Bank Nationalisation

It is no co-incidence that the cries for banking reform invariably comes during economic depressions. The lubrication that keeps the capitalist machine running – the money markets – are dysfunctional.

As Marx identified “So long as things go well, competition effects an operating fraternity of the capitalist class…so that each shares in the common loot in proportion to the size of his respective investment. But as soon as it is no longer a question of sharing profits, but of sharing losses, everyone tries to reduce his own share to a minimum and to shove it off upon another. The class, as such, must inevitably lose. How much the individual capitalist must bear of the loss, ie, to what extent he must share in it at all, is decided by strength and cunning, and competition then becomes a fight among hostile brothers. The antagonism between each individual capitalist’s interests and those of the capitalist class as a whole, then comes to the surface…”

 Marx also pointed out that “the moneyed interest enriches itself at the cost of the industrial interest in the course of a crisis” Bankers are enriching themselves at the expense of industry and workers, in other words. So whats new?

The economist David Harvey has explained that the losses of the crisis are finally distributed between factions of the capitalist class, and between the working and capitalist classes, and whatever the power struggle that ensues, the necessary result will be the destruction of value (closure of workplaces, the laying off of workers, destruction of surpluses, defaulting on debt, cutting of state services, and so on) so that a new round of capitalist accumulation can begin. The sad but inevitable reality of capitalism.

Some in America seek a solution in the likes of the State Bank of North Dakota. That the bank owned by state authorities weathered the recession was perhaps more a reflection that the state’s economy is primarily based on agriculture and oil, both involved in current boom times. Nor was the state particularly exposed to the sub-prime disaster “North Dakota really didn’t participate in subprime to a significant degree. I mean, that was–you know, it was sort of a flyover state. All of the aggressive subprime lenders apparently didn’t think there were enough folks in farms that they could get to lever up to take on these dodgy loans.” explained  Yves Smith. author of the book ECONned and creator of the website NakedCapitalism.com

In Scotland, we have the almost unique bank success story of the Airdrie Savings Bank, the UK's last remaining independent savings bank  The bank was founded in 1835 and was born out of the general "thrift" movement prevalent at the time.

 Bucking the trend of the credit crunch, Airdrie Savings Bank has increased its lending for the third year in a row, according to its latest annual results, it lent a record £48.5m - a 35% increase on 2010.  It lent 24% more in 2010 than it did in 2009. Yet we still witness that “North Lanarkshire has been particularly rocked by the recession, including above-average redundancies, because the economy is not as diverse as some and there remains a heavy reliance on sectors that seem more susceptible to economic shocks” as one report describes. Not much of a success story.

What socialists say about the banks is not regulate them, nor nationalise them, but make them redundant. Abolish them, along with all the rest of the complicated, financial superstructure of the capitalist production-for-profit economy. The mythology surrounding the power of banking helps those who take the view that this vast institution is so necessary that the prospect of a world without money would be unthinkable. Let’s abolish capitalism and live in a moneyless, propertyless world without banks. That means moving from a demand for ‘regulation change’ to one for ‘system change’. Perceived wisdom is that it should be easier to make socialists in a recession when the shortcomings of capitalism are more evident. This capitalist recession will eventually end and the economy at some time in the future will inevitably return to growth. If there are more socialists at that future time, then at least one positive outcome will have resulted from this sorry and preventable mess.

“…no kind of bank legislation can eliminate a crisis” – Marx

Food for thought

About seventeen per cent of Torontonians between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four were unemployed last year according to a report by the Toronto Community Foundation. The report attributes youth unemployment to the disappearance of mid-level jobs and increased employment among seniors. Under capitalism, it's a competition at all levels; if some people do well others will do badly. It's in its DNA.
Tim Hudak, leader of the opposition Conservative Party in Ontario is spouting the usual neo-liberal garbage as he sees an opportunity for power now that Liberal Premier, McGuinty, has resigned. Paraphrasing the disastrous (for workers) Mike Harris of the former Conservative government, Hudak is calling for smaller government (read less services), 'common sense', 'straight talk', and lower taxes (read more money for the capitalist class and, again, less services). No doubt many in the working class will fall for that claptrap again.
"Is low-wage coal mining a unique skill?" asks Thomas Walkom (Toronto Star, Oct 13, 2012). Early in the 20th century, he tells us that when the workers in the gold mines of Northern Ontario went on strike, French Canadians were brought in, and when they struck, the Finns arrived, then the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Italians, and after them, the Cornish miners from England. In each case the tactic was to bring in workers who did not make common cause with those already there and who would work for less. That was one hundred years ago so it's depressing to hear that the coal mines in BC are bringing in two thousand Chinese workers. They will be dependent on their employer for work visas and so less likely to complain about poor conditions and low pay. Now that the Harper government has allowed temporary migrant workers to go virtually unlimited, this is a scenario that will be repeated often. This just shows that nothing changes in capitalism -- the driving force will always to be to produce ever more surplus-value in whatever way it takes. John Ayers

EXPLOITATION AND HYPOCRISY

There are charities like WaterAid that want you to spend a few pounds in helping to have clean water for millions doomed to death because of the lack of clean water. You can read of children dying because they cannot have anything to eat and some dogooders asking you do something about it. Meanwhile in the real world the owning class live lives of extraordinary affluence. "RBS boss Stephen Hester is renting a £260,000-a-year Victorian mansion - on top of the two multimillion-pound properties he already owns. Hester, who has run the taxpayer-backed bank since 2008, has begun renting the five-bedroomed townhouse to live with new bride new bride Suzy Neubert, 47, according to reports." (Daily Mail, 30 October) The owning class live of working class exploitations and then construct charity organisations. Hypocrisy! RD

Them that got, are them that gets

Discontent has always provided fertile soil for nationalism. Many on the Left advance nationalism and support the nation-state as a bulwark against globalisation. This is a dangerous fallacy. Nationalism produces artificial borders between human beings based on arbitrary biological, linguistic and cultural differences, and it conceals class conflicts. There is no benevolent progressive nationalism. Nationalism is an opportunistic way to prey on people's prejudices and stereotypes. A  conception of national identity has long been useful to ruling classes wishing to divide their subjects in order to better rule them. Nationalism as a concept presupposes that a person places the interests of his or her nation above all others.

Behind the Saltire stands a ruling elite. In the end, everything that is done in the name of “Scotland” is done for the benefit of this ruling elite, even if it is at the expense of every other Scot. The flag is a tool the ruling class can use to tie all the Scottish people together, to bind Scots into believing that all that their government does is in their interest. You may wave the Saltire. Or you may look behind the flag and see who is trying to pull your strings and manipulate your emotions.

 Socialists reject the very notion of nationalism. We believe that there is no common interest between the people of a particular nation. The world is divided into two great classes, the workers and the bosses, their common class interests are so great that their cultural differences are irrelevant. We believe that human culture is much too varied to be neatly boxed up into any number of national identities. We embrace diversity and acknowledges the right of all to choose their own culture, language and beliefs. We believe that this can only be achieved by ending the fundamental division of our society, the class division. The Socialist Party challenges the very idea of classifying people into nationalities by concentrating on the common class interests that unite workers across national divides. Nationalism can never address the workers' real problems.

Tom Bell - Industrial Unionist

What they said before they became Moscow's men and followed the Moscow line.

British Advocates of Industrial Unionism
Glasgow Branch

Extract

The above body has come into existence to advocate the principles of Industrial Unionism, i.e., an economic organisation embracing all wage-workers, irrespective of the trade or craft to which they belong, and having for its object the taking and holding “of all the means of production for the entire working class.” ...

...What we aim at is an Industrial Union broad enough to take all wage-workers into its ranks, thus making an injury to one the concern of all. As the old handicraft form, of production has been brushed aside in the march of economic development to make way for the modern machine industry with its sub-division of labour and complexity of form, so craft unionism, which is a reflex of the former, must make way for an industrial organisation of the workers to suit modern conditions....

...The Industrial Unionist stands firmly on the bed-rock of the class struggle, and; declares, that so long as the means of production are in the hands of a numerically small class, the workers will be forced to sell their labour-power to them for a bare subsistence wage. Consequently, between these two classes a struggle must go on until the toilers come together on the political as well as on the industrial field and take over for themselves that which, being the result of their labour, justly belongs to them...

....Industrial Unionism in recognising that there never can been anything in common between the employing class and the working class, instils into the workers’ mind a sense of class solidarity on the economic field and promotes unity on the political field. With these two separate though complementary movements, the political to destroy the capitalist political State, and the Industrial to back up the political and form the Parliament of Industry in place of the defunct class State,— the workers could forthwith lock-out the employing class and accomplish their freedom...

 Secretary,
THOMAS BELL.
333 Westmuir Road, Parkhead.

A CUT RATE HEALTH SERVICE

In times of economic downturn the government searches eagerly for ways to cut expenditure and one of the easier targets is the National Health Service. "The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said that despite the Coalition's promise to protect frontline staff from cuts the NHS workforce has fallen by almost 21,000 since the Coalition Government came to power. This includes a loss of more than 6,000 qualified nursing posts – from a total of 312,000 nursing posts in the NHS. ..... Patient safety will be seriously undermined by falling numbers of nurses, with the RCN's chief executive warning that standards of care "are going to get a lot worse"." (Independent, 13 November) Bigger and better bombs but less spent on health services that is how capitalism operates. RD.

A CANCEROUS SOCIETY

The class division between the wealthy minority of the capitalist class and the impoverished working class not only decides what kind of life you live but also whether you live at all. "Each year 5,600 people in England miss out on having their cancer diagnosed at an earlier stage because of social inequalities, say experts. The findings in Annals of Oncology show a gulf between the richest and poorest remains despite efforts to improve cancer awareness and access to care. ..... Patients living in poorer neighbourhoods in eastern England were less likely to have their cancers picked up early than those living in more affluent parts of this region." (BBC News, 13 November) RD

Quote of the Day

"Written right across every page of human history is the declaration that no people can be free so long as the private ownership of the means of production and distribution endures. Self-determination under capitalism is therefore an impossibility, and demands for its realisation a preceding social revolution. Such a fundamental change of the internal structure of society liberates the social aspirations of the peoples of the world, shatters the exploiting factions, and rising from the age-long struggles free citizens of the world combine. Thus the League of capitalist groups sinks out of sight, joins the barbaric ages, to which it rightfully belongs, and on the basis of the social ownership and control of the means of life there rises the new order—the self-determining combined in the great Federative Republic of the Workers of the World."

 Arthur. MacManus, Red Clydesider, (1889 – 1927)

LAND OF THE FREE?

Patriotic Americans are fond of boasting about the great freedom enjoyed by their citizens compared to other countries, but recent figures show this to be an insupportable falsehood. "Correctional institutions across the U.S are bursting at the seams with more than two million Americans behind bars. The worst hit state, California, houses 140,000 inmates when its 33 adult prisons are only designed to hold a maximum of 80,000. Overall, the Bureau of Prisons Network is around 39 per cent over 'rated capacity' - their highest level since 2004 - with that figure expected to soar to 45 per cent above its limit by 2018." (Daily Mail, 26 October) RD

THE PRIORITIES OF CAPITALISM

All over the world capitalist governments facing an economic recession are eager to cut expenditures and are examining ways to cut pensions and welfare payments, but there is one area of government expenditure that shows no signs of cut-backs. "The USS Gerald R. Ford is the most expensive weapon ever created and will run about $11.5 billion, with three ships costing about $40.2 billion. Even given these generous estimates, the Navy figures that the USS Gerald R. Ford could cost as much as $1.1 billion more than planned, making it far and away the service's most expensive warship." (Business Insider, 25 October) In order to protect sources of raw materials, markets and spheres of economic and political influence the owning class must have up-to-date weapons of destruction. RD

THIS IS PROGRESS?

 

Away back in the 1960s newspapers used to speculate that with the advance of science and labour-saving gadgets the working week would be cut drastically and retirement ages would fall dramatically, but capitalism just doesn't work that way. "As they struggle to save for retirement, a growing number of middle-class Americans plan to postpone their golden years until they are in their 80's. Nearly one-third, or 30%, now plan to work until they are 80 or older -- up from 25% a year ago, according to a Wells Fargo survey of 1,000 adults with income less than $100,000. "It is so tough for Americans to save for retirement that the answer seems to be to work longer," said Joe Ready, director of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust. Overall, 70% of respondents plan to work during retirement, many of whom plan to do so because they simply won't be able to afford to retire full time." (CNN Money.com, 25 October) In the most developed capitalist country in the world the working class are working harder and longer that they did in the 1960s. RD

FEED THE WORLD

One in eight people — 870 million worldwide — will go to bed hungry tonight. One-third of all child deaths globally are caused by under-nutrition. Most of the world’s hungry are farm families; 75 percent of the world’s poor are rural. In poor countries, people spend two-thirds of their daily income on food. When food prices rise, poor households eat less nutritious food. Malnutrition decreases learning capacity. 80 percent of our brain develops during the first 1,000 days of life; if malnourished, then it doesn’t recover.

The tragic irony is feeding the planet, now and in the future, can be done. According to estimates by several studies, there are already 3,000 calories available for every man, woman and child, which is more than enough to sustain us.

 Who cares what’s in store for the future, as long as the rich can pocket the money they make today? Who cares what their craving for more profits may bring tomorrow?

Ruling by Fooling

 The Socialist Party constantly hammers home that the SNP are nothing but another party of the ruling class. The Scottish Saltire is a commercial asset. A brand label. It represents the economic and political interests of the capitalist classes. Many on the Left believe that Scottish nationalism is a progressive force, and can therefore be used. They either do not understand, or opportunistically refuse to accept the fundamental role of nationalism. Deceived by this, sincere people work in the nationalist movement only to discover that they have been misled and have been wasting their time. You can't be a good internationalist and a nationalist at the same time, just as you cannot be a good monarchist and at the same time a good republican. Workers have to make the choice.

Socialists are not working to divide the working class. We are working to get the whole movement on to the lines of class conscious revolutionary activity to achieve the social revolution. To socialists neither race nor creed should separate the workers of the world. We believe that the co-operative commonwealth cannot be reached till capitalism is overthrown by the workers. Socialists re-affirm "It is better to be a traitor to your country than a traitor to your class!"

It is not possible to achieve a socialist society in Scotland. This is because, if such a society were realised, it would be easily crushed by the capitalist states that surround it. A socialist Scotland is sustainable only if socialism has been realised world-wide. At the present time most that socialists in Scotland can do is create an organisation to spread socialist ideas.

It is too easy to simply place the blame for the failures of capitalism upon the shoulders of the banks and financial speculators. Such criticisms are a form of simple minded nationalism. The acute economic and financial problems currently besetting Scotland are a product of world capitalism.

Parties like the Scottish Socialist Party clamour for a state-capitalist solution to Scotland's problems but there is essentially no difference between their position and the position being held by the SNP. Both want a capitalist solution within a national framework. Their differences are rooted in mere modifications as to how wealth is to be distributed. Modifications in wealth distribution fails to change class relations. Neither want a real revolution in the character of the production process -- a socialist solution. There cannot be a "socialist" solution except within an international framework. In short the Scottish working class need the revolutionary awakening  mobilisation of the Europen, North American and Asian working class. Other than that a capitalist solution is the only solution possible.

The SSP call for more and more state spending as the means towards the solution of the problems of the working class. In other words it calls for the growing expansion of the capitalist state as the solution to social problems. In other words they want a stronger more all-embracing capitalist state. They are forever offering solutions that endeavour to make capitalist society more efficient. They want to save capitalism not overturn it. The SSP mislead the voters when they claim to have a "socialist" alternative to the policies of the SNP and the Labour Party. Nor are the nationalist policies of the SSP actually sustainable.

 Consequently the SSP are incapable of implementing nationalist policies nor social revolution. No-where in the world has capitalism been reformed out of existence. Nor can it be. The politics of the SSP are inherently opportunist. They fail to make clear that it is the character of capitalism that is the fundamental problem -- not incompetent governments. Socialists support the socialisation of the forces of production on a world basis. Consequently we don't support nationalist solutions to what are global problems

However, we should emphasise that the Socialist Party does not envisage a socialist world from which all the existing variations between different communities and cultures have been stamped out. That is total uniformity – with all people speaking the same language, reading the same books, watching the same television programmes. On the contrary, we assume that different communities each with their own history, literature and language may well desire to preserve their different cultural, environmental and artistic characteristics.

BEHIND THE STATISTICS

The recent economic downturn throughout Europe has led to the publication of staggering statistics about poverty. "Every fifth resident lives in poverty in Spain, new figures showed Monday, dpa reported. The national statistics institute INE said 21.1 per cent of the 47-million population lives below the poverty line, meaning they live on less than 7,355 euros (9,610 dollars) annually. ..... The number of minors aged under 16 living in poverty has increased to 21 per cent from 19.4 per cent in 2011." (Turkish Weekly, 22 October) Behind the grim figures lies the day to day to misery that capitalism forces on members of the working class. "A woman aged 53 jumped to her death from the balcony of her fourth-floor flat in Bilbao as baliffs arrived to evict her for failing to pay her mortgage. There are 500 evictions a day in Spain." (Times, 10 November) RD

Food for thought

From the Casino of capitalism -- The National Stock Exchange of India reported (Toronto Star, October 6, 2012) that fifty-nine erroneous orders prompted a plunge in equities that briefly erased about $58 billion in value, underscoring growing global concern about the integrity of financial markets. Senior managing director of Aquarius Investments that manages about $400 million, said, " India has joined the big league with this trading disaster. It's very surprising so many erroneous orders went through. Exchanges and regulators must be one step ahead as systems and technologies upgrade." No kidding, most people get concerned if they lose a few dollars! John Ayers

Dalgety Bay Cancers

Government scientific advisers have discovered a almost double the incidence of cancers among people living near Dalgety Bay in Fife, which is contaminated by radioactivity.Last month, the UK Government's Health Protection Agency (HPA) issued advice that public health risks from radiation at Dalgety Bay were low. But this has now been undermined by the report for the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (Comare), which advises ministers in Westminster and Holyrood.

 An expert report for a Department of Health advisory committee on radiation has found a marked increase in liver and blood cancers close to the site of the contamination. The report pointed out that liver cancers were concentrated in communities near the polluted foreshore. This "reinforces the suspicion" they were linked to the discarded radium that has littered the area for decades, the report said.

Radioactive contamination was first discovered at Dalgety Bay, a popular sailing resort, in 1990. It is thought to come from radium used to illuminate the dials of aircraft disposed of in the area after the second world war. More than 2500 radioactive hotspots have been found on the foreshore in the past 22 years, more than 1000 since September 2011. They have ranged in size from tiny specks to lumps as big as half-bricks and include some of the most lethal found on public beaches. Parts of the foreshore have been closed for the past year and an official ban on harvesting shellfish has also been put in place.

Chinese Capitalism

"As a party member, I will work hard and teach other people how to get rich together and let more people benefit by getting rich," Wang Dongxin, the general manager of Jiangxi Luhuan Animal Husbandry, a pig-breeding company,  said to hundreds of Communist Party members in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Chinese president Hu Jintao said China was still in the "primary stage of socialism" and still needed to pursue "socialist modernisation" as its main task, aiming to double the 2010 per-capita income of both urban and rural residents by 2020. Hu has previously said China's modernisation drive under one-party rule would take "several, a dozen or even dozens of generations". [a generation is generally defined as about 30 years so it will be a long transition!- Socialist Courier]

The New York Times reported last month that the extended family of Premier Wen Jiabao had amassed assets worth $2.7 billion.

Hu Jia, a leading rights activist, said Hu's speech and remarks by Xi at the congress were full of "hackneyed phrases". He said the highly orchestrated congress was "completely an 'emperor's new clothes' show". Hu Jia and scores of other dissidents and activists were detained, threatened or held under house arrest in what rights group Amnesty International said was a intensifying crackdown in the run-up to the congress.

Six more Tibetans set fire to themselves to protest about Chinese rule on Wednesday and Thursday, escalating a campaign that has seen about 70 self-immolations in the past two years.

Shell-shock

The term shellshock was not coined ­until 1915. By 1938, more than 128,000 men were diagnosed with the condition.

 “The condition was often given the more genteel term ‘neurasthenia’ for officers. Shellshock was considered by the military authorities to be a sign of weakness and a condition of the working class.” explains Yvonne McEwen, honorary fellow at Edinburgh University and director of Scotland’s War Project

William Morris in Scotland (3)

Socialism Militant
 

Commonweal, Vol 4, No. 117, 7 April 1888, p.106-7

Since a year may make a good deal of difference in the position of a party, even when it is being carried on by quiet propaganda, I give a brief account of my lecturing tour in Scotland and my impressions of the position of Socialism there. On the 21st March I lectured at Kilmarnock, a not very important town on the edge of the mining district. The chief industry in the town itself is that of the railway works — a tolerably good indication, by the way, of labour being cheap in the neighbourhood; accordingly I was informed that the iron-miners in the neighbourhood are earning about nine shillings a-week working four days a-week, and that the coal-miners in the neighbourhood are not much better off. I spoke in the church of Mr Forrest, my inviter. The audience was fair as to numbers; they were not demonstrative, and it was found impossible to get them to ask any questions; they were, however, very attentive, and showed their interest in the subject by buying over 10s. worth of literature. A large proportion of the audience seemed to me to be of the middle-classes. A branch of the Scottish Land and Labour League has just been formed here, but I was told that the town was hard to move.

The following Friday produced a failure. Our Edinburgh comrades had taken a large hall for my lecture in Leith (not being able to get a smaller one), but only five persons turned up besides the branch, who showed up well; so the money was returned and we gave it up. However, seeing plenty of people hanging about in the street as we went homeward rather sadly, we started an open-air meeting, and got together upwards of 200 persons, who listened for an hour and a half to me and some of the members of the branch, though the snow presently began to come down fast.

The next day I went to West Calder, a mining village some half-hour’s railway ride from Edinburgh. We did not expect much of a meeting on a Saturday evening in such a place, especially as a very moderate amount of advertising had been used; but some of our Edinburgh comrades got down there, and did their best to get an audience by beginning in the open air; the bell-man — or rather, the bell-boy — was sent round also, and we got together some sixty persons, all work-men, into the room, which was thought very good considering the circumstances. They made an excellent audience as to attention and spirit. In the ensuing discussion, one person put forward as an objection a point which I see is made the most of by a well-known hand in To-day — to wit, that Socialism will produce wealth so abundantly and easily that we should not find work enough to do, and should deteriorate in consequence. The audience, mostly miners, obviously thought that this was an objection which might be passed over for the present, and were much tickled by the objector’s persistency in his threats of a life of ease.

The Edinburgh Whig rag, the Scotsman, by the way, paid me the compliment of publishing a paragraph on this meeting, which implied that I could not get an audience and came away with nothing done; and when I wrote to contradict its statement, favoured its readers with an explanation which was a model of the suppression of truth and suggestion of untruth. It is a matter of course that this journal goes out of its way to treat our friends unfairly.

On Sunday I went to Glasgow; and here I had every reason to damn ‘the nature of things’ as heartily as Porson did when he hit his head against the doorpost; for it came on to snow at about one o'clock and snowed till the time of meeting harder than I ever saw it snow, so that by 7.30 Glasgow streets were more than ankle-deep in half-frozen slush, and I made up my mind to an audience of fifty in a big hall; however it was not as bad as that, for it mustered over 500, who passed nem. con. a resolution in favour of Socialism. Owing to the weather, our comrades could not attempt the preliminary open-air meetings which they had intended to do; so I passed the day with them in their rooms in John Street, very much to my own pleasure, as without flattery they were, as I have always found them, hearty good fellows and thorough Socialists. All political parties in Glasgow have been depressed of late, they told me, and the Socialists have partly shared in this depression, though not as much as other bodies; but the knowledge of the movement and sympathy with it have grown very much, and our comrades are in good heart about it. The first novelty of the subject has worn off, and those who attend the meetings now are those who look upon the matter seriously. This is the view taken by our comrades wherever I went, and from all I could see I thought it the accurate one.

Perhaps the next day’s meeting (Monday) at Edinburgh tended to show this. It was a miserable night again, and we did not expect an audience of dilettanti — and did not get it. It was about as numerous as I got last year under better circumstances, but differed from that in having scarcely any middle-class persons in it. As to quality, it was one of the very best audiences I ever spoke to, and missed no point in the lecture. In fact in Edinburgh at least I seem to have exhausted the sympathies (?) of those who came at first to amuse themselves over the eccentricities of a literary man, and only those are left who really want to take counsel about the one question worth considering — how to free our minds and bodies from capitalistic tyranny. We had the usual treat afforded us by one Mr Job Bone, who attends and opposes all meetings, and who used to be thought a nuisance, but is now accepted as a convenient shoeing-horn to a discussion, and whose malicious folly is useful in drawing out the lecturer to explain matters that might otherwise remain unnoticed.

The next day I went to Dundee, where I had much the same kind of audience, except that there were more middle-class persons amongst it, who made themselves useful by asking questions easily answered, but (I hope) in a way not satisfactory to them, though very much so to the working-men present. One of the questioners was the sub-editor of the Radical paper, and I answered an unfair question of his with some warmth, so I was not surprised at getting a very curt report next morning; whereas the Tory journal reported us fairly and well. The audience was very hearty and appreciative. There is a branch here of the Scottish Land and Labour League, manned by energetic workers, whose work, however, is difficult, because ordinary party politics run high in Dundee, and the Radicals there have not got further than the Gladstoneite programme, if it can be called a programme.

From Dundee I went to Aberdeen, where I found another branch of the SLLL, including some energetic and intelligent men, a good deal kept down, as might be expected, by the ordinary Radicalism of the place, and some of whom, I think I may say consequently, are rather eager to try parliamentary agitation. Another stormy and wretched evening made me expect a thin audience; but the hall, which was a small one, was filled. The audience was mostly middle-class here, and rather heavy to lift, though attentive and not disposed to carp. The press reported the meeting carefully and well next morning.

If I could have, I would have visited Carnoustie, a mere village between Aberdeen and Dundee, but which has a good branch; but time was getting on, and I had promised to assist at a social gathering of our Edinburgh comrades on Thursday evening. I had a pleasant and interesting evening with them; and so finished what I came to do.

On the whole, in spite of some poor audiences (though the weather largely accounts for that), I was very favourably impressed by the outlook for Socialism in Scotland. There can be no doubt that much progress has been made since last year, in the teeth of great difficulties. As aforesaid, the novelty has worn off; respectability is beginning to see what Socialism really means, and doesn’t like the look of it at all; the press is deadly hostile, and not ashamed of any meanness in its treatment of the movement those who are dependent on ‘employers’ need expect no mercy from them if they are spotted as Socialists; the traditional puritanism of the country throws additional obstacles in the way of propaganda, — and with all this the movement is gaining ground steadily, and has an appearance of solidity about it which is most encouraging. I saw most of our Edinburgh comrades, and they seem to me to have entered on a new stage of the movement, and to promise to be as staunch as may be. The progress they have made since last year is remarkable.

William Morris in Scotland (2)

The Sequel of the Scotch Letter

 Commonweal, Vol 2, No. 26, 10 July 1886, p.114

On Sunday 27th June I lectured on the ‘Political Outlook’ at the Waterloo Rooms, Glasgow, the same place where my Thursday’s lecture was given; this was under the auspices of the Branch, and our comrade Muirhead took the chair. There was a larger attendance than on the Thursday; howbeit several got up and went out almost as soon as I began: it seems there was some mistake as to my subject, as there was a religious meeting elsewhere on the premises, and some of the proper audience thereof had wandered into our hall. Moreover I suspect that some found themselves ‘caught’ by my title, and expected the lecture to refer to the present election instead of the wider subject which it dealt with. The audience was over 600, I should think, and was attentive and sympathetic. Instead of the cut-and-dried, meaningless vote of thanks, our comrades arranged to try the effect of a resolution, which was thus worded: ‘That all political action which does not aim at placing the entire means of production in the hands of the community, to be used by it for the equal benefit of all, is totally inadequate to raise the present labouring classes to the level which they have a right to claim as human beings.’ Comrade Glasier put this resolution in a very able speech, and it was seconded by Mr Cunninghame; and to my surprise no one proposed an amendment, or spoke against it: some half-dozen hands were held up against it; the rest, for. We afterwards appealed to the audience to make their resolution good by joining the League, and got some names at any rate. Mr Bennet, once editor of the Radical, who said he had come in late by misadventure, made a sympathetic speech at the end of the meeting. The literature sold well.

The last lecture was on Monday 28th, at Bridgeton, the east end of Glasgow, and to speak plainly a most woeful abode of man, crying out from each miserable court and squalid, crowded house for the abolition of the tyranny of exploitation. But here we did not score a success. There were election meetings going on all about us; and I fear that our audience was just not that which we wanted — to wit the poor folk of the district, who, if they only knew it, do so sorely need showing what it is that has doomed them to their special form of hell-upon-earth — one of the worst forms in existence, I should think. The audience was about 200, in a large hall, but entirely on our side. The monotony of acquiescence was only broken by an eager religionist, who turned his question-time into a kind of sermon addressed to us, which the audience listened to rather impatiently. A clergyman who elicited from me the answer that service as well as actual production of commodities conferred the title of good citizenship upon a man, seemed satisfied that this admission safe-guarded his craft in future society; but as he did not openly champion that position, it was not discussed. Comrades Glasier and Greer moved and seconded a resolution, the wording of which has escaped my memory, but which was rather more complete in its Socialism than the one of Sunday, and no hand was held up against it. Several names were taken for the Branch before we left the hall.

This was the end of my work; but I should mention that I had a long conference with the Branch on the Sunday, and must say that though circumstances prevent their propaganda from being showy, it is sound, and especially that there seems every chance of their developing the sale of Commonweal. I must add that the Branch of the Social Democratic Federation is on very friendly terms with them, and that they co-operated heartily in trying to make our meetings a success; and the members that I came across were very cordial to me.

Altogether the condition of opinion in the Scotch towns that I have visited is encouraging. It must be remembered that it was a bad time of the year for the kind of work I had in hand; to which must be added the much more important stumbling-block days of the most exciting election time of our days and yet the halls were mostly well filled, and the audiences more than attentive — almost enthusiastic — and as above said, two of them passed Socialist resolutions. In short, not to make too much of outward tokens, one could not help feeling that the ideas of socialism are taking hold, and that people are beginning to feel the hollowness of that kind of politics in which all reforms pass by those who need them most. Nor will the attachment to puritanic religion, which has been held up as such a bugbear to us, be a very serious barrier to Socialism; the one or two appeals to it which were made in my hearing were received decidedly coldly. The Scotch, it seems, no longer care to mix religion with their politics, whatever influence genuine feeling, or habit, or respectability may have on them in the matter. I was told that when Henry George appealed to their old puritanic feeling on the occasion of his last visit, it fell very flat indeed; and I was not surprised to hear it, after my own small experience herein. Here, then, is good hope of harvest, and once again the labourers are few. Let us hope that will mend before long, and that Scotland will not be the last in the Revolution.

Football Capitalism

Rangers only narrowly escaped extinction and now bankruptcy is the prospect facing current Scottish Cup holders Heart of Midlothian. The Jambos have been issued with a winding up order from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over an unpaid £450,000 tax bill. Hearts supporters have been urged to find £2m to help the Edinburgh club survive until the summer. The club has already faced disciplinary action from the Scottish Premier League over its failure to pay some players and coaching staff which is a breach of the leagues rules. That breach led to the SPL side being hit with a player signing embargo.

Now the fans are  being asked to pay to keep their club afloat, having already paid for their season tickets, their strips and scarves. Hearts fans are being bled dry.

 Former Hearts captain Paul Hartley has accused Vladimir Romanov of “holding a gun to fans’ heads” after the stricken club yesterday begged for a financial lifeline from their followers. Hartley insists owner Romanov has unfairly shifted the burden of safeguarding Hearts, who are £22m in debt, on to the fans. “It’s basically holding a gun to the fans’ heads and saying, ‘We need a couple of hundred quid off you or else’. It’s not as simple as that. Supporters have had to dig deep already. It’s before Christmas and how do they expect the fans to pay that? It’s totally unfair for them to ask the fans to put their hand in their pocket or else you won’t have a club. “But you can’t see any way out of it. If they pay this bill where is the next one going to come from? It’s a quick fix but it’s a long-term one you’re looking for. Hearts are £20-odd million in debt. They can’t just keep asking supporters to bail them out.”

Players, managers, sponsors and owners come and go. Only the fans stay. Once a week for 90 minutes footbal fans leave their worries on the other side of the turnstiles but the reality that football is just another business obliged to pay its taxes has come home to roost. Today after well over a century of professional football we can clearly see the price fans have paid for the role capitalism has played in the game. Clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea have become giant faceless corporate brand names with the ubiquity of McDonald and Coca-Cola.

Capitalism has given fans a stark choice for the future. Will football be just another way to make profits and for advertisers to reach consumers? Just another another product to be bought and sold? Or will fans fight so football can be something which will unite people, build community spirit, celebrate sportsmanship and enrich the lives of working people?

No "who cares" ?

The Scottish government has confirmed the wording of the question it plans to put to the people of Scotland in the independence referendum.

People will be asked to vote "yes" or "no" to the question: "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?"

a merry xmas?

Shelter Scotland has warned. that 5300 youngsters will wake up on Christmas Day in poor quality temporary accommodation with no prospect of a permament home.

 Shelter Scotland director Graeme Brown said: "It's easy to think of homelessness as single people sleeping rough. What people don't often consider is the rising numbers of families who, through no fault of their own, have lost their home and have no permanent roof over their heads. For people with children, sofa surfing with friends and family just isn't a realistic option and the temporary accommodation they are forced to stay in is often unsuitable and of poor quality."

William Morris in Scotland (1)

William Morris (1834-1896)

A Letter from Scotland


Commonweal, Vol 2, No. 25, 3 July 1886, p.105-106;

On Tuesday 22nd I found myself at Arbroath, a pleasant stone-built town of some 20,000 inhabitants on the German Ocean, the original of ‘Fairport’ in Scott’s ‘Antiquary’, the remains of a magnificent church and abbey dominating the homely houses. The industry practised there is sail-cloth making, and it is in a very dismal condition at present. There was much suffering there in the past winter. In a walk that I took with my host (a Free Kirk minister and a Socialist), we got into conversation with a field-labourer who was resting from his job of harrowing at a field’s end. I should premise, for the benefit of our English readers, that Scotch field-labourers are hired by the half-year, and receive their ‘meal-and-milk’, lodging in a ‘bothy’ — or a not too luxurious pig-sty — and a sum of money. This friend, who was a brisk and intelligent young man, told us that wages were low, and that he was now receiving £9 for the half-year, instead of £12, which he used to receive. He also told us, perhaps unnecessarily, that he could not save out of this splendid salary. I was told afterwards that wages had fallen back to what they were ten years ago, at which time they had risen suddenly. A foreman, a friend told us, was now getting £28 per annum, which used to be the wages of a full private labourer.

In the evening I lectured to an audience of upwards of 600 very attentive persons, mostly of the working-class. They cheered me heartily, and took up the points well. There was a goodly attendance on the platform of the committee who had organized the meeting, and who were chiefly co-operators. Questions being asked for, I only got one, from the irrepressible temperance champion, which was received with some laughter. In fact, the meeting was rather huddled up at the end, as there was no gas and the light began to fade into the mid-summer twilight, which is all the darkness of those northern regions at this time of year. A fair amount of literature was sold.

On the 23rd I lectured at Edinburgh, in the Oddfellows’ Hall, for the committee which is the fag-end of the Industrial Remuneration Conference of last year. We expected but a poor attendance, as there were several meetings of parliamentary candidates going on in the city; but after all it turned out well, the attendance being better than at any previous lecture. Again the audience seemed sympathetic — nay, enthusiastic. I asked for questions in writing, dreading the meandering speech which usually accompanies spoken questions. I got quite a pack of cards of them; and the answers were well received. A clergyman was in the chair, another (our friend Mr Glasse, who made a Socialistic speech) moved the vote of thanks, and a third seconded it. This last gentleman poked some heavy ecclesiastical fun at me, interlarded with buttery compliments. Once for all, I must ask our comrades to forgive me for receiving votes of thanks, on the ground that I could not help it. The sale of literature was good. I had a short but pleasant interview with the members of the Branch afterwards. They seemed rather depressed; lack speakers, and so find it difficult to make much way; but are getting a few new members, in spite of the slackness of their propaganda. They told me that a branch of the Social Democratic Federation started, apparently with good prospects, early this year or late last (I forget which), had quite disappeared after a few weeks’ existence. One comrade said that in talking to fellow-workmen they would agree with everything that he said in favour of Socialism, but could not be brought further than this passive adherence. On the other hand our comrades are making most commendable efforts to push the Commonweal, and with much success. The news-shops take it and sell it, too, and they are also getting newsboys to sell it; so that propaganda of some sort is going on, only our comrades feel the want of public and obvious propaganda. I should add, the University Society, who have a good deal retreated from their position, at all events in appearance, are starting a kind of progressive debating society, appealing to trades’ unionists and co-operatives to join it, which our comrades intend to use for their own and other people’s education.

The 24th I gave the same lecture at Glasgow. A wet evening, meetings of candidates throughout the town, and again apprehensions of a failure; but again a good audience, perhaps rather more in assent than at Edinburgh; a somewhat overwhelming amount of questions, the answers to which were very well received. A sprinkling of Ruskinians were there, somewhat inclined, I fancy, to take exception to the roughness of the opinions: indeed, the mover of that (terrible) vote of thanks said as much, and was somewhat cheered.

I may here remark that it seems to me that the Scotch are much given to ‘lion-hunting’, and that therefore it is necessary for a Socialist who wants to get at the facts to discount a certain amount of the enthusiasm with which he is received, if he happens to have any reputation outside Socialism. Still enough remains in these cases to show that there were many in the audience who really agreed. At Glasgow there was a good sprinkling also of Land Restorers; but these, I think, are beginning to see out of the narrow close in which Henry George has hedged them.

The 25th I lectured at Dundee and had much such an audience as at Glasgow, only that they lacked the instruction that our Branch has, with all drawbacks, given to the Glasgow folk, and therefore did not seem so ready to take up the points. Trade is very slack at Dundee; the jute business nearly gone, Indian competition having destroyed it. I was told that there are few places where the difference between the classes is more felt than it is at Dundee. I much regretted that I could not stop there and get to know some of the workers. Our comrades here (Glasgow) ought to make a push to get up a branch at Dundee.

I meet the Branch to-day, and in the evening lecture again. Tomorrow I lecture at Bridgeton, a suburb of Glasgow. But I send this off to be in time for the current number, and will give an account of whatever else happens next week.

God and Class

 "The religious reflex of the real world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of every-day life offer to man none but perfectly  intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature." -  Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I

It is too often overlooked that economics is inextricably mixed up with religion. The economic order is a reflection of the religious order. The linkage is utterly central to religion as a cultural and political forc - the connection between religion and class inequality. Because there are no remedies for social inequality within the present system of society the great masses of humanity are best kept sedated by pious delusions.

Reliable findings from the United Nations show that the wealthiest 10% of adults and the poorest 50% possess 85% and 0.01% of the world’s total wealth respectively. The World Bank reported last year, women own just 0.01% of the world’s wealth. In the United States, 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom half of the population. According to the 2010 Census, 46.2 million Americans, including nearly one-quarter of the nation’s children, were living below the official poverty line.

In 2009, Gallup Polls measured religiosity in 143 countries. They showed that in nations “where average annual incomes are $2,000 or less,” 92 percent of residents “say religion is an important part of their daily lives.” By contrast, among the wealthiest countries surveyed, “those where average annual incomes are $25,000 or more” the percentage was 44 percent. In the U.S. religiosity closely correlates with income inequality.  Nine of the ten poorest states are located in the Bible Belt (the tenth one, New Mexico, is partially in the Belt).  Sikivu Hutchinson author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars says “For urban communities of color, the lifeblood of organized religion is economic injustice.” Hutchinson added: “The domino effect of de facto segregation, job discrimination, unemployment, foreclosure, mass incarceration, and educational apartheid has bolstered the influence of religious institutions in many black and Latino neighborhoods where storefront churches line every block.”

Michael Parenti writes that in the Middle East “Sharia is put forth as the one source of social justice for both the very poor and “the ruffled professionals.”  and that “As with Islam so with the Christianist Pentacostals: church membership surged as poverty deepened in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere.” He goes on "Denied a material means of betterment, many people turn to the “spiritual.” The Christianist missionaries—or the mullahs and the imams—explain to victims why bad things happen to good people: They were not that good; they believed in false gods and evil material solutions such as leftist social revolution. Their suffering on earth is punishment for their sins. Once their worldly struggles against colonizers and rulers are thwarted, the people [quoting David S. Pena] “lapse into obscurantism and misdirected otherworldly supplications” that make “oppression more bearable and the ruling class more secure.”"

Chomsky once told an interviewer that the new atheist message “is old hat, and irrelevant, at least for those whose religious affiliations are a way of finding some sort of community and mutual support in an atomized society lacking social bonds.” If “it is to be even minimally serious” he continued, “the ‘new atheism’ should focus its concerns on the virulent secular religions of state worship” such as capitalism, imperialism and militarism. Radical scholar and anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein, derided Christopher Hitchens’ anti-god attitude as “pissing on other people’s mostly innocuous beliefs.” It is argued by many liberals that the Church is no longer an inordinately powerful institution and a mis-directed target. But religion as a force is not nearly as moribund as suggested. If religion can be shown to play a significant role in the oppression of a substantial number of people, discussion of the linkages between the two is essential. And we can hardly link religion to economic injustice if we evade and avoid criticism of religious thought and practice. Chomsky and Finkelstein ought to know better than to be complacent about religion. It is said that the question of God’s existence was answered decades ago and it is utterly futile to keep on talking about it. A recent Pew Research Center of religious belief found that 80 percent of American adults said "they never doubt the existence of God.” One-half of the American people reject the theory of evolution in favour of scipture-based claims of creationism. How is that possible if religion is so weak?

Unlike many of the popular atheists who don't have much say about the evils of capitalism as opposed to the evils of religion, the materialists of the World Socialist Movement understand the roots of supernatural belief and direct their energy to the removal of its causes, poverty and alienation. People should evaluate economic systems not by rhetoric or ideology, but by whether or not they increase economic well-being for all individuals and groups, increase the sum of human satisfaction, and enhance the quality of life. The absence of a god means we have no celestial paternal-guardian but more importantly, we are also free of any divine oppressor.

“The idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty.” - Mikhail Bakunin

Freely adapted from an article here

Fact of the Day

According to economics professor John Foster, the aggregate wealth of Britain’s richest 1,000 people was in 2010 some £333 billion, equivalent to half 2010's national debt.

 

The Glasgow Effect

"It's a human tragedy on a massive scale," says Gerry McCartney, an epidemiologist at NHS Scotland.

David Walsh, a lead researcher at Glasgow Centre for Population Health adds: "You are talking about thousands of people dying before their time."

Whether it is deaths from cirrhosis, drug abuse, lung cancer, murder or suicide, Glasgow's mortality rates are easily the highest in Britain, and among the highest in Europe. Life expectancy at birth in Glasgow is the lowest in the UK – more than six years below the national average for Glaswegian men (71.6 years, compared with a UK average of 78.2 years), and more than four years below average for Glasgow's women (78 years, compared with the UK average of 82.3). And because Glasgow is home to more than 10% of Scotland's total population, with nearly 600,000 people in the city itself, and more than a million in the greater Glasgow area, Glasgow's problems are very much Scotland's problems.

Despite years of research and decades of evidence that something has gone terribly wrong in the heart of Scotland's largest city, the underlying causes of Glasgow's fatally poor health remain something of a scientific mystery.  Deprivation accounts for less than half (around 40%) of Glasgow's "mortality gap" compared with the rest of the UK. The other causes are still unknown.  There are no fewer than 17 competing explanations for Glasgow's ill health.

Glasgow's city boundaries contain some of Britain's most deprived neighbourhoods. Liverpool and Manchester, for example – have rates of deprivation every bit as high as Glasgow, yet their life expectancies are substantially higher. Glaswegians neither binge-drink nor smoke more than their peers in Liverpool or Manchester. What's more, even Glasgow's most affluent citizens, those in the top 10% of the income distribution, die significantly younger than their counterparts in other British cities.  Obesity rates in the city are actually lower than in some English cities.

Drug abuse (particularly heroin), knife crime, murder and suicide are all significantly more prevalent in Glasgow than in other cities. What is it about life in Glasgow that seems to predispose some of its citizens to such destructive behaviours?

Socialist Courier has documented the evidence that the type of society we live in - capitalism - and the suffering inflicted in the past, can be seen as a culprit for the Glasgow Effect

The Bolshevik Coup

Although commonly called the October Revolution because of a change in calendars, it took place 95 years ago on this day.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has advanced a number of reasons why the Bolshevik Revolution couldn't be socialist.

1. The minority position of the working class, greatly outnumbered by the peasantry. 18 million wage workers of which only 3 million worked in factories or mines. The population at the time was 160 milion
2. Socialist consciousness was lacking amongst those workers. Socialism could not be established in backward isolated Russian conditions where the majority neither understood nor desired socialism.
3. Socialism could not be the outcome of the revolution in Russia because the low level of productive forces ruled out any chance of socialism being established there. The economic elements are lacking or insufficiently developed
4. Russia was surrounded by a capitalist world, to which it needed to adapt and conform to.

Certainly many workers believed that the Bolshevik Revolution would end in socialism, however, the illusions of the workers cannot replace the reality. Material conditions in Russia meant the development of capitialism, which the Bolsheviks were unable to avoid. In fact, they became its agents. It was the role of the Bolsheviks to develop industry through state ownership and the forced accumulation of capital.

The Bolsheviks disguised their seizure of power as an act of the soviets but, of course, Trotsky openly admits that the insurrection was planned by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, of which he was the chair and which had a Bolshevik majority. Trotsky describes how this Committee took its orders directly from the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. So, although the soviets had played a part in overthrowing Tsarism and opposing the Kerensky government, the events of 7 November were a Bolshevik coup d'etat. At one point Trotsky actually writes that on the morning of 7 November the workers of Petrograd woke up to find the Bolshevik Party carried out a revolution while they were asleep. There is little doubt that Petrograd supported the overthrow of Kerenky's increasingly impotent and unpopular government, but they were in favour of a coalition government formed by all the "workers" parties, ie the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and others, that would be answerable to the soviet. Many within the Bolshevik Party itself accepted such a position but they were over-ruled by Lenin's determination to seize power for the Bolshevik party alone. What Russia got was a Bolshevik government which soon usurped power from the soviets and turned into a one-party dictatorship.

From 1917 all vestiges of democratic self-reliance by the working class was removed piece by piece. "Power to the Soviets" became a sham as Bolshevik party functionaries took total control.

"What have i done...?"

Workers safety?

The father of a Fife miner who was killed at a mine in New Zealand said he was "disappointed and angry" to hear the gas blast was preventable.

Scots Malcolm Campbell, 25, from St Andrews in Fife, and Pete Rodger, 40, from Perthshire, were among 29 workers killed at the Pike River mine in 2010. The miners' bodies remain in the mine

An investigation has found multiple warnings were ignored. Safety systems at the mine were inadequate, and reports of excessive methane levels were "not heeded". Workers were exposed to "unacceptable risks" because health and safety was not adequately addressed in a drive to achieve production created the circumstances for the tragedy, the report found. "In the last 48 days before the explosion there were 21 reports of methane levels reaching explosive volumes, and 27 reports of lesser, but potentially dangerous, volumes," the report said. "The reports of excess methane continued up to the very morning of the tragedy." The Department of Labour did not have the "focus, capacity or strategies to ensure that Pike was meeting its legal responsibilities. The report called for a new regulator to be established to focus solely on health and safety issues and for mining regulations to be updated.

New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key apologised to relatives of those who died for regulatory failures, but hit out at the mining company, saying it "completely and utterly failed to protect its workers"

Malcolm Campbell snr, said  "Unbelievable in this day and age"

Socialist Courier is sorry to say that such tragedies are part and parcel of the capitalist system

The real union struggle

Since the Industrial Revolution there has been a Us versus Them.  Lined up on one side are the men and women who do the actual work, who toil long, tedious hours for a defined wage, and lined up on the other are employers who, while grudgingly recognizing the necessity of workers, are committed to not paying them any more than is absolutely necessary. It’s an economic law. You charge for your product as much as that the market will bear, and you pay your employees as little as you can get away with. Adhering to the principle that there is “strength in numbers,” workers have joined together to form trade unions. And without those strong, militant labour unions acting as buffers, there is no other force capable of resisting the bosses muscle. Unless working people have some form of organisation to represent their interests, they will be subject to any draconian measures the capitalist wishes to enact. Without the capability to fight back—without the means to offer genuine resistance— workers are not only vulnerable, they’re virtually defenseless. Workers need to take care of themselves rather than rely on politicians to do it for them. And taking care of themselves means banding together collectively. Until they band together and have strength in unity, no one is going to take them seriously.

 It is only through such an organised fight-back and the use of the greatest working class weapon - the strike - can the employers attack on worker's pay and conditions be repulsed. It’s a fight that must be engaged; a fight that must be won. Workers’ only real bargaining power is their ability to stop production. And to do this, workers must fight as a class. These two unavoidable facts gave birth to solidarity pickets, secondary strikes and boycotts that involved whole communities, regions and ultimately the nation. Class solidarity means halting scabs crossing picket lines, and blacking struck goods. We can and must lay the foundation for renewed struggle in the here and now. Without unions maintaining decent wages and benefits, we’re all subject to the inevitable downward pull of market forces, which, given our surplus of labour in this time of high unemployment, means that many of us will slide inexorably toward the minimum wage.

Capitalism cannot function unless it subordinates workers, so the employers close ranks and build their own class solidarity backed by the power of the government. Almost every political pundit has written about the decline and forthcoming death of the labour movement. The populist mantra is to pander to the wallet. Cut the inflated pay and pensions of public workers is the best way to help those who are suffering in a depressed economy. Curtail the corrupt power of unions is the solution. Not only have the rich succeeded in convincing workers to cheer on their campaign against labour unions — the one and only institution dedicated to their welfare —  but they’ve convinced them to support the interests of the wealthy rather than the interests of their own class. Some working people actually refer to other workers as privileged — to people who, by virtue of a union contract, have managed to stay above water, who’ve managed to retain an element of decent wages and benefits, and haven’t fallen totally victim to the recession. Instead of a union contract serving as a model — something to raise all our standard of living — they see it as being above the rest of us! With the poor now jeering at union members, the rich have had their wettest dream come true. The traditional union principle that capital can create nothing without workers – that labour creates all wealth – has been turned on its head, so that capital is now revered as the source of jobs and prosperity.

In the class war, workers may be struggling but they are far from dead. In any war there are only two options: fight to win, or surrender. Both options produce casualties. There is no “safe” option for workers under attack, no place in the trenches to hide in the hope of protecting one’s individual job, dignity and life.

There can be no common interest between bosses and workers, only war. Workers will always lose if they play by the boss’s rules. The power of workers lies in their ability to stop production. If they don’t use this power, they have nothing with which to bargain. Workers can stop production only if they unite as a class, disregarding the boundaries of job description, workplace and industry. Now that production is international, class solidarity must also be international. In order to fight effectively, workers must break the laws laid down by the employers and their State when they are able. When workers challenge the employers’ right to dictate what happens in the workplace, they challenge the essence of capitalism itself. The question of political power over economic power must lie at the core of any union strategy.

The American Election

The poor health of Scotland

The gulf between the health of the affluent and the poor in Scotland is exposed in a new report which shows the divide is wider in Scotland than most other countries in Europe. Only Hungary and the Czech Republic report a deeper contrast between the death rates experienced by men who left school with no qualifications and those who graduated from college or university.

The gap between women from the different academic backgrounds is greater in Scotland than any of the other 20 countries included in the research.

 Dr Gerry McCartney, head of the Public Health Observatory Division for health improvement agency NHS Health Scotland, said: "It is a massive injustice. If you are a child born just a mile from where I live you have got a 50:50 chance of making it to your 65th birthday. That is an appalling record."

 There were 501 more deaths per 100,000 men per year among 30 to 59-year-old Scottish male manual workers, than among non-manual staff. This was a greater difference than in all the 13 other European countries included in this aspect of the research. In England and Wales the difference was 222 deaths, and in Switzerland it was 121.

What is this thing with nationhood?

The capitalist class flood the air waves with illusory phrases such as, “national economic interest,” “national security,” “national unity,” “national competitiveness.” We are told that we all rise or fall together — as one nation and one people.

One of the key areas for nationalist talk is the economy. Patriotic voters are urged to ignore class divisions, shun unions, and join the bankers and bosses, sacrificing their own worker interests for the “good of the nation.” But let’s get real. Cuts, austerity measures, and wage freezes benefit only the rich, not the whole country. The capitalist economy can never work for all of us, because it’s designed for the wealthy, who relentlessly endeavour to widen the gap between rich and poor.

THE WIDENING GAP

Christia Freeland has spent 20 years of her life working for the Financial Times and Reuters and she has recently turned her long experience of the owning class into a book about them. Entitled Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich it was recently reviewed by the press. "In the 1970s, the top 1% of earners in America captured about 10% of national income. Today their share has more than doubled to 22%. .... Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have the combined wealth (about $100 billion) of the bottom 40% of the US population - about 120m people." (Sunday Times, 28 October) RD

THE CLASS DIVIDE

The daily press in Britain is fond of creating the myth that workers are gradually improving their economic position in society but occasionally a journalist will report on what is really happening. Here is an example from the writer Philip Collins giving the facts about Britain. "On current trends, an ordinary family will have 15 per cent less cash coming in by 2020 than 2008. This has happened all over the world. Blue-collar workers in America have hardly had a pay rise in 40 years. Their counterparts in Germany and Canada have been stuck for a decade. In the UK the household fuel has risen 110 per cent, council tax by 67 per cent and food is 37 per cent more expensive than in 2000." (Times, 1 November) Needless to say during this period the owning class have improved their economic standing. RD

War

To be sure, Socialist Courier is offering no defence of American policy. Where US interests are challenged there are no lengths American government won’t go to, nor the stinking depths it will sink, to secure its own ends, regardless of the cost of life.  Yet the focus on the role of American imperialism and the couching of anti-war sentiments in terms of US withdrawal from the world stage presents itself as if the American government had some choice in pursuing an imperialist policy, that its actions result from some mysteriously gung-ho national characteristic, rather than from the dictates of capitalist economy. It also ignores the fact that even if the US ceased to be the disruptive force for chaos in the region, there are plenty of willing understudies to take over that role. Every country in the world adopts a policy that it hopes will advance the interests of their capitalist masters. Duplicity and double-dealing are the norm in the cut-throat world of capitalism. All capitalist states are basically imperialist in character and ambition.

While it is important that workers oppose war, it is just as important that they recognise just why armed conflicts between states break out and in whose interests wars are waged. Without setting war in its true context some are going to oppose war and its effects, yet will still be prepared to support capitalism , as in the anti-war movement many still do, and then it will be a life of continual constant campaigning. The weakness of the anti-war movement is that the majority want nothing more than a return to capitalist "peace" rather than the overthrow of the system that causes war.

Socialists are always on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors and the massive use of overwhelming force by the US and Nato clearly exposes it as the oppressors. But just because we sympathise with the victims of US/Nato oppression does not mean that we favour the solutions popular amongst them. "Anti-imperialism" is the slogan of local elites who wish to dominate the region in place of the US, a situation which would still leave the mass of the population there exploited and oppressed.

Workers around the world share a lot in common. We all want peace and security for our families and a chance to participate in and share the production of wealth. In a conflict over which state and ruling classes should control a region, no working class interest is involved except in so far as it is they who are its innocent victims and need the killing, maiming and destruction to stop - without qualification or equivocation. Peace groups should be congratulated for their humanitarian outlook and attempts to stop the war but they must also be reminded to work to end the cause of all conflicts – capitalism

Cuba's Capitalism

The misty-eyed support for Castro's Cuba would not be so worrying were it confined to the ranks of Stalinists; however, its tendrils reach well beyond them to many Scots. The US trade embargo established in 1960 — the world’s longest-running trade sanctions — continue to squeeze Cuba’s finances, targeting foreign companies that do business with Havana for huge fines. But what has changed in recent years is that Raul Castro now publicly acknowledges that the island’s most nagging economic problems are mainly the result of bureaucracy and excessive state control.

The Castro regime has proven remarkably resilient and has maintained a tight control over the economy. At times, this has meant a heavy hand. None of this has abolished the commodity nature of production, nor the wages system. Generous subsidies from Moscow kept the island’s economy afloat until 1991, when the aid was cut off by the Soviet collapse. A period of painful austerity set in that Cuba has never really recovered from. The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the loss of Cuba’s export markets as well as the convenient supply of oil for industrial purposes led to the economy undergoing serious recession. Since then, the government has been trying to re-orientate the economy. President Raul Castro has been making headlines with easing travel restrictions and modifying agriculture land use rules. It's a cautious, free-market experiment meant to help streamline an inefficient economy. Since about 70 percent of Cuba’s food is imported. Castro has made boosting local agricultural production a priority of the reform effort, handing over 3 million acres of state-owned land to private farmers and cooperatives. But farmers still face massive red tape and restrictions on where they can sell their produce. Nor can they buy tractors, trucks or other key farming equipment without government permission.  New rules allow farmers to re-lease up to 165 acres of fallow government land. The change allows farmers to build homes on the land, which was previously prohibited. In the case of disability or death, a farmer's properties will be transferred to the surviving family. However they cannot buy tractors, trucks or other key farming equipment without government permission. In Cuba, 85% of the population is employed by the state but a pilot program will convert 222 state-owned companies into worker-run cooperatives. The government will maintain ownership of the company’s physical property and charge rent to the cooperative, but members will determine their own hours, pay and management.

Who Owns the SOUTH Pole

A switch from our usual pole.

  No one owns Antarctica, although a few countries persist in maintaining their frozen claims to slices of the continent for research and scientific purposes in line with the Antarctic Treaty. In reality, the international community is responsible for the region, operating through the Antarctic Treaty and its related agreements. The International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN body responsible for regulating shipping internationally, designated the Southern Ocean as a "special area"

Many parts of Antarctica have been coming under increasing pressure as the growing global demand for sea food means the region's rich resources are increasingly targeted. There are fishing boats, both legal and illegal, including a new breed that vacuum krill from the sea. 

The United States and New Zealand put forward competing plans to create a marine protected area of 1.6 million square kilometres in the Ross Sea. Another proposal would have created a reserve zone around East Antarctica - At around 1.9 million square kilometres, it would have covered an area almost three times the size of France.

For the past two weeks the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, made up of representatives from 24 governments and the European Union, has been meeting in Australia and has failed to reach agreement on new marine protected areas for the Antarctic ocean. They have deferred a decision until July 2013. Environmental groups blame Russia, China and Ukraine for blocking agreement.

"There are competing interests, in terms of commercial interests and in terms of the economic control of these areas" Steve Campbell of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance stated.

As long as power and money rule our lives the planet will never stand a chance! We talk about protecting the planet but what does that mean? Governments are more interested in protecting what share holders make. The bottom line is profits. As long as we continue to think that profits are more important than our future, the condition of this planet will get so bad it will be too late to save it.

THE RICH GET RICHER

The current economic recession has led to unemployment, house repossession and general lowering of workers standard of living, but it is not all doom and gloom. "The 100 richest people on the planet added $12.7 billion to their collective net worth this week after worse-than-forecast corporate earnings in the U.S. wiped out most of the gains global stocks had posted earlier in the week. Mexican Carlos Slim, 72, increased his fortune $1.8 billion after Telmex, the land-line unit of his Mexico City-based telecommunications company America Movil (AMXL) SAB, said on Wednesday it will begin offering high-speed Internet service without binding it with a phone line package. Slim remains the world's richest person with a $77.6 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index." (Bloomberg, 19 October) RD

EXPENSIVE COCKTAILS

Newspapers and television from time to time run items about the excessive drinking of young workers. We are regaled by journalist painting a dire picture of workers behaving badly after too much to drink. Little or nothing is ever mentioned about the owning class and drink, but here is one of their tipples that no worker is likely to purchase. "Salvatore Calabrese broke the record for the world's most expensive cocktail with his 'Salvatore's Legacy' drink which was made up of ingredients more than 200 years old. Salvatore, whose nickname is 'The Maestro', made the costly concoction using 1778 Clos de Griffier Vieux Cognac, 1770 Kummel Liqueur, Dubb Orange Curacao circa 1860 and two dashes of Angostura Bitters circa 1900s. The drink was valued at £5,500, smashing the previous record for the world's most expensive cocktail that was held by The Skyview Bar of Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai, which cost £3,766.52 a glass." (Daily Mail, 15 October) RD

Poverty means failing in school

Children who live in poverty in Scotland are already failing before school starts, a new study from Save the Children report suggested. Youngsters from poorer backgrounds were twice as likely to start primary school with developmental difficulties.

 The study found poorer children were twice as likely to have emotional and physical development difficulties. They were also twice as likely to have problems with communication and expressing themselves or making themselves understood. The report's authors said poorer youngsters were 50% more likely to face difficulties mixing with other children and were 40% more likely to be behind in their cognitive development - the ability to gain knowledge and learn. Figures from later in the education system showed that these children begin their school life behind their classmates and never catch up.

China, Chairman Mao, and Capitalism

0.1% of all households in China hold nearly half of the total wealth said the report released by Boston Consulting Group.  A long way from the image of Mao's China which was that of a regimented and spartan but egalitarian society, without hierarchical class distinctions. The blatant inequalities of post-Mao China have served only to enhance the image in retrospect. Yet the image was always an illusion, a meticulously maintained lie. China under Mao was, like China before Mao and China after Mao, a class-divided society. Since 1949, all top party leaders have lived and worked under extremely privileged conditions and in virtually total isolation from ordinary people.

Mao mobilised terror witch-hunts in which anyone refusing to wholeheartedly join in would find themselves a target. He repeatedly used this strategy throughout his career to gain and hold power, culminating in the infamous Cultural Revolution, which accounted for some 100 million people being humiliated, tortured, maimed and, in 3 million instances, murdered.

His callousness is almost beyond the scope of human imagining. In one year, 22 million people died of starvation – brought about primarily through Mao’s disastrous project to make China – then one of the poorest countries on Earth – into a nuclear super-power. The famines and over-work induced by the programme led to 38 million deaths. While people starved he would gorge himself on whole chickens and huge quantities of meat and fish.

He used women almost as imperial concubines, procured from the local labour force. Anyone who objected to his and other leaders’ privileges amongst squalor were derided as “petit-bourgeois egalitarians”.

Mao was more concentrated on fighting the nationalist government than the Japanese. On the Long March (a period of retreat by the Red Army from the nationalists), Mao and the other leaders didn’t march with their soldiers: they were carried. And the workers and peasantry have been carrying the party officials ever since. It is argued that Mao deliberately meandered along the Long March in order to strengthen his grip on the party before they met up with the rest of the army.

Some quotes of Mao:

“The present-day capitalist economy in China is a capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the People’s Government… It is not an ordinary but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist economy of a new type”

“The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism….”

“Some workers are advancing too fast and won’t allow the capitalists to make any profit at all. We should try to educate these workers and capitalists and help them gradually (but the sooner the better) adapt themselves to our state policy, namely, to make China’s private industry and commerce mainly serve the nation’s economy and the people’s livelihood and partly earn profits for the capitalists and in this way embark on the path of state capitalism….”

“the character of the Chinese revolution at the present stage is not proletarian-socialist but bourgeois-democratic….”

“A certain degree of capitalist development will be an inevitable result of the victory of the democratic revolution in economically backward
China….”

“it will guarantee legitimate profits to properly managed state, private and co-operative enterprises–so that both the public and the private sectors and both labour and capital will work together to develop industrial production…” [a very 'marxist' class interpretation indeed!]

” A sharp distinction should be made between the feudal exploitation practiced by landlords and rich peasants, which must be abolished, and the industrial and commercial enterprises run by landlords and rich peasants, which must be protected…”

“To counter imperialist oppression and raise her backward economy to a higher level, China must utilize all the factors of urban and rural capitalism that are beneficial and not harmful to the national economy and people’s livelihood…Our present policy is to regulate capitalism, not to destroy it.”

LEONARDO AND LOLLY

Last month the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Leonardo Da Vinci was 500 years old. "The anniversary comes amid renewed controversy over the overcrowding of the chapel, now visited by five million tourists a year. At peak season as many as 25,000 sweaty, dusty people troop through the sacred space, posing a risk to the art they have come to see. The number has doubled in the last 20 years and new arrivals from Asia are sure to push attendances even higher." (Times, 27 October) The idea of limiting the amount of visitors in order to preserve the artwork has been suggested but there is a powerful argument against that proposal. A ticket to enter the Vatican Museum cost £11.25. Five million paying visitors a year represents a tidy sum for the Vatican's coffers. RD

DEATH IS CHEAPER IN ASIA

In order to cheapen production costs and enlarge profit margins many European capitalists are transferring manufacturing to where costs of wages are low and trade union activity is poor. "Germany's biggest discount clothing chain has agreed to pay almost £750,000 in compensation for victims of a factory fire in Karachi that killed 289 workers and injured 100. Kik agreed to the payout after evidence showed that up to 90 per cent of the garments being produced were for its Okey jeans." (Times, 26 October) The same report mentioned that Kik had sold clothes worth 1.69 billion euros last year, so £750,000 is hardly likely to bankrupt them. RD

Immigration for the rich

Hungary plans to offer non-EU nationals permanent residence if they buy at least 250,000 euros' worth (£201,000) of special government bonds.

 "The goal of the modification is to create the institution of 'investor residency' in Hungary," the lawmakers who put forth the legislation wrote in their proposal.

 Across the globe, residency or citizenship is also offered to foreigners who invest in a country’s economy. Canada used to allow "experienced business people" willing to invest 800,000 Canadian dollars to settle in the country.