Food for thought

The Harper cabinet erupted in indignation this week when a UN 'Right --to- Food envoy, Olivier de Schutter criticized Canada for turning a blind eye to poverty, inequality, and hunger in the country. Too bad they didn't erupt in indignation at the facts -- almost one million Canadians rely on food banks; three million Canadians, including 600 000 children live in poverty and the numbers are growing. Obviously they are embarrassed it got a public forum. These are problems that are endemic to the capitalist system, of course, although no one is saying that.
King Juan Carlos of Spain recently had a hip replacement after suffering an injury while elephant hunting in Botswana. According to an editorial in "EL Mundo", hunting elephants sets a bad example when the economic crisis is so dire. Apparently, it transmits an image of indifference and frivolity that a head of state ought not to give. What it shows is that royals are just part of the world capitalist class that suffers little or not at all in a recession, and they couldn't care less. John Ayers

THE CONTROL OF IDEAS

The New Yorker Magazine asked a worthwhile question recently. "Last week, Gallup announced the results of their latest survey on Americans and evolution. The numbers were a stark blow to high-school science teachers everywhere: forty-six per cent of adults said they believed that "God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years." Only fifteen per cent agreed with the statement that humans had evolved without the guidance of a divine power. .... Such poll data raises questions: Why are some scientific ideas hard to believe in? What makes the human mind so resistant to certain kinds of facts, even when these facts are buttressed by vast amounts of evidence?" (The New Yorker, 7 June) We would suggest that one of the factors that stops the flow of scientific ideas to the minds of workers is the control that religious and political factions have over the education and communication facilities. The owning class in the USA spend billions of dollars ensuring that their workers don't understand the society they live in. RD

A CARING SOCIETY?

One of the dreams that many hard working members of the working class have is that after a lifetime of toil at least at the end of their working lives they will be able to enjoy some sort of contentment in retirement. This dream often turns out to be nightmare however."Hundreds of vulnerable adults are being put at risk of abuse at residential homes and care institutions, a damning inquiry has found. The Care Quality Commission ordered 150 inspections following a Panorama investigation which found residents at private hospital Winterbourne View were being subjected to beatings. The official report shows that less than half – 48 per cent – of hospitals and care homes comply with 'essential' standards on the care and welfare of people with learning difficulties; and safeguarding them from abuse." (Daily Mail, 24 June) RD

The Scottish Propertarian Party

Another party of confusion has been added to the Scottish political arena - the Scottish Libertarian Party (see website)  which declares that the ownership of property is a requirement for human existence and therefore a right, which advocates the abolition of all taxes on business and a free trade policy with a return to the gold standard amongst its policies. Fairly standard stuff of the Right. But genuine libertarians are vehemently anti-capitalist. How easy it is to fall into the  trap of accepting re-definition of words. Check out the history of the political meaning of "Libertarian" here 

The Scottish Libertarian Party is NOT  libertarian, no matter how often they make the claim. To be clear and to use the correct terminology they are a propertarian party. Right-"libertarians" are not interested in eliminating capitalist private property nor the authority, oppression and exploitation which goes with it. They make an idol of private property and claim to defend "absolute" and "unrestricted" property rights. In particular, taxation and theft are among the greatest evils possible as they involve coercion against "justly held" property. They call for an end to the state, not because they are concerned about the restrictions of liberty experienced by workers and tenants but because they wish capitalists and landlords not to be bothered by legal restrictions on what they can and cannot do on their property.

Their logic goes something like this: Free-market capitalism on its own would naturally lead to a world of personal freedom and economic prosperity, but this is thwarted by the power of the state, an organism that grows robustly at times of war. Hence, war must be opposed not only because of its own obvious evils, but as a way to drive back the power of the state which is standing in the way of a better life. For "libertarians" capitalism is an inherently peaceful system. They ridicule the idea that there is a connection between the nature of capitalism and the wars that constantly break out under it. In the "libertarian’s" mind, capitalism is—or should be—a world made up of enterprising capitalists, minding their own business(es) and interacting peacefully, without any need for the state to intervene in these affairs or for wars to be waged overseas. Here we are basically dealing with the viewpoint of the individual capitalist, particularly the small-scale one, who experiences the state as an unpleasant institution that appropriates his hard-earned wealth through taxation, sometimes to pay for wars that bring him no direct benefit. Remove this alien force and life would immediately be much rosier. The “liberty” that "libertarians" wax so philosophical about is the freedom of this economic actor to chase after his profit in peace. "libertarians" feels that capitalism can somehow behave more rationally than it does. This "libertarian" view of the benevolent nature of a market economy is a selective one. Their focus is on exchange, as a mutually beneficial act. This is a real “win-win” situation, where I give you my widget and get your gadget in return. The reality is quite the opposite. What is left out, however, are some of the strikingly war-like aspects of a capitalist economy, starting first and foremost with the cut-throat competition that goes on in the pursuit of profit. Nor do they dwell on the class divisions inherent to such a system and the conflict that that results. Never minding the fact that profits are squeezed out of workers, thus depriving them of their own personal liberty!

The state machinery and the wars it wages may seem a complete waste of tax-payer money to the individual capitalist (and to the libertarian who translates his blinkered viewpoint into a grand philosophy), but things look a bit different if we consider the capitalist class as a whole. Like any ruling class throughout history, the minority capitalist class needs the state, as an apparatus of coercion, to maintain its grip on power. And in addition to this age-old function of the state, a capitalist state is also necessary as a means of coordinating the diverse interests of individual capitalists in order to represent their collective interests as capitalists. The example of banking alone shows how deregulation may benefit a tiny stratum of capitalists at the expense of their bourgeois brethren who have to purchase exorbitant or shoddy products. Given this twin-necessity for the state—as policeman and mediating judge—the more far-sighted or financially more comfortable capitalists view the taxes directed to the state apparatus as money well spent. "Libertarians", in short, loathe the state without understanding why it must exist and play certain roles under their cherished capitalist system.

And the same shallowness characterizes their view of war, which is fervently opposed without an understanding of its root causes. Tensions between nations are always present over shifts in political allegiances between countries that may benefit some better than others. Global politics is a macrocosm of the local economy, with each company vying to get as much of the business as it can, such as trade, material resources and opportunities for future economic growth. Capitalism, as already noted, generates its own war-like behaviour at home, where capitalists will go to any lengths to vanquish the enemy (i.e. competitors). We may find this behaviour deplorable from the standpoint of human decency, but it does have its own necessity. And there is a similar capitalist logic at play when nation-states jostle and throttle each other for access to markets and resources, despite such behaviour being the height of idiocy from the perspective of humanity as a whole.

Opposition to the state might sound pretty good, but the "libertarian" anti-state position is based on a blind faith in the free market. They argue that the benevolent forces of the market economy are curbed by the centralised power of the state, which results in a curtailment of individual liberty. ""Libertarianism" states that it shall be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, provided only that he not initiate (or threaten) violence against the person or legitimately owned property of another. That is, in the free society, one has the right to manufacture, buy or sell any good or service at any mutually agreeable terms. Thus, there would be no victimless crime prohibitions, price controls, government regulation of the economy. If these so-called libertarians are serious about liberty, and truly want to live under a state-less system where peace then they must end capitalism, whose invisible hand keeps slapping us around and pushing us to slay one another .

The Scottish Libertarian Party thinks that a return to a gold or silver-based currency would eliminate crises such as in the 1930s and today. This is an illusion. There was a gold-based currency up until WWI, yet crises occurred regularly, including a Great Depression in the 1880s and a hundred years ago the same sort of banking crises as today. Capitalism goes through its boom/slump cycle whatever the currency. No monetary reform can change that.

Money originated as a commodity, i.e. something produced by labour that had its own value, which evolved to be the commodity that could be exchanged for any other commodity in amounts equal to the value of the other commodity. Various things have served as the money-commodity, but in the end gold (and silver) was almost universally adopted. Being rare (i.e. requiring more labour to find and extract from nature, so concentrating much value in a small amount), and it was divisible and so easily coined as well as long lasting. As capitalism developed it was found that gold itself did not have to circulate, but that paper notes could substitute for it as long as those accepting or holding it could be sure that they could always change them for gold. Up until WWI in most countries the currency was gold coins and paper notes convertible into gold. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to the major capitalist countries abandoning this convertibility. Since then the currency nearly everywhere has been inconvertible paper notes. With an inconvertible paper currency, the amount of money is no longer fixed automatically by the level of economic transactions, nor is there any limit to the amount of paper currency that can be issued. It is this that they object to because, if the central bank issues more paper money than the amount of gold that would otherwise be needed, then the result will be a depreciation of the currency; the paper money will come to represent a smaller amount of gold with the result that prices generally will rise.

The gold standard was put into effect in the U.S. after the American Civil War. The gold standard in the U.S. was implemented due to demands from Wall Street financiers. they had financed the Union Army based on paper money. They wanted to be able to redeem the debt in dollars worth more than what they provided by tying the dollar to gold, and this would cause deflation, thus raising the value of their dollar-denominated debt. But the effect of this was to restrict growth in the money supply which was to drive down farm commodity prices, impoverishing farmers and driving a huge number of people off the land. That was because, as productivity in agriculture and industry in the U.S. grew in the late 19th century and early 20th century, growth in the money supply didn't follow suit. This led to a constant deflationary tendency. as farmers could get less and less per unit of output, they were unable to pay their debts.

In that era credit in general was extremely scarce, for example, until after World War II, it was hard to get house mortgages in the U.S. Typically you could only get a mortgage for a short period. Consumer credit only really developed in the '20s. This is relevant to the issue of the money supply because expansion of credit expands the money supply. Individualist Anarchists in the US in the 19th century spent a lot of time attacking the gold standard as it allowed the banks to charge extremely high interest as it restricted the money supply. Of course, in practice, banks used lots of techniques to increase the supply to make more profits, of course, but it was a key means of restricting working class access to capital -- which was essential to proletarianise a mostly artisan/peasant (i.e., pre-capitalist) society.

Nor was the deflationary effect necessarily a good thing for workers in the late 19th century. Falling commodity prices meant that employers also were under pressure to cut wages, which they did. It was wage-cutting that provoked the Great Rebellion, the railway strike, of 1877. Recessions/depressions tend to reduce worker bargaining power, and the late 19th century was subject to continual recessionary tendencies, with a big depression in the 1870s and again in the 1890s. In reality there is no particular reason to tie money to gold. The right-libertarian types such as the Scottish Libertarian Party like gold because the idea is to have control of the money supply independent of the state.

The Scottish Libertarian Party seeks to abolish what little services the state still provides for its poor, hungry, and dispossessed. In their  "libertarian" Scotland there would be no National Insurance, no Social Security, no National Health Service, nothing corresponding to the Poor Laws; there would be no public safety-nets at all. It would be a rigorously competitive society: work, beg or die. But these services were paid for in sweat and blood by activists who aimed to alleviate the stress and misery of poverty for the working class. Although against reformism we in the SPGB cannot deny the reality that certain reforms such as an eight-hour work-day or welfare assistance help those who cannot endure the nature of our survival-of-the-fittest capitalist state. Social and welfare services which have been forced upon the elite and conceded to the working class cannot be written off as unimportant. Militant labour fought for concessions. Poor people now have social programs. The Scottish Libertarian Party vision is nothing more than the resurrected dreams of robber barons of the past. They may be against state authority, but it is inconsistent to oppose tyranny in the public sphere of government and leave it unaddressed in the private sphere of work. It is to simply to trade one slave-master for another.

Right-"libertarians" ignore the vast number of authoritarian social relationships that exist in capitalist society. The right-"libertarian," then, far from being a defender of freedom, is in fact a defender of certain forms of authority. To defend the "freedom" of property owners is to defend authority and privilege.  Emma Goldman's rightly attacked that "rugged individualism" expoused by the likes of the Scottish Libertarian Party "which is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire: the exploitation of the masses by classes by means of trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of the servile spirit . . . That corrupt and perverse 'individualism' is the strait-jacket of individuality . . . This 'rugged individualism' has inevitably resulted in the greatest modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions . . . 'Rugged individualism' has meant all the 'individualism' for the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve a handful of self-seeking 'supermen' . . .and in whose name political tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues while every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social opportunity to live is denounced as . . . evil in the name of that same individualism."

Right-"libertarianism" is unconcerned about any form of equality except "equality of rights". This blinds them to the realities of life; in particular, the impact of economic and social power on individuals within society and the social relationships of domination they create. Individuals may be "equal" before the law and in rights, but they may not be free due to the influence of social inequality, the relationships it creates and how it affects the law and the ability of the oppressed to use it. Without social equality, individual freedom is so restricted that it becomes a mockery (essentially limiting freedom of the majority to choosing which master will govern them rather than being free).

The thinker, Noam Chomsky argues that right-wing "libertarianism" has "no objection to tyranny as long as it is private tyranny...if you have unbridled capitalism, you will have all kinds of authority: you will have extreme authority."
Again as Chomsky puts it: "Anarcho-capitalism, in my opinion, is a doctrinal system which, if ever implemented, would lead to forms of tyranny and oppression that have few counterparts in human history. There isn't the slightest possibility that its (in my view, horrendous) ideas would be implemented, because they would quickly destroy any society that made this colossal error. The idea of 'free contract' between the potentate and his starving subject is a sick joke, perhaps worth some moments in an academic seminar exploring the consequences of (in my view, absurd) ideas, but nowhere else." Chomsky explains "Consider, for example, the [right-'libertarian'] 'entitlement theory of justice' . . . according to this theory, a person has a right to whatever he has acquired by means that are just. If, by luck or labour or ingenuity, a person acquires such and such, then he is entitled to keep it and dispose of it as he wills, and a just society will not infringe on this right. One can easily determine where such a principle might lead. It is entirely possible that by legitimate means -- say, luck supplemented by contractual arrangements 'freely undertaken' under pressure of need -- one person might gain control of the necessities of life. Others are then free to sell themselves to this person as slaves, if he is willing to accept them. Otherwise, they are free to perish. Without extra question-begging conditions, the society is just.The argument has all the merits of a proof that 2 + 2 = 5 "

Some right-"libertarians" actually claim common ground with true libertarians. Common ground? The socialist opposition to wage labour was shared by the pro-slavery advocates in the Confederacy. The latter opposed wage labour as being worse than its chattel form because, it was argued, the owner had an incentive to look after his property during both good and bad times while the wage worker was left to starve during the latter. This argument does not place them in the socialist camp any more than socialist opposition to wage labour made them supporters of slavery. As such, Right-"libertarian" opposition to the state should not be confused with the anarcho-communist, socialist real- libertarian opposition to it. The former opposes it because it restricts capitalist power, profits and property whilewe oppose it because the state is a bulwark of all three.


To sum up, as Anatole France said, which reflects the Scottish Libertarian Party's philosophy "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

WINNERS AND LOSERS

We are constantly made aware that we are living in an economic depression and that during these hard times we will all have to make sacrifices. This of course does not apply to the owning class. "Angela Ahrendts, the chief executive of Burberry, the fashion house, took home £15.6m last year through a mixture of pay, bonus, cashing-in shares and a clothes allowance. The package makes the American one of the UK's best paid chief executives. Her salary was £990,000 and her bonus was £1.98m, both of which were unchanged. However, she enjoyed a large jump in her pension contributions and a £387,000 "cash allowance" which includes a clothing allowance on top of her staff discount, and money relating to her "relocation" package dating to when she moved to Britain in 2006. It is understood this includes children's school fees and some travel. Her total pay packet was £3.68m, up 4pc." (Daily Telegraph, 8 June) This obscene amount of cash is only possible through the exploitation of the working class. RD

The Death of Co-ops

Co-operative Funeralcare, which organises more than 100,000 funerals a year from 900 funeral homes has begun an inquiry after staff were secretly filmed storing dead bodies like "stacking television sets" in a warehouse on an industrial estate off a busy motorway. While relatives believed their loved ones were at funeral homes,the bodies were being stored in a warehouse or "hub". The warehouse contained a garage with a fleet of limousines and hearses, storage for dozens of coffins, and a large refrigerated area – the mortuary – with rack upon rack of bodies, some of them uncovered. When families asked to see their loved ones, the body would be taken back to the funeral home, a journey of up to 30 miles. The documentary claims staff are under pressure to sell expensive funeral packages to mourners, to increase profits, which last year were £52 million. The former funeral ombudsman, Professor Geoffrey Woodroffe, described the practices alleged in the film as shocking. "I had no idea that they're treating people as if they're stacking television sets, really. I'd hate to think that a member of my family would have been treated in that way," he told the programme.

When people are exploited and oppressed they co-operate with each other to escape from poverty, to overcome exploitation and oppression. As do people wishing to improve working conditions and the quality of their lives.  Workers are not going to let themselves starve: if the means of production are there they'll go ahead and use them. They often get together and form co-operatives. So, although there are some benefits to co-ops, we still find them exploiting workers (like Funeralcare in their fight with the GMB, which they tried to derecognise), and they can go bust. They aren't a panacea, and they are not a step towards socialism - workers already co-operate at work even in capitalist firms, and we run capitalism from top to bottom. Workers co-operatives are seen by many as radical and anti-capitalist. The Socialist Party do not see co-ops, communes, mutual aid projects and the like as leading to socialism in themselves.

 Far from challenging capitalism, many workers’ co-operatives are actually an important sector of modern economies on the basis of promoting a more ‘ethical capitalism.’ Workers’ co-operatives may provide a catalyst for change and glimpse of what is possible but their gradual and reformist nature must be resisted as futile. Workers’ co-operatives depend on wider market forces to survive and grow and cannot exist outside of capitalist social relations due to the pressures of market forces and competition. Like private enterprises, co-operatives are also subject to the same pressures such as layoffs, price rises and reduction in wages in the process reducing any resemblance of ‘workers’ democracy.’ The more they are integrated into the capitalist economy and its profit- seeking, the more their members will have to discipline and pressurise themselves in the way the old bosses did - what used to be known as "self-managed exploitation". The aim of emancipating the labouring masses is so that the land and all forms of production and distribution is converted into collective property. As long as this is not accomplished, the cooperatives will be overwhelmed by the all-powerful competition of monopoly capital and vast landed property. Even in the unlikely event that a small group of cooperatives should somehow surmount the competition, their success would only beget a new class of prosperous co-operators in the midst of a poverty-stricken mass of proletarians.

Co-operatives lay rest to the lie workers cannot organise production without bosses. But we cannot self-manage capitalism in our own interests as it is weighted against workers. The only way we can really live without exploitation and bosses is by abolishing capitalism. The fact is that there is no way out for workers within the capitalist system. Not cooperatives, not reforms, not trade unions. At most these can only make their situation a little less unbearable. Co-operatives usually only flourish to the extent that they can be successfully accommodated within capitalism. Co-ops by their very nature as worker owned and operated enterprises are always going to be marginal to the capitalist economy because of the enormous concentration of capital in the hands of the capitalist class - which concentration has become more accentuated, not less , in recent years. Co-ops like many other small businesses are struggling to exist and to compete against the might of established capitalist corporations. They are going to need every bit of money they can lays their hands on just to keep afloat. A cooperative is after all a capitalist business unit and as such has the potential as much to divide as to unite workers. It is engaged in capitalist competition after all - and all that that entails

We dont want to embark on setting up coops simply because its nicer way of doing business in capitalism. No, the point has to be to ultimately break as far as is possible with the logic of capital. Otherwise co-ops will simply be coopted by capitalism (if you might excuse the pun). We've seen this happening with
Mondragon. It has moved steadily away from its original egalitarian ideals and it has been able to do this because it lacks any firm anchorage in a genuine socialist outlook. Co-ops in the absence of such an outlook will simply drift into becoming like conventional capitalist businesses, competing with each other and if necessary shedding labour and cutting wages in the process. With co-ops we still have capital, the requirement to turn over capital and restore it to it's initial form, which, no matter how the democratic structures attempt to put use values first, means that the essence of commodity exchange and labour exploitation continues to occur, merely without the person of the individual capitalist.

Being an employee of a co-op is much like being an employee of a joint-stock company, still a hierarchical relationship built on market forces. The co-operatives themselves are in competition for labour and finance. Why do you think the Tories here have discovered mutualisation of public services? It's a means to break unions, enforce market discipline and extend market relations. Mutuals/co-operatives are a worthwhile means to resist market relations, but they in no way supercede them.

The co-op system would not do away with capital, the need to turn it over in the circuit of money-commodity-money, which will mean:
a) Crises would still occur.
b) That income of a co-op will be proportional to its capital, not to the needs of its membership.

The co-operative group: are the fifth largest food retailer, the third largest retail pharmacy chain, the number one provider of funeral services and the largest independent travel business. The Co-operative Group also has strong market positions in banking and insurance. The Group employs 120,000 people, has 5.5 million members and around 4,800 retail outlets. Co-operatives across the UK have reported a combined turnover of £27.4 billion, with profit before tax reaching £539 million. According to Co-operatives UK there are over 4,735 jointly owned, democratically controlled co-operative businesses in the UK, owned by 10.8 million people and sustaining more than 237,000 jobs.

 Are we any closer to socialism for all of this?

THE REALITIES OF WAR

We are all aware of the Hollywood depiction of wartime bravery and noble sacrifice in battle, but one aspect of war is never dealt with by the cinema. "Suicides are surging among America's troops, averaging nearly one a day this year — the fastest pace in the nation's decade of war. The 154 suicides for active-duty troops in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan — about 50 per cent more — according to Pentagon statistics obtained by The Associated Press." (Associated Press, 8 June) More suicides than those killed by the enemy! No wonder those portraying war as something admirable keep quiet about the suicide rate. RD

who owns Scotland

Scotland 19,068,631acres 100%
Urban 585,627 acres 3%
Rural 18,483,004 acres 97%
Of the rural land, 2, 275,768 acres are in the ownership of public bodies and 16,207,236 are in the ownership of private bodies.
Of this privately-owned rural land:
One quarter is owned by 66 landowners in estates of 30,700 acres and larger
One third is owned by 120 landowners in estates of 21,000 acres and larger
One half is owned by 343 landowners in estates of 7,500 acres and larger
Two thirds is owned by 1252 landowners in estates of 1 ,200 acres and larger
Two thirds of Scotland is owned by one four thousandth (0.025%) of the people!

hat-tip Wojtek
 http://libcom.org/blog/some-quick-thoughts-scottish-independence-20062012

The Cliff-edge of Nationalism

Love of country, in the form of "patriotism," is a late creation. Under serfdom people were bound to the soil but they had no "country". Nor has capital any "country" even though capitalism is the precondition for building a "nation," and advocates "nationalism," and protects  "national market." The development of the capitalist and rise of nationalism has been symbiotic. However, as soon as it can, capital continues to expand and pursue the global market, using its own "nationalism" as a springboard. Simply put, nationalism is anything but natural; it is an ideology of capitalism, which serves to produce the conditions for capitalist accumulation and gives it a legitimacy. In other words, it is not some kind of natural human phenomena. It is a social, political and ideational construction. Once the nation state has been physically constructed as "political sovereign", nationalism provides the glue by which it rationalises and maintains itself, a political ideology,which takes on the role of a supposedly natural basis for social order. It is an ideology, which requires an identity with, and loyalty to, the nation, which, in turn, gives rise to the "national interest" and political duty. The highly statist and often authoritarian goals of these independence movements are seldom taken into consideration.

Many on the Left advance nationalism and the nation-state as a bulwark against imperialism. This is a dangerous fallacy. The role of nationalism has always been a source of conflict on the Left. For those on the Scottish Left the Socialist Party's consistent anti-nationalist position seems to support imperialism. But, imperialism functions quite independently of socialist attitudes toward nationalism and, furthermore, socialists are not required for the launching of struggles for national autonomy as the various independence movements have shown. Also contrary to some Leftist expectations, nationalism could not be utilised to further socialist aims, nor was it a successful strategy to weaken and hasten the demise of capitalism. On the contrary, nationalism frustrated socialism by using it for nationalist ends. It is not the function of socialism to support nationalism, even though the latter battles imperialism. To fight imperialism without simultaneously discouraging nationalism means to fight some imperialists and to support others. To support Palestinian nationalism is to oppose Jewish nationalism, and to support the latter is to fight the former.  It is not possible to support nationalism without also supporting national rivalries. With whom to side? With the Jews? With the Palestinians? With both? Where shall the Jews go to make room for the Palestinian people? What should the Palestinian refugees do to cease being a “threat” to the Jews? Such questions can be raised with reference to every part of the world, and will generally be answered by Jews siding with Jews, Arabs with Arabs, or  French with French, Poles with Poles and so forth. To be a good Indian nationalist is to disparage Pakistan; to be a true Pakistani is to despise India. And so it goes on.  The “liberation” of Cyprus from British rule only opened a new struggle for Cyprus between Greeks and Turks. There is no progressive nationalism. This is not about denying the right of a suppressed people to establish its independence; neither is it about dismissing the need to combat imperialist aggression and exploitation. Resisting one oppressor is not the same as supporting movements that seek to oppress its own people. To oppose an oppressor is not equivalent to calling for support for everything formerly colonized nation-states do. One cannot oppose a wrong when one country commits it, then support another country who commits the same wrong. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend is particularly applicable to oppressed people who may be manipulated by totalitarians and religious zealots. To oppose one evil with a lesser one must eventually lead to the support of the worst evil that emerges.

 Although socialists sympathies are with the oppressed, they relate not to emerging nationalism but to the particular plight of twice-oppressed people who face both a native and foreign ruling class. Their national aspirations are in part a sort of  “socialist” aspirations, as it includes an illusory hope of impoverished populations that they can improve their conditions through national independence. Yet national self-determination has not emancipated the labouring class in the advanced nations. It will not do so now in Asia and Africa. National revolutions promise little for the lower class. In a "free" Scotland social relations will not change and the conditions of the exploited class will not improve to any significant extent.

Cultural freedom and variety should not be confused with nationalism. That people should be free to fully develop their own culture is not merely a right but a desirable. Technological resources make it possible for people to choose their own lifestyles. The world will be a drab place indeed if the magnificent mosaic of different customs and traditions disappeared to be replaced by a homogenized world (which modern capitalism appears intent upon spreading with its MacDonaldisation). Similarly, a world completely divided and peoples at odds with one another, parochialising their seeming “cultural differences” to assert their ethinic or racial superiority would also be a backward step.

No matter how utopian the quest for world solidarity may appear in to-days world of conflicts, no other road seems open to escape fratricidal struggles and to attain a rational world society. Socialism will rise again as an global movement and on the basis of past experience, those interested in the rebirth of socialism must stress its internationalism most of all. While it is impossible for a socialists to become a nationalist, we are, nevertheless, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist. However, the fight against colonialism does not imply adherence to the principle of national self-determination, but expresses our desire for a non-exploitative socialist society without borders. While socialists cannot identify themselves with national struggles, we can as socialists oppose both nationalism and imperialism. It is not the function of Scottish socialists to fight for independence from England but to make Scotland part of a socialist society. We seek to “de-nation” Scotland, "de-nation" England, and integrated them into a socialist one world. When capitalism is overthrown  the world will be on the way to the disappearance of all nation states. Nationalism, in its essence, is a poison. Nationalism has always been a disease that divided human from human. It produces artificial arbitary borders between human beings on trivial linguistic and cultural differences, and it conceals hierarchical and class- based conflicts. There is no “benevolent nationalism.” There is no place in a free society for nation-states. So let us create a truly libertarian form of collectivism. When free associations of producers and confederations of communities replace the nation-state, humanity will have rid itself of nationalism.

Food for thought

In a ruling in April, judges at a special court for Sierra Leone at The Hague found former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, guilty of eleven counts of war crimes by assisting rebels in Sierra Leone. The war ended in 2002 with 50 000 dead. The rebels atrocities included public executions, amputations, displaying decapitated heads at checkpoints, the killing and public disembowelment of a civilian whose intestines were stretched across a road to make a checkpoint, public rapes of women and girls, and people burned alive in their homes. Taylor said, "What I did...was done with honour. I was convinced that unless there was peace in Sierra Leone, Liberia would not be able to move forward. One must wonder to what depths humans can sink in this dog eat dog world. John Ayers

Rio Minus 20

It is against the background of repeated failures in almost every aspect of the environment that the Rio+20 conference took place. The messages of gloom and doom have never been clearer. The planet has never been under such massive pressure. Humanity faces its biggest threat with climate change. It is urgent to reduce global warming by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, but since 1990 emissions have increased by almost 40 per cent. A report by the UN and over a thousand leading scientists showed that as much as two thirds of the world's ecosystems services - on which we are directly dependent for our survival - are threatened or in serious decline. In just 15 years global demand for natural resources has doubled. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 per cent more food, 45 per cent more energy, and 30 per cent more water. It may not be the end of the world but may well be the end of society as we know it. The soil is being degraded, the water supply depleted, the air polluted, the minerals and ores exhausted. We're not behaving sustainably. We're using our resources faster than the earth can provide them.

The lack of political will shown by the world’s governments to address environmental degradation is obvious to all. What governments do seem to agree on is the need for each country to interpret the concept of a green economy according to national priorities that leaves it up to each country to define what is meant by a green economy. Discussions have so far been focused on the pricing of eco-system services, the new financial markets to be developed and opened up. But the the destruction of ecosystems and the capitalist exchange economy are inseparable parts of the same problem. The capitalist system depends upon growth and accumulation to sustain itself.

 An ecological sound socialism is the necessary transformation to an environmentally sustainable economy. In order to avoid catastrophic and irreversible environmental destruction, world socialism will establish global sustainability strategies, based on science. The principles for sustainable development will be  translated into practice. The world has never needed socialism as much as today. When crises occcur, we come together very effectively and very quickly. During a war, during natural disasters, the best is often brought out in people. We survive and flourish because we look after each other. The bigger the crisis, the better we behave (although it is not always universal, of course.) It is surprisingly easy and fast how we could achieve real change. We could cut climate emissions 50 percent in the first five years and eliminate them on a net basis within 20 yrs, according to some studies. We can dramatically transform our production methods with existing proven technology. The only thing we really need to change is how we think. We need to recognise that spending more time helping each other, more time learning, more time involved in community are the behaviors that actually bring a better quality of life.

A CRAZY SOCIETY

Every day workers are confronted with the awful problems of capitalism. We can read about millions trying to survive on a pittance of an income, we can hear of the plight of millions of children facing an early death from a lack of clean water. The list of social disasters just goes on and on. At the same time we are informed of such obscenities as the following. "Not content with a vast collection of toys that spans luxury homes, private jets, lavish cars and cup-winning sailboats, the software mogul Larry Ellison is splashing out on his own paradise island, it has been revealed. The American founder of Oracle is buying Hawaii's sixth-largest island, Lanai, for a price estimated at around half a billion dollars – putting Britain's Richard Branson to shame, since his Caribbean idyll, Necker Island, is worth barely one-fifth of that." (Independent, 22 June) RD

THE RUSSIAN OWNING CLASS

Politicians the world over love to project the notion that they are just ordinary people doing a difficult job. Recent information from Russia shows that this is a complete sham. "With a collection of watches worth almost £500,000, many would assume they belonged to a Russian oligarch. But Russian president Vladimir Putin has a collection of timepieces worth almost six times his official annual salary of £72,000. One of the watches - made from platinum with a crocodile skin strap - sells for more than £300,000 alone." (Daily Mail, 9 June) Such staggering wealth is beyond the imagination of most members of the Russian working class.. RD

streets ahead

North Charlotte Street, where the average house price is £1,791,179, came top of a list of Scotland’s highest valued street.

 There are now 31 streets in Scotland with average prices of more than £1m, and almost half of them, 14, are in Edinburgh.

 Milltimber, a suburb near Aberdeen, topped the website’s list of highest valued towns and neighbourhoods in Scotland, with house prices averaging at £432,421. Following closely were Humbie and North Berwick, both in East Lothian, which came second and third with average property prices of £388,076 and £313,556. Bearsden in the East Dunbartonshire area took 20th place.

 http://news.stv.tv/scotland/107374-edinburghs-million-pound-streets-top-scotlands-property-rich-list/

TRIDENT BEFORE THE NHS

Two news items illustrate the priorities of capitalism. The UK Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond announced a £1 billion deal for reactors to power new Trident submarines. "Bruce Crawford, the Scottish government's Strategy Minister said: "It's estimated that the costs of the new Trident weapon system could be anything up to £25 billion and over the lifetime, £100 billion." (Times, 18 June) On the same day the government showed it thought little of the NHS compared to expenditure on nuclear weapons. "A panel of experts says the NHS is failing to provide even the most basic treatment for mental illness to millions of people, with children particularly poorly served, and gives a warning that services are being cut back even farther because of budgetary constraints in the health service." (Times, 18 June) RD

A NICE LITTLE EARNER

Controversy over the presence of 26 unelected bishops in the upper House will be exacerbated by revelations about how much some of them are being paid for the privilege. "Bishops are claiming up to £27,000 a year in fixed-rate allowances to attend sessions of the House of Lords on top of their travel costs. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent has found that some bishops are claiming up to the maximum fixed allowance for attending sessions in the second chamber while having full-time jobs in their dioceses." (Independent, 21 June) These claims can be quite significant for instance the Bishop of Chester attended the House on 97 days, claiming £27,600 in attendance allowances and £7,309 in travel expenses. The Bishop of Liverpool attended on 60 days, claiming £15,600 for attendance and £4,220 in expenses. These men of the cloth are used to preaching that "The Lord will provide", but in their case it would seem the House of Lords does a fair bit of providing. RD

On abundance and post-scarcity

How much is enough? Enough means enough for a good life. Enough means enough to meet our needs. However, capitalism channels our hopes and dreams into the acquisition of consumer goods. There are vast commonalities around the world. They reveal broad agreement on what we call the basic goods, food clothing and shelter,  and what constitutes living well good health, respect, security, loving, trusting relationships — these are recognized everywhere as part of a good human life, and their absence is recognized everywhere as a misfortune. Capitalism and conspicuous consumtion puts us under continual pressure to want more and more. The “scarcity” discerned by economists is due this pressure. Considered in relation to our vital needs, our world is one not of scarcity but rather of extreme abundance.

 In abstract terms it is impossible for us to carry on growing without end. Endless growth is an ecological impossibility. Sooner or later we'll exhaust the world's supply of oil, gas, coal, uranium, or its ability to absorb their waste products. Climate change scientists warn of the impending destruction of the planet unless we take drastic measures to restrict growth.  In a world in which we could have enough, collectively, to carry on striving for more is mindless. Capitalism is an inherently insecure form of economic organization, one in which "everything solid melts into air," as Karl Marx put it.

Technology has been seen as the means of lifting people out of poverty and relieving them from drudgery. We would produce more and work less.  The world would be dominated not by the problem of having to earn their living but the problems occupying our leisure. Everyone thought that robots would be doing all the work for us. That this has not come to pass is surely mankind’s biggest tragedy. Today it is still work and not leisure that defines our lives.

There was once a time when the United States was a population of  farmers. Due to technological advances, significantly more agricultural output and products could be produced by fewer people. As of 2008, only 2-3 percent of the population were directly employed in agriculture. That is 2% to 3% of the population now grows the food that feeds the other 97-98%. Scarcity, as most people understand it, has diminished greatly in most societies over the last 200 years. According to David Graeber "One reason we don’t have robot factories is because roughly 95 percent of robotics research funding has been channeled through the Pentagon, which is more interested in developing unmanned drones than in automating paper mills." and that new technologies have been focused upon work discipline and social control rather than being liberatory.

Technology has the ability to eliminate the need for most of us to spend most of our time enslaved by repetitive and unsatisfying toil. Upcoming advances in robotics can eliminate the need for actual human workers. We could live in a world where all our concerns are taken care of by robots and computers and we are free to pursue the things that truly matter to us. We are moving in a direction where machines and computers do all the work allowing humans to focus on their pastimes of choice. But this economy of the future is determined by the conflicting interests of the workers and the master class, the owners of capital. Rather than give goods away for free and have people work for nothing artificial scarcity is introduced. Goods go to waste and people go without.

Let’s prepare for the time in which jobs and employment become obsolete and demand the right to be lazy.

A Cold Reception to the Dalai Lama

The reknown spiritual leader of Tibetan buddhism arrived in Scotland to little official welcome. The Dalai Lama is on a two-day tour that will see him visit three cities delivering public talks in Edinburgh, Dundee and Inverness to promote his message of non-violence, compassion and universal responsibility. Dundee’s have failed to substitute an alternative speaker after Lord Provost Bob Duncan cancelled a speech during the appearance of the Tibetan spiritual leader at the Caird Hall due to personal bereavement. The council are accused of distancing themelves following a visit from the Chinese consul. Alex Salmond, the Scottish nationalist leader, has been  criticised for not arranging to meet the Dalai Lama during his visit, and faced claims he is failing to confront human rights issues of Tibet's claims for independence to protect his relationship with China. Changchub Mermesel, chairwoman of the Tibetan Community in Scotland, said she believed Scottish Government efforts to nurture relationships with China, including the deal to bring pandas to Edinburgh Zoo, were part of the reason behind Mr Salmond’s decision not to meet the Dalai Lama.

Shabnum Mustapha, Programme Director for Amnesty International in Scotland, said: “It is appalling and very worrying if Dundee City Council has ‘withdrawn’ its support for the Dalai Lama’s visit to its city due to pressure from the Chinese Government."

The statement goes on to explain that “Amnesty has again and again highlighted China’s questionable human rights record, including its continued restriction on freedom of expression – and it seems that this censorship has now reached our shores. To think that our own publicly-elected officials would bow to pressure of this kind is unthinkable, and we would urge Dundee City Council to reconsider their decision. It is also very disappointing that it appears no-one from the Scottish Government, including the First Minister, is able to welcome the Dalai Lama as he embarks on his visit to Scotland. His visit to our country should serve as yet another opportunity for our government to put the spotlight on human rights abuses in China. Instead it seems that economics trump human rights when it comes to Scotland's growing relationship with the world's second largest economy. The Scottish Government should be welcoming this opportunity to support the Dalai Lama, an important spiritual figure who symbolises the movement for non-violent self-determination for an oppressed people.Throughout China, freedom of expression continues to be restricted by the authorities and re-education through labour camps continue to operate. And the Chinese government has displayed increasingly repressive behaviour in ethnic minority areas such as Tibet.” (our emphasis)

It's beyond belief !

Thousands of American school students in Louisiana attend private religious schools that teach from a fundamentalist christian curriculum that suggests the Loch Ness Monster is real and disproves evolution.

 "Are dinosaurs alive today? Scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence.

Have you heard of the `Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? `Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur." explains an Accelerated Christian Education science textbook

It goes on to declare that "True science will never contradict the Bible because God created both the universe and Scripture...If a scientific theory contradicts the Bible, then the theory is wrong and must be discarded."

Politically, the religious school curriculums denounce trade unions as "... plagued by socialists and anarchists who use laborers to destroy the free-enterprise system that hardworking Americans have created." and that the Great Depression was exaggerated by propagandists, including John Steinbeck, to advance a socialist agenda. 

 Whereas "...the Ku Klux Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross... In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."and that "South Africa's apartheid policy encouraged whites, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to develop their own independent ways of life. Separate living area and schools made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children."

OK for some

American International Group Inc. (AIG) Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche said Europe’s debt crisis shows governments worldwide must accept that people will have to work more years. “Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old,”  Benmosche, said during a interview at his luxury holiday villa in Dubrovnik, Croatia. “That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth.” 

AIG, rescued from the brink of collapse with a bailout package worth up to $182.5 billion,  said this week that Benmosche will receive $3 million in cash and $4 million in stock under his annual compensation package.

Meantime, frail elderly people were routinely left without food after their care home ran out of supplies because of an apparent attempt to “cut down the shopping bill”, the health watchdog the Care Quality Commission said. The senior citizens home was so short-staffed that at times there were not even enough on hand to help frail people to the lavatory. Inspectors also reported seeing dirty toilets, broken furniture and found residents were not even dressed in clean clothes. There was no budget set aside to provide stimulating activities for the residents. Staff told inspectors they had resorted to buying snacks for residents out of their own pockets because of shortages. While morale among the staff was “very, very low” and complained of little support from managers, families of the residents said that the workers themselves “deserve a medal”