Air Sick (1985)

Air Sick (1985)

From the November 1985 issue of the SocialistStandard

In the wake of the Air India crash off Ireland, the Tristar accident in Dallas and the Japan Airline disaster, the victims lying in the makeshift mortuary of hangar no. 7 at Manchester Airport last month brought the total number of dead from air travel accidents this summer over the thousand mark.

Everyone hopes they can avoid just such a tragedy. But is luck all we have to rely on? Is our fate totally out with our control as one aviation specialist would have us believe: "God was not with that flight”? As the Chairman of the British Airline Pilots’ Association said:

. . . we have had a string of survivable accidents on all types of aircraft in which we believe the effects of smoke and fire have been critical for the people trapped in the fuselage . . .  a lot more people have died in these incidents than should have done.

(Guardian 29th August 1985)

So what factors are within our technical capacities; what safety measures are there available?

FUEL: ICI have developed a fuel additive which will prevent misting and so lessen the flammability of fuel. But to do this took seventeen years of research and ICI are waiting for funding before developing the lifesaving additive. Although undoubtedly safer, there is no guarantee that it will even be used—some airlines still use JP4 gasoline rather than the less flammable Jet A kerosene. A study by Cranfield Institute of Technology shows that, on average, five times as many passengers will be burnt to death before they can escape, if JP4 is used. JP4, though, is cheaper. (Flight International 14th September 1985)

MATERIALS: Most deaths in aircraft fires are due to the inhalation of toxic fumes from the combustion of the foam inside seats. Airlines have been slow to introduce new, safer upholstery, as regulations will require by 1987. The cost to the airline is $200 a seat, and will give passengers an extra ninety seconds to escape. Of course, even safer materials are available, but they are found only in the Space Shuttle as the cost of replacement by the airline companies is too large. (Newsnight, BBC 2, 22nd August 1985)

WEIGHT: “Every gramme of structure (is) a gramme of commercial payload lost” (The Safe Airline - J M Ramaden, 1976). Therefore light aluminium alloys are used for the aircraft body although they have very poor heat resistance. This argument has long been used by the airlines to counter the requests for more, or improved, safety equipment.

The standard Boeing 737 flight has one hundred and fourteen passengers in nineteen rows. A charter flight — like that which crashed at Manchester — packs in an extra three rows, giving three inches less of space for each person. The Air correspondent for BBC News asks,

Why were 130 of those souls crammed into seats spaced just thirty inches apart? . . . The answer, of course, is that the average passenger represents 140 lbs of high-value merchandise, and that if you can compress three additional rows of seats designed to provide comfort for one hundred and fifteen people, it means you can earn another £600 or so on a Mediterranean flight. Multiply that by ten aircraft making a couple of round trips a day during the peak summer and winter holidays, and you come out with substantial earnings approaching an additional million pounds a year. (The Listener, 5th September 1985)

So it is simply a case of the inexorable law of capitalism — payload and profits come a long way before safety. As David Vearmount of the Civil Aviation Authority said, "Airlines don’t mind applying the safety rules as long as all their competitors do so”. (Flight International, 14th September 1985) 

Considering the controversy that has surrounded the use of the emergency exits in the Manchester crash, it is important to note that British Airways are intending sealing two exits on their 747 Jumbo jets in order to increase seating capacity. (In case you had forgotten, BA are the airline that once claimed to “take more care of you”).

The risk, then, is quantified by the airline. Each passenger effectively has a price on their head — doubtless down to two decimal places. Under the facade of efficiency that is the accountants’ balance-sheets, the benefits of cost savings on cheaper fuel, or lighter planes, or more passengers is weighed against “acceptable” risks to safety:

It is on the definition of just what is an acceptable risk, however, that pilots and operators have some of their most bitter arguments, and many safety-conscious but disillusioned pilots have, perhaps unfairly, echoed Nevil Shute’s bitter comment, “of course operators are all for safety - just as long as it doesn’t cost them any money!” . . .  an airline may accept a risk, because to lessen it would put one or more particular departments over the allotted budget; while if a crash occurs, it is not the operator who foots the bill, but the insurer, (Pilot Error - A Professional Study of Contributory Factors, Ronald Aupt (Ed), 1976)

The definition of acceptable risk is rightly troublesome — whose risk is it, to fly (as passengers or crew) in a plane that could be safer? But who accepts the benefits?

The simple inequality, based on an inequality of ownership and control, explains why the interests of consumers (like the passengers flying on holiday) and of producers (like the cabin crew), are ignored in order to meet these needs of the minority class of owners, who don’t need to live on wages or salaries, and certainly don’t live for package flights to the Med once a year.

And as the bereaved families picked up their lives again, they were already being hounded by lawyers from America, who can get higher rewards — and a higher cut — from suits filed over there. One was reported to have booked into a hotel near Manchester Airport within 48 hours of the crash, fresh from a killing at Bhopal and now "ambulance-chasing” in Manchester. Definitely business as usual.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Br

The Common Sense Idea

Just as in the Arctic, the sharks are circling Antarctica. It's not just for scientists now. Although there is a treaty banning mining on Antarctica, a continent larger than Europe, many nations are getting ready by establishing bases. Russia has built an Orthodox Church there (maybe recruiting penguins for the pews!) and has blocked efforts to create one of the world's largest ocean sanctuaries. India, Turkey, China and Iran have all built or will build bases there and it's not for the sunshine. The sub heading to the title of the article in The New York Times says it all, "Nations Compete on a Continent rich in Oil, Gas, and Minerals." Since the days of the great explorations in the sixteenth century, competing nations have carved up the earth for their capitalists to benefit from the riches available and been ready to go to war for it. It's more than past due to put into reality the common sense idea that the world's resources belong to everyone on Earth. John Ayers.

Budgetary Concerns

Toronto's city council may shut down two 24-hour drop-in centres for the homeless because of budgetary concerns. One councillor said that the centres are needed for the people on the streets and council cannot let them down. Good to see someone standing up for those in need but we all have to realize that money for social programs comes from profits and therefore is kept to the bare minimum. Better to aim for a society where such needs are non existent and free access to all we need is in place for all. John Ayers.

Labour alone produces wealth

We are socialists out of conviction because we see capitalism as harmful to the vast majority of the world’s people. This system we live under, by its very nature, grinds the poor and working people, sets one group against another, and acts violently against people at home and around the world. Capital never stands still but invades more and more of our lives. The market has become universal. Capitalism has made men and women dependent for the satisfaction of almost all their needs on the ‘services’ of capitalist production. Whether it be leisure or sex, activities that formerly stood outside the sphere of capital are now dominated by it. No socialist movement whose aims do not include, centrally, the reorganisation of production and the  abolition of the distinction between ‘mental’ and ‘manual’ labour, can call itself revolutionary. Socialists can offer an alternative which can meet basic needs of people and which is based on cooperation. Socialism offers a future free from the fears of poverty, sexism, racism, dog-eat-dog competition, joblessness, and the loneliness of old age. We see capitalism today as a destructive system that hurts, divides and exploits the vast majority of our people for the sake of profits and power for the few. Our movement is all about creating a society that allows each person to create and produce according to her or his ability and to obtain what she or he needs. We advocate and work for socialism–that is, common ownership and collective control of the means of production (factories, fields, utilities, etc.) We want a system based on cooperation, where the people build together for the common good. Socialism is a society in which all the members of the community collectively determine their conditions of life and their way of living. In order to do so, they must control, collectively, the use to which machines, factories, raw materials – all the means of production – are put. Unless the means of production are effectively in the hands of the whole society there can be no question of the democratic control of the conditions of life.

Every capitalist competes with every other one for a market. When they sell similar goods, their competition is obvious. Even when they sell altogether different goods, like TV sets and houses, they still compete for the limited wage-packet of the worker. If one capitalist does not compete, he is lost. Others will grab his buyers. Competition means underselling and price-cuts on the one hand, and on the others, advertising wars.) Whoever can undersell or spend more money on advertising is sure to win and knock the others out of the running. In other words, the bigger the amount of capital under your control, the bigger it is going to become. Only the very big capitalists can afford the techniques of mass – and cheap – production (conveyor belts, breaking up highly-skilled jobs into many semi-skilled ones, automation, and so on). Only the big ones can buy raw materials in bulk at lower prices, or employ special staffs of lawyers, market researchers, advertising and so on. To become big the capitalist must first squeeze out his weaker competitors and add their capital to his – centralization of capital – or make as much profit as possible from his current sales and reinvest it – accumulation of capital. The first method is of no direct interest to the worker as it matters very little who the boss is. If the capitalists want to fight things out amongst themselves, it is their business. It is of little interest for another reason: it adds nothing to the productive powers of society; the national wealth does not grow as a result of it. In fact all it leads to is the concentration of the same amount of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. We are interested mainly in the second form of capitalist growth: the accumulation of capital. It is accumulation which has made capitalist society the dominant form of society in the world. This is what affects the worker most directly.

How do capitalist firms accumulate? Where does the money which they reinvest come from?

In order to produce commodities for the market, every capitalist must buy other commodities which he uses in production. The things he buys are mainly: machines, raw materials or semi.finished goods, and labour-power. Machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods, although an item of expenditure on the part of one capitalist, are commodities sold by other capitalists and appear as part of their incomes. Those capitalists also spend money on machines, raw materials or semi-finished goods and labour-power, the money spent on machines, raw materials and semi-finished goods being the income of yet another group of capitalists who spend money on ... and so on indefinitely. Whenever one capitalist spends money on machines, etc., that money is part of the income of other capitalists who then hand it over to yet other capitalists for machines, etc. If all the capitalists belonged to one great trust these transactions would not take place and the only buying and selling that there would be is the buying of labour-power by the capitalists and the selling of it by the workers and technicians in exchange for wages and salaries. Taken all in all, the capitalist class (not the individual capitalist) has only one expense – buying labour-power. Whatever remains to that class after its purchase of labour-power is profit (surplus value).

That part of the capitalist’s expenditure which is spent on machines, raw materials and unfinished goods goes the rounds from one capitalist to another in a perpetual circle – this is the social wealth that has already been created. If the productive forces of capitalism were to remain static and not increase, this expenditure would appear like a constant, fixed fund thrown from hand to hand in an endless relay race of production, each capitalist handing on to the next the exact amount required to renew his stock of machines and raw materials. No profit would be made on such sales as each capitalist would swap exactly that amount of machines, etc., for an equivalent amount, and, when all the exchanges were done with, everyone would be where he started.

There is, however, one item of expenditure which makes all the difference, namely, wages and salaries – the expenditure on labour-power. This expenditure is the only one which is not a transfer of goods already produced from one capitalist to another. It is the only item of expenditure which is productive in the dual sense of producing the wealth of society and in the sense of producing profits for the capitalist. Labour alone produces wealth.

The capitalist controls the physical means of production; the workers control nothing but themselves, the capacity to work. They are driven to work, to sell their labour–power to the capitalist, in order to keep themselves and their families. When they sell, they demand a ‘living wage’ for their labour-power, and, if unions are strong and there is not much unemployment, they usually get it. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large, for the working class as whole, this is true. If the worker produced exactly that amount of products which he could buy for his weekly wage plus what would replace the raw materials and machinery used up in its production, the capitalist would clearly not make a profit. Profit can only be made when the workers produce more than their wage bill and the depreciation of machinery and the depletion of stocks of raw materials put together, i.e. when they produce surplus value, value over and above the wages necessary to maintain themselves and their families.

Trophy Hunting Industry

Once again the power of capital and the scramble to claim as much as possible of it has raised its ugly head, this time in the plains of Tanzania.

 Dr. Craig Packer, one of the world's foremost authorities on African lions, has run The Serengeti Lion project. His work on animal behaviour has shaped much of the world's scientific thinking regarding the big cats. But the esteemed scientist ran afoul of the Tanzanian wild life officials who withdrew his research permit accusing him of 'tarnishing the image of the government of Tanzania' by making derogatory statements about the trophy hunting industry in emails. Dr. Packer has been trying to get new laws to protect the animals for decades. Now, however, he has clashed with the interests of big money in the trophy industry.

 Profits before science is as insidious as profits before people, it seems. Making money never let truth and science get in the way! 

John Ayers.

In Its Own Special Way???

Three cheers for McDonald's Restaurants. Across Asia, in many big cities, the twenty-four hour restaurants have become home to an underclass of homeless people. Mr. Ding in Beijing said he liked the warmth and peace of McDonald's where he has lived for several years. He commented, "My family has begged for food since the Ming Dynasty." By night, the restaurants become sanctuaries of the downtrodden who pounce on half-eaten hamburgers and stale fries. A spokesperson for the global chain said that McDonald's welcomes everyone to visit our restaurants anytime. 

So you see corporations do have a heart and capitalism takes care of everybody in its own special way (???)

 John Ayers.

Connecting the Dots

The Socialist Party primarily concern itself with analysing the capitalist system, pointing out its defects and advocating the replacing of the capitalist system by the common ownership and democratic administration of the means of production and distribution. We do not advocate reformism or gradualism to solve workers’ problems but nor do we oppose workers trying to achieve reforms to improve their conditions. We fully understand that the capitalist system is not a consistent and perfectly regulated device. It is filled with economic contradictions. We find examples in the tendency of capitalism to eliminate competition on one hand, and to endeavor to maintain competition on the other — such as the corporate cabals which negate competition, and against this contradiction governments pass anti-monopoly laws which make it a penalty to form an agreement in restraint of trade. Among the many contradictory phases in the political and the economic life of capitalism, there may be found an opportunity to strengthen and benefit the working class without giving any corresponding advantage to the capitalist class. All measures which have a tendency to raise the standard of life of the working class through shorter hours, superior educational facilities and opportunities, through higher wages and a better opportunity to organize trade unions, help and assist the socialist movement because it strengthens those who are taking part therein and compose the bulk of its membership. We advocate trade unions because it is a class movement and because it is an economic weapon which maintains for the working men and women a higher standard of existence than if they were unorganised. There is no place in the socialist movement for a cataclysmic revolution.  Socialism does not advance necessarily in response to or because of great economic distress. These crises may point out the fact that something is wrong, but the suggestion of the remedy and the cure for these ills is quite a different problem. Of course, it may be true that the better paid worker may be a little slow in picking up socialist ideas due to the fact that their condition is an improvement economically on other workers and that they perhaps have less to complain about. To say that we must oppose all reforms until the Socialist Party has complete control will breed sterility.

What is the meaning of capitalism? Capitalism is an economic term. It is applied by political economists and sociologists to the economic system of our civilisation, by means of which men achieve economic independence and have the privilege of living idly upon the labour of others, who produce a surplus value above that which they receive for their own sustenance. Capitalism refers to the system. A capitalist is one who profits by the system. If he works himself, it does not alter the fact that he has an income apart from his labour sufficient to sustain him for life without toil, and therefore his is economically independent. The working class under capitalism live in hope of creating an income and of increasing it through the appropriation of the surplus products of others who labour. They would like to achieve economic independence in the same manner as the capitalist class. The working class includes those who are not able to do more than sustain life by means of selling their ability to work labor to the capitalist. Capitalism divides society into two antagonistic forces, because it is based upon two sets of conflicting economic interests. They each desire economic independence. One of these forces believes that it is justly entitled to the economic independence which it has, but which it manifestly did not create; the other force believes that it is being unjustly deprived of that which it creates and which it never possesses. Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is the seed of capitalism, of which wage slavery is the most revolting feature. This seed has now brought forth a bitter fruit in the class struggle, but the Social Party, championing the working class, declares its intention to abolish wage slavery by the establishment of system of cooperative industry, based upon the social or common ownership of the means of production and distribution, to be administered by society in the common interest of all its members and the complete emancipation of the socially useful classes from the domination of capitalism.

Why should people be opposed to common ownership of the land? How many of them today own the land they live upon? Why should we struggle through a lifetime to maintain private ownership of a few acres, to leave to our children, subject to all the vicissitudes of the capitalist system, when through the substitution of common ownership, we relieve ourselves of this  grapple with greed, make ourselves and our children the wards and defenders of society. Under the system of competition for the private ownership of capital, the most that can be claimed by the advocates of an increase in money is that it enable more individuals to compete and thus temporarily or permanently revive the middle strata of society , and that this revival  would lead to more regular employment and better wages for the working class. Assuming all of this to be true (which it is not), it means the perpetuation of wage slavery. Are the slaves to be blamed for voting against the proposal to perpetuate their slavery? Are men whose consciences revolt against the cruelty of the competitive system to blame because they vote against it? The wage class have never been in thorough sympathy with the redistribution of income advocates. Which is the working class most interested in: the possession of the property of the world which it created, or the possession of the money, which is a creation of capitalist laws and which is principally used to exchange property between capitalists that has been stolen from the workers? Ninety-eight percent of the wealth of the world is owned by the capitalist class. Two percent is owned by the working class. The chief function of money is as a medium for the exchange of property. The interest of the working class in the money question under capitalism cannot amount to more than the property which it has to exchange with the use of money. Inside socialism, private ownership and barter in capital being at an end, money would lose the functions which it possessed under capitalism and would be abolished. The Socialist Party is confident that it is making progress toward the abolition of wage slavery and establishment of the cooperative commonwealth.

Russia's capitalists (1985)

Russia's capitalists (1985)

Book Review from the November 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the nature of the ruling class in Russia? Who are they and what is the basis of their power and wealth? Obviously, the answers to these questions cannot be found by simply comparing the Russian rulers with the capitalist class in the west. For example, no one in Russia has legal title to any of the factories, mines, mills, transport and communications systems, and to underline this there is an absence of shareholding and stock exchanges. Nevertheless, there is a social class there whose members live privileged lives in comparison with the vast majority of Russian people. Indeed, the higher ranks of this class enjoy luxurious lifestyles and have an army of servants to look after their every comfort.

How can all this be in a supposedly “socialist" society and how does this privileged class get its wealth if not from legal ownership? These questions, and many more, are dealt with by a dissident Russian scholar, Michael Voslensky, in his book Nomenklatura - Anatomy of the Soviet Ruling Class, published by The Bodley Head (£12.95). This book was first published in German but the English edition has been brought right up to date to include the periods in office of both Andropov and Chernenko.

Nomenklatura is a Latin word meaning an index of names. A more meaningful definition is contained in Structures of the Party, a manual of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

The Nomenklatura is a list of the highest positions, the candidates for these positions are examined by the various party committees, recommended and confirmed. These Nomenklatura party committee members can be relieved of their positions only by authorisation of their committees. Persons elevated to the Nomenklatura are those in key positions (p 2).

Anyone admitted to this magic circle is issued with a document confirming his or her exalted status and membership is virtually guaranteed for life.

Voslensky, who now lives in the west, was himself an important figure in Russia and writes with insight about his subject. He identifies the Nomenklatura as the secretaries and heads of departments and divisions of the Communist Party, Komsomol (communist youth) and trade unions; the central committees of those organisations at both national level and in the various republics; the heads of state administration and their deputies at national and republic levels plus a host of representatives of the state security services, the armed forces, the KGB, the diplomatic services, education, science, industry and agriculture. According to Voslensky the Nomenklatura totals about 750,000 and together with their families at around 3 million, or 1½ per cent of the population. So it is only those who have reached a certain rung on the Communist Party ladder who can become members, and even the international fame and personal wealth of such as writers, artists and film stars do not gain them admission.

Even if we could not put our finger on the exact point in the Communist Party set-up where someone becomes a member of the Nomenklatura, this need not concern us any more than what is the exact amount of capital someone in Britain must have invested before becoming a member of the capitalist class - is it £100,000 or £1 million? The undeniable fact is that despite any grey areas there is a capitalist class in this country which, because of its legal ownership, monopolises the means of production and distribution. Similarly there is a class in Russia, the Nomenklatura, which, because of its monopoly of political power, does exactly the same there.

Voslensky argues that the Nomenklatura are in fact the collective owning class in Russia. He points out that ownership does not have to be by individuals with legal title and cites the nationalised industries in the west where the state undertakes their management on behalf of the national capitalist class. If those industries show a profit then the capitalists will get their “dividend” in the form of tax cuts or of not having to pay tax increases to finance them. At the very least they will get industries which, even if not profitable, they can use to service the enterprises they themselves own. The capitalists in this case own not as individuals but collectively, as a class.

And collective ownership exists not only in nationalised industries. The Roman Catholic church owns vast wealth in property, investments, art treasures, etc, but no individuals, not even the Pope, have legal title to any of it. This wealth is owned collectively by the church hierarchy who use it to protect and extend their power and influence and, incidentally, to live very well, but none of them could, for instance, sell St Peter’s. Any such decision would have to be taken collectively because that is the basis of their ownership.

It is the same with the Nomenklatura. They own as a class and the state manages the production of wealth on their behalf. Their pay-out comes in the form of inflated salaries, the free use of luxury apartments, Black Sea villas, country houses (dachas), more or less free food, free use of cars and many other perks. Also, many of them are allotted more than one official post and receive a separate salary for each. This may not compare with the huge incomes of some western capitalists but, what the Nomenklatura get is a fortune to the average Russian.

Of course the top ranking members of this class do have incomes on the scale of western capitalists. How else can we view the disclosure that a district committee first secretary paid 192,000 roubles (about 160 years’ pay for the average Russian worker) into his wife’s bank account? Moreover, they have an open account at the state bank which allows them to draw out any money they require. Even western capitalists cannot do that. Those at the very top have no need to touch their salaries as everyone at this level simply lives at the state's expense. Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, recalled how her father never touched his wages: “The drawers of his desk . . . were full of these sealed envelopes" (p 231). And yet the Nomenklatura denies its own existence as a class of exploiters and try to pass themselves off as “workers”.

This personal wealth is only a fraction of the surplus value which the Nomenklatura robs from the Russian workers. The entire state apparatus which keeps them in power is financed from this source. The armed forces, the arms industry and the spy and espionage systems which are used to protect their interests from the threat of their international rivals, the massive police force, prisons, labour camps, courts, militia, phony trade unions, all of which are employed in keeping the workers in line, are paid for from the proceeds of this robbery.

One significant similarity the Nomenklatura has with the capitalist class in the west is that it endeavours to hand on its privileges to its children. Although it is true that membership is not hereditary in any legal sense, in a practical sense it may as well be. Voslensky gives several examples of how the children of the Nomenklatura are as good as guaranteed important, well paid positions irrespective of their personal abilities and concludes that although entry to the Nomenklaturacan be obtained by ordinary careerists, "... the chance of entering it by that route are becoming more and more restricted, while the royal road of birth is more and more frequently used” (p 102).

The most important difference between the Russian rulers and the western capitalists is explained by Voslensky.

What matters to the Nomenklatura is not property but power. The bourgeoisie is a class of power owners and is the ruling class as a consequence of that. With the Nomenklatura it is the other way around; it is the ruling class and that makes it the property owning class. Capitalist magnates share their wealth with no one, but gladly share power with professional politicians. Nomenklaturists take care not to share the slightest degree of power with anyone. The head of a department in the Central Committee apparatus never objects to an academician’s or a writer’s having more money or worldly goods than he, but he will never allow either to disobey his orders, (p 72)

So, in the west it is money which is paramount. In Russia what counts is power of which privilege is the proof. This explains why the Nomenklatura apparently have no wish to actually own a dacha. What is more prized is having a state-owned dacha made available to them. That is a sign that they have really arrived, and to actually own a dacha is considered to be bad form.

On occasion Voslensky reveals a sound grasp of the theories of Karl Marx. For example, he approvingly quotes an old Bolshevik ruefully explaining to him, as a schoolboy, why Russia was not ripe for the socialist revolution.

You and your friends, Misha, would like to be airmen or arctic explorers, but with the best will in the world it is impossible because you are still children, and you can no more skip your age than I, unfortunately, can become a schoolboy again. It is not we who determine the various stages of our life, it is those various stages that determine us. And that is true not only of individual human beings, it also applies to human beings in general, to human society. Could Russia or any other country at the same stage of social development, by a mere act of will take a single leap that would put it ahead of the most advanced countries? Marx said it could not and it was obvious (p 15).

He denounces Leninism as not Marxist at all but merely “. . . a strategy and tactics for the seizure of power decked out in Marxist slogans” (p 289) and goes on to pour scorn on the idea that the Nomenklatura are Marxists - "Marx would have turned away in disgust from the system they have established” (p 290).

Voslensky’s own conception of socialist/ communist would seem to be the same as our own, for he says

I believe the idea of a classless communist society as a free association of producers of material and intellectual goods to be a fine one (p 347).

Against this he shows some weakness on Marx’s theory of surplus value, confusing surplus labour - which is present in any society - with surplus value, which is produced under the specific conditions of capitalism’s commodity production. He also shows a certain naiveness in stating that government ministers in the west "live on their pay, just like other people”, and that their wives do the cooking and housework themselves (p 178)!

We can easily forgive Voslensky’s slips. By throwing more light on Russia’s rulers and by highlighting the class divided nature of Russian society together with its repressive state, his valuable book is surely one more nail in the coffin of the idea that socialism or communism exists in that tortured land.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Br.

You Can Never Be Secure

If you think things could not get worse, economically, just reflect on these three cheering captions from the Toronto Star of December 30 - "Dupont will cut 1,700 jobs in its home state of Delaware and thousands more globally as it prepares for its merger with Dow Chemical", "If the trans-Pacific Partnership is ratified in 2016 it could lead to the loss of 20,000 jobs in Canada",. Those who think they have a secure job aren't getting off lightly, either. The University of Guelph's food institute said that with rising food costs and the sinking loonie, the average household in Canada will see an increase of $345 on their grocery expenditure in 2016. So, Crappy New Year, everybody. 

There is no such thing as security for the worker in capitalism where profit trumps people every time.

 John Ayers.

Lunatics Rule

Another of capitalism's wonderful necessities is war. 

The New York Times book review of the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s ("The Iran-Iraq War" by Peter Razoux) tells us that the eight-year conflict killed one million people. In one brief offensive in 1983, the Iranians are believed to have sustained 7,000 dead; thousands of men were electrocuted while wading across a swamp; Saddam Hussein sacrificed a whole battalion to test out a new nerve gas; the Ayatollah Khomeini ordered a southern Iraq city to be 'a Persian Stalingrad'; Hussein commissioned a toy company to manufacture gold-colored plastic keys that children could wear around their necks "as a reminder that their detonation by mines or slaughter by machine gun fire would unlock the gates of paradise." 

 Clearly we are still in a very primitive state when lunatics like this can command and rule a country. Only a social and political revolution will rid the world of this type of behaviour.

 John Ayers.

who owns scotland

It has been claimed that 432 private land owners - 0.008% of the Scottish population - owned 50% of the private land in rural Scotland in 2012.

Scottish children and inequality

 Scottish children suffer some of the highest rates of health and social inequality in Europe and North America, new research has found. The World Health Organisation Europe (WHO) Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study found Scottish boys showed the highest level of inequality for multiple health complaints. Scottish girls have above average levels of inequality in regards to the same health complaints but also face more pressure from schoolwork than most others.

The report, which was led by academics at the University of St Andrews, presents new data on adolescent health, health behaviours and social determinants from 42 countries. It found young people in Scotland from the least affluent households (lowest 20%) report poorer results on a number of health indicators than those from the most affluent households (highest 20%).

As well as inequality with regards health complaints, the findings found Scottish boys showed the highest level of inequality for taking part in moderate physical activity and tobacco and cannabis use. Scottish girls showed the highest levels of inequality for ease of communication with their fathers and 15-year olds were more likely to report multiple health complaints compared to the average. The proportion of 15-year olds in Scotland who report feeling ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of schoolwork pressure was shown to be increasing. In 2014, Scottish 15-year olds ranked 2nd out of 41 countries on this measure.

While the prevalence of drunkenness among 15-year olds has been on a downward trajectory since 1998, Scotland remains one of the countries with the highest prevalence in this age group of around one third. Alcohol consumption is one of the few topics in the HBSC survey for which there are no socioeconomic differences in Scotland.

Dr Inchley, deputy director of the Child and Adolescent Health Research Unit based at St Andrews, said:  “Particularly concerning is the increase in school-related stress which may be contributing to poorer mental wellbeing especially among 15 year old girls. It is essential that we look at ways of providing support to young people to help them navigate the challenges they face during adolescence.”

Jamie Hepburn, minister for sport, health improvement and mental health, said although there were some positive findings, particularly with regards to 11-year-olds, the government acknowledged Scotland does face problems.

“We recognise that there are deeply ingrained health inequalities in Scotland - something which has existed for generations and which will not be solved overnight,” he said.

"At its root this is an issue of income inequality - and we need a shift in emphasis from dealing with the consequences to tackling the underlying causes, such as ending poverty, fair wages, supporting families and improving our physical and social environments…”

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/scots-children-face-some-of-the-worst-health-inequalities-in-europe

Socialism - Real Liberty for Everybody

 “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” ― William Paley

Private ownership of the means of production and distribution is responsible for the ever-increasing uncertainty of livelihood and the poverty and misery of the workers, and it divides society into two hostile classes — the capitalists and wage workers. The once powerful middleclass is rapidly disappearing in the mill of completion. The struggle is now between the capitalist class and the working class. The possession of the means of livelihood givers to the capitalists the control of government, the press, the pulpit, and to schools, and enables them to reduce working people to a state of intellectual, physical, and social inferiority, political subservience, and virtual slavery. The economic interests of the capitalist class dominate our entire social system; the lives of the working class are recklessly sacrificed for profit, wars are fomented between nations, indiscriminate slaughter is encouraged, and the destruction of whole races is sanctioned in order that the capitalists may extend their commercial dominion abroad and enhance their supremacy at home. But the same economic causes which developed capitalism are leading to socialism, which will abolish both the capitalist class and the class of wage workers. And the active force in bringing about this new and higher order of society is the working class. All other classes, despite their apparent or actual conflicts, are alike interested in the upholding of the system of private ownership of the instruments of wealth production. The Conservatives, the Labour Party, the other bourgeois ownership parties such as the nationalists, which do not stand for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of production, are alike political representatives of the capitalist class. The workers can most effectively act as a class in their struggle against the collective powers of capitalism by constituting themselves into a political party, distinct from and opposed to all parties formed by the propertied classes.

Working people have been impoverished. Poverty is necessitated by an economic system based upon individual ownership of the means of production and distribution utilised for exchange and private profit. It is fully understood that low wages, long hours, and scarcity of employment — that is, poverty — can only disappear with the disappearance of the capitalist system of which these things are the inevitable outcome. Political parties, like individuals, act from motives of self-interest. The platform of a party is simply the political expression of the economic interests of the class it represents. The Tory Party differs from the Labour Party as the manufacturing capitalist differs from the large financier capitalist; it is a difference in degree only. We find by an examination of their manifestoes that substantially the same statements are made. Both the Tories and Labourites are in favour of competition, the existing system. They condemn its anti-social tendencies, its fraud, but they still favour the system itself. Corporations are organised purely for private profit; the rights of the corporations to exploit the working class and exact tribute from the people are to be respected.

The Socialist Party differs from them both as the exploited wage worker differs from his or her exploiter; the difference here is not in degree but in kind. The Labour and Conservative parties are in favour of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution. They are in favor of the existing wage system. There is absolutely no difference between them. Upon the other hand, the Socialist Party, standing upon principle declaring in favour of common ownership of the means of production, declaring to the world that there is no other solution of this economic problem. The Socialist Party will do whatever it can to hasten to coming of the day when war shall curse this earth no more. We are pressing forward step by step until the minority becomes the majority, and inaugurates the system of the cooperative commonwealth. We ask you to join and cast your lot with socialism to stand side by side with us. It is infinitely better to vote for economic freedom and fail than to vote for continued wage slavery and succeed. Cooperative industry carried forward in the interest of all the people that is socialism. Real liberty for every human being on earth; no person compelled to depend on the arbitrary will of another for the right or opportunity to create enough to supply his or her material wants. There will still be competition among men; but it will not be for bread, it will be to excel in good works. Every person will work for the society in which he or lives, and society will work in the interests of those who compose it. We look into the future with absolute confidence we will enjoy a land without a master, a land without a slave.

The trades union movement and independent political action are the emancipating factors of the wage working class. The trade union movement is the natural result of capitalist production and represents the economic side of the working class movement. We consider it the duty of socialists to join the unions of their respective trades and occupations to assist in building up and unifying the labour organizations. We recognize that trade unions are by historical necessity organized on neutral grounds, as far as political affiliation is concerned. We call the attention of the trade unionists to the fact that the class struggle so nobly waged by the trade union forces today, while it may result in lessening the exploitation of labour, can never abolish that exploitation. The exploitation of labour will only come to an end when society takes possession of all the means of production for the benefit of all the people. It is the responsibility of every trade unionist to realise the necessity of independent political action on socialist lines, to join the Socialist Party and assist in building upon a strong political movement of the wage-working class, whose aim and object must be the abolition of wage slavery and the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth, based on the common ownership of all the means of production and distribution

Welcome to the Class War

The socialist movement is as wide as the world, and its mission is to win the world — the whole world. The world the socialist movement is to win from capitalism will be filled with wealth for all to have and to enjoy in its abundance. The worst in socialism will be better than the best in capitalism. And why not? Nothing is so easily produced as wealth. The earth is one vast mass of raw materials. The era of invention and technological transformation has brought us to this common point of view. With the advent of socialism the machine has come to free, and not to enslave; to save, and not to destroy. To realise this great social ideal is a work of education and organisation. The working class must be aroused. They must be made to hear the call of solidarity. When enough have become socialists — a new power will be in control! The people! For the first time in history the working class will be free and no class will be in subjection. Democratic and Republican, Labour and Tory, politicians sneer at us because we are “idealists.” Socialism is defined by ourselves as the common ownership of the social means of production and distribution. It is the name given to the next stage of civilisation, if civilisation is to survive. This class struggle will not, cannot cease. It is simply the manifestation of the law of development and evolution. Through all the centuries of the past man has enslaved and preyed upon his fellow being. For thousands of years there has been masters and slaves. Today we have employers and wage slaves. It is now the task of workers to dispossess the small possessing class in the name of the whole people. To accomplish this where all men and women have the ballot, political organisation is an absolute necessity, and hence the organization of the Socialist Party to represent the interests of the working class. The prevailing economic system can only be abolished in two ways; namely, by securing control of the state machine or by violent revolution. No sane person prefers violent to peaceful measures, and hence socialists rely upon the efficacy of a united class-conscious ballot to accomplish their end.

We have two nations in every country. One nation is very large in number, but poorly-fed, poorly-educated, and suffering from overwork and misery; the other nation is tiny in number, but over-fed, degenerate from too much luxury and too much idleness. Some day in the near future the hungry millions will turn against the sated few. A fearful retribution will be enacted on the capitalist class as a class — and the innocent will suffer with the guilty. Such a revolution will  throw back the human race into barbarism. Socialists do not want to destroy but to build anew and we do not intend for humanity to regress to the dark days of the middle ages. But as long as the means of production — land, machinery, raw materials, transport, communications and media remain private property of the comparatively few such will be the case. There is but one deliverance from the rule of the capitalist — and that is the rule by the people. The Socialist Party is the only party that is or can be truly representative of the interests of the working class, the only class essential to society and the class that is destined ultimately to succeed to political power, “not for the purpose of governing men,” in the words of Engels, but “to administer things.” The present form of government based solely upon private property in the means of production is wholly coercive; in socialism it will be purely administrative. The only vital function of the present government is to keep the exploited class in subjection by their exploiters. The owning class is necessarily the ruling class. It dictates legislation and in case of doubt or controversy has it construed to its own interest.

 Economic freedom can result only from common ownership, and upon this vital principle the Socialist Party differs diametrically from every other party. The Socialist Party is a class party and frankly admits that a political organization is but an expression of class interest. The Socialist Party therefore exists for the sole purpose of representing the producers, that is to say, the working class. Seeing clearly the age-long struggle between the producers of the world’s necessities and the parasites upon their backs, the Marxian philosophy of the historic “class struggle” is the foundation of its propaganda and organization work. The Socialist Party did not create class lines or class distinctions. Whoever or whatever is to blame for the situation, there is no controverting the fact that The world is divided into two well defined groups: first, a very large number workers in mines, factories and fields; second, a comparatively small group who own and control those mines, mills, factories and land. Between private ownership and common ownership there can be no compromise. You might as well try to harmonise fire and water. One produces for profit, the other for use. One produces millionaires and beggars, the other equals. One gives us palaces and hovels, robes and rags, the other will secure to every man and woman their full product of his or her toil, abolish class rule, wipe out class distinction, secure the peace of society, and make of this world an earthly paradise.

The Socialist Party with its clear cut understanding of the class struggle is the political expression of the dispossessed class and holds out hope of liberation and for a place beneath the sun. An enlightened and class-conscious working class will be satisfied with nothing less than the common ownership and democratic management of the means and instruments of production and distribution.

Crime figures

• Almost three quarters of the 688,000 crimes committed in Scotland last year were related to property.
  
  
  Vandalism accounted for 26%; vehicle theft 6%; personal theft not including robbery 15% and housebreaking represented 3%.
• people's perception that they could be a victim of crime continues to be higher than the actual risk - for example nearly 4% of people fear their vehicle being stolen while the risk is 0.1%

Unsolvable In Capitalisml

We are frequently seeing an advertisement on TV to boost membership in C.A.R.P. (Canadian Association of Retired Persons). The ad shows an old man faced with a terrible dilemma – he has to choose between buying food or the medicine he needs. CARP may protest this situation vigorously but it would be insane to think they can solve the guy's problem. 

Under capitalism, only money counts, human needs do not. Let's work for a society where food and medicine and other needs are freely available to all.

 John Ayers.

Lunatic Economy

Here's another marker of capitalism – the same issue of the paper reported on Donald Trump and his former debt. In 1991, Trump had $900 million in personal liabilities and his corporate debt ran into the billions. The New York Times noted, "Having billions of dollars of debt is a powerful bargaining chip." 

One could only say that in a lunatic economy! 

John Ayers.

Pimping for Capitalism

"I love my country too much to be a nationalist" - Albert Camus

It is rare to meet anyone whose world view is not framed by nationalism in one way or another. This is hardly surprising. The world is constructed on national lines: nation states, national languages, national education systems and national laws. And from a very early age, we are taught about our shared national culture and encouraged to embrace “national identity”. We reflexively support “our” country, “our” military, “our” national sporting teams. Nationalism is not a coherent argument. Nor could it be, because, while the sentiment is in part a reflection of how the world is structured, its purpose is to obscure, rather than clarify, the nature of society.

“National interest” and “European unity” are disguises donned by various vying groups of capitalists in order to lead the workers to abandon resolute defense of their own interests.  The working class has no interest in strengthening its own class enemy whether it is those defending “national sovereignty” or those who call for a stronger European “superstate”. Virtually every political party, regardless of ideological stripe, has to varying degrees been complicit in the closing of minds. Even the Left, can maintain a deafening silence when unpopular views and ideas are under attack. Nationalism is the natural enemy of dissent. Nationalist thinking lies at the heart of the difficulties in managing the migration crisis. Nationalism is an outdated idea, a relic from bygone times. We are living in a globalised age, where collaboration between people across the geographies is what’s helping us solve problems of poverty and disease etc. The evolution of human civilisation is about discovering that there is more to the world than what our ancestors believed. In such a context, we should be looking for ways to connect through concepts of shared values, rather than shared national identity. We need to look beyond our borders to allow a free flow of ideas, no matter how much they offends some people and as long as they don’t call for violence. We need to shed the idea of nationalism.

We have a Hungary whose Prime Minister says he intends to build an “illiberal state,” a Czech President who attends anti-Muslim rallies with the far right, a Polish leadership that declares the media should do the government’s bidding, and a Slovak neo-nazi prime minister. There has been an upswing in xenophobic rhetoric and oligarchs are capturing politics and media. In Czech politics is the rise of Andrej Babiš, the second richest man in the country. He founded his own political party ANO in 2011, “to fight corruption and other ills in the country’s political system.” He is now Finance Minister in the coalition government and bought a significant percentage of Czech media. There are worrying trends in Germany too. Launched at the end of 2014, the social movement “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West” (Pegida), quickly gained momentum, especially in its birthplace of Dresden and other east German cities such as Leipzig. Pegida’s demonstrations against the perceived Islamisation of Germany, have attracted tens of thousands of protestors. Pegida especially benefited from the refugee crisis, but wasn’t the only far-right movement to do so: the right-wing populist “Alternative for Germany” has now become the third most popular party in the country, and will likely enter the Bundestag after the federal elections in 2017.

Nationalism should be placed alongside a range of other taken-for-granted capitalist ideas. It is part of the reflection in people’s consciousnesses of the experience of living in a capitalist world. Just as living under capitalism makes the great mass of people take for granted that commodity production, alienated wage labour and competition are more common than co-operation, so it makes them take for granted the necessity of the nation state. And nationalist consciousness makes sense so long as they do not challenge the system as a whole. As the rich of every country get richer, they are forcing a race to the bottom on the rest of us. Everywhere, workers are being told to expect less, not more, to work harder and longer with fewer social protections and a continually eroded welfare state. The super-wealthyhave constructed their own way of life that excludes workers. Those at the top – whether Chinese, US or British capitalists, top government bureaucrats from poor African states or Middle Eastern oil sheiks – stay in the same international hotels, enjoy meals from the same top restaurants, live in similarly fortified gated palatial estates and send their children to elite private schools where they mix with others of the same class background. At the same time, workers around the world today more than ever share similar conditions of life: tempos of work, patterns of consumption, forms of recreation and leisure, increasingly cut across the old national barriers. Struggles between workers and bosses in one country often combine with struggles in other countries.

If we want to overcome the real divisions between rich and poor, we need to break down the invented divisions between peoples across the globe. Marx and Engels recognised that “working men have no country” and it was a call for overcoming division and uniting working people across borders. No one would suggest that this is an easy task. But all workers have an interest in adopting this spirit, rather than succumbing to nationalist arguments. Working people often will find that their views accord with those of other workers of different nationalities around the world. Starving people could be fed by mobilising the world’s extensive transport networks to get the 1.3 billion tonnes of food that are produced each year to those who need it. There is no technological or logistical barrier to this: every day McDonalds already supplies millions of Big Macs and fries to its 35,000 outlets in 118 countries without too much trouble. But because there’s no money to be made in getting food to poor people, it doesn’t happen. In terms of climate change sufficient wind farms and solar panels to supply the world’s energy needs. These could be built in a matter of months if there was the political will. Poverty could be alleviated without too much trouble in a socialist society. We need to resurrect Marx and Engels’ call to arms: “Workers of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Introducing the Socialist Party (short version)

Socialism is common-sense

Commodity prices wobble and economic disaster looms. We have been here before, if we could but remember. We are not the first – or the last – to feel that market is beyond our ken and beyond our control but which shape the realities of our daily lives. We live in an impoverished age. Not only a relative and extreme material poverty but a poverty of ideas, a poverty of possibilities. We need to exert democratic control over the complex economic activity that governs our lives. Poverty is almost like a prison, where freedom of choice is heavily constrained, surveillance and monitoring is endless, social services’ red-tape directs daily life, “professionals” act with authoritarian condescension and criminal anti-social behaviour and criminal fraud being assumed. Many see people in poverty and seek to try to help. Others, though, see people suffering from poverty and seek to profit. Making money off poor people is a booming business.

Members of the Socialist Party are “commoners”, advocates for common ownership of the means of production and distribution such as factories and transport. We seek the democratic association of society, based on the self-organisation of people. Our perspective is the view of human society that is for the shared good – a commonwealth – which we shall shape together to satisfy our needs. However, at present, humanity seems to be very distant from this aspiration. The Socialist Party is a democratic organisation of people united on certain basic beliefs. The Socialist Party has always held that the widest possible discussion of conflicting views is desirable. Our case for socialism is based on the proposition that the socialist-conscious working class, once they want to change society, are capable of establishing a Socialist system and running it without any orders from above. In other words, will run society without leaders, bosses, managers or any Party claiming to speak for them or represent "their interests". Socialism means no more elitism. The view that workers can only learn the futility of reformism or the limitations of trade unionism by their own personal experience is not one we fully concur with. We point out that by far the greater part of what people knew came from being taught the experiences of others. Of course, strictly speaking this learning is also experience. The task of the Socialist Party is to see that hearing or reading the socialist case is part of workers’ experience. It is not just experience of factory life (after all many workers do not work in factories), but of generally having to live on a wage or salary and all the problems which lack of money brings in housing, education, health, transport and the rest. It is their general social experience, rather than their narrow experience at the point of production, that can bring workers to a socialist understanding.

The idea of socialism as a solution to working class problems arises out of capitalism partly because it is the solution and partly because people’s experience of capitalism teaches them that it is. The role of a socialist party, at the present time, is to put socialist ideas before the working class to ensure that hearing the socialist ease is a part of their experience. This is our participation, as a party, in the class struggle. Later a socialist party will be the instrument which the working class can use to win power for socialism and will disappear as soon as socialism has been established.

Members of the Socialist Party, as workers, are engaged in the day-to-day struggle to live under capitalism. They could not avoid this even if they wanted to. In so far as this struggle is organised our members are active mainly in the trade unions but also in unofficial workers committees, tenants associations and  environmental anti-pollution groups. We see it as having the practical aim of protecting workers’ living and working conditions under capitalism. The effectiveness of this struggle, we might add, is limited not only by the economic workings of capitalism but also by the ideas of the workers involved (which is why the spread of socialist ideas, in which we are engaged, helps the day-to-day struggle.) If we are to appreciate how the revolution in ideas (a necessary precondition of the social revolution) will occur, we must first rid ourselves of the simplistic fallacy that people change their minds only when they burn their fingers.

Under capitalism production is not just a technical question; it is also a question of exploitation. Thus, in varying proportions, a manager’s function is partly technical and partly disciplinary (“order-giving”, as some put it). In socialist society production will just be a technical question; there will be no “discipline”. Work will be voluntary and democratically-controlled — though of course we cannot now give a blueprint of the way this will be done. The division between “order-givers” and “order-takers” arises out of the capitalist exploitation of the workers through the wages system. This is why genuine democratic control of work demands the abolition of the market and working for wages. To retain these is to retain the same economic pressures on the workers even if exercised through a workers’ management committee rather than a capitalist-appointed manager.

Socialists are hardened by now to meeting the opinion that the system of production for profit is essentially sane and efficient. The opposite is true. Capitalism wastes its wealth and its abilities. The profit motive cannot work efficiently. Capitalism cannot cater for the needs of its people. It produces waste and it produces want and both are profitable only to the minority who hold positions of privilege. This is now a world of potential plenty. Yet all but a few are deprived in some way and many starve. Common sense would suggest that, to take full advantage of this world-wide productive system, it should be owned and controlled as a unit. That it should belong in common to all mankind and be controlled by them for their own benefit. But of course, this is not so. The means and instruments for producing wealth are not owned in common by us all. They are the property of a few. Nor are they used to make what we need. They are used to make things to be sold. This is what is behind the paradox of waste amidst want.