Snap, Crackle, Pop! (1987)

 

From the Socialist Standard, June 1987

‘Those who are experienced in such matters tell us that all brands of cornflakes taste the same. It has also been said that they all conform to a standard of nutrition which results in the package having more food value than the flakes. It is rather like this in the political field. The parties which are likely to get into power in this election all offer the same low level of social nutrition and politically they all have the same flavour. Their only difference is in their presentation - their packaging - and this is where they are in competition, their programmes and their leaders dressed, decorated, obscured so as to bear little relation to their true character.

This is the work — indeed, the preoccupation — of a band of manipulators known as public relations personnel. The first example of their work to spring in mind is Margaret Thatcher. Her transformation is now part of history. Her image-makers saw her hair and said it was all wrong; that is why some hapless hairdresser now labours daily to maintain that famous blonde, forehead-revealing sweep. Her voice, they found, displeased their ears; so she had to be induced to tone it with a soft huskiness. That neck-straining angle at which she holds her head when she is being interviewed for TV is not something she was born with; it was taught to her by those public relations people.

When they had finished they looked on their work and thought it was good. Then it was the turn of the experts in political presentation. The Labour government of 1974/79 had been notable for its confusion and vacillation; Thatcher would adopt the contrasting image of the prime minister who. through thick and thin, stuck to her guns because she had firm convictions. This was the stance she adopted during the Falklands war. while British and Argentinian workers were doing the actual fighting and dying. It should have cost her a lot of votes, among people who think it preferable to have peace in the world. Instead it did a lot to help her to victory in 1983.

Among her recent triumphs was her visit to Moscow, to talk weaponry with Gorbachev who, had he been a Tory election agent could hardly have done more to help Thatcher back to power. Thatcher argued that the talks would never have taken place but for Gorbachev's respect for the nuclear arms of British capitalism; therefore people should not vote Labour who are in theory pledged to cut back on those weapons. Cleverly stage managed, the tour was a veritable banquet for the media, who seemed to overlook the fact that Thatcher and Gorbachev had done little more than catalogue each other’s arsenals of mass destruction. There is still no hope that the world is safe from the great powers' capacity to destroy it many times over. The triumphant achievement of the visit was to provide Thatcher with a Gorbachev factor to help her win this election, as the Falklands factor did in 1983.

While Thatcher was strutting in Moscow, Neil Kinnock was blundering through a brief, disastrous meeting with Reagan in Washington. (Reagan has never made any secret about being an election agent for Thatcher). Labour's public relations workers are desperate to change their image but the Washington trip turned out to be another of their recent debacles.

But the work goes on; the transformation of the Labour Party cannot be allowed to rest. Their political packaging experts have decided that their historic bondage to the Red Flag was a vote loser so they have substituted a pink rose. They symbolised the new era by changing the party's campaign colour from red to a restful blue, grey and red. They prohibited Neil Kinnock to any longer thatch his hair across his baldness; Labour's Mister Nice Guy, they said, must appear frank and unashamed of such things.

Under this packaging lie the same policies which have failed in the past: basically. Labour presents the same remedies for the ailments of British capitalism as it did in 1974 . . . 1964 . . . 1945 . . . Now they are able to use this tactic that unemployment, poverty, bad housing, war and other such problems have been caused by Tory rule — as if these things did not exist before Thatcher came to power in 1979.

This election will be won by the party which comes off best in the political packaging contest. Millions of votes will be cast for what the capitalist parties appear to be — what they encourage us to think they are — and not for what they actually are. Discerning workers, asking themselves how they should vote to change society in an effective way. will peel back this packaging. They will find that these parties all taste the same, that they offer an unvarying, unnutritious deception. And that — if they will forgive the phrase —- will be the crunch.’

Ivan

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2024/06/snap-crackle-pop-1987.html

TUSC Candidate Schooled About Socialism

 

In the Southgate and Wood Green constituency in London, candidates are standing from the Parties of Labour, Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Greens, Reform, Workers Party of Britain and the ‘Trade Union and Socialist Coalition’.

A socialist elector in Southgate and Wood Green has replied to an election communication from the TUSC candidate there.

‘Dear Karl Vidol.

I am writing in response to your Election communication.

It says “VOTE SOCIALIST”, but nowhere is that term, or socialism, defined (see below). It seems to be treated as a word to describe a political flavouring, rather than a revolutionary concept. The term socialism has, unfortunately, has had many associations, most of them unpleasant, although the left usually haven't shied away from them. You would think that if you were seeking a “socialist” vote you would offer the voters a concise definition to focus on, rather than the usual cat’s-lick-and-a-promise presented by capitalist parties.

You appear rather coy in referring to the working class, but use “working-class people” instead. The gap between rich (capitalist) class and the rest increasing is predicated on the accumulation of wealth by the capitalist class, so there’s nothing new there. The rich get richer because we—the working class—allow them to do so, not because they keep us in physical chains or deny us the vote.

Most political parties vie with each other to administer capitalism. Some, like the left, claim they are doing it in working-class interests, some are blatantly capitalist. The result is the same, unless a complete change is contemplated, capitalism will continue to roll on as usual. Of course, there may be good times, but capitalism offers no certainty. Meanwhile we are cursed with war, poverty, and worse, destitution, environmental degradation, dictatorships, and we know some of the latter the left supported in the past.

If you want to rid the world of the evils that capitalism visits upon it, then offering the working class reforms that may or may not improve their situation, and could be taken away is not the answer.

Why have you picked on Gaza for your outrage, when there are many other conflicts happening round the world?

I have never been let down by the governing parties, recognizing that their role is to run capitalism for the benefit of those who own most of the world—the capitalist class. Governments may try to persuade you that they run the country in the interests of all, but that is not their function. That doesn’t mean that some politicians may believe that they are serving the interests of all. All it means is that they have absorbed the capitalist ideology (false consciousness) that only lets you see the world as it seems, not as it is.

You say, “…a new way of running the economy to benefit the majority, not just the billionaires.” So, billionaires will still exist in your “socialist” society? This seems to be the fact, because you talk about “For real workers’ rights”, implying that the capitalist class will still be around. You also talk in national terms, but socialism can only be achieved on a worldwide basis, a world of common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, without state control. A society introduced by a majority vote of the working class, not imposed upon them by an all-knowing elite.

The only way for “every possible improvement for working-class people” is to introduce a society where the term working class would have no meaning.

“If the system can’t afford that, we need to change the system.” What change?

Julian Vein (Wood Green)’

Reproduced with the permission of the writer.

Tax the Rich?

Proposing to tax the rich is a popular trope of left leaning politics. Cue the Green Party General Election manifesto. A pledge to spend £50 billion per year on health and social care by 2030. Money to be raised by a 1% tax on assets worth £10 million or more, 2% on £1 billion+ assets. This to raise £15bn a year, but only affect 1% of households. These funds would be for the NHS.

The Henley Private Migration Report points to a net loss of 9,500 wealthy individuals from Britain in 2024, over double the 4,200 who left in 2023. Between 2017 and 2023 around 16,500 millionaires migrated from Britain. In part a reaction to Brexit, a demonstration of the fluidity of capital assets, moving away from actual or perceived threats.

What price the Green Party pledge faced with a huge financial outflow. For an indication of market reaction and the political consequences, consider the ousting of Liz Truss, a Conservative prime minister. Proposals alone are enough to crash an economy if they seem likely to be enacted to the detriment of financial assets.

Such is democracy under capitalism.

The Green Party can relax, however, as they know they can promise anything they like as they won’t be anywhere close to acting on such promises.

D.A.

SPGB Meeting Friday 21 June 1930 (GMT +1) ZOOM

 

CAPITALISM IN NIGERIA (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: June 21, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Andy Thomas

To connect to a meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305.

Say no to capitalism

 

You might remember a Simpsons episode where both presidential candidates are actually alien lizards. When the successful candidate subsequently starts oppressing everyone, Homer says “Don’t blame me, I voted for the other lizard.”

The candidates in next month’s UK General Election are not lizards, but they do stand for capitalist inequality, so you’ll get the same result whoever wins. If you’re in the constituencies where we are standing, take the advice of Eugene Debs who said “It’s better to vote for what you want and not get it, than to vote for what you don’t want, and get it.”

Otherwise, write “WORLD SOCIALISM” across your ballot paper. Capitalism may win, but it doesn’t have to be with your approval.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Socialist Sonnet No. 154

Time to Change

 

Capitalism was once the young blood,

Overturning thrones, dispossessing lords.

It manufactured this world that accords

With its own ways and means, where common good

Is held to be the untrammelled pursuit

Of private wealth, even if that should be

At the expense of public poverty,

With a reserved freedom to profit and pollute.

But now this history lesson’s been learned,

That which loosed bonds becomes a binding force,

While the class presently bound is now the source

Whereby a new, better way is discerned.

Progress must transcend anachronism,

It is time for change, for socialism.

 

D. A.

Reflections on Elections (2017)

From the Socialist Standard October 2017

‘Whenever there is an election, like last year or currently in Germany, the person in the street — the so-called ordinary voter — suddenly becomes very popular. Any number of political parties are anxious to please them and make them all manner of tempting promises, if they in their turn will agree to vote for their party's candidate. Election time, in other words, is the time when there is an enormous hunt for Votes.

The bait which is used in this hunt is largely made up by promises. All other parties offer this bait, and the generosity of their promises is usually in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their getting power. The Labour and Conservative Parties cannot be too extravagant; the Liberals can be a little more wild; the Greens and the far Left can promise almost anything. And so on.

Most of the promises in an election are about things like modernisation, housing, education, pensions, wages and prices, war and peace. To read the literature of these other parties, it seems that all that has to be done to solve overnight all the problems connected with these issues is to vote for their candidate. They will all, it seems, bring British industry up to date, build affordable housing, give everyone a fair chance of the best education, keep prices stable while wages increase, protect the environment, banish war from the earth.

These promises sound very fine and in one election after another millions of working people vote for them. And presumably, when they do so, they think that they are contributing to the solution of our problems.

But stop and think about it.

Firstly, it is obvious that election promises are not a new thing. Political parties have been making them for as long as anyone can remember – and always about the same sorts of problems.

Now what has been the result of all this?

The housing problem remains with us despite repeated promises to deal with it. The sort of education we get is governed by the financial standing of our parents. There are still millions of old age pensioners living on the tightrope of destitution — and it only needs something like a severe winter for many of them to loosen their precarious hold on life.

Prices are rising. Wages are still stagnating. Whatever the respective level of prices and wages, we always find that our wage packet only just covers our food, clothing, entertainment and whatever else goes to keep us ticking over.

War is just as much a universal problem as ever. There are always minor wars going on somewhere, punctuated by more serious clashes such as North Korea and Syria. Over it all hangs the threat of a war fought out with nuclear weapons.

It is not accidental that the politicians make so many promises and that they have so little effect upon the ailments they are supposed to cure. The world is full of chronic problems, but this is not because political parties have notthought up reforms which are supposed to deal with them nor because their leaders are not clever or knowledgeable enough.

The fact is that the problems persist whichever party is in power — and this suggests that their roots go deep into the very nature of modern society.

We live today in a social system which is called capitalism. The basis of this system is the ownership by a section of the population of the means of producing and distributing wealth — of factories, transport, communications and so on. It follows from this that all the wealth which we produce today is turned out with the intention of realising a profit for the owning class. It is from this basis that the problems of modern society spring.

The class which does not own the means of wealth production – the working class – are condemned to a life of rationed dependence upon their wage or salary. This expresses itself in inferior housing, clothes, education, and the like.

The basis of capitalism throws up the continual battle over wages and working conditions with attendant employment disputes. It gives rise, with its international economic rivalries, to the wars which have disfigured recent history.

Every other party stands for capitalism, whatever they may call themselves. And whatever their protestations, they stand for a world of poverty, hunger, unrest and war. They stand for a world in which no human being is secure.

The way-out is a world in which everything which goes to make and distribute wealth is owned by the people of the world. Because socialism is the direct opposite of capitalism, it follows that when it is established the basic problems of capitalism will disappear. There will be no more war, no more poverty. People will live a full, abundant life; we shall be free.

But socialism cannot be brought about by promises. It needs a knowledgeable working class who understand and desire it. They alone can establish the new world system we need.

When we contest elections our candidates from the Socialist Party do not make any promises; they do not try to convince voters that they will do anything for them. What they offer is the case for a new social system. We are seeking to spread knowledge and understanding of socialism and to give as many people as possible the opportunity of voting for a world of abundance, peace and freedom.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/10/reflections-on-elections-2017.html

Election Communication Folkstone and Hythe (2)

 

Election Communication Folkstone and Hythe

 

Election Communication Clapham and Brixton Hill

 

VOTE FOR SOCIALISM

At every UK election brainless lefties have advised workers to “vote Labour, but rely on your own struggles” or some such drivel. No surprise then that the Weekly Worker now tells us “Vote left where you can (and that includes the few left Labourites who are being allowed to stand), vote Labour where you must (ie, mainstream Labour)”.

That means urging most workers to vote for the Party of Business, in other words, to collude in their subjugation to the capitalist system.

So what should you do if you live outside the two constituencies with an SPGB candidate? If you want socialism, the only way you can express your view is by writing “WORLD SOCIALISM” across your ballot paper.

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 1930 (GMT +1) ZOOM

 

120 YEARS FOR SOCIALISM (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: June 14, 2024 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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The SPGB was founded on 12 June 1904.
To connect to a meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305.

SPGB Meeting Friday 14 June 1930 (GMT+1) ZOOM

*120 YEARS FOR SOCIALISM * ZOOM 

The SPGB was founded on 12 June 1904

To join the meeting click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Happy Birthday SPGB!

 

Happy Birthday Socialist Party of Great Britain!

Formed 12 June, 1904

Object

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

What is meant by “a system of society”?

The world is a “global village”. Each region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide. This system of society is capitalism and every region and nation operates within this system of society in one way or another. Socialism is not a cooperative island in the middle of capitalism, but a global system of society that will replace capitalism.

“The means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth”?

This includes the forests, mines, and oceans from which natural wealth is extracted, the factories in which this natural wealth is processed, and the distribution of that wealth via transportation networks (such as roads and truck lines) and distribution centres (such as grocery and department stores). It does not include your personal belongings such as your toothbrush or clothing, or the family heirloom.

“Common Ownership”?

Common ownership means that society as a whole owns the means and instruments for distributing wealth. It also implies the democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, for if everyone owns, then everyone must have equal right to control the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

Common ownership is not state ownership. State ownership is merely the ownership by the capitalist class as a whole, instead of by individual capitalists, and the government then runs the state enterprises to serve the capitalist class. In the self-proclaimed “communist” states the state enterprises serve those who control the party/state apparatus. The working class does not own or control. It produces for a privileged minority.

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Declaration of Principles

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds

Working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership. The Socialist Party has an absolute need of supporters with understanding and self-reliance. Even if we could conceive of a leader-ridden working class displacing the capitalist class from power such an immature class would be helpless to undertake the responsibilities of democratic socialist society.

1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

   How are decisions about the operation of society made? What principles govern what goods will be produced in what quantity and quality, or what social programs and laws will exist?

   If decisions were made based upon the needs of humanity then the food that is regularly destroyed by the truckload would instead feed the starving.

   Decisions are made based upon the expectation of making a profit. The ecology of the world is being devastated, even though this devastation may wipe out the human race, because of profit. Poor quality goods are produced, not because people want to have junk, but because it is profitable to produce junk. The rich can get the best, the rest of us often have little choice. Anyone can think of dozens of examples of how decision making puts profit-making before the satisfaction of human needs.

   The owners of the production and distribution facilities are responsible to no-one but themselves. Governments pass laws that maintain profits for the owners as a group. Sometimes one owner or one sub-group of owners loses a bit, but overall, the class of owners always benefits in the long run. By focussing on the worst excesses, and legalizing the rest, their profits are protected from demands for significant changes.

   While many British people have generally seen the benefits of increased production in terms of material wealth, the decisions are made not to improve our lives, but to improve the lives of those who own the means of production. The gap between the very rich and the rest of us continues to grow.

2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

   There are many different divisions in society. Divisions of hatred by sex, skin colour, national origin, religion or the amount of money that a person makes, among others. The insecurity of capitalism breeds these hatreds. We must eliminate their breeding ground, before they infect our children.

   Socialists see a division of society based upon the means of acquiring wealth. If you must work for a living then you are working class, if your main income is derived from the work of others then you are a capitalist. This distinction clearly exists. Even though some of us own shares, workers do not have the luxury to quit their jobs and live off investment income.

   When you analyze society using this class division, many problems that otherwise defy understanding have obvious solutions. Profit is derived by owning. Wages or salary are derived by labouring, by expending our physical or mental energy working for those who own the means of production and distribution.

   The owner of a particular factory may not even know that they own it. It may be just a part of an immense holding company that is administered by someone else. The workers in the factory, however, are directly connected to the production. It is the labour of these workers (including the plant management) that creates the profits that keep the capitalists rich. It is vital that the capitalists pay their workers less than the value that their labour produces. It is this difference between the value of what workers are paid and the value of what they produce that is the source of profit.

3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

   As long as the ownership of the means of production and distribution rests with the minority capitalist class, this antagonism will continue to exist. The antagonism is caused by the necessarily differing interests of the classes. No matter how nice capitalists may be on a personal level, they will always have different interests than the working class. It is not a matter of good and evil or anything like that, it is inherent in any class system. Therefore the only way to eliminate the antagonism is to eliminate the class system and establish a system of common ownership where the previous antagonism has no basis.

4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

   The hate and distrust that exists in society today is a direct result of the nature of societies past and present. A society in which we must compete to survive, in which our jobs are threatened by other workers, in which we do not feel secure, is fertile breeding ground for racism, sexism, nationalism and all the other hatreds that abound.

   Even today, while this hatred is sometimes used to pit one worker against another, it appears that overall, these hatreds are being rooted out and made socially unacceptable. This is particularly noticeable in countries like South Africa where there is a shortage of white workers, and black workers must be brought into previously “white” workplaces without the major disruption that is caused by overt racism.

   No society can meet our human needs as long as there are different classes of people. Every person has abilities that differentiate them from others, but we are all equal in our humanity. We all have strengths and weaknesses. What we need is a society that allows us to use our strengths, and that accepts and accommodates our weaknesses.

   Socialism will be a society geared to meeting human needs, and the need to be accepted for what we are is probably the most basic of human needs. When the breeding ground for these hatreds has disappeared, people will naturally be able to eradicate them with all the other negative leftovers of capitalism.

5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.

6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

   It would be foolish to expect the capitalist class to voluntarily give up its privileged position in society. Governments exist solely to administer the society as it exists, in the interests of the ruling (capitalist) class, so governments will not end the privilege. Capitalism will continue as long as the working class accepts it. The working class will have to force the capitalist class to give up its position of privilege.

   Socialism will be the result of workers democratically choosing a new, classless society based upon the satisfaction of human needs. And since capitalism is a global system of society, it must be replaced globally.

   It is dangerous and futile to follow those who support violence by workers against the armed force of the state. Violent revolution has sometimes meant different faces in the capitalist class, always meant dead workers, and never meant the liberation of the working class. Unless workers organize consciously and politically and take control over the state machinery, including its armed forces, the state will be ensured a bloody victory.

   Political democracy is the greatest tool (next to its labour-power) that the working class has at its disposal. When the majority of workers support socialism, so-called “revolutionary” war will not be required. The real revolution is for workers to stop following leaders, to start understanding why society functions as it does and to start thinking for themselves.

7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

   Political parties of the left, right and centre, claim to be working for the betterment of society. Because society functions in the interests of the capitalist class, it is clear that these parties are then supporting the interests of the capitalist class. History shows us that no matter what these parties say, when elected they administer capitalism in the only way it can be administered – in the interests of the capitalist class.

   Each of them has their own idea of how to run capitalism, often stealing the ideas of their supposed political opposites. The reforms that they implement must reflect economic reality. If they do not, they will not get re-elected – until the next party fails to reflect that reality. There is no way that capitalism can meet the needs of the majority, but all of these parties pretend it can if only they find the right plan. None of them have any really new ideas, only rehashed reforms that have failed in the past. Voting for any of these parties is voting for capitalism, forever.

   Socialists are therefore hostile, not in the sense of committing violent acts against other parties or their members, but to the ideas of those parties which support capitalism.

8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

   The Socialist Party is part of a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world. It does not today, and it never can.

   In order to meet these needs capitalism must be replaced by socialism.

   The only way to achieve socialism is for the working class to recognize this and consciously and politically work to replace capitalism with socialism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not support the idea of reforming capitalism and therefore does not work for reforms. There are plenty of other organizations that do and yet the problems remain. By relegating socialism to the future, it is relegated to never. Only a party dedicated only to socialism can promote socialism in any real, honest manner.

   Among all the political parties in Great Britain, only the Socialist Party is dedicated to socialism as an immediate goal. It is this objective that makes the Socialist Party revolutionary – our dedication to peaceful, democratic and immediate change.

   The Socialist Party is, therefore, engaged in a war of ideas against all other parties. Those other parties, no matter what they claim, are supporting the capitalist system and opposing the immediate establishment of socialism.

   Only the conscious support of the working class will create socialism, and to this end the Socialist Party seeks to increase understanding of, and mobilize support for, socialism.

   The Socialist Party calls upon every worker to support these efforts in any way that they can.

The Socialist Party Election Leaflet: People or Profit?

The Socialist Party urges a truly democratic society in which people take all the decisions that shape their lives. This means a society without rich and poor, without owners and workers, without governments and governed, a society without leaders and led. In such a society people would cooperate to use all the world’s natural and industrial resources in their own interests. They would free production from the artificial restraint of profit and establish a system of society in which each person has free access to the benefits of civilisation. Socialist society would mean the end of buying, selling and exchange; an end to borders and frontiers; an end to organised violence and coercion, waste, want and war.

You can use your vote to show you want to overturn capitalism and end the problems it causes once and for all. When enough of us join together, determined to end inequality and deprivation, we can transform elections into a means of doing away with a society of minority rule in favour of a society of real democracy and social equality. If you agree with the idea of a society of common and democratic ownership where no one is left behind and things are produced because they are needed, and not to make a profit for some capitalist corporation, and are prepared to join with us to achieve this then join our write-in vote for socialism by writing WORLD SOCIALISM across your ballot paper.

Object: The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

For further details on our campaign email spgb@worldsocialism.org or scan this (See Link) below)

Promoted by The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN. Printed by Ideal Printers, 4 Shrewton Rd, London SW17 9HX

https://tinyurl.com/2uwdyxr5

 

Socialist Sonnet No. 153

Promises! Promises!

 

Neither Utopia nor Shangri-La

Can appear in any manifesto,

Because their authors quite probably know

Of necessity politicians are

Constrained by capital’s imperative

To, unhindered, manufacture profit:

Should that consume the world, then so be it.

A government may continue to live

For however long as it doesn’t ignore

The market, for it’ll not be mistreated,

Or that government shall be unseated

No matter what the voters voted for.

Even promises of sincere intent

Can be frustrated by disinvestment.

 

D. A.

Not just a chocolate bar - a commodity.

Now Tesco slaps £1.25 bar of Cadbury chocolate inside a security box - after supermarket introduced tags on shopping baskets amid fears cost-of-living crisis is fuelling surge in shoplifting

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13517055/Tesco-shoplifting-Cadburys-security-box-chocolate.html

From the February 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘They might have said: "The people who own this supermarket hope you will come in and buy food here. But no matter how much you need it. you must not take anything from the shop unless you pay for it because that's the way we get profits on our investments. If you don't obey these rules you will probably be punished under the law."

What they actually said, in two posters side by side on the door, was: "Welcome to Safeways'. "Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted".

Like many other offences, shoplifting has apparently been on the increase, from 126,844 incidents recorded by the police in 1972 to 242,304 in 1982. The total value of goods lost to the shops in this way is set at about £8 million a year but it is likely that it really amounts to a lot more than that; in particular shop assistants are suspected of a vast amount of undetected theft. Anyone starting a career in crime by testing out their welcome at Safeways may be reassured by the fact that about 50 per cent of contested cases result in an acquittal in court.

There are various methods for the apprentice shoplifter to consider, from the simple one of putting items straight into a shopping bag instead of into the basket so thoughtfully provided by the supermarket and leaving without paying for them; to the more difficult, like grabbing a discarded receipt. finding foods for the same price and getting a refund on them. In between lie methods requiring some manual dexterity, like swapping those sticky price tags or "gleaning"—opening packs of food and eating it while in the store, which can give a supermarket shelf the appearance of a field ravaged by locusts. Some known shoplifters. presumably on their day off, relax by playing games, attracting attention by concealing some item on their person and walking around the shop for a while before replacing it. to the chagrin of the watching store detective.

Who are the shoplifters? An article in Justice of the Peace (28 January 1984) said there has been ". . . an increase in the incidence of organised or group shoplifting (the Australian gang) and the use of violence arid intimidation. . ." but this aggravation of magistrates' paranoia represents too alarmist a picture. A very high "clear-up" rate is claimed by the police for shoplifting — 88 per cent compared to 37 per cent for all offences — which is a measure of the shoplifters' ineptitude. Then there is the fact that nearly half of the incidents recorded in 1982 concerned goods worth £5 or less, which is hardly the type of loot looked for by determined. sophisticated gangs. In fact, juveniles make up the largest group of shoplifters and. according to the Home Office (Designing Out Crime, HMSO). it is the offence most often committed by youngsters truanting from school.

The rising tide of shoplifting has been resisted by the shops in a strengthening of their defences. The Association of Prevention of Theft From Shops, whose Director is a Baroness, acts as an intelligence agency. Many goods are so packaged that it is very difficult to conceal others in with them (it is. of course, also very difficult to unpack the things when you get them home). In clothing shops, tags which can only be removed by a cashier set off a clamorous alarm if anyone tries to take them through the doorway. Shops are surveyed by closed circuit TV and patrolled by store detectives, whose vigilance may be sharpened by the commission they get for every successful arrest.

It is ironic that all this effort is expended to deal with a problem which the shops originally made for themselves. The age of the shoplifter is also the age of the self-service store: “Shoplifting", the Home Office unsurprisingly concluded, "is discouraged by the presence of assistants who are there to serve the customer." But the old style shops, where assistants, who had knowledge and skill as well as patience, served customers across counters, were relatively costly in floor space and wages. (Imagine the acreage of counters, and the swarms of staff, the average Safeways would need if they used that method today.)

All of that was swept away soon after the war in what was called the Great Marketing Revolution, in which a lot of money was invested with the object of cutting staff and making more profitable use of shop floor areas. The revolution left the customers to do the serving themselves, from displays replenished by squads of nocturnal "shelf-fillers" and then to volunteer to pay at check out tills operated at the kind of pressure to ensure the minimum of customer contact and the maximum of alienation. Now nobody stands chatting in a supermarket; the shelves can't talk back and the check out operators haven't got the time.

The big snag with the revolution was that it also allowed the customers to help themselves from the displays and so opened a field of crime to thousands of people who would not otherwise have had such a tempting opportunity. Vagrant alcoholics could help themselves to their booze, penurious mothers could help feed their children, aimless truants could arrange an afternoon s supply of free sweets and fags. About 4,000 of the yearly convictions for shoplifting are of people of 60 and over, many of them never having been in court before and who, but for the existence of the self-service shop, would almost certainly never have fallen foul of the law.

This has given rise to the stereotype of the menopausal shoplifter, a concept whose significance is obscured by the implication that age has to be a disability when in fact the problem lies in the disabling effects of capitalist society. The magistrates' courts see a continuous procession of these wretched, frightened people, often middle-aged women in despair. These women are often described in court, by helpful policemen. as "respectable", which means that they have been nurtured since birth on an insidious diet of capitalist morality. For them, the apex of attractiveness coincides with that of their profitability as an employee — with their youth. The fulfilment of their life began with employment, followed by marriage and a coping with children, housework. the mortgage and the bills while still disseminating a stereotypical sexual allure. At an age when cosmetic artifices can no longer smooth wrinkles, when no profit-conscious employer would give them a seat in the typing pool or at an assembly line, when their children have left home to grapple with the stresses of their own marriage, many women may feel their usefulness died with their fertility and that now they are unwanted, unattended.

An obvious way to draw attention to themselves is to offend against all they have been conditioned to regard as moral and correct. Such people could hardly burgle a house or hold up a bank but shoplifting is an easily available crime, fitting neatly into their daily routine of housework and shopping. Too often, however, their arrest is only another stage in a chronic depression. Hundreds of people every year are driven into a mental breakdown by their arrest and during a recent 18 month period the Portia Trust recorded 32 suicides by people accused of shoplifting. The other side of this bitter story is to be found in the people who own the supermarkets and the companies which supply them, among whom there are some massive fortunes: the Vestey family (£1.5 billion); the Sainsbury family (£900 million); James Goldsmith (£500 million); Garfield Weston (£300 million) (Sunday Times. 7 October 1984). These are some of the class whose interests are protected by the store detectives, the police and the courts, who welcome us to their shops as long as we pay for what we take away, whose interests are in the end responsible for the alienation, misery, depression and suicides.

In its early days shoplifting was perhaps not regarded quite so seriously. In fact one study found that some shops took the level of their loss as an index of their attractiveness. According to the Home Office. "Retailers . . . may be disinclined to change marketing techniques so long as these gain more in sales than they lose in theft". The balancing point, of course, is concerned with profits, which is as it should be in a society whose wealth is produced to be sold rather than to satisfy human needs. The shops warn us that in the end we all pay because they simply raise their prices to cover their losses to the shoplifters. But if it were possible for a company always to recoup losses in that way they would not need to defend themselves so tenaciously against theft, or wage demands, or a slump in their sales.

The shoplifters go to their work untroubled by the spurious, justifying economics of capitalism's defenders. Except that they might ponder on the greater act of legalised theft which establishes the property rights of the owners and whether a more comprehensive appropriation than their furtive acts might do better for the human race.’

Ivan

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/10/trouble-in-store-1985.html

Can't Pay, Won't Pay?

Recruits required for Kaiser Karno's Army.

' Germany must prepare to wage war before the end of the decade, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has declared. However, the German military lacks basic equipment, and a parliamentary report suggests it won’t be war-ready for half a century.

“We must be ready for war by 2029,” Pistorius proclaimed on Wednesday, during a session of parliament. “We must provide deterrence to prevent things coming to the worst,” he added, in comments carried by Der Spiegel.

There are currently around 181,000 active-duty members of the Bundeswehr, or German armed forces. Pistorius told lawmakers that this number must increase, ideally through a “new form of military service” that “cannot be completely free of obligations.”

However, Germany abolished mandatory military service in 2011, and reviving the draft has proven difficult for Pistorius. After weighing military reform packages presented by his ministry in April, Pistorius announced a plan to incentivize more teenagers to join the Bundeswehr. The plan is reportedly the most cautious of the three suggested by the ministry and does not mention the word “conscription.”

Instead, it would require all 18-year-olds to answer a questionnaire about their physical condition, with the most promising candidates encouraged to sign up with free driving licenses and student loan discounts, among other rewards, Der Spiegel reported.

“In an emergency, we need strong young women and men who can defend this country,” the minister said on Wednesday.

Aside from boosting recruitment, Germany has also struggled to get weapons and equipment into the hands of those already serving. Despite Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s 2022 pledge to spend €100 billion ($107.35 billion) equipping and modernizing the Bundeswehr, no significant improvements have been made in the two years since, an annual report by the parliamentary commissioner for the Bundeswehr, Eva Hoegl, revealed in March.

According to a Defence Ministry document seen by German news outlet Bild, the Bundeswehr’s orders for uniforms, helmets, backpacks, and bulletproof vests were not fully met last year. Troops are also short on night-vision goggles, the paper stated, noting that a batch intended for German soldiers was sent to the Israeli military instead.’

“Rank-and-file soldiers… lack even the most ordinary infrastructure, ammunition and equipment,” the New York Times reported in November, revealing that training exercises were routinely cancelled at the Bundeswehr’s artillery school due to ammunition being sent to Ukraine. At the time, troops at the school had not fired the military’s latest howitzers, due to all 14 being shipped straight to Kiev.

Should Germany’s military revitalization continue at its current pace, “it would take about half a century before just the current infrastructure of the [military] was completely renovated,” Hoegl wrote in her 2023 report to parliament.'

German Capitalism Preparing For War

'The German government has finalized new plans for a potential war, including reinstatement of compulsory military service and deployment of NATO troops on its eastern flank, citing rising concerns over perceived threats from Russia.

The country’s new defence framework was approved by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s cabinet on Wednesday, replacing guidelines that dated back to 1989. “As a result of Russian aggression, we have a completely changed security situation in Europe,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

The new defense plan spells out such details as mandatory conscription and forcing manufacturers to produce only war goods. Parts of the country could be evacuated, and subway stations, underground parking lots, and other subterranean facilities would be used as temporary shelters.

Revisions to the framework also reflect NATO’s eastward expansion, which could mean coming to the aid of allies in the Baltic States. “Germany is no longer a frontline state, but serves the allied armed forces as a hub for the alliance in the heart of Europe,” the cabinet said.

The government reportedly has plans to control food distribution to deal with possible shortages in the event of a war. Those contingencies include stockpiling wheat and other grains in secret locations and creating an emergency reserve of rice and beans. The reserves would provide the German population with one hot meal a day, German media outlet Bild reported.

Beyond the military draft, citizens could be forced to work in certain civilian jobs, such as nursing or baking bread. Hospitals would have to be prepared for large influxes of patients.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the new plans reflect increased security threats. “The overall defence of Germany is a task to which we all have to make our contribution, state and civil institutions, as well as each and every one of us,” he insisted. “We need a resilient society that can deal with the challenges.”

Pistorius warned German lawmakers on Wednesday that the country must be “ready for war” by 2029. He suggested that the Bundeswehr needs to be expanded, ideally by requiring military service that “cannot be completely free of obligations.”’

Berlin abolished its draft in 2011, and the country’s military has faced equipment shortfalls. A parliamentary report last year said that at the current pace of military revitalization, it could take half a century to shore up German forces.

Germany and other NATO members have claimed that the bloc faces the threat of a Russian invasion if Moscow prevails in its conflict with Ukraine. Speaking at a briefing with foreign media outlets in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Western governments are stoking absurd fears to help maintain their global hegemony. “Someone has imagined that Russia wants to attack NATO,” he added. “Have you gone completely insane? Are you as thick as a plank? Who came up with this nonsense, this bulls**t?”

State Murder

 

‘The US executed more prisoners last year than in any year since 2018, according to an Amnesty International report. Globally, executions soared to their highest number in almost a decade.

Some 24 people were executed in the US in 2023, an increase of 33% from the 18 who were put to death in 2022. Executions have become increasingly rare in the US since 98 convicts were put to death in 1999, and last year’s figure is the highest since 2018, when 25 capital punishments were carried out.

Some 27 US states and the federal government practice capital punishment, with lethal injection the primary method of execution. However, botched lethal injections are not uncommon, and autopsy data suggests that the method is often excruciatingly painful. The pharmaceutical firm that manufactures the anaesthetic most commonly used in executions suspended production in 2009, and with remaining batches mostly expired, states have turned to alternate methods in recent years.

Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah now permit executions by firing squad, while Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee allow the use of the electric chair. Seven states, including Alabama, allow the use of gas chambers.

“A select number of US states demonstrated a chilling commitment to the death penalty and a callous intent to invest resources in the taking of human life,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

“Executions via the cruel new method of nitrogen asphyxiation have also come into use with Alabama shamefully using this untested method to kill Kenneth Smith earlier this year,” she added, referring to the first-of-its-kind gassing of murderer Kenneth Smith in January. Alabama authorities authorized the use of nitrogen gas due to a shortage of lethal injection chemicals.

Globally, Amnesty International estimated that 1,153 executions were carried out in 2023, an increase of more than 30% from 2022 and the highest figure recorded since 2015, when 1,634 people were known to have been executed.’

The following is from the Socialist Standard, October 1993

‘The law and order card is always the trump that struggling governments use to divert attention away from the crisis created by the capitalist system they help to run. Just as crime, law and order have been at the forefront of the political agenda in Britain, so too is this the case in America now if all else fails, there is always the scapegoat, the working class, potential miscreants and criminals who are responsible for social decline.

The only Western industrialized state that still applies the death penalty is the United States. Just as grotesque, in this land where its constitution proclaims the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", is that come election time candidate’s stance in the capital punishment debate can win or lose him or her a seat in Congress or the Senate.

In 1988 Democrat Michael Dukakis voiced his opposition to the death penalty and lost many votes in the presidential elections. Bill Clinton, as Governor of Arkansas, was all too aware of this when he later sanctioned the execution of a mentally subnormal teenager — he had in mind the 80 percent of the American electorate who belong to the pro-capital punishment camp.

To what extent Clinton’s victory last year in the race to the White House depended on his pro-death penalty views is open to question. But his views on the death penalty and on crime in America in general are now being used by Democrats to regain the political initiative. Basically, Clinton wants $3.4 billion funding for a plan that will put an extra 50,000 police officers on the streets. He also wants to expand the number of crimes punishable by death and to limit death row inmates to one habeas corpus appeal within six months of sentence. He also believes the law's governing the sale of handguns should be tightened calling for a 5-day waiting period for handgun purchases!

If any department in the American Establishment is devoid of logic it is certainly that which is responsible for law and order. In 1990 (the last year for which statistics are available), 37,155 Americans died of gunshot wounds. If this is not an abominable figure (3.000 have died in Northern Ireland since 1968), there are an estimated 200,000,000 firearms in circulation in America. Yet the Clinton camp have revealed no plans to curb the individual’s "right" to possess a firearm.

At present some 2.500 prisoners await execution on death row in 36 states. The statistics here are just as baffling. Between 1973 and 1988, executions and the lengthy appeal process they entailed cost Florida tax payers $57 million. Which is $3.2 million per execution. At the same time, a prisoner held in maximum security cost $40,000 per year — twice the cost had he been educated at Harvard. In the state of Texas the cost of an execution case is the equivalent to the cost of imprisoning three men for "life".

Anyone with a grain of common sense will realize that an extra 50.000 police officers, all with arrest quotas to meet, will mean a jump in prison statistics. Clinton could only say this on the matter: "The plan is tough. It will put police on the streets and criminals in jail" (Guardian, 12 August).

Perhaps no-one has told him that there are some one million prisoners in the United States, housed in federal, state and county jails the highest incarceration rate in the world, with imprisonment, rising at the rate of 13 percent per year, and the criminal justice system processing 1,500 new prisoners per day. Little wonder that new prison construction costs are running at $6 billion per year.

Against all the crass statistics on the vast amounts spent on imprisonment must be set the penny-pinching when it comes to executing death row inmates. States that do use the death penalty arc finding it cost efficient to use the lethal injection method of execution - the equipment costs a pittance.

Oklahoma has been using the lethal injection method since 1977. Apparently prison authorities did not want to fork out the $60,000 needed to fix the electric chair while, the $200,000 asking price for a gas chamber was out of the question. Surely a bullet to the head would have cost the state no more than one-dollar per year!

1977 was also the year that Texas’ Governor claimed lethal injection would "provide some dignity with death". Where is the dignity in being forcibly strapped into a chair by men in uniform and injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs?

In all forms of execution the prisoner suffers pain and trauma. Sitting in the gas chamber in 1983. Jimmy Lee Gray convulsed for eight minutes before dying. In 1985 William Van Diver took 17 minutes to die in the electric chair, requiring five charges. Observers reported seeing his flesh smoke. Even where lethal injection is used, groans have been heard 18 minutes into the execution.

Any true Socialist is appalled at the idea of the state having the right to execute its citizens. The death penalty in any form is a blatant violation of human rights — the most undignified and irreversible of all punishments. How do you resurrect an innocent man? State executions are in reality the state taking revenge on the wage-slave for a mistake he or she committed because of the frustrations caused by the contradictions of the capitalist system that they are conditioned to exist in.

Those who advocate the death penalty tend to use the time-honoured argument that the death penalty is a deterrent, that it helps to reduce crime. However, throughout the world, no sociologist nor any export hired to study the subject has been able to demonstrate conclusively that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commission of the crime for which it is exacted. Moreover, there is no proof that the abolition of the death penalty will lead to the nightmare consequences predicted by its propagandists.

In the United States in 1985, FBI research revealed that the number of law enforcement officers killed was almost four times as high in states with the death penalty than in states without it. This stark revelation led reformers to conclude that legal executions may actually stimulate violent crime by exemplifying society’s approval of killing.

The equation Capitalism = Mass Inequality. Frustration. Murder for Gain State Execution is backed up by further statistics. Since 1972, 60 percent of death row inmates were unemployed at the time of their crimes. Of the 2.500 on America’s death rows, 65 percent were in low-paid, unskilled jobs. A study carried out on the Texas judicial system found that prisoners with court appointed lawyers were over twice as likely to be given the death penalty as those who could afford a reputable defence team.

The American criminal justice system is also racist with black people murdering whites 11 times more likely to face execution than for white people murdering blacks. In Florida the ratio is 40-1! Of all men executed for rape since 1930, 90 percent were black. There are six black people in prison for every four in higher education.

State executions is capitalism at its ugliest. It is the state giving up on the individual and admitting that the social system under capitalism is not working — that the only solution to capital crimes is death.

As Clinton refuses to address the real problems facing America, and to look to solutions that have already been tried and failed in the past, American wage-slaves can expect a tough time ahead should they look for a quick way to bridge the gap between poverty and wealth.’

John Bissett

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2015/12/state-murder-in-usa-1993.html