, a society without private property.

Households contribute to and draw freely on commonstocks of goods. Money is used only in dealings with

foreign countries, while gold and jewels are regardedas baubles for children and fools (i.e., the mentallyretarded). In these respects Utopia resembles socialism as

we conceive of it.In other respects, however, it does not. Decision-

making procedures are only partly democratic. Ahierarchy of magistrates enforces draconian regulations:

travel, for instance, requires ofcial permission. The main

penalty for serious transgressions is enslavement not toindividuals, of course, but to the community. Thus, there

is a class of slaves who do not participate in commonownership but are themselves owned. Utopia is not a

classless society.

Was More joking?Almost all critics

treat Mores factual

presentation asa mere literary

device. They do notbelieve that he met

an explorer whilein Flanders or that

he was inuencedin his descriptionof Utopia by

WaS

noWhereSoMe-

Where?



18/24


information about real places. This is not to say that theyattribute everything solely to Mores fertile imagination.

They often draw connections between his ideas and thethought of Greco-Roman antiquity. In the foreword to an

edition ofUtopiapublished in 1893, William Morris evencalls Utopia an idealised ancient society. More was oneof the foremost classical scholars of his day, so it is a

plausible view.Yet More always maintained, even in private

correspondence, that Utopiawas based on fact. Was hejoking? He liked a good joke.

Two researchers take More at his word. It is quitepossible, they argue, that he did meet an explorer whohad encountered or heard about a pre-Columbian

society in the Americas that served More as a prototypefor Utopia. Arthur E. Morgan, an engineer who was

chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s,takes the Inca Empire as the prototype (Nowhere was

Somewhere: How History Makes Utopias and How UtopiasMake History, University of North Carolina Press 1946),

while the anthropologist Lorainne Stobbart identies

the Utopians with the Maya of the YucatanPeninsula in present-day Mexico

(Utopia: Fact or Fiction?

The Evidence fromthe Americas, AlanSutton 1992).

They arguethat it is notvalid to argue

that Hythlodaycannot

represent a realperson because

Europeansknew nothing ofthe Maya or Incas at

the time when More waswriting Utopia(151516). This

is true only if we accept the conventionalchronology that conates discovery with the military

expeditions of the Spanish conquistadors (Cortes rstlanded in Yucatan in 1517; Pizarro entered Inca territoryin 1526). But Morgan and Stobbart refer to old maps and

documents indicating that Portuguese explorers reachedthe eastern shores of Central and South America as

early as the 14th century (Hythloday is Portuguese), whileEnglish sailors were trading with the new lands by the

1470s. Whether any of these early travellers got as faras Peru is less certain, though some may have obtainedindirect information about the Incas.

How closely does Mores Utopia resemble theMaya and Inca civilizations? Morgan and Stobbart

detail numerous similarities in political and economicorganization, dress, social customs, city layout, family

life, science and art, and so on even down to suchpractices as the erection of memorial pillars andceremonial wearing of quetzal feathers. The Maya and

the Incas, like the Utopians, used money only in foreigntrade and had common stores from which ofcials

distributed produce (except that, in contrast to Utopia, itwas rationed). It is extremely unlikely that so many close

parallels should arise purely by chance.But there are also important differences. The most

telling criticism made against these authors is that

they obscure a wide gap in social structure between thearistocratic autocracies of the Maya and the Incas and

the basically democratic governance of Mores Utopia

(see George Logans review of Stobbart in Moreana, June1994).

It is therefore doubtful whether Utopiais a direct

representation of any specic pre-Columbian society.Nevertheless, Mores account does probably reect the

inuence of knowledge of such societies that he hadsomehow acquired, possibly from a Portuguese explorer

he met in Flanders.

A bureaucratic mode of production

This conclusion has implications for ourunderstanding of the development of socialist ideas. For

it means that a seminal work of modern socialist thoughtbears the imprint of archaic societies that though not

based on private property were far removed from theclassless democracy of genuine socialism.

The Maya and Inca social systems are strikingly

pure examples of what Marx called the Asiatic mode ofproduction. In this mode, a royal bureaucracy extracts

and redistributes surplus from pre-existing peasantcommunes and directs public works. The monarch is

considered the owner of land and resources. The wordAsiaticdoes not, of course, t the New World context(Marx had mainly India in mind). Karl Wittfogel, stressing

the centrality of water management,coined the term hydraulic mode

of production. Or we might

call it the pre-industrialbureaucratic mode of

production.

Louis Baudinpaints a vividpicture of what

it was like tolive under this

system in hisDaily Life in Peru

under the LastIncas(Macmillan,

1961). It was a hard

life for the common people,but their basic necessities were

supplied: a small dwelling, two woollengarments each when they marry, a patch of land, relief

in the event of local famine. They were more fortunatein this regard than poor people were in Mores England

or than they themselves would be after the Spanish

conquest. But they were victims of class exploitationnonetheless.

It is understandable that the Incas and the Mayashould have appealed to early European critics of

capitalism. Theirs, however, was not the only alternativemodel that the pre-Columbian Americas offered to thereign of private property. The New World was also home

to the much more egalitarian primitive communismof peoples like the Iroquois who so fascinated the 19th-

century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan and throughhim Engels and Marx, inuencing their conception of

advanced communism.

An upright and honest official

Mores utopia is a sort of compromise between thedemocratic and authoritarian-bureaucratic conceptions

of communal life. He omits important information thatwould help us clarify the nature of the society that he

is portraying. In particular, how are the higher ofcialsappointed or elected? (We know that lower-level ofcialsare elected.) Do they have material privileges? Does

Utopia have an aristocracy of any kind?I interpret this ambiguity in light of Mores general

attitude toward the lower classes. He felt genuine

compassion for the suffering of the poor. This is clearnot only from the sentiments he expresses through hisalter egoHythloday, but also from his reputation as an

Lazy days in Brueghels

Cockaigne



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20/24


No Chief, No God

Dont Sleep, There are Snakes. By

Daniel Everett. Profile 15.

In 1977 DanEverett travelled

with his wifeand their three

young children tothe midst of theAmazon jungle.

They were goingto live among the

Pirah people,where Everett

was to learn theirlanguage in order

to translate the new testament into

it and so convert them to christianity(he was working for a missionary

organisation). He learnt the languagebut failed to convert any of the

Pirah; rather, they and their culturehad a profound inuence on his ownbeliefs, about language, religion and

how to live.The Pirah, who now number

less than four hundred, are typicalof pre-state societies. They depend

on hunting, foraging and shing,and a family can acquire enoughfood for a week by working at most

twenty hours each (including thechildren), though shing and so

on are fun and dont really count

as work. They do not plan for thefuture, and do not preserve food.

They have few possessions but no

concept of poverty. There is a strongsense of community and of mutualresponsibility: an elderly disabled

man who could not fend for himselfwas given food as a matter of course.

There are no chiefs, and ostracismand exclusion from food-sharing are

the main means of coercion used tocontrol each others behaviour.

Spirit voices can also inuence

the Pirahs conduct, but they claimto see these spirits regularly and

have no concept of a creator god.Their lives are very much in the here

and now, and what they talk aboutis limited to what the speaker orsomeone they know has witnessed.

Consequently, they were completelyunreceptive to Everetts religious

message, based as it was on booksproduced by people he had never

met. He translated Marks gospel intothe Pirah language, but they wereonly interested in hearing about the

beheading of John the Baptist!This led Everett to question his

own faith in unseen things, and toa realisation that it was perfectly

possible to be contented withoutbelieving in sin, hell and heaven.

He kept his new-found atheism asecret for many years, and when heeventually came clean it resulted in

the break-up of his family.Everett describes the Pirah as

happy, patient and kind, certainlyhappier than any religious people

he has encountered. It is important

not to romanticise them and theirway of life: they live in a dirty and

dangerous environment, sufferhigh infant mortality and can be

astonishingly violent to outsiders.But the Pirahs show no evidence of

depression, chronic fatigue, extremeanxiety, panic attacks, or otherpsychological ailments common in

many industrialized societies.This book shows clearly how

life under capitalism is just onemeans of human organisation, not

the consequence of human nature,and that life without money and

mortgages and god has plenty ofattractions.PB

Globalization

Marxian Economics andGlobalization. By Binay Sarkarand Adam Buick, Avenel Press,

Calcutta, 2009. ISBN 81-902529-5-X

Is globalization just another word

for capitalism? The short answer is

yes. A longer answer is provided inthis invaluable book written by two

socialists. Using Marxian economicsas their explanatory framework,

there are chapters on Capitalism asa world system, What is political

economy?, The basic categories ofMarxian economics, The marginalrevolution in economics against the

labour theory of value, The cyclicalnature of capitalist production,

The era of permanent ination,The Bolsheviks and the abolition of

money, Anti-globalization or anti-capitalism?, Why we need global

change. The book is dedicated toThe Working Class of the World.

Today we live in a world

completely dominated by capitalistproduction, where wealth is produced

for sale on a market with a view toprot. Writing in the middle of thenineteenth century, Marxs analysis

of capitalism had identied it asan inherently globalizing system.

As the Communist Manifestoputit,the cheap price of commodities

... compels all nations, on pain ofextinction, to adopt the bourgeois

mode of production. The authorslook at the globalization of capitalismsince his day, as manifested in the

ever-widening world division of

labour, world wars and rivalry forsources of raw materials, marketsand investment outlets, the rise of

the multinational corporation andthe emergence of global nancial

markets. They discuss the oppositionto these developments and argue

that anti-imperialism and anti-

globalization are not the same asanti-capitalism, as this has to be a

movement aimed at a world socialistsociety where the resources of the

globe have become the commonheritage of its entire people.

There are a few quibbles. Statecapitalism is said to be the mostregressive, dehumanizing and

degenerating form of capitalism(page 55). But this is arguably a

judgement on which socialists do notneed to take sides; we are opposed

to capitalism whatever form ittakes. We are told that under state

capitalism, capital remains privateproperty of the state functionariescollectively (page 56). But this could

suggest that state functionaries hada legal claim on capital, which was

generally not the case, though theydid exercise possession as a class

through their control of politicalpower. It is claimed that John StuartMill was an opponent of Karl Marx

(page 90). But though Marx was wellacquainted with the writings of Mill,

there is no evidence that Mill knewof Marxs existence. But these are

quibbles. Hopefully a future editionwill have an index, so enabling thereader to easily track down the many

fascinating ideas and quotes to befound in this important book.

LEW

Revolutions

Endnotes #1 PreliminaryMaterials For A Balance Sheet Of

The Twentieth Century. 216 pages.Available from Endnotes, 12 London

Road, Brighton, BN1 4JA. 10

The opening issue of this newjournal is based around a dialoguebetween contemporary French ultra-

left groups Troploin(Gilles Dauv &Karl Nesic) and Thorie Communiste

(who remain anonymous). Of thecontributors Dauv is probably most

well known to English speakers

for his tracts written under thepseudonym Jean Barrot Eclipse

and Re-emergement of the CommunistMovement, Critique of the Situationist

Internationaland Fascism / Anti-fascism.

As Endnotes state in theirintroduction we have no wish toencourage an interest in history per

se. [..] We hope [..] to undermine the

Book Reviews



21/24


illusion that this is somehow ourpast, something to be protected orpreserved. [..]We would go so far as

to say that with the exception of therecognition of the historical break

that separates us from them, thatwe have nothing to learn from the

failures of past revolutions no

need to replay them to discover theirerrors or distil their truths for

it would in any case be impossible torepeat them.

Both groups, and presumablyEndnotes, are tied to the concept of

Communisation communism isnot something that happens afterthe revolution, it is the immediate

production of communism; theself-abolition of the proletariat

through its abolition of capitaland the state. Notions of both a

transitional society and workersself-management are rejected.

Capitalism is a system of production,value accumulation can as easily bemanaged by workers as by private

capitalists or state bureaucrats.The structure of the journal -

each chapter is a critique of the onepreceding it - makes for a stimulating

and engaging read. A wide rangeconcepts and historical eventsare covered and subject to lively

criticism. From the Paris Communeto Argentina 2002 via the Russian

and German revolutions, Italian RedYears, the Spanish tragedy, Paris

68 and the Italian Hot Autumnwe are taken on a radical trainjourney of revolution and counter-

revolution, though the spirit isnt oneof nostalgic reminiscence but rmly

rooted in the possibilities of thepresent moment.

Whilst the politics of bothTroploin and Thorie Communistedont converge with the Socialist

Party on all counts there is certainlyplenty of food for thought on offer

here and a good opportunity tobecome acquainted with a not overly

well known current of contemporary

European thought.DJP

Cartoon

Karl

Taro Aso, thecurrent Prime

Minister ofJapan, is widely

known to be afan of manga.

His love of comic

books seemsquite genuine (although it may be

related to his notorious inability toread even some of the more basic

Japanese kanjicharacters). Settingaside whatever personal reasonshe may have, however, it is clear

that Aso loves manga for practicalpolitical reasons as well, as he is

convinced that it can contribute to anexpansion in

Japans soft

power. Asohas clearly

stated a hopethat manga

will assistJapanese

diplomacy byraising whathe calls the

brand imageof Japan,

particularly inthose Asian countries where peoples

memories have been branded by theexperience of Japanese colonial rule.

The problem for Aso is thatnot every manga published todayconforms to the hollow cool Japan

marketing image that he is peddling.Around two years ago, for instance,

one top-selling manga was a versionof a 1920s proletarian novel written

by the Communist author TakijiKobayashi, which depicted theharsh life of workers at the time and

exposed nationalistic ideology. Andnow, to Asos dismay I suspect, there

is also a mangaversion of MarxsCapitalavailable in Japan.

This new manga, published byEast Press last December, comesin two pocketsize volumes. Volume

one presents a ctional tale of ayoung man named Robin, who is

rst seen in the marketplace sellingcheese that his father produces on

his small farm. Against the wishesof his father, who is a sort of anti-capitalist curmudgeon, Robin accepts

the

Documents

Socialist Standard July 2009