Sellafield story (1986)

 

From the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Half a tonne of uranium is dumped in the Irish Sea; fifteen workers are affected by highly toxic plutonium nitrate; contaminated water is accidentally discharged . . . another few weeks like that and Sellafield — formerly Windscale — had better start looking for another name.

Not to worry though, after one incident British Nuclear Fuels calculated that only two workers were affected. That this figure grew to 11, then 15, should not be unexpected in an industry with a particularly notable history of lies and deception. Indeed it was this general lack of information that forced 800 workers at Sellafield to come out on strike.

At the same time, local communities in four areas around Britain are having their wishes ignored, their protests ridiculed, and their lives threatened by the proposed dumping of radioactive waste. Recently, the government — promptly for once — pressed ahead with a public inquiry into a new kind of fuel reprocessing plant at Dounreay. The inquiry is being held half way between Cape Wrath and John O' Groats and is being boycotted by all the major anti-nuclear groups because of the haste with which it is being carried out.

Back at the source of the waste, at Sellafield, the chairman Con Allday was living up to his name — he criticised public concern with radiation as being "born of ignorance". However, according to the Guardian (March 1). only about 10 per cent of the research carried out into the pollution and biological effects of radiation is readily available to the public.

Of course, you can have all the access to information that you want, but the real decisions are based on economics, the figures under the headings "profit" and "loss". And the story that these tell is that profit must be maintained. Compared to that, the figures for the ten-fold rate of leukaemia around Sellafield might as well come under "other costs'.

Make no mistake, in the socialist alternative locked doors, secret files or codes on computer files will be as impossible as money or markets. Socialism will be a society in which decisions will not be made by an owning minority or a state, nor will decisions be subject to the anarchic fluctuations of the market, which can favour nuclear power one week and oil the next. Instead decisions on. for example, energy production, will be made by the whole of the community concerned.

But talk of socialism is all very well we are told. In the meantime, however, "workers must be given a lead". But what sort of lead has come from the politicians? For example, Jack Cunningham? Now as Labour spokesman with responsibility for issues concerning the protection of the environment. Cunningham has shown his sincere concern and abiding interest in protecting his seat from any nasty fallout. To hell with the environment. and to hell with the health of a large proportion of the population of Britain, because Sellafield employs 11.000 people, and that's 11,000 votes.

Of course, such a lead has angered many Labour supporters, but what they don't realise is that such political hypocrisy is not limited to one Labour shadow minister; Jack Cunningham need have no worries about selling out on Sellafield. because he had been given assurances anyway, that the Labour Party conference resolution on stopping the nuclear power programme, would not even be included in the next Labour election manifesto.

If you take the view that politics is only about what politicians offer you, then we have no choice. Workers and local communities have no real choice when it comes to such an area as energy production: the workers in and around Sellafield are choosing between keeping their local cancer factory or suffering immense unemployment in the area. Not that they should really worry — when Thatcher visited the plant last year she said that she would be happy to live near Sellafield. Presumably Barratt 's did not have any houses in the right price range in the area.

Similarly, at the Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth recently, the choice was seen as being between nuclear power (hazardous to health and the environment but provides jobs for some workers), and coal (similarly hazardous but provides jobs for other workers). The stale politics of the Labour Party and of working within capitalism, divides workers into different apparent groups when what is required is the recognition of the common interests that workers have under capitalism, and the common interest all workers have in getting socialism as soon as possible.

But if the Labour Party has been shown to be powerless to protect the environment, what about the likes of Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace? The first thing that can be said about such "single-issue" campaigns is that they aren't. Both Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are starting to realise that you cannot just concentrate on one problem at a time. Now the Socialist Party has been saying for years that the vast majority of social problems have at their root the present social system — capitalism — and the consequent domination of profit over people and their environment; the problem of pollution can only be seen, and solved, with an understanding of the society that causes it.

However all that the environmental pressure groups are doing is supporting a variety of fragmented and futile reform measures. For instance, faced with official censorship of information on the extent of radiation in the environment, the environmental pressure groups have been forced to broaden their campaigning to include demands for Freedom of Information. Similarly, in their arguments for the closure of Sellafield. FoE have calculated that reprocessing is currently uneconomic. Now you can bet that if profit was the only reason to keep Sellafield open, it would indeed have been closed down years ago. However, closure of the plant would in a real sense have "cost a bomb” as that provision is also integral to Sellafield. So the environmentalists are also having to face up to the part that nuclear power can play in the whole area of nuclear weapons. The lesson is clear — once you start to deal with problems bit by bit, you will never finish.

The environmentalists have called for the closure of Sellafield. but the demand will be ignored if it runs counter to the economic logic of capitalism. However the environmentalists have succeeded in the minor but still futile demand to get rid of BNFL's chairman (as if changing the chairman's name will make any more difference than changing Windscale's name). The chairman was due to retire last month anyway, but at least now the members of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth can sleep at night in the comforting knowledge that the unfortunately-named Con Allday has been replaced by the even more unfortunately-named Neville Chamberlain.

It is tempting to think that problems can be reformed away one by one. bit by bit; that the problems of pollution are just unfortunate accidents, sad aberrations in an otherwise perfect world. But experience shows that reforms rarely remove the problem. One example of the ineffectiveness of reformism is the ReChem plant at Bonnybridge, Scotland, which incinerated a toxic chemical and in the process could produce an even deadlier chemical, dioxin. After much protest the plant closed down (due to economic reasons, said the company). A success for the environmentalists, you might think? Not really, the problem has only shifted — to South Wales to be exact, where the only other factory for the disposal of these chemicals (called PCBs) is now incapable of dealing with the increased load. So now more and more toxic waste is having to be stored before incineration, in itself creating more problems. Another example of the "success" of reforms in the field of environmental protection is the simple solution to emissions of smoke and chemicals from factories and power stations polluting the nearby countryside — build chimney-stacks and kill a fjord or German forest instead.

All these examples (and more) of environmental destruction — from Bonnybridge to Bhopal. Sellafield to Seveso. or the Black Forest to the rainforests — have a common cause in capitalism, and the socialist alternative is relevant to them all. For inside socialism, the choice will not be between polluting your own backyard or someone else's; neither will it be a choice between having a job or having your health.

Brian Gardner

Glasgow Branch

"Stop This" or "Stop That" - Or "Stop it All"

Because socialism can only come about when a majority want it and organise to get it, and because there is clearly not yet a majority desire for socialism. we see the role of socialists today as being primarily educational in the broadest sense, "making Socialists” as William Morris put it.

But we have never imagined that a majority desire for socialism will arise purely as a result of our own educational activities (and certainly not from our classes and lectures in Marxian theory, which are mainly aimed at our members anyway). Our view is that hearing the case for socialism can speed up the process whereby people come to realise that capitalism cannot serve their interests since it always has to put making profits before satisfying needs.

Fortunately, it is capitalism that does most of the work. Because it is based on exploitation and because it puts profits before needs, it inevitably generates discontent, protest and struggle but also the idea of an alternative society based on common ownership and production for use instead of class ownership and production for profit socialist theory and principles are in fact the distilled experience of past generations of working-class opponents of capitalism. And it is this past experience that we in the Socialist Party see ourselves as trying to transmit to our fellow workers.

The educationalists are concerned with the process of learning from others and, insofar as socialists are engaged in this sort of education work, no doubt there is something we could learn from their methods. But some say that we should also get involved in struggles against the effects of capitalism to, as it were, take people through the experience of coming up against the barriers that capitalism places in the way of satisfying people's needs.

We are not against people fighting back against what the ruling class tries to impose on them. In fact we are all in favour workers fighting the bosses at work for better wages and working conditions and for similar bread-and-butter struggles by tenants, claimants, students. But we say that conducting these struggles is the task of trade unions, tenants associations, claimant unions and the like, not that of the socialist political party (whose task is to advocate socialism). For us to intervene in them as a party would be to assume a vanguardist, leadership role, attracting the support of people who only wanted improvements within capitalism.

Our members participate in such struggles as individual workers who are personally affected by the particular problem. Naturally socialists involved in such struggles will put the socialist case but as a party we confine ourselves to general principles, urging that the struggles be conducted under the democratic control of those involved and pointing out that capitalism is the cause of the problem and socialism the solution.

These are bread-and-butter struggles which people are forced to be involved in, whether or not they are socialists, just because they are propertyless in a society where you must get money to survive. So we have no problem over workers’ strike actions. Our Party and its members are behind them.

As to other, political (rather than economic) struggles, we are of course against nuclear weapons, wars, homelessness, racism, pollution, etc., but that's the point; we are against all of them and don’t want to have to give priority to any one over all the others, putting them in competition as the various single-issue campaigns in effect do.

In fact our task as socialists is precisely to point out the link between all these problems — their shared origin in capitalism — and the shared solution to them in the establishment of a society of common ownership and production to satisfy people’s needs. This is a task no one else can do, but is essential if the people involved are to come to a socialist understanding as quickly as possible.

Somebody must be there to ensure that hearing the case for socialism also becomes part of their experience. We don’t need to take them through the experience of the failure of reformist struggles. Capitalism itself will do that. But we do need to ensure that they hear the case for socialism. Which only a separate, independent body of convinced socialists can do.

To be able to do this with any degree of credibility we have to practise what we preach and not give priority to any one of the various competing single-issue campaigns by supporting them as a party or joining them as individuals.

This isn’t necessary anyway since it is possible to make contact with those involved in such campaigns by being present at their meetings and demonstrations with leaflets and pamphlets which at the same time express agreement with their general aim and point out that this aim cannot be achieved under capitalism. This was the position we took up with regard to CND in the 1960s and over similar campaigns more recently.

In any event, we are not into either vanguardist politics (trying to take over and lead struggles) or reformist politics (trying to pressure capitalist governments into doing something). This means that we have a quite different political practice to that of those groups which adopt the "entryist" tactic of joining such campaigns.

They end up getting involved in the internal politics of such organisations, either trying to take them over or to stop some other group doing so. When one campaign peters out they have to look around for another bandwagon to jump on. And they are shouting "Stop This" or "Stop That" so much that they have no time to consider. let alone argue for, the idea of an overall change in the basis of society as the global solution to all the various problems.

We, on the other hand, are entirely free to do this and in fact are the only people who do so, fulfilling an essential role which no one else can: putting over the straight case for socialism and making hearing this a part of people’s experience.

Why we are socialists

The master class are quite prepared to use the present world pandemic crisis for the purpose of beating down the standard of living of the working class and to begin the next booming period of trade and profit-reaping with cheapened labour-power.

However, the Socialist Party points out to members of the working class that the aim of our class must be the abolition of the capitalist system, and the construction in its place of a system of society based on the common ownership of the instruments and means of wealth production and distribution. When that is accomplished there will be an end to all class struggles, because there will be an end to classes, and mankind will arise from the evil dreams of the past to the realisation of a sane, noble and free existence.

Although most people these days would admit to being concerned about the state of the planet we live on it is remarkable how little the destructive tendencies of the profit system are blamed for causing environmental damage. Yet it should be impossible for us to ignore the fact that our relationship to our environment, and the effect we have on it, is governed entirely by the kind of society we live in.

This should not be seen as “economic determinism”; it does not mean ideas simply spring from economic conditions like mushrooms from a compost heap. Indeed, at any point in time one will probably find an array of ideas on any subject. What causes some of these to take root and spread while others are passed over or allowed to wither on the vine? According to historical materialism, a key factor, but by no means the only factor, in this social selection of ideas is the economic one. Thus, the precise origins of an idea is less important than its utility for society and its mode of production in particular.

But what is a “mode of production”? This has two aspects—the “forces of production”, and the “relations of production” as constituted by the form of ownership of the means of living. With the emergence of private property and the state several thousand years ago these relations became differentiated into antagonistic class relationships. As ownership of the means of living became concentrated in the hands of a small minority, this minority began to live off the labour of others, using the state as its means of coercion. The particular form this economic exploitation took allows us to distinguish one mode of production from another. Thus, in the relatively short history of private property society we can identify a succession of such modes: chattel slavery', feudalism and capitalism.

According to Marx, the relations of production tend to reflect the level of technological progress. However, as the productive forces develop within a particular mode of production they eventually come into conflict with, are “fettered” by, its relations of production. This conflict expresses itself as an intensification of class struggle between the exploiting class which has a vested interest in maintaining these relations and a new class whose interests lie with the further development of the productive forces (and hence the revolutionary' overthrow of those relations which block that development). The resolution of that conflict occurs when the latter class finally succeeds in capturing the state and using it to usher in the new mode of production.

Every established order tends to project an image of itself as being tunelessly grounded in nature, thereby implying change is “unnatural”. As a social order is defined by its class structure, this projection is bound up with the need for a ruling class to perpetuate the existing relations of production through which it dominates society. Such dominance is hegemonic: it is based on the acquiescence of the exploited majority rather than just crude force. Although the “objective” interests of most people should lead them to change society, they tend to accept the ruling class idea that society cannot, and should not, change. As Marx points out “the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force” (German Ideology).

Yet despite the enormous power a ruling class wields through its control over the means of disseminating ideas, change is inescapable. In this respect, the development of the productive forces exerts a subversive influence, breaking the mould of long-established ideas. Indeed, insofar as technology mediates our relationship with nature, technological change can alter our perception of “nature” and hence society.

Ideas on nature under feudalism

We can see this in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The dominant metaphor of nature up until the early modem era was an organismic one. Nature was viewed as a living organism. Its manifold parts, including humankind, were held to be fundamentally interdependent and constituting an integrated whole. Such a concept fitted in with tire close organic ties most people had with the land and with the nature of the society in which they lived. Nature was seen in essentially teleological terms; everything was designed for a purpose which supposedly emanated from God. That purpose was to benefit humankind. This anthropocentric view of nature was nevertheless couched in religious terms whereby nature was seen as a “book” through which God’s plan was revealed.

“Physico-theology”, or the religious study of nature, was the means by which one could discover what God had in store for humankind. Since God was seen as a benevolent creator the world he created was essentially good, so to act in a way that conflicted with his design was wrong. Thus the notion that the universe was designed as a Great Chain of Being in which everything was interconnected was not simply an attempt to understand how it functioned; it was a moral statement which had implications not only for the behaviour of human beings towards each other but also for their treatment of nature.

On the other hand, the Christian belief contained in the Book of Genesis that God made man “in his own image” and enjoined him to “subdue the earth” has been interpreted as sanctioning a domineering attitude to nature. A leading exponent of this view is Lynn White who argued that a traditional Christian arrogance towards nature and the driving out of pagan animistic religions is what led to our present ecological crisis. According to him, “since the roots of our trouble are largely religious, the remedy must also be essentially religious” (The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis).

But this “idealist” interpretation of history does not stand up to scrutiny. There is considerable evidence of environmental destruction on a large scale in the Ancient World pre-dating Christianity which can in fact be linked to the emergence of class-based forms of social organisation.

A more telling argument against White’s thesis is that it does not explain why some aspects in the Christian worldview emphasising harmony with nature became less influential in the early modern era while the theme of dominating nature came to be increasingly asserted. The latter was in fact connected with a marked increase in productive activities such as mining, deforestation and draining marshes which in turn were related to the growth of a capitalist market and scientific progress. The “tension between technological development in the world of action and the controlling organic images in the world of the mind had become too great. The old structures were incompatible with the new activities” (Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, p.2).

Rise of capitalism

The rise of capitalism undermined the old static order of feudalism in which everyone “knew their place” by bringing about increased mobility. Land enclosures and agricultural improvements resulted in the removal of labourers from the land and their transformation into an urban proletariat, no longer in intimate contact with nature’s rhythms. Furthermore, the commodification of labour power went hand-in-hand with commodification of nature itself. As Marx put it, “the mode of perceiving nature under the rule of private property is a real contempt for, and a practical degradation of, nature”.

This change in perception was reinforced by scientific developments. The Copernican revolution in astronomy which shattered the Medieval view that the earth was the centre of the universe, the growing awareness of hitherto unknown biological organisms (many of which did not appear to serve any useful purpose for humankind) in the wake of the Voyages of Discovery and the invention of the microscope, and the dawning realisation that fossils were the remains of now-extinct species, all served to undermine the old anthropocentric view of a world designed by God for the good of humankind. Such developments did not occur in a vacuum but in response to the specific needs of an emerging capitalist economy.

However, organicism was to re-surface in the shape of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century—a philosophical and aesthetic reaction to the depredations of industrial capitalism which sought solace in spiritual communion with nature. This idealisation of nature was dealt a blow by the Darwinian Revolution which represented nature as an arena of struggle in which only the fittest survived—in some respects a mirror image of the competitive ethos of Victorian capitalism—but out of Darwinism was to emerge the science of ecology.

The development of science under capitalism proved to be a double-edged sword. In a remarkable passage Engels noted that for all our claims to have “conquered nature”, it lends to take its revenge on us, thus reminding us that “we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people” but “belong to nature, and exist in its midst”:

“After the mighty advances of natural science in the present century, we are more and more placed in a position where we can get to know, and hence to control, even the more remote natural consequences of our most ordinary productive activities. But the more this happens, the more will men not only feel, but know themselves to be one with nature, and thus the more impossible will become the senseless and anti-natural idea of a contradiction between mind and matter, man and nature, soul and body" (Dialectics of Nature).

Today, we can once again find evidence of organicism in the modem environmental movement. While this has been viewed as a positive development it does have its negative side: it can lend itself to authoritarian, even fascistic, forms of social organisation. It can also lead to a misplaced and irrational opposition to science for allegedly displacing a sentimental attachment to nature by an objective analysis of it; and its tendency to deify nature, to blame humankind-in-the-abstract for our ecological crisis, rather than the society we live in, can only cripple our ability to tackle that crisis.

The Green movement world-wide has been seen to be dominated by left-wing tendencies; but this has obscured the movement's more diverse ancestry. In Europe in the 1920s and 1930s there were right-wing expressions of concern for the environment, combining a mystical conception of nature with the myths of race and nation. The epitome of this outlook came with the Nazis, whose whole political ideology can be described as "ecofascist". (It is to be regretted, however, since this term blurs some important distinctions between Italian fascism and German “National Socialism".) Hitler was a vegetarian, opposed to vivisection and loved his dogs. He was an enthusiast for renewable energy sources. Himmler saw to it that the SS had it own supply of organic farm produce. The Nazis introduced the first nature reserve in Europe and began a programme of extensive reforestation.

That was then and this is now. Any right thinking person (pun intended) should of course be concerned with what's happening to our environment. It really is a scandal. What the existence of eco-fascism, shows, however, is that uninformed concern and “doing something” can have disastrous consequences. For this reason, anyone who has read of the Malthusians with the Green movement blaming over-population will have been uneasy about where their line of argument is taking them. We need to understand the social and economic causes of environmental degradation before we can take effective political action. This does not have to be difficult, but it can confound a professor.

Now when our planet is threatened as never before, the need to change society has never been so great. Only by altering our relationship with one another can we hope to transform our relationship with nature of which we are an inextricable part.

We make our appeal

 

Is this a free country ?—Undoubtedly.—Who says so?—Those who own it.—Who is it free to ?—Those who own it.—How about the workers?—Being slaves, they only count as such.—Have they no rights?—None whatever.—Not even the right to work ?—Not even that. —How came one class to have all the rights?—The workers made them a present of them and re-affirm it at every General Election.—Then they are in chains !—Absolutely. — Then what can be done—Nothing but keep pegging away at them with socialist knowledge. It is the only instrument that will knock off the chains and shift the rights from one side to the other.

You, the exploited, are the overwhelming majority. And yet the exploiters have the power and dominate you! Wherein lies their power?

It is rooted in their ownership of the greater part of the land, of the fields and forests, the mines, the factories, transportation– in one word, in their ownership of the means of life.

It is maintained through their control of and command over the armed forces, the police, the courts, and the whole coercive machinery, with which they keep you down.

It is rooted in their ability – thanks to their command over church and school and media – to stupefy you.

It is rooted, finally, in your allowing yourselves to be befogged and mocked by their sham democracy.

They have given you the right to vote, but the right to the sources of wealth, the right to the mines, to the factories, to the great estates, they keep for themselves.

Yours the voting power; theirs the wealth, the profits; such is their democracy – a democracy of exploiters!

Never will the exploiters willingly renounce their mines, their factories, their large estates!

Never will they voluntarily decide on such a renunciation!

Never will they peaceably acquiesce in such a measure and reform!

Every law made in that Parliament is destined to serve the interests of the exploiters only! To you they throw a few bones, some crumbs, in order to hide their policy of roguery.

And the Labour Party? They demand from them somewhat bigger – crumbs; they praise socialism to you in fine phrase, but the mines, the factories, the large estates – they leave to the bloodsuckers! They tell you: the country has no money; patience, patience, patience !

Open your eyes, ye poor and downtrodden! Can you see the hundreds of magnificent villas? There they live, those who suck million profits out of the arduous toil of your busy hands! There the drones live a life of ease and pleasure !

Away with the exploiters! Away with the drones of life!

Do you think that parliament will ever put down such laws ? Never, never! Neither would the Labour Partyif they had the majority there. In fact, they were once the government And yet you have remained the exploited! This Parliament has been created by the exploiters; it can have no other policy but that of a party of exploiters! Those who tell you different are swindlers, or they deceive themselves and you. And yet –

WE IN THE SOCIALIST PARTY WANT TO GET INTO THIS PARLIAMENT !

We socialists want to show you, on every question or measure which comes before that House for consideration, that the Conservatives and the Nationalists care for nothing except the moneybags of the exploiters. We want to show you that they deceive you at every turn, that the very crumbs they throw at you are merely so much dust in your eyes, and – that the Labour Party are favouring this policy of exploitation.

We want to show you, by practical example, that only an administration can be of any real USE TO YOU wherein the exploiters have nothing to say and nothing to decide – in a word, from which the exploiters have been driven once and for all.

But only as a majority of the working class – elected into the present Parliament by really class-conscious workers – be able to snatch the power from the exploiters and place at your disposal the army,  the legal machinery, the administration , the school and the media.

Only such REVOLUTIONARY workers will be able to take from the exploiters the mines, the factories, the large estates, the forests, the railways, and the ships, and place them in YOUR HANDS – in the hands of those who work – that they may wield them for the benefit of the whole community instead of for the benefit of a few idlers.

Only a socialism will lay the foundations for a community of workers, by first of all breaking the opposition of the exploiters and holding them down until their acquiescence in the new order of things has been secured and assured.

Only by sending men and women into this Parliament who will have no other aim but the ABOLITION OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN THE MEANS OF LIFE, will your interests be served, and will you be able to organise production on a new basis, in the interest of all who work, evolving order out of chaos, and bringing about a social order wherein poverty, privilege, and oppression will find no place, and wherein all may lead a full, free, and joyous existence.

Workers in field and factory, if you want to free yourselves from the oppression of capitalism, then you must break the power of the exploiters by common revolutionary action !

Victorious revolutionary action presupposes a CLASS-CONSCIOUS working class. You will therefore have to remove the blinkers from your eyes ! It is for the purpose of making you see, in order to expose the daily practices in the political arena – the lies, the deceit, the humbug, and the misleading ways and intricacies of this sham democracy – that we want to get into this Assembly. To this end preliminarily

THE SOCIALIST PARTY ASKS FOR YOUR VOTES.

MAKE AN END TO THE POLITICAL BARTER OF YOUR LIVES !

AND END TO THE POLICY OF CRUMBS !

ALL VOTES FOR SOCIALISM! ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS!