Let's end charity

An article from the Socialist Standard 1981

 

What do you do when someone comes to your door and say,  It's for the blind" or "I'm collecting for Cancer Research" or "we're asking people to give to Oxfam"?

The easiest thing is to dip into your pocket, put a few coppers in their envelope and get back to whatever you were doing. That way you get rid of your unwanted caller and at the same time put at rest any conscience that may have been pricked. Harder by far is it to refuse those few coppers, and indeed few people do.

But does the money you've given really serve a useful purpose? Well first of all, although you may wonder how much of it actually gets to the unfortunates in whose name it was collected, you're fairly sure that the benefit of your donation will be felt at least in some small way by a needy person somewhere. Secondly you're reassured that the world isn't such a bad place after all, that there are people doing something about its problems.

Not many people get further than this in their thoughts on charities, and very few indeed get as far as asking whether charities ever actually solve basic problems like hunger, homelessness and disease. In fact charities never do; think of any one you like and you'll find that, despite the funds it's collected in the past, its need for funds is greater-than ever. And although charities occasionally pack up, they hardly ever do so because the cause for which they were collecting has ceased to exist. On the contrary, new causes are springing up all the time.

The sad thing is that charities, despite the enormous amount of human energy and goodwill that go into them, can rarely do more than touch the surface of the problems they were set up to deal with. They can never get to the root of these problems. Only political action aimed at revolutionising the whole structure of society and abolishing its profit system can wipe out the problems that give rise to charities. Yet, in law, the

benefits and privileges (like tax exemption) of a recognised charity are conditional upon its abstinence from political activity. In other words to be recognised as a charity you are forbidden to do anything which might conceivably tackle the problems of need and. suffering at their root.

Another irony is that, while for most people charity seems to be a sacred institution, the world we live in could not be more uncharitable. Apart from such large-scale horrors as food being dumped or left to rot in some parts of the world while people starve in others and human beings engaging in or turning a blind eye to the mass slaughter of other human

beings, our day-to-day existence is based on the assumption that we will try to get as much as possible for as little as possible. So we will squeeze our employer for the highest wage or salary we think he can afford and he will squeeze us too, to produce as much for him as possible for as little money as he thinks we will to accept. When we go shopping we would never dream of paying double the marked price for the goods we need. On the contrary we usually try to find places where we can get the goods we need for

as low a price as possible. And most of us spend time comparing prices and complaining about how little we get for our money. All this is the exact opposite of charity. None of it could be further from the ethic of "giving to help others".

What it amounts to is that in a society which is bound to be overwhelmingly uncharitable because of the shortages and rivalries built into its buying and selling system, charity can never be more than a small closed compartment of life.

We want to persuade people of the severe limitations of organised charity and also of the unfortunate effect it has in wrongly suggesting to people that, by giving money, they are doing something about solving the world's problems. What charities never suggest is the plain truth that

the perpetual calamities and suffering they exist to cope with are due

not to any inevitable defects in man's capacity for organising the world but to a social system which puts profits-and armaments to guard these profits-before human welfare.

Charity will end when we get socialism. People won't need it then. It's

something worth thinking about next time you slip those coppers into that envelope.

HKM

Language, class and nation

This article is from the Socialist Standard 1981

 

One of the most remarkable things about human beings is their possession and use of language. Within a few shorts years, every person acquires a knowledge of their native language, including a vocabulary of thousands of words, enabling them to express original ideas and communicate to others on all sorts of topics. Language is also one of the most specifically human attributes, for no other animal possesses a communication system anywhere near as flexible and useful as human language. Animals such as bees and sticklebacks can convey a united range of information to each other but cannot, for example, refer to events in the past or future. The languages of the world, with their rich structures and histories, are a fascinating subject of study. But in the class divided society of capitalism, language is a basis for hostility, prejudice and discrimination.

Our impressions of other people are partly formed by the way they speak. Too often people are regarded as ignorant or unintelligent because they pronounce

Their r in a word like cart, say they was ,or use a double negative (as in I ain't done nothing): they are condemned for speaking a "sub-standard" dialect. But from a linguistic point of view, there are no such things as sub-dialects, only non-standard ones which is very different. In the course of a language's development, one particular form of it, usually that spoken in. a particularly powerful or important area, becomes the standard dialect. This means that it is taught in schools, used in literature, and then spread by radio and television. Becoming powerful and "successful" in such a society usually entails becoming proficient in the standard dialect, so that speakers of other dialects are looked down on as backward and uncultured. But prejudices of this kind are social, not linguistic, judgements. Every dialect of a language, standard or otherwise, is linguistically as good as any other; I ain't done nothing conveys the same meaning as the standard I haven't done anything. Speaking a non-standard dialect does not make a person stupid, untrustworthy, or whatever.

Prejudice against non-standard speakers is taken even further when it is said that they have no proper language at all. In particular, some psychologists have argued that black children in the United States have no grammar and speak merely by stringing a few words together. This type of misconception arises from a failure to realise that the children in question simply have a different grammar from standard English. For instance,

when a black kid says they mine, is not simply putting two words together

(in the way that young children may do).  Instead, this is his equivalent of standard they're mine, both being reduced forms of they are mine (in standard speech, are is "contracted", in non-standard it is deleted). The claim that black children have practically no language has been put forward as explaining why they do so badly in American schools, justifying a

"Compensatory education" designed to make the child fit into the school system. Obviously, this avoids the less comforting conclusion that the children do badly because of the appalling conditions they live in!

A slightly more sophisticated version of this verbal deprivation theory is associated with the name of Basil Bernstein. Bernstein draws a distinction between elaborated and restricted codes, the elaborated code being less tied to the specific "here and now" context than the restricted code. It is claimed that "middleclass" children have access to both codes,

while manual working-class children have access to the restricted code only. Allegedly (and Bernstein is none too particular about citing actual data) a "middleclass" child will tend to describe the

scene in a picture by saying Three boys are playing football and one boy kicks the ball, while a working-class child tends to describe the same picture by saying They're playing football and he kicks it. From anecdotes like this, he leaps to the conclusion that, as the elaborated code is expected to be used in school, working class children's lack of access to the elaborated code is the reason for their comparatively poor scholastic performance. Quite apart from the incorrect view of class, this is unacceptable. All children are able, outside the artificial experimental situations referred to by Bernstein, to use a range of styles, from formal to informal. All speakers of a language,

whatever their social status, speak a language which is as flexible and creative as that of any other speaker.

It should also be stated that there is no such thing as a primitive language. No language which exists today, or for which past records are available, consists of just a few words and no true rules of grammar. Nor are there a people, however primitive their way of life, which does not possess a language which is perfectly adequate for all the uses to which its speakers put it. Even where a language lacks a particular concept because its speakers do not need it, they are not cognitively unable to handle it. For

instance, some Australian aboriginal languages have no words for numbers higher than two (just words for a few and-many), but when their speakers learn English they have no difficulty in mastering the English numerical system and counting as high as you like. There are no such things as backward races speaking primitive languages.

But different people do speak different languages. In a rational society, there would be no reason for this to cause problems, but in capitalism it is the cause of much misery. Nearly every country in the world has more than one language spoken within it (even excluding recent immigrants). Great Britain, for example, has English, Welsh and Gaelic, while Spain has Spanish, Catalan and Basque. Where one language is spoken by an overwhelming Majority of the population, that is likely to be the country's official language. Members of a linguistic minority may be discriminated against in various ways: no books or newspapers may be published in their language, it may not be the medium of teaching in

schools, and so on. Speakers of a minority language will often need to learn

the official language in order to "get on". Resentment against such treatment may lead to the demand for political autonomy, as a means of converting a linguistic minority into a linguistic majority, for instance the aim of an independent Basque state. Let it be said that discrimination on the grounds of language is as odious as discrimination on grounds of race. Nevertheless, the call for independence as a means of ending linguistic oppression is not one that workers should support.

To start with, people do not live in blocks consisting of speakers of only one language (there is no part of Wales where no English is spoken), so that independence would create new linguistic minorities. The demand that speakers of each language should have their own nation also overlooks the consideration that the distinction between a language and a dialect is by no means clear-cut. The standard definition is that, unlike different languages, dialects of the same language are mutually intelligible, but this raises a number of problems. Intelligibility is a matter of degree, may go in one

direction only, and is not transitive (which means. that dialects A and B may

be mutually intelligible, and also B and C, but not A and C). Between Paris and Rome there is a chain of dialects, each intelligible with its neighbour, even though the end-points, standard French and Italian, are not mutually intelligible; on purely linguistic grounds, it is not possible to draw a sharp distinction between dialects of Italian and of French, or between those of Dutch and German. In practice, language and dialect are defined in cultural and political terms, and any attempt to define a nation or state in terms of language is circular. As one American linguist aptly put it, "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy".

But above all, independence does not solve the economic problems of the speakers of a minority language. A separate Basque state would not free Basque workers from unemployment, insecurity and exploitation. These are caused by the economic set-up of society, not by the wrong placement of political frontiers. Capitalism is a world-wide society, and no part of it can escape from world trends and crises. Separatism, whether motivated on linguistic or other grounds, offers precisely nothing to the working class.

Socialism, too, will be a world society, but one without states or frontiers. The concept of linguistic minority will then have no meaning. A language with comparatively small numbers. of speakers will not be discriminated against, and there will be no problem about arranging education in that language, if its speakers so wish. Publishing material in that language will not be restricted by considerations of profit, but by the needs of its speakers. It is possible that an invented auxiliary language, such as Esperanto or Ido, will be used to facilitate communication between speakers of different languages. We look forward to a world in which learning another language will not be the drudge it so often is today, but an

enjoyable adventure. All children could be brought up bilingual, and then travel to other parts of the globe to learn a language in its native environment. Becoming multilingual in this way would be the best way of becoming a true citizen of the world socialist community. Socialist society will mean the liberation of all mankind, without distinction of race, sex or language. We ain't seen nothing yet.  P.B.

Does capitalism work?

An article from the Socialist Standard July 1972

 

"Professor Champions Capitalism" ran the gleeful headline in the Financial and Business supplement of The Scotsman (24 May). The story which followed told us that Professor H. B. Acton, who holds the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, has written a paper for the Foundation of Business Responsibilities titled "The Ethics of Capitalism" in which he glorifies the capitalist system and its beneficiaries, the capitalist class.

The Professor's paper contains a statement on the historical contribution of the early capitalists:

The bourgeoisie, more scrupulous and pacific than the aristocracy and less deferential than the peasantry, so , improved the arts of production that the system of warrior lords and dependent serfs was replaced by one in which large " populations of free citizens enjoy a scope of living which goes beyond what the aristocracy formerly disposed of.

Then follows a list of benefits which the capitalist mode of production brought in its wake:

Free speech, free movement of trade, free thought, exploration of the earth and oceans, 'an ideal of peaceful domesticity, etc.

There can be no question that the Professor's summary is more or less correct. Capitalism was a definite step forward for humanity. Capitalism did abolish the productive methods of feudalism, took away the power of the aristocracy, decimated the peasantry and replaced it by a class of wage-slaves to operate the technology which makes possible modern living, standards – and more.

So, preceding any of capitalism's benefits, was the forcible removal of millions of these "free citizens" and their children from their means of living to be herded into the industrial hells and slums of the towns and cities. There is no indication that the Professor mentioned this in his paper but possibly the, study of Moral Philosophy doesn't include a reading' of, say, Gibbins' industrial History of England or Engels' Condition of the Working Class in England, and whatever the benefits of capitalism they were most definitely not what motivated the bourgeoisie when they set about carrying through their revolution.

Certainly the Professor could claim that all this was yesterday. Nowadays the children have been banished from the mills, mines and factories while in the same issue of The Scotsman Mr. Julian Amery, the Housing Minister, did state that the slum problem could at long last be solved within the next ten years. A likely story, for whatever excesses of the system capitalism does manage to curb it can never eliminate the glaring contradictions and divisions it has given birth to in society. Capitalist is ranged against capitalist over the share-out of the spoils; the workers are periodically at one another's throats over the available jobs and cheap housing. More important, the workers are at constant war with the capitalists over wages and conditions of work. Indeed The Scotsman carried other reports on such conflicts as the war in Vietnam, a 1,000 lb. bomb explosion in Belfast, a possible strike of BEA pilots, a strike by 200 workers at Rosyth Dockyard, and a squabble between Roxburgh County Council  and Scottish Omnibuses over subsidies for 26 uneconomic bus services'

Even more pointed was the story concerning the discovery that Ford Motor company in Detroit have conducted faulty anti-pollution tests on its entire engine line for all l973 passenger models. Should the Environmental Protection Agency insist on the letter of the law then Ford would be forced  to carry out new lengthy tests, or be barred from selling their 1973 cars as  scheduled. Officials of the EPA have hinted, however, that the law might be bent to avoid such a disaster, for the article says;'

The situation brings into sharp, focus the potential conflict between government safety and pollution regulations and the practical alternatives when big industry says it cannot meet these standards; the usual approach has been to change the rules.

So in order that capitalism's day to day functioning isn't interfered with too much the atmospheric poisoning (and Ford's profits) may continue. Truly an excellent example of the "ethics of capitalism"'

Presumably all this strife and turmoil has eluded the professor's notice. He is far too busy currying the capitalists' favour by telling them to be proud of their role and to have confidence in fulfilling their prime function:

to see that the things people need for life and civilisation are produced, modified, multiplied, protected, . stored, moved and delivered.

Do bombs, napalm, defoliant and pollutants come into the category of "things people need for life and civilisation"? Certainly the capitalists see to it that these are "produced, modified, multiplied, protected". And do they see to it that the necessary food is "stored, moved and delivered" for the starving and ill-fed millions throughout the world? No, Professor, the "prime function" of the capitalist is to increase his capital and everything else including human need must take a back seat.

Undoubtedly the coming of capitalism was a progression in social development since it provided the technical impetus for solving the problem of production. Now it stands as a barrier between man and his product and has split humanity from top to bottom. We now need to abolish the private (including state) ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution and introduce instead a new society based on their common ownership and democratic control. The Professor's defence of capitalism is, in the light of all this, as justified as advocating horse-drawn transport in the jet age because it's an improvement over walking'

v.v.

The cuts - the real meaning of cutting back

Clare Simpson, project manager, Parenting Across Scotland , said: "The results of our survey show that the recession is having an adverse effect on families.Some people are losing their jobs, others have less money to spend because hours are being cut or overtime is no longer available while, for many, there is fear and worry about what the future might hold."

A survey carried out by PAS found that 55% of families reduced their spending on food and heating as a result of the recession. Parents were also less likely to spend money on their children, the survey found.One third of parents also claimed the recession had put a strain on their relationships.

PROFIT THE GREATER CONCERN

It's getting closer to election time; politicians claim their concern and understanding for the unemployed. Socialist  remind workers that concern over profits take priority over concern for the unemployed, when the profit motive looks achievable, it becomes business as usual, for example,

 

Recently TV channels have reminded us that the miners strike was 25 years ago, they point out that at the time of the strike, the industry employed 180, 000 miners, after the strike, the number eventually decreased to just over 6,000 being employed in the industry, new cheaper sources of energy were available and that was all that mattered to the capitalist class.

Over recent times, energy supplies have become more uncertain for the capitalist class and the possible profit in coal production has lead to more investment in coal production.

The owners of a UK coal mine have bought state-of-the-art machinery worth £37m - the biggest such UK order in over 20 years.

The cutting and ancillary equipment will be used at Hatfield Colliery near Doncaster in South Yorkshire.

It closed in 2004 but will be fully operational next year.

The six deep mines operating in the UK produce 10m tonnes of coal annually but there is uncertainty over the industry's future.

'Milestone'

Hatfield is having a re-investment programme to develop coal reserves and hopes to produce two million tonnes of coal per year by 2009.

The equipment is being bought from Joy Mining Machinery at its factories in Worcester, Wigan and Pinxton on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border.

Powerfuel's chief executive Richard Budge said: "This is the biggest single order for mining equipment for many years and underlines our confidence in coal and the role it will play in meeting Britain's energy needs for decades to come.

"This is a further major milestone in the re-birth of Hatfield. The equipment is proven technology, manufactured in the UK by a company with the highest reputation on the world stage for quality and performance." ( BBC Sunday 26^th August 2006 )

 

 

The company which owns Scotland's only commercial gold mine has floated on a London stock market.  

Scotgold Resources said it hoped to raise up to £2m on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

Initial fundraising will help the Australian company pay for further exploration and development of a mine at Glen Cononish, near Tyndrum.

But it will only be a fraction of the cost of putting it into production, which could be more than £12m.

Scotgold Resources hopes that a high gold price of about $1,100 (£715) an ounce will help make the economics work for such a risky venture.

It has previously claimed there could be up to £70m of gold in the mine.

The mine was previously abandoned in 1997, when the price of gold fell to under $400 (£260) an ounce.

Chris Sangster said there was probably 4.5 tonnes of gold in the mine

Chris Sangster, chief executive of Scotgold, said: "We are in a very fortunate position that in 1997 when the project was due to have gone ahead before, most of the technical work had already been completed, so we have picked up on that technical work, updated with a bit of new technology, and we are almost ready to roll.

"Our current resource estimate has about 4.5 to five tonnes of gold and about 20 tonnes of silver. That's 150,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold, which at the moment is worth probably $170m, with a bit of silver on top. That's what we know about at the moment."

Mr Sangster said the firm also had a wider exploration programme in the southern Highlands area and there were "good indications" there was more gold available.

Tim Williams, director of mining and metals at analysts Ernst & Young, said: "The Australians are very good at mining this kind of gold - narrow veins and so on.

"In Australia and in Canada, you have this army of investors who will put their own personal money into these little companies and they understand the way the industry works.

"There are about 150 of these junior mining companies on the AIM market in London but it is nothing compared to the thousands in Toronto and in Sydney."

Mr Williams said an AIM listing allowed companies to raise money when they did not have the same trading history as they would need for a main board listing.

 

Friendly Fire?

For some reason, an apology is expected to make people who have nothing to gain from this war, forgive!

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan went on national television Tuesday to apologize for a deadly airstrike, an extraordinary attempt to regain Afghans' trust while a mass offensive continues against the Taliban in the south.

Two U.S. Marine battalions, accompanied by Afghan troops, pushing from the north and south of the insurgent stronghold of Marjah finally linked up after more than a week, creating a direct route across the town that allows convoys to supply ammunition and reinforcements.

In a video translated into the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashto and broadcast on Afghan television, a stern Gen. Stanley McChrystal apologized for the strike in central Uruzgan province that Afghan officials say killed at least 21 people. The video was also posted on a NATO Web site.

Increasing pessimism

Trading in your car and renewing other household items, can't stop the boom slump cycle of capitalism.

 

NEW YORK - Americans' outlook on the economy went into relapse in February. Rising job worries sent a key barometer of confidence to its lowest point in 10 months, raising concerns about the U.S. economic recovery.

The Conference Board said Tuesday its Consumer Confidence Index fell almost 11 points to 46 in February, down from a revised 56.5 in January. Analysts were expecting only a slight decrease to 55. It was the lowest level since the index recorded a 40.8 reading in April 2009.

The increasing pessimism, which erased three months of improvement, is a big blow to hopes that consumer spending will power an economic recovery. Economists watch the confidence numbers closely because consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

THE RECESSION IS OVER, FOR WHOM?

President Barack Obama speaks about creating new energy jobs, February 16 in
Maryland.

Washington. - Job creation in the U.S. is stuck in an uphill treadmill.

So many jobs have been lost that the U.S. must run hard just to keep from losing more ground. Despite the election -year emphasis on job creation by both parties, the short term outlook is bleak.

While many economists believe the recession is technically over, nearly 15 million Americans remain unemployed. Six million of them have been out of work for more than half a year.

Hear in Britain the economists have yet to make up their minds about the recession being over, however, I'm sure increased unemployment will be around even when they decide that it is over.

Insiders and Others

With all this talk of buying bank share in today's papers,

what happens to most of the shares over the years?

This article from the Socialist Standard gives you an
insight of past share dealings

 

 

Another article from the Socialist Standard archives exploring the world of capitalist financial institutions.

Did you get your British Gas shares ? What's that, you didn't bother? Well, neither did most other workers who had the chance, and no one knows how many of those who did buy the shares will hold on to them. It was estimated that on the day after the sale, around one tenth of the shares had already changed hands as small-time buyers sold out to the big institutions like insurance com­panies and pension funds. This is what hap­pened with British Telecom shares. When they were first sold in 1984 the number of individual shareholders was 2.3 million. By May 1986 the number was down to 1.6 mill­ion, a drop of over 30%, and this figure is cer­tain to fall still further as time passes.

Nevertheless, interest in the stock market is a lot higher than ever it was before. Until recently most people only ever saw the stock market quotations in the newspapers if they accidentally turned over two pages at once, but the saturation coverage by the media of the government's privatisation programme has changed all that. Also, the fear of unemployment has ensured that many employees of quoted companies follow the share price of those companies as a guide to their job prospects.

However, the workings of the stock mar­ket remain a mystery to the vast majority of people and this helps preserve the silly notion that financiers, stockbrokers and the like who do understand it are brainier than the rest of us. Actually, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems . One of the main reasons why someone not involved in finance finds it baffling is the frequent use of several different words to describe one item. For example, government "stock" , which pays a fixed rate of interest, is also called "gilts" (gilt-edged) or "consols" (consolidated) while "securities" is simply the all-embracing name for stocks and shares of all kinds.

Different types of shares have different rights and rewards. The "ordinary" shares are the ones which actually own the com­pany. Holders of these have full voting rights and receive a variable dividend depending on the company's profits, if any, and what the directors decide to pay out. These shares are also referred to (more confusion) as "equities". </EM"Preference" shares usually have no vote but entitle holders to a fixed dividend ahead of the ordinary shareholders assuming there is something to pay out. "Deben­tures" are loans made to companies by investors who receive fixed-interest whether the company makes a profit or not.

Until October 1986 members of the Lon­don Stock Exchange had to be British-born. And although they would angrily denounce "who does what" disputes in factories, ship­yards, etc. they had their own restrictive practice. This meant that only those who were brokers could buy and sell securities for the public and they made their money by charging clients a fixed commission. "Job­bers", on the other hand, bought and sold on their own account but could only deal with the public through the brokers and made a living from the difference between the prices at which they bought and sold. So brokers couldn't act as jobbers and vice-versa. Since October membership of the Exchange is open to other nationals and the difference between brokers and jobbers is abolished along with fixed commissions. Now the price on deals is negotiable

All of these changes, known as "de-regu­lation", are the result of the "Big Bang" we have all heard so much about. The idea is to make the London Stock Exchange more competitive with its main rivals in New York (Wall Street) and Tokyo. After all, if custom­ers can have their business carried out more cheaply in New York or Tokyo then that is where they will make their deals and the new computerised communications technology makes that easy to do. This new technology also means that dealers in London will now transact business in their offices and the Stock Exchange floor will be almost deserted from now on

Any stock market must protect its reputa­tion for honest dealing If investors think that they may be ripped-off then they will take their business elsewhere and this is why the New York and London Stock Exchanges are trying to curb "insider dealing". The most notorious insider is the Wall Street speculator, Ivan Boesky, who for years had apparently anticipated the rise in price of var­ious securities which he bought on a huge scale. Hailed as a genius, Boesky had simply been using confidential information passed to him, for a cut, by people who were profes­sionally engaged in takeover bids which would push up the price of the shares involved.

It is hard to imagine that Wall Street didn't know what Boesky was up to. No one can consistently tell in advance what the market will do. The anarchy of capitalist production sees to that. When every company in every industry is making its plans independently of all the others, and when all of them are sub­ject to forces beyond their control such as decisions taken by foreign governments or even their own, then how can future market trends be forecast with any certainty? The truth is that large-scale insider dealing has been the norm for a long time and will con­tinue in the future whatever steps are taken to eliminate it. So much for the claim fre­quently made on behalf of the capitalists that their high returns are justified because they are the "risk takers''. Not if they can help it, they're not!

What about the other claim that the capitalists are the "wealth creators" because of their activities in the stock market? The real wealth of society consists of human beings using their physical and mental energies plus the resources of nature to produce the goods and services society needs. This wealth is legally owned by the owners of the enter­prises whose workers have produced it. All the workers receive in return for their efforts is a part of the total value produced in the form of their wages and salaries. The remain­der, surplus value in the form of dividends and interest, belongs to the owners of the various stocks and shares. These securities are merely legal title to this surplus and it is this title which is being traded when sec­urities are bought and sold. So capitalists create not a scrap of wealth and stock exchanges are only the places where surplus value is divided between them.

Even so, the enormous power of the capitalists makes them seem invincible and many workers, even against their wishes, cannot see how capitalism can ever be top­pled. But the power of the capitalists does not lie in the amount of pounds, dollars and francs they own. It lies in the fact that the vast majority of workers still see production for profit as the only possible method of produc­ing and distributing society's wealth. If that idea should weaken due to the growth of socialist consciousness in the world's work­ing class then the power of the capitalists would not look so invincible at all.

We can see today how easily stock mar­kets can tremble when investors get the jit­ters over, say, the mere rumour of a small increase in interest rates or some other trivial matter. Imagine what those jitters will be like when the socialist movement begins to grow. Who will be willing to invest then? Capitalism depends for its continued exis­tence on working-class support for it. When that support crumbles then so too will the power of the capitalists.

V. V.
Socialist Standard February 1987

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

"Last year, investment bankers and their spouses kept their wallets shut during bonus season, first, out of panic, and later, fearing mobs with torches would descend upon their gated estates.
Now, after a year of self-imposed austerity and in what is shaping up as a spectacular bonus season, the Wall Street crowd is shaking off what one luxury retailer called its "frugal fatigue." Unlike earlier spending sprees, however, the consumption will be a lot less conspicuous. On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley said it was setting aside $14.4 billion for salary and bonuses, or $235,000 per employee. A day later Goldman Sachs said it would pay an average of $498,000, with top producers at each of the two banks earning in the millions. More than in past years, this year's bonus numbers are stirring deep resentment in a nation staggering under 10 percent unemployment." (New York Times, 22 January) RD

MOTHER OF THE FREE

At the last night of the Proms exploited members of the working class like nothing better than to bawl out the words of Land of Hope and Glory. Poor, deluded workers image that there is something superior about being born on a piece of dirt thrown up on the Atlantic Ocean. They never realise that it is an accident where you happen to be born, and indeed that it was probably an accident that they were born at all. This misguided nationalism is fostered by governments and the media. Britain is superior to Johnny Foreigner with his deceitful regimes. No underhanded politics in dear old Britain says the patriot critical of foreign powers, but what is the reality? "MI5 faced an unprecedented and damaging crisis last night after one of the country's most senior judges found that the Security Service failed to respect human rights, deliberately misled parliament, and had a "culture of suspicion" that undermined government assurances about its conduct. The condemnation by Lord Neuberger, the master of rolls, was drafted shortly before the foreign secretary, David Miliband, lost his long legal battle to suppress a seven paragraph court document showing that MI5 officers were involved in the ill-treatment of a British resident, Binyam Mohamed." (Guardian, 11 February)
Yet another example of how the quest for markets soon overcomes any ethical scruples. Not so much a case of Britain Rules The Waves as Britain Waives The Rules. RD

CLASS DIVISION

Socialists are often pilloried because we look at the world from a class perspective. We are accused of being outdated, old fashioned and living in the 19th Century. All that Marxists stuff about class division has been outdated by the new dynamic capitalism of the 21st Century we are told by our critics. A recent government sponsored health review seems to give the lie to that notion.

 " Healthy living is cut short by 17 years for poorest in Britain. The poor not only die sooner, they also spend more of their lives with a disability, an "avoidable difference which is unacceptable and unfair", a government-ordered review into Britain's widening health inequalities said yesterday. ... Not only is life expectancy linked to social standing, but so is the time spent in good health: the average difference in "disability-free life expectancy" is now 17 years between those at the top and those at the bottom of the economic ladder, the report says." (Guardian, 11 February)

A GREATFUL NATION

Capitalist nations are continually in conflict with their rivals and inside capitalism economic rivalry leads to military action. During these actions the press praise " Our Boys" in uniform and regale us with tales of heroism. Nothing is to good for "Our Boys" they claim, but the reality is far different. "Britain's military veterans are too often descending into alcoholism, criminality or suicide because of a lack of support from the Government according to the Mental Healtlh Foundation. Veterans under 24 are two to three times more likely to kill themselves than civilians of the same age. An estimated one in five veterans and Service personnel is said to have a drinking problem. The charity said:"More needs to be done to help veterans stay well."
(Times, 28 January) Having risked life and limb in pursuing the interests of their masters in these hellish conflicts the heroes of yesterday are thrown on the social scrapheap. RD

Food for Thought

The economy seems to be improving but that may be an illusion. Stocks and shares are up mainly because interest rates are so low that capital has flowed there. The real numbers show a different perspective - Ontario lost 17,000 jobs in December and the managed unemployment rate is at 9.3%. Meanwhile, in the US, food stamps are needed by one adult in eight and one child in four to keep food on the table. Real wages there, adjusted for inflation, are lower than they were a decade ago.
How capitalism works on the East coast - no jobs, put your life in hock to buy a boat and catch lobsters, sell them to the US market and make ends meet, wait for the recession that drops the lobster prices to $3/lb when the break even point is $5, what to do? "That ( boat is ) my retirement package. If I sell it to pay my bills, then I'm finished" says a fisherman
( Toronto Star, 26/Dec/2009 )
It's a great competition - a few win, most lose. John Ayers

Summer School 2010

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The Socialist Party's Summer School is being held at Fircroft College, Selly Oak, Birmingham, over the long weekend 23rd - 25th July.

The theme is 'Future Visions' - This year's weekend of talks and discussion looks to the future. But what kind of future? For centuries, people have imagined utopias where advances in technology and attitudes create freedom for all. Or, they have described dystopias, where society turns into a nightmare. Back in the real world, how will capitalism survive and adapt to ongoing economic and environmental concerns? And what kind of socialist society can we aim for as an antidote to this?

The residential cost (including accommodation and all meals) is £130.
The concessionary rate (for students, unemployed people, pensioners etc.) is £80.
The non-residential cost (including meals) is £50.
If you're interested in attending, e-mail Mike Foster at spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk
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Food for Thought

On crime, it's illuminating to read James Morton's article in the Star ( 3/Jan/2010 ). Although the government and the media fuel the fear of crime, Canada is reasonably safe. Violent crime has been dropping for years and was lower in 2007 than in the last decades and property crime is 40% below 1991 levels. Poverty, he says is what drives crime, destabilizing families and areas leading to drug, alcohol, sexual and family abuse. Our abominable prisons tend to be filled with drug addicts, mental patients, poor people, and, as I can attest as a prison volunteer tutor, learning disabled people. As we are aware, poverty is a natural outcome of capitalislm. That wasn't stated , of course. John Ayers

PEACE PRIZE?

"President Obama is planning to increase spending on America's nuclear weapons stockpile just days after pledging to try to rid the world of them. In his budget to be announced on Monday, Mr Obama has allocated £4.3 billion to maintain the U.S. arsenal - £370 million more than George Bush spent on his final years on nuclear security. The announcement comes despite the American President declaring nuclear weapons were the 'greatest danger' to U.S. people during during in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. And it flies in the face of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him in October for 'his extraordinary efforts to strenghthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peaples'"
( Daily Mail, 29 January ) RD

Food for Thought

The only safe injection site for drug users in Canada is sucessfully operating in Vancouver. Other North American cities have noted its sucess and want to have their own. The federal government has tried for years to shut it down. It's much better to throw these people in jail, boost the crime statistics, bring out 'tough on crime' legislation, and look popular. Recently the Supreme Court ruled that it could not be shut down, not because it's sucessful, but because the Fed's don't have any jurisdiction over provincial health. Capitalism is not common sense!
John Ayers

"CARING" CAPITALISM

"CARING" CAPITALISM

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals." Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor ( of South Carolina), made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents. "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food suply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behaviour. They don't know any better," Bauer said."
( Greenville News, 23 January) RD

ANOTHER LABOUR FAILURE

"The divide between rich and poor is greater after 13 years of Labour rule than at any time since the Second World War, according to the Government's own report into inequality. It concludes that Britain remains a nation riven by class " from cradle to grave", despite programmes costing billions of pounds in the past decade designed to narrow the gap." ( Times, 27 January ) RD

Socialist Standard February 2010 Vol.106 Issue,No.1266

As PDF As HTML

Features Haiti - an un-natural disaster The reality with earthquakes is they kill so many only if we let them. They are inevitable, but the death toll is not...Read more > Christmas bombers The son of a Nigerian banker wasn’t the only one on a bombing mission at Christmas...Read more > Who bailed out the bankers? They tell us that we “the taxpayers” did? But it’s not as simple as that...Read more > Beyond capitalism Attempts to reform capitalism, whether through parliament or dictatorship, have failed. This leaves conscious majority revolution as the only way forward...Read more > The market versus cooperation Difficulties with cooperation arise when the restrictions of the market start to operate...Read more > Car boot capers Shopping, it’s said, is the new religion, the new opiate of the people...Read more > Regulars Editorial Contact Details Meetings Cooking the Books 1 Dreams and nightmares Cooking the Books 2 The yellow brick road Cartoons The Irate Itinerant Free Lunch Pathfinders Machine in the ghost Material World America and the S-Word Pieces Together Tiny Tips Reviews Cronies or Capitalists?; First as Tragedy...; Red Planets 50 Years Ago You’ve never had it so good” Greasy Pole Hoon or buffoon? Voice from the Back

Reading Notes

In "Fast Food Nation", Eric Schlosser comments on the line speed of slaughter houses in the meat packing business: "I could always tell the line speed," a former Montfort nurse told me, "by the number of people with lacerations coming into my office." "A faster pace means higher profits. Market pressures now exert a perverse influence on the management of beef plants: the same factors that make these slaughter houses relatively inefficient (lack of mechanization, the reliance on human labour) encourage companies to make them even more
dangerous (by speeding up the pace)" "The line speeds and labour costs at IBP's non-union plants now set the standard for the rest of the industry. Every other company must try to produce beef as quickly and cheaply as IBP does: slowing the pace to protect workers can lead to a competitive disadvantage." " From a purely economic point of view, injured workers are a drag on profits. They are less productive. Getting rid of them makes a good deal of financial sense, especially when new workers are readily available and inexpensive to train." Just some of the basic tenets of the capitalist mode of production. John Ayers

THE GAP WIDENS

"The richest 10% of the UK population are now more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%, according to the Anatomy of Economic Inequality. The study shows that by 2008 Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality since soon after the second world war. Household wealth (including cars and other

possessions) of the top 10% amounts to £853,000 or more, while the poorest 10% amass £8,800 or less."  (Observer, 31 January) RD

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

"Bob Diamond, president of Barclays, sold £5m of shares in the bank, days after the 21,000 investment bankers at Barclays Capital - overseen by Diamond - were awarded hefty pay rises. Diamond still has 8.3 shares, worth £20m, so don't worry about him being short of a few bob." (Observer, 31 January) RD

MILLIONS LIVE ON $2 A DAY

"NBC confirmed to the Associated Press and other news outlets that it had reached a $45 million deal for Conan O'Brien to leave The Tonight Show. The redheaded comic hosted the late-night show for seven months, but was pushed out of his 11:35 p.m. time slot to make way for the return of Jay Leno, whose new low-rated prime time series was cancelled. The Associated Press reports that O'Brien will personally receive $33 million for the early exit, with the remainder going to his staff as severance pay." (US  Magazine, 21 January) RD

The Shame of Scotland

The number of children living in poverty in Scotland remains at an "unacceptably high" level. Save the Children found 95,000 young people, almost 10% of all children in Scotland, were living with families that had less than £33-a-day to spend. The charity found the poorest families were, on average, £113-a-week short of enough money to cover essential costs.Youngsters in single parent households were about three times more likely to live in severe poverty.More than two thirds of those included in the figures lived in families where no adults worked.

The charity described government promises to end child poverty by 2020 as "increasingly hollow"

Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children's programme director in Scotland, said: "We are absolutely outraged that so many children have to go without essentials - we're talking about winter coats and proper shoes, real basics that families just can't afford...."

CAPITALISM IS WORLDWIDE

Members of the working class are taught in schools from a very early age that the country they were born in is somehow special. We are taught to be proud of the country wherein for generations our family has been exploited. We wave flags, sing patriotic songs and are taught to mistrust workers from other countries. The owning class suffer from no such zenophobia. They are prepared to exploit workers of any nationality, creed or so-called race. To them profit is much more important than patriotism. Here is a recent example from the Brighton College newspaper.

"Workers at a Sussex-based electronics firm were today left "devastated" after being told in a video message that manufacturing at their factories is to end and 220 jobs moved to Korea and the Czech Republic. Unite said Edwards planned to cease all manufacturing at its Burgess Hill and Shoreham factories. The announcement was made to employees via a video message, which the union said was "tactless"." (The Argus, 13 January) RD

MIND THE GAP

"Remember the heady days of 1997 and the promised transformation of British society? After 18 long years of rule by a Conservative government whose policies had led to greater prosperity, but also an unprecedented wealth gap, the Labour Party was back in office, offering a fresh start. In the early days, Blair, Brown, and their team promised a land where "wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few." Trouble is that the Labour Party's more equal future has yet to arrive. Despite the rhetoric, the inequality gap has only grown under New Labour. Measured by the income gap between the richest and poorest 20 percent of the population, it's not far behind the U.S.A., Singapore, and Portugal, which top the global list." (Newsweek, 7 January) RD

DEBT RIDDEN BRITAIN

"There has been a huge rise in the amount of money that banks are writing off as bad debts on their credit cards. Bank of England figures show that the total value of the write-offs doubled to £1.6bn in the third quarter of 2009. In each of the two preceding quarters, the figure had been about £800m. It totaled £3.2bn during 2008. The figures reflect the impact of the recession and are an acknowledgement by the banks that the money will never be repaid by defaulting borrowers. By contrast, the value of mortgages written off in 2008 was just £408m, and has averaged £260m in each of the first three quarters of 2009." (BBC News, 19 January) RD

SOCIALISM AND DISASTER

Inside a socialist society everything won't be perfect we will have disasters such as the recent earthquake disaster in Haiti "The leading US general in Haiti has said it is a "reasonable assumption" that up to 200,000 people may have died in last Tuesday's earthquake. Lt Gen Ken Keen said the disaster was of "epic proportions", but it was "too early to know" the full human cost. Rescuers pulled more people alive from the rubble at the weekend, but at least 70,000 people have already had burials. Relief efforts are being slowed by bottlenecks, and many thousands of survivors are fending for themselves. Many Haitians are trying to leave the devastated capital city, Port-au-Prince, and there are security concerns amid reports of looting and violence." (BBC News, 18 January)

Inside a socialist society we will have a commitment by every human being on earth to help every other human being. We won't have some well paid politician in Britain saying that we we will extend our aid from £1 million to £3million in aid. Inside a socialist society we will all try our best to help. Most of the people who died in the earthquake were poor people living in poorly constructed housing. It was ever thus. RD

A POLLUTED SOCIETY

"Islamabad: Over 400 million gallons of untreated industrial waste are being discharged into the sea daily and the city district government of Karachi is finding it difficult to handle the situation because of lack of funds, Environment Minister Hameed Ullah Jan informed the National Assembly during a question-hour on Monday. He said the city government needed Rs13 billion to set up four treatment plants under the K-III project, adding that the Sindh government had arranged Rs7 billion, but was still looking for additional resources. The project is aimed at treating over 300 million gallons of effluent daily. Apprehensions have been raised about poisonous effects of industrial waste on seafood collected from coastal areas of Karachi."

(Dawn.com, 12 January) RD

Class

The newspaper reads "The number of middle-class homeowners in Scotland who are declaring themselves bankrupt is rising dramatically...The trend is being blamed on the well-off no longer being able to use rising equity in their homes to finance their lifestyles and pay off debts.."

Oh , how often we come across the expression "middle class" , as if those people are somehow different from the working class. This article from the archives of the Socialist Standard explains why there is no such thing as middle class and that we are all members of the working class.

Getting the blues in suburbia

There aren't many factory workers like me in the area where I live - a pleasant suburb called Giffnock which lies just over the south side of the Glasgow boundary. I moved there about five years ago and when my workmates heard where I was moving to they were amazed. Al­most all of them live in council flats or houses (Scotland has a much higher percentage of council and other rented housing than England) and they seemed to place Giffnock in the same wealth bracket as Beverley Hills or Mayfair. "They've all got money up there" I was told.

Of course, when I moved into the place I found the reality to be just as I expected. Nearly every household is de­pendent on at least one wage or salary earner and so far I haven't met or even heard of a single millionaire. On the other hand, I have met people who have equally strange notions about factory workers. They presumably get their ideas (preju­dices would be a better word) from the media and are quick to condemn strikes and wage demands which they imagine industrial workers indulge in every five minutes, just for the fun of it.
Obviously, different sections of the working class have false ideas about the others, but it only needs a look beneath the surface to see the essential sameness of all their lives.

Every morning from Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, I leave home at three minutes to seven. I buy my news­paper in the newsagent round the corner and stand in a shop doorway waiting for my lift to work. I get picked up about five minutes past seven and we are on our way. The streets are deserted and as we approach Eastwood Toll we, pass the big houses and the tall blocks of luxury flats which sell for around £80,000. All of them are in, darkness so the occupants must still be in bed, and' it's the same with the bungalows just along the road.
In the next ten minutes we pass through the massive Pollok council estate. There's plenty of lights burning in the houses here and lots of activity, with people walking along the streets, standing at bus stops or waiting at corners for their lifts. Most of them probably feel, like me, that it's tough having to start so early, but in an hour's time the Fenwick and Kilmarnock roads will be jammed with the cars of the salary-slaves from Newton Mearns, Whitecraigs, Williamwood and Giffnock all heading into. the city. For despite what my workmates may think, most of those who live in the big houses, luxury flats and bungalows are employees too, and the fact that they start around nine changes nothing-except that they get home in the evening an hour or two later than we do.

So there are superficial differences between these owner-occupiers and council tenants but the things they have in common are much more important. Like problems, for instance. When we read about all those redundancies in factories, shipyards and steelworks, does anyone imagine that only the shopfloor workers are involved? "White-collar" workers, right up to the highest levels of management, get the push, too. They are not immune to this (nobody is these days) and many of them live in places like Giffnock.

Just recently we noticed that Ian, one of near neighbours, was home a lot during the day and, his car was usually parked outside his house. Eventually we learned what had happened. He worked as some kind of executive (he sometimes talked about his "staff" ) in a big whiskey com­pany, and as the trade is in the middle of its biggest slump in over fifty years his employers had "let him go".
Ian's problem now is to find a new employer. Naturally, a man in his position will look up the situations vacant columns in so-called "quality" news­papers like the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald rather than the more "popular" Daily Record. There was a time when he could have made an appointment at the impressively titled Executive Register, but not now. The Register was closed as part of the government's economy drive so instead of a private interview in a posh office with a fitted carpet, Ian may have to go to the local Job Centre the same as anyone else.

It cannot be denied that the in­habitants of Giffnock are generally a bit better off than those in, say, Pollok. Here and there you can see an extension being built onto the back of a house or maybe double glazing being installed, but they feel the pinch just the same as workers in industry. Another neighbour, Colin, hasn't taken his family on holiday for two years. "Can't afford it", he tells me; the high interest rates which mortgage payers currently face could be the reason. There must be lots like him in Giffnock.

So some of them try to earn a bit extra just as electricians, plumbers, painters, joiners, and other workers do by taking on "homers" in their spare time. The local newsagents have some cards in their windows which demonstrate this. For example, a local man who is probably an architect will draw up plans for your new extension or garage; an accountant offers his services and someone who is "fully qualified" will provide English tuition in the evenings. In the next street there is a woman who does part-time market research. They need more cash, too.
The classified ads in the newspapers also tell a story. Some years ago the dis­covery of oil in the North Sea encouraged speculation that the fuel would cost next to nothing, so people in places like Giff­nock rushed to have oil-fired central heating systems installed. Nowadays the rush is to convert to cheaper gas and the ads are filled with unwanted oil burners and tanks but you can't give them away. I know, I had to pay the local dustmen to get rid of mine.

The fact that many people in places like Giffnock live in better houses, do different work or earn more money than some others does not elevate them out of the working class. They still have to work for a living, worry about making ends meet, face the indignity of the sack and in one degree or another, suffer the prob­lems created by capitalist society. This is what places them firmly in the ranks of the workers whether or not they like it or my workmates know it, and the passing of time makes it more and more evident.

V.V.
Socialist Standard January 1981

CRAZY MONEY

"A rare 1913 U.S. coin once owned by an Egyptian king and later featured in a famous U.S. TV detective series was sold for more than $3.7 million (2.3 million pounds) in a public auction in Florida, the auctioneers said on Friday. The so-called Liberty Head nickel, one of only five known of that specific date and design, was sold "in spirited bidding" to a private East Coast coin collector in Orlando late on Thursday, said Greg Rohan, president of Dallas, Texas-based Heritage Auctions. The buyer wished to remain anonymous. The $3,737,500 price for the five-cent coin included a 15 percent buyer's premium." (Yahoo News, 8 January) RD

POVERTY IN NEW YORK

A letter to the press from Joe Berg, Executive Director, New York City Coalition Against Hunger is very revealing. "In 2008, even before the economic downturn had its worst impact, 1.5 million city residents lived in poverty, 104,000 more than in 2000. More than 1.3 million New Yorkers are now forced to use food pantries and soup kitchens. According to the Coalition for the Homeless, there are 45 percent more people staying in city homeless shelters nightly than when Mayor Bloomberg took office, with levels at an all-time high. On Jan. 7, there were 36,961 people, including 15,727 children, sleeping in city shelters, enough to fill Madison Square Garden two times over. While the number of billionaires in the city dipped slightly in the last year (from 64 to 56), their combined net worth still equaled more than 27 times the yearly income of all 1.5 million New Yorkers in poverty." (New York Times, 11 January) RD

MILKING THE PROFITS

"All across the country, diary farmers are facing the loss of their livelihood. In 1985, there were 28,000 diary farmers in England and Wales. By last November ... there were 11,551 left. As recently as two years ago Britain was self-sufficient in milk. Now we import 1.5 million litres a day. For the farmers who struggle on, their working lives – and that of their herds – have become a grind: such is their despair that one a week commits suicide. Forget the idyll of the straw-hatted farmer watching his contented cows chewing the cud in open pasture. Many herds have never seen fields. They are indoors day and night and are milk-producing machines, fed on grass brought to them and mixed with concentrates to boost their yields. The chief villains are the supermarkets which, by driving down milk prices, are forcing farmers to intensify production or go out of business and leave the way clear for foreign imports. Currently one litre of full fat milk costs around 75p – of which farmers get around 26p, the exact cost of producing it." (Daily Telegraph, 9 January) RD

A HOME OWNING DEMOCRACY?

"About 1 million families have resorted to using credit cards to pay their mortgage or rent during the past year, the housing charity Shelter claimed today. A survey by the organisation found around 6% of households had used their plastic during the past 12 months, in order to keep up with their housing costs. People in working class professions were most likely to use debt to cover their mortgage or rent at 8%, but 4% of ABC1s also admitted they had used their credit card in this way. "If people are already struggling to the extent that they fear losing their home, increasing credit card debt cannot be the answer," said Kay Boycott, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter." (Guardian, 11, January) RD