SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 31 January 1930 GMT ZOOM

 

COMMUNISM: AN IDEA THAT IS REVIVING (Zoom)

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Event Details

• Date: January 31, 2025 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Adam Buick

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

Anyone still backing Britain?

Winning the global race for growth?

"I'm Backing Britain" was a brief patriotic campaign, which flourished in early 1968 and was aimed at boosting the British economy. The campaign started spontaneously when five Surbiton secretaries volunteered to work an extra half-hour each day without pay to boost productivity and urged others to do the same. The invitation received an enormous response and a campaign took off spectacularly; it became a nationwide movement within a week. Trade unions were suspicious of, or even opposed to, the campaign, considering it as an attempt to extend working hours surreptitiously and to hide inefficiency by management.

The campaign received official endorsement by the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, but it found that being perceived as government-endorsed was a mixed blessing. The Union Flag logo encouraged by the campaign became highly visible on the high streets, and attempts were made to take over the campaign by Robert Maxwell, who wanted to change its focus into an appeal to 'Buy British', but the campaign's own T-shirts were made in Portugal. After a few months without any noticeable effect on individual companies or the economy generally, interest flagged amid much embarrassment about some of the ways in which the campaign had been pursued and supported.

It has come to be regarded as an iconic example of a failed attempt to transform British economic prospects.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Backing_Britain

'Britain’s factories suffered the deepest slump in orders since the first Covid lockdown and are braced for worse to come as demand from customers in the UK and overseas withers.

Businesses are slashing investment amid rising taxes and red tape, according to the Confederation of British Industry’s survey of the manufacturing sector.

“Manufacturers have entered the New Year in a grim mood. Confidence has evaporated over the last three months as orders have dropped,” said Ben Jones, economist at the business group.

“A fall in domestic deliveries comes amid widespread concerns over the impact of the increase in National Insurance contributions, minimum wages and changes to employment law on firms’ operating costs.”

Much of the global manufacturing sector is struggling with German industry gripped by high energy prices, weak demand and stiff competition from Chinese car manufacturers, while China itself is also battling against an economic slump caused in part by a property crisis.

As a result British factories have few orders from overseas.

“Export prospects appear worse than at any time since the pandemic, reflecting a slowdown in overseas demand and reports of ongoing difficulties securing supply contracts with customers based in the EU,” said Mr Jones.

He called on the Government to inject fresh confidence into the economy.

“Several firms noted concern that negative sentiment risks becoming self-fulfilling,” said Mr Jones.

“The government can play a role in re-booting confidence by sending clear signals of intent on policies that could support the manufacturing sector, notably delivering an industrial strategy that helps the UK win the global race for growth, matching skills to economic needs, and accelerating our energy transition and resilience.”

The share of businesses reporting falling orders outweighed the proportion with rising demand by a margin of 20 percentage points, the worst since July 2020.

Expectations for the coming quarter are even worse, with the net balance anticipating growth in orders falling to minus 32pc, the lowest since April 2020, at the start of the first Covid lockdown.' The Telegraph

The below is from the    March 1991 issue of theSocialist Standard

'Since its evolution out of feudalism, the capitalist system of society has ensured that there has been a long-term expansion in the productive capacity of the world. TVs, computers, weapons capable of mass wreckage at one stroke—all these things that were once unthinkable have become basic features of life, at least in the more developed areas of the planet where capitalism has been dominant for many decades, and in some instances, hundreds of years.

Although capitalism broke through the fetters placed upon production by the feudal system and has expanded the forces of production to an unprecedented degree in the years since, the expansion of productive capacity and output under capitalism has never proceeded in a straight line. Notions of steady growth and constantly increasing well-being owe more to the rhetoric of politicians than the actual reality of capitalist development.

As a system, capitalism grossly underuses the technology and potential for production that it has helped develop. On one level, this can be seen by the growth in employment of people who are not engaged in intrinsically useful activity—bankers, accountants, insurance workers, armed forces personnel and so on. But even when capitalism can be said to be working at “full capacity”, with expanding output, growing productivity and booming sales, a period of “under-use” is always around the corner.

Falling output
Capitalism in Britain has reached just such a turning point. The last few years have seen fairly steady growth, with rising productivity and increased investment in those expanding sectors of industry that were making the headlines in Thatcher’s last years in office—particularly microelectronics and information technology. Much of that growth and expansion has now been halted.

This has not, of course, prevented the present government from arguing that the downturn in economic performance is just a "blip”. Only in November 1990 was John Major (when Chancellor) prepared to admit tentatively that Britain is in recession. The government currently defines a recession as being a situation when there is a negative growth rate for two successive quarters, but this “official" definition hardly matters to the thousands being thrown on to the dole queue or the thousands of others forced into bankruptcy.

Britain, in common with a number of other countries, is now in a situation where industrial production is falling and unemployment is rising. Although the official unemployment statistics have been doctored to the extent that they have become virtually meaningless as a measure of the actual level of unemployment in Britain, they do at least indicate trends—and the current trend is up. Manufacturing production has been falling since April last year and in the three months to November fell by 2.7 percent compared with the previous three-month period (Independent on Sunday,  27 January).

So far as governments and politicians are concerned, falling rates of growth and high levels of unemployment are signs that something has “gone wrong". When things start to go wrong for capitalist governments they often look for a scapegoat— like some hapless (ex-)Minister whose irresponsibility and recklessness is blamed for having brought the period of growth to an end. In Britain this role has been allocated to former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, a man previously described as "quite brilliant" by Thatcher and Major. But governments taking the credit when output is expanding and unemployment is low, and finding a scapegoat when things get rough is based on the mistaken assumption that the capitalist business cycle results from the policies they pursue. They may like to think that they are in control of the economy and that when things go wrong they can put them right again with the correct policies, but this is a fantasy.

Over—expansion
What governments fail to realise is that an economic recession is not an example of capitalism “going wrong" because of some dreadful ministerial error. Economic recessions with stagnating production, growing unemployment and a further slide into poverty are entirely normal—and necessary—features of capitalist development. This is because of the inner logic of the capitalist system's drive towards expansion.

The conditions for the development of an economic recession are present even when the capitalist system is in a period of boom, or relative prosperity. One thing that is immediately noticeable is that the operations of capitalism are not planned at the level of the whole economy. Decisions about investment are made by thousands of competing enterprises operating independently without social control or regulation. This means that when business is booming and when profits and growth rates are high "over-investment" by some enterprises will inevitably occur. In pursuit of future profits they expand their productive capacity beyond what the market which they are producing for can absorb.

A particular industry over-investing and expanding its productive capacity beyond the limits of market demand in this way is the usual cause of an economic crisis and subsequent depression. If capitalist growth was to be achieved in a controlled manner, eliminating booms and slumps, then growth would have to be balanced in each sector of industry. But the growth of an industry is not linked to the demands of other industries—its growth is determined by the expectation of profit, and this inevitably leads to a disproportion in investment and a disproportionate expansion between the various branches of production.

When an industry has over-produced for its particular market, this will have a knock-on effect for firms operating in other sectors of the economy. For instance, if an enterprise is no longer able to sell the commodities it has produced on the market at a profit, production will be cut back thereby slowing output. This will provoke a chain reaction as the enterprises' suppliers will no longer be able to sell all their products either, which will in turn affect their suppliers and then their suppliers' suppliers, and so on. Such an overproduction for selective markets therefore only has to appear in a few key industries for a crisis to break out and spread—reducing overall growth rates and increasing unemployment. And it all arises out of the general anarchy of production inherent in the capitalist system.

Boom—slump cycle
After a period of generalised stagnation and high unemployment, capitalism will be able to move out of the slump phase of its trade cycle. Although a recession has devastating consequences for the working class, no slump is permanent and once many of the weaker capitals have gone to the wall—with their assets being sold off cheaply to their competitors—the prospects for investment and expansion improve again. Capital depreciation, coupled with reduced interest rates caused by reduced demand for money capital, and lower real wage rates in a recession, mean that the prospect for making profits improves and industries begin to expand once more, taking on more workers. The cycle then begins all over again. As Marx pointed out in the last century:

The factory system's tremendous capacity for expanding with sudden immense leaps, and its dependence on the world market, necessarily gives rise to the following cycle: feverish production, a consequent glut on the market, then a contraction of the market, which causes production to be crippled. The life of industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, over-production, crisis and stagnation. (Capital.  Volume I. page 580, Penguin edition).

Now that capitalism has become a world system the "sudden leaps" of production referred to by Marx are not nearly as immense as they were in the capitalist system's historical ascent when whole continents of the Earth still had to be brought into the "factory system" with its wage-labour and capital relationship. Indeed capitalism, having raised the forces of production to a level where a society of abundance is feasible, has outlived its usefulness for humankind, and its cycles of boom and slump are a testament to its inherent inability to utilise resources efficiently. Capitalism can only advance so long as there are periods of regression when workers are made redundant in increasing numbers. when growth stagnates and when poverty spreads—not merely in the "developed" areas of the world but in the weaker capitalist states also, where the effects of the capitalist trade cycle are often felt hardest.

Most importantly of all, there is nothing that politicians can do to eliminate the boom-slump cycle—it will be around as long as capitalism itself. Capitalism cannot be efficiently planned as anarchy of production and uneven development are at the very heart of the system. All attempts at planning capitalism have ended in disaster—most notably in state capitalist countries like Russia and China where production seems to be in an almost chronic state of stagnation and where unemployment has. at least until recently, been masked by overstaffing.

The only way to take the abundant resources of the Earth and use them in an efficient manner is to establish a system of society based on common ownership and democratic control, where articles of wealth will be produced solely for use and not for exchange on a market with a view to the profit of a minority. Only then will crises, booms and slumps be a thing of the past and only then can production be geared to satisfying the needs of the inhabitants of the Earth.'

Dave Perrin

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/03/crises-booms-and-slumps-1991.html

The problem isn't Trump, it's capitalism

 

There is no doubt that Donald Trump is an unpleasant individual. Many people call him racist, sexist and narcissistic – with good reason. His attitude towards the environment, immigration and the under-privileged is awful.

But social divisions, racism and environmental destruction all existed before Trump’s presidency and they will continue after it. While his language is particularly nasty, like all capitalist politicians he represents a brutal system that puts profits before people. A different president might have been a ‘lesser evil’ but they would not have ended the problems inflicted by the profit system.

We don’t need to get rid of a particular politician or party. We need to abolish the whole capitalist system and the profit-seeking force that drives it.

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

Socialist Sonnet No. 179

Memory Moving Forwards

 

The road thus far from Auschwitz-Birkenau

Continues being paved with good intentions,

Although there are frequent dissentions

From notions of human rights, even now.

Too many fingers ready to point out

Those who are to be considered others,

No matter they be sisters and brothers,

Even if unrelated by blood. Doubt

Does not seem to bother the demagogue

Who savours every bitter word spoken,

Yet has no words to mend a world broken,

Fractures they would conceal in night and fog.

Look for a fresh way, don’t just follow orders,

Choose the road less travelled, beyond borders.

 

D. A.   

Peace accords needed, Socialism needed more

 

On 27 January 1973 an agreement was signed in Paris, Paris Peace Accord, that meant the end of the Vietnam war. Unsuccessful peace talks had also taken place in 1966.

If peace talks would end the conflicts presently taking place and causing so much death and destruction then the outcomes would be worth the effort. The only real solution to both present and future conflicts is 'goodbye capitalism, hallo socialism.'

A reminder that the working class have no country, something those who are currently supporting a belligerent USA would do well to remember.

As the writer of the piece below correctly predicted, Vietnam is now firmly ensconced in the world of capitalism.

From the Socialist Standard August 1968

'The peace negotiations, coming in the middle of hostilities without either side obtaining an overwhelming decision, will cause many people to ask if the Vietnam war has been worth fighting.

Let us look, therefore, through the ideological smokescreen that has been blown over the mass murder there and see what are the real interests involved.

The Vietnam war is an example of an established capitalist power being challenged by an up-and-coming one. America, having helped to smash Japan in the last World War, and being in control of South Korea and Taiwan, is the dominant power throughout the Pacific, but is being challenged by China.

That America can suddenly try to negotiate a peace underlines the conflicting interests that lie behind the American government. Robert Kennedy, in running for the Presidential candidature on a policy of peace in Vietnam, is indicative of such interests, which are further demonstrated by the rise of many stocks and shares on both the U.K. and American Stock Exchanges at the news of peace.

But opposing interests arc demonstrated by the losses on the Metal Exchange and Wool Market:

Copper, the most strategic of the raw materials, fell sharply yesterday on the London Metal Exchange when news of the Hanoi peace talk moves reached the market.
After a quiet morning, when the forward wirebars price had eased by £5, afternoon dealings saw the price “drop like a stone by £20 before anyone had a chance to open their mouth", according to one dealer.
By the close, cash wirebars were £45 lower at £527.10s. and forward metal lost £38.10s. to £493 a ton.
Stop-loss selling also pushed down the prices of the other base metals, but to a lesser extent.

Japanese reactions. Wool prices on the London terminal market were up to l.9d. a pound easier, a movement directly related to the fact that a large part of Japan’s economy is hinged to the American commitment in SE Asia —and to the fact that Japan takes around 30 per cent of the Australian wool clip.
There is a fairly logical belief that Japan will be cutting its wool purchasing if peace is achieved in Vietnam. (Financial Times, 4/4/68).

Some of the American capitalists hope to profit from the extensive cash crops and the minerals resources from the mines — the coal, copper, tin, zinc, bauxite, manganese, phosphates and gold and precious stones. They would also like to retain Vietnam as a market for American goods. All this cannot be in the interests of the would-be rulers of Vietnam and one can understand that they win fight against this almost to their last worker.

Those who believe that the “free world” is concerned in fighting for lofty principles should read reports from Indonesian newspapers. Indonesia has been reluctant to join Western-backed military pacts in S.E. Asia. Djakarta newspapers are rather sceptical about calls for “unity to fight communism" in Vietnam  Gotand Rojong recently quoted a Republican member of the U.S. Congress, who alleged that during June last, nine British ships, one Italian and one Cypriot ship carried 76,000 tons of cargo, (including, he claimed, strategic goods) to Hanoi — more than was delivered by Russian ships in the same period. During the first six months of this year, he stated, the number of ships from the "free world" calling at North Vietnam ports had shot up to 39, compared with 20 in the previous six months. So much for capitalist principles!

Ho Chi Minh, the so-called communist leader of North Vietnam, takes great pains to mislead the workers under his control.

He holds himself out as being at heart in favour of the workers, but pleads that capitalism won’t let him do all he would like to do for them. That if only the workers would oust the American colonialists then everything would be all right.

Like their counterparts elsewhere in the capitalist world the rulers of both North and South Vietnam have managed, with the help of the profit system, to create scarcity in the midst of plenty. In Vietnam, of all places, the climate ensures that crops are lavish to an incredible extent. Even the fish thrive to such a fantastic degree that the facetious maintain that the sea surrounding Vietnam consists of 90 per cent fish and 10 per cent water. But the food ration for the North Vietnam troops is 1½lbs. rice a day and for the civilian poor, starvation is never far away. Ho proclaims that he is out to defeat capitalism and colonialism and that North Vietnam is a communist state run for the benefit of the workers, and has changed the name of the Party he leads from Vietminh (National Party) to Vietcong (Communist Party).

But some observers cannot detect any difference between the governments of North and South. A member of the Vatican delegation said that “all they need do is to change flags, and overnight. South Vietnam could be a communist country" (The Making of a Quagmire—David Halberstam).

Both North and South are police states with similar terrorist methods, a wages system, conscription, payment by result, an exploiting class and a working-class.

Russia, China and America have been competing with each other in trying to gain favour by supplying new industries to Vietnam. Of these the cement factories are directly useful in prosecuting the war and so are the roads and civil engineering works.

The country is being opened up and the mines developed, and, at the same time, is rapidly becoming modernised and mechanised. For years the workers engaged in the war have been operating up-to-date equipment, like their opposite members in the American forces. Even the agricultural workers in producing coffee, rubber and rice, are intimately bound up with international markets. They work under capitalist conditions and when the cash crops they produce cannot be sold on the world’s markets they are unemployed.

It is the battles that creates the sensational news coming from Vietnam and help to sell newspapers in the West. But, when peace is declared, and the dust of battle settles, it will be found that a great change has quietly been coming about and that Vietnam will have taken its place in the present day world of capitalism. But there will be another war continuing there — the class war. The world of capitalism is becoming one!

Wealth will be churned out and fortunes will be made. The war in Vietnam will have been worth fighting after all —but not for the workers.'

Frank Offord

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/02/background-to-vietnam-peace-talks-1968.html

Mental health

 

Some say that if you think you're having a nervous breakdown then you're not. That;s a matter of conjecture. Mental health issues certainly are multiplying and affecting more and more people. This can't wholly be blamed on capitalism because mental health problems go way way back.

Bethlem Royal Hospital, founded in 1247, and known also as Bedlam, recorded its first insane patients in 1403. The institution is famous, or infamous, for its allowing the public to visit in order to observe the behaviour of inmates, rather like going to the zoo.

'Evidence that the number of visitors rose following the move to Moorfields is provided in the observation by the Bridewell Governors in 1681 of "the greate quantity of persons that come daily to see the said Lunatickes".Eight years later the English merchant and author, Thomas Tryon, remarked disapprovingly of the "Swarms of People" that descended upon Bethlem during public holidays. In the mid-eighteenth-century a journalist of a topical periodical noted that at one time during Easter Week" one hundred people at least" were to be found visiting Bethlem's inmates  Evidently Bethlem was a popular attraction, yet there is no credible basis to calculate the annual number of visitors.

The Governors actively sought out "people of note and quallitie" – the educated, wealthy and well-bred– as visitors. The limited evidence would suggest that the Governors enjoyed some success in attracting such visitors of "quality". In this elite and idealised model of charity and moral benevolence the necessity of spectacle, the showing of the mad so as to excite compassion, was a central component in the elicitation of donations, benefactions, and legacies. While a substantial proportion of such monies undoubtedly found their way into the hands of staff rather than the hospital poors' box ,Bethlem profited considerably from such charity, collecting on average between £300 and £350 annually from the 1720s until the curtailment of visiting in 1770. Thereafter the poors' box monies declined to about £20 or £30 per year.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital

There is a traditional folk song, Tabout Bedlamo see mad Tom o' Bedlam

'To see mad Tom o' Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
To save her shoes from gravel
Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonny
For they all go bare and they live by the air
And they want no drink and no money '

https://folkhistory.blogspot.com/2014/04/bedlam-boys-are-bonny.html

Back to capitalism, recently the Blessed Tony, an ex-prime minister of the UK,

has publicly stated that the rise in the number of the working class suffering from a wide range of mental health issues should stop being pussies, should man (and woman) up, and should pull themselves themselves together because they are costing the capitalist class money.

He said, 'I think we have become very, very focused on mental health and with people self-diagnosing. We're spending vastly more on mental health now than we did a few years ago. And it's hard to see what the objective reasons for that are.'

The former PM added: 'Life has its ups and downs and everybody experiences those. And you've got to be careful of encouraging people to think they've got some sort of condition other than simply confronting the challenges of life. We need a proper conversation about this because you really cannot afford to be spending the amount of money we're spending on mental health.' Daily Mail

In a capitalist society there is. inevitably, a conflict between the health needs of the working population and the pursuit of profit. Workers are viewed predominantly as economic units to be exploited for their labour power. The cut-throat nature of capitalist competition obliges manufacturers to keep production costs as low as possible to maintain profits and avoid being undercut by rivals and forced out of business.

'In a capitalist society there is. inevitably, a conflict between the health needs of the working population and the pursuit of profit. Workers are viewed predominantly as economic units to be exploited for their labour power. The cut-throat nature of capitalist competition obliges manufacturers to keep production costs as low as possible to maintain profits and avoid being undercut by rivals and forced out of business.

Conflicts occur because the unchecked efforts of manufacturers to produce goods as cheaply as possible lead to the impoverishment of the workers by the payment of low wages, longer working hours, hazardous working conditions, exploitation of child labour, environmental pollution, and stress from alienating, repetitive, boring work on factory production lines. But a considerable amount of ill-health is caused by the interplay of factors resulting from the exploitation of labour. Accidents are caused by fatigue and hazardous working conditions. occupational disorders are common; gross exploitation leads to poverty, bad housing and malnutrition. However, the provision of health care represents a cost against production to be avoided if possible. The workers try, with partial success, to mitigate exploitation through trade unions and parliamentary reforms by pressing for better working conditions, higher rates of pay and the provision of health and social services.'

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2021/03/health-service-under-attack-1985.html

By 'We' Blair meant the capitalist class because the burden of funding health care to keep workers fit enough to run capitalism falls upon the the minority class .'

'Rachel from accounts' is said to be considering cutting billions of pounds from funds disability benefits.'

The below is from the Socialist Standard May 2017

'One thing guaranteed to bring out the worst in socialists is rich people banging on about their problems, but one would have to have a heart of stone not to feel some sympathy in the recent stories of princes Harry and William speaking out about their mental health problems after the death of their mother Diana 20 years ago. The revelations were quickly joined by others from Lady Gaga and the CEO of Virgin Money until, ok we get the idea . . . money doesn’t necessarily buy you happiness. But as some wit once remarked, if you think that, try poverty.

And one thing the poor are not poor in is mental health problems. The US Centers for Disease Control 2017 survey reports that 8 million adult Americans, or 3.4 percent, have such problems (New Scientist, 17 April) however this is likely to be an order-of-magnitude underestimation, as under-reporting in this area is rife. According to a 2016 report by the charity MIND, in the UK almost half of adults (43.4 percent) think they have had a ‘diagnosable mental health condition’ during their lives, and while around 20 percent of men and 34 percent of women have had this suspicion confirmed by medical professionals (mentalhealth.org.uk), a further 30 percent said they had never consulted a doctor. This is consistent with a lack of self-reporting across all areas of mental health, possibly because people try to tough it out, or else do not understand that they are suffering from an illness which might be treated but instead believe that they are personally inadequate in some way, for which no cure exists. Women suffer more in all categories. 1 in 4 young women self-harm, an alarming statistic given that self-harm is the most reliable risk factor in subsequent suicide – 1 in 25 hospitalised self-harmers will kill themselves within 5 years. Among UK residents aged 10 or over there is currently around one suicide every two hours (2014 figures). Ironically, given that such people typically have a low or zero sense of self-worth, MIND informs us that the average cost of a suicide, in terms not just of police, hospital and funeral costs, but also of loss of total lifetime ‘output’, is £1.7 million.

Globally, according to the World Health Organisation, mental health problems that are left untreated form 13 percent of the total disease burden, and will by 2030 be the biggest cause of death. The WHO estimates that nearly half the world’s population suffer from some form of mental illness. That’s more than from cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Costs are literally incalculable, as many factors are involved. Costs to the UK economy alone are estimated at between £70–100 billion. Global costs are projected to reach $6 trillion by 2030.

What can capitalism do about any of this? It can’t abolish poverty, a well-documented cause of mental illness. To do that, it would also have to abolish the privilege and luxury of the elite. It can’t abolish its own hierarchy, another well-known cause. It can’t get rid of war, or crime. It can’t take the stress, fear and anxiety out of being a wage-slave except by abolishing wage slavery. It can’t do anything about the entire matrix of oppressions which begins with the CEO yelling at the executive and ends with the black girl kicking the cat. Capitalism is the embodiment of mental illness, a destructive society pathologically bent on chasing its own end. If it was a person, it would be hospitalised as dangerously insane. That half of the population suffer mental illness is not surprising. What is surprising is that the other half don’t, or say they don’t. But then, perhaps nobody really knows, in capitalism, what good mental health even looks like. In a society full of broken people, just managing to get through the day may be deemed ‘healthy’.

Socialism, in doing away with property society’s rules, would do away with most if not all of the environmental factors in mental illness. It’s not a magic cure-all. It can’t address chemical or genetic factors, at least not without more research. It can’t do anything about bereavement. But what it could do is give people a decent life without fear, without low status and a consequent sense of low self-worth. It could give people the support of a strong community, a sense of open possibilities and the freedom to explore them, a chance to determine their own identity and desires and to have these acknowledged and respected by others. There’s nothing magic about it. Socialism would simply stop torturing people. And if that sounds like a hopeless daydream, it’s only because you’re so used to living in a nightmare.'

Paddy Shannon

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-market-system-bull-bear-and-black.html

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 24 January 1930 GMT ZOOM

 

CAPITALISM IN INDIA (ZOOM)

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Event Details

• Date: January 24, 2025 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

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Speaker: Andy Thomas

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

Winter warmer?

 

Back at work on Monday 6 January? Bet it already feels like months ago, and months more before your next decent break. We call ourselves free citizens in a free democracy, but there’s no ‘free’ about it. Food isn’t free, housing and other essentials aren’t free (they would be in socialism), and neither are we. Instead of living our best lives, we are chained by rents, mortgages and bills to the treadmill of wage-slavery.

It will hardly warm your heart to learn that FTSE 100 bosses made more money by noon on 6 January than the average worker (ie, you) makes in a year. You do the work, the rich get richer. Capitalism is rigged. Time for a revolution.

Socialist Sonnet No.178

Trump Cards

 

When did billionaires become so blatant?

Such shufflers and dealers of influence

In full public view, not even pretence

Of discretion, extolling noxious cant

As reasoned argument. Not just tearing

The veil of democracy, but ripping

It down and casting it aside, stripping

Politicians naked while appearing

To promote their infallibility,

Denying any counter arguments

To stakes calculated in dollars and cents:

Values traded as exchange currency.

When it comes to egos and the nation,

The danger is runaway inflation.

 

D.A.

Divide and rule: Colonialism and billionaires

 

A new report from Oxfam, ‘Takers not Makers’ details the wealth stripping by states in colonial exploitation.

From the introduction, ‘Billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than 2023. Five trillionaires are now expected within a decade. Meanwhile, crises of economy, climate and conflict mean the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990. Most billionaire wealth is taken, not earned- 60% comes from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power. Our deeply unequal world has a long history of colonial domination which has largely benefited the richest people. The poorest, racialized people, women and marginalized groups have and continue to be systematically exploited at huge human cost. Today’s world remains colonial in many ways. This system still extracts wealth from the Global South to the superrich 1% in the Global North at a rate of US$30million an hour. This must be reversed. Reparations must be made to those who were brutally enslaved and colonised. Our modern-day colonial economic system must be made radically more equal to end poverty. The cost should be borne by the richest people who benefit the most.’

It continues, ‘While the working class struggles to get by People living in poverty all over the world continue to face multiple crises... The election of Donald Trump as U.S. President in November 2024 gave a huge further boost to billionaire fortunes, while his policies are set to fan the flames of inequality further. In its most recent report on poverty, the World Bank calculates that if current growth rates continue and inequality does not decrease, it will take more than a century to end poverty. Conversely, the report shows that if we reduce inequality, poverty could be ended three times faster. While overall poverty rates have fallen across the world, the number of people living under the World Bank poverty line of US$6.85 (PPP) today is the same as it was in 1990: almost 3.6 billion people... Today this represents 44% of humanity. Meanwhile, in perverse symmetry, the richest 1% own almost an identical proportion – 45% of all wealth.18 One in ten women in the world lives in extreme poverty (below US$2.15 a day PPP); 24.3 million more women than men live in extreme poverty. Research by the World Bank also shows that only 8% of humanity lives in countries that have low inequality. Oxfam and Development Finance International’s findings in The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024 reveal negative trends in the vast majority of countries since 2022. Four in five have cut the share of their budgets going to education, health and/or social protection; four in five have cut progressive taxation; and nine in ten have regressed on labour rights and minimum wages. Without urgent policy actions to reverse this worrying trend, economic inequality will almost certainly continue to rise in 90% of countries.23 Countries are facing bankruptcy and being crippled by debt; they do not have the money to fund the fight against inequality. On average, low- and middle-income countries spend 48% of their budgets on debt repayments, often to rich private creditors based in New York and London. This is far more than their spending on education and health combined.’

Oxfam gives an example of colonialism exploitation using the UK and India: ‘Oxfam calculates that between 1765 and 1900, the richest 10% in the UK extracted wealth from India alone worth US$33.8 trillion in today’s money.’

Chapter five of the report offers Oxfam’s ‘solutions’ to eradicating poverty. Oxfam’s long list of ‘solutions’ include ensuring that ‘the incomes of the richest 10% are no higher than the poorest 40% globally. Tax the super-rich. Pay reparations for colonialism. Perpetrators of the crime of colonialism must pay compensation to the victims to ensure restitution, provide satisfaction, compensate for damages incurred, ensure rehabilitation and prevent future abuses.’

https://webassets.oxfamamerica.org/media/documents/Takers_Not_Makers_CbN1QBy.pdf

The report is worth reading for the statistics regarding billionaires wealth. Its demands as to how to achieve the reduction of the global poverty it highlights are pie in the sky however. The reader can judge for themselves the likelihood of any of these measures ever being implemented. The only rational and effective solution is obvious to followers of this blog.

The piece below from the December 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard details methods used by colonial states used their power to cement their hegemony.

‘The festering of tribalist, nationalist and racist sentiment are nurtured and sustained by the capitalist system

Within the context of neo-colonial statehood, tribalism is a colonial derivative based on matriarchal or patriarchal relations forged in the distant past and used by an ethnic group as a defensive and an offensive weapon against other groups. The position of some of those who see tribalism as the main cause of Africa’s present social and economic predicament follows a familiar pattern of thinking. The colonialists, according to them, tried to make a nation-state out of a hotch-potch of antagonistic and uncivilised African peoples but failed in their pious mission. The various tribes had age-long hatred for one another and as soon as the colonial power went the natives descended into barbarism maiming and killing each other.

Nationalists in Africa see the matter differently, painting idyllic pictures of the African past and blaming all the tribal conflicts that have erupted after independence solely on colonialism. This viewpoint is as historically incorrect as it is undialectical. Facts abound on how the internal evolution of some African communities before colonialism and mercantile capitalism had provided groups of people the opportunity to appropriate the labour of others, accumulate economic surplus and consequently subjugate other communities. This is a scenario that must have generated a certain level of tribal animosity and discrimination based on economic exploitation and wealth, even if this was on a minor scale compared with the situation in colonial times and the post-independence era. It was these differences that were deliberately and carefully nurtured by the colonialists, and later exploited by the neo-colonial bourgeoisie after independence to keep the people manacled to the capitalist system.

In colonial times

Colonialism whether it was of the British, Belgian, French or German variety was not meant to be a benign enterprise. The motive behind its establishment was one: the exploitation of labour and the accumulation of economic surplus. Consequently, the driving force behind it, capitalism, did not spare the exploitation of labour in both the metropolis and other lands even if it meant spilling blood to fulfil this sordid agenda.

This mercenary impulse had implied increased production, technological expansion, the growth of the external and domestic market and ultimately the annexation and political control of other territories. Tribal groups which stood in the way were, in colonial parlance, pacified. But if, as suggested in some quarters, the colonial enterprise had meant to pacify and carve out viable nation-states capable of competing with metropolitan capitalism, the monopolistic tendency and vampire essence of the profit system would have been still-born. Far from creating problems for itself, its policy towards the people of the colonies was guided by the trinitarian doctrine—atomisation, exploitation and domination. This unfolded in its pattern of social and economic investment in what came to be known as Ghana and before that as the Gold Coast.

British colonial policy encouraged investments in only those areas of the colony which were endowed with mineral and forest resources. This pattern of investment engendered considerable regional variations in terms of the provision of roads, railway lines and social services. Thus the Southern Sector which by virtue of its location abounded in timber, gold and fertile soil benefited far more in terms of infrastructural development than the Northern territories which did not have any known mineral resources. But even in the Southern part of the colony there was discrimination in the provision of amenities on the basis of the contribution to the exportable surplus. The pattern of investment that characterised British economic policy was not born out of any preference for the Asante over the Dagarti, but based on cold capitalist reasoning. After all, some minimum maintenance of workers’ health and education was a reasonable investment since it ensured the maximisation of the extraction of surplus from the worker; and the greedy capitalists by their calculations knew this too well.

How did this promote tribalism? By annexing the Gold Coast and putting the people in a subordinate status, the British colonial power froze any further evolution and consolidation of a national identity. For example, it destroyed the principal catalyst for achieving the unity of fragmented loyalties. Not only did colonialism deprive states like Benin, Oyo and Asante of all their principal vassals and tributary states, but it followed up the process of fragmentation by smashing the basis of the hegemonic power of these states thus giving full rein to all manner of divisive tendencies.

While pretending to be carrying out a mission of uniting the incorrigibly warring tribes British colonial policy consciously and systematically separated the various people, creating conflict and ill-will among them. The colonial government sometimes saw the value of stimulating tribal jealousies so as to keep the colonised from dealing with their principal opposition—the colonial and the emergent African bourgeoisie who together were milking the people.

By categorising the various linguistic subgroups in the Gold Coast—Frafra, Dagarti, Ninkarsi Kusaasi, Dagomba, Akyim, Asante and Fanti—as tribes the colonial regime began to nurture parochial and exclusivist consciousness among people who previously had regarded themselves as one. All official documents in colonial times, for example, required information on the place of origin and ethnic background of the individual. Names were thus suffixed with one’s tribal background and area of origin. Feeling regarded as a member of an ethnic group by others and that they would behave towards you accordingly, individuals began to feel the need to identify more closely with their “kith and kin” and to promote its interest relative to others.

Racist colonial ideology ignored the fact that the people of the Gold Coast shared a common heritage of colonial oppression and colonially-induced capitalist exploitation with its concomitant ills: poverty, ignorance, disease and malnutrition. As a result, its philosophy of determining the inferiority or superiority of a people in terms of the extent to which they had culturally imbibed all what the colonial establishment represented came to dominate the worldview of some Africans.

Colonial ideology and culture operated on the basis of a hierarchy of cultures in which that of the metropolitan bourgeoisie was supposed to be supreme. The culture of the country of origin of the metropolitan bourgeoisie therefore became the standard by which a people’s level of primitiveness or barbarism was determined. The more your thinking, values and mannerisms were close to the colonialists’ the more human you were; and by implication the further your behaviour and outlook were from the masters’ the less human you were. This explained why the rich and educated elite who were products of the colonial educational system did not answer questions in their African dialect but in English. They talked about the opera which they had never seen except from a distance, referred to winter and Buckingham Palace and, above all, adopted a critical attitude towards other Africans who they derogatively referred to as “bush people”.

But the idea of trying to approximate to the coloniser was not only to be found in the relations between the African and the European coloniser. Sometimes Africans tried to approximate their status to other Africans if they thought those individuals enjoyed a higher status. African ethnic groups which had a high number of educated and rich people within them as a result of their long contact with the coloniser tended to feel superior to others. Even if they were poor and illiterate they identified psychologically with those in their tribal group who were rich and educated. It did not matter to the poor Asante, Frafra or Ewe person if all of them were victims of crude exploitation by colonialism and the African bourgeoisie. In their minds, the identification with the tribal big boss and the fact that they came from the same ethnic background was enough, even if it did not ensure the enjoyment of a spoon of marmalade from the master’s table. These exclusivist and warped thinking explained why a poor Asante for example could feel deeply offended if he was mistaken for a Busanga or any other tribe. This not only lead to more barriers between the ethnic groups but effectively undermined their capacity to confront capitalist exploitation. The inter-ethnic struggle for superiority or at least to avoid the stigma of inferiority dissipated the energies of the people.

Tribalism today

The African bourgeoisie which assumed the mantle of power after colonial rule also did not fail to realise the usefulness of tribalism in the struggle against the African masses. Like racial violence in Europe, tribalism was a means to an end: deflecting the anger of the masses from the neo-colonial bourgeoisie and directing it at other members of the working class. In another sense it was the most convenient cover for the capitalist robbers who stole economic surplus from the working class and poor peasants. The attitude of the African bourgeoisie towards the colonial state that it inherited, therefore, was not that of dismantling and radically transforming the exploitative relations of production. It was guided by the desire to inherit the colonial state-machine and seek accommodation with international capital in the extraction of economic surplus from the working people. Consequently, post-independence politics in Africa has witnessed the arousal and manipulation of tribal passions and petty differences among ethnic groups, for the same sordid reasons that the bourgeoisie in Europe sometimes find convenient it to use racism.

The predatory character of capitalism coupled with the hollowness and hypocrisy of the African bourgeoisie created fertile conditions for the festering of this cancerous disposition. Slogans, values and the moral high ground postured by the bourgeoisie as events unfolded long after independence have been blatantly self-serving. As for their masters abroad, the state machinery has now become an important instrument in their quest for capital accumulation at the expense of the masses, whom they claim in political party campaigns to be liberating from poverty, disease, etc. However, given the peculiar historical and economic circumstances in which it has had to evolve it is not an exact carbon copy of its masters abroad.

The African bourgeoisie is more desirous of imbibing the lifestyles and privileges of its overlords in Europe and America than showing the creative and strong interest in production that marked the genesis of the bourgeoisie in Europe. Its extravagance and neo-colonial conditions have been at the core of the steep declines of production levels in recent times, leading to shocking levels of destitution and poverty. But it is precisely these conditions of want that the bourgeoisie has shamelessly manipulated to scuttle the unity of the dispossessed in the towns using tribalism as a tool.

Cruel economic conditions have forced many residents in poverty-stricken suburbs to seek help and protection by means of a network of social obligations, transferring some of their traditional feudal loyalties and institutions to the urban environment. Most ethnic groups in Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takordi have installed chiefs to whom they pay allegiance and seek protection. Tribal associations have also been formed to advance the cause of particular ethnic groups and used as sources of benefit: help in finding a job, accommodation, money and credit. People also stick together to make common cause against other tribal groups in the struggle for economic survival in the dog-eat-dog environment that has been created by capitalism.

It is these tribal associations that provide arenas for the various factions of the bourgeoisie to launch offensives and counter-offensives against each other in their struggle for political and economic power. Events in the run-up to this month’s presidential election in Ghana provide ample testimony of this, as many of such groups with the backing of the bourgeoisie have sprung up, all seeking to advance the interest of the bourgeoisie in the various ethnic groups. They have organised and whipped up the sentiments of the lower strata of their tribespeople against rivals belonging to different ethnic groups. They have created the impression that it is only when one of your tribesmen is at the helm of affairs that you can have a fair share of national development and individual personal advancement. Consequently, where a presidential or vice-presidential candidate comes from has become extremely important.

But as it has always been the case after every election, and will surely be the case after this month’s elections, that those factions that win the election will easily forget about the ethnic support base they so subtly manipulated to propel themselves to power. They will shun the company of their poor tribespeople who supported them and will fraternise closely with their allies in other ethnic groups. The rancour and bitterness that characterised their relations will soon be forgotten, except on political party platforms. They will play tennis, billiards and golf together and discuss lucrative business contracts in posh hotels. As for their indigent brethren who had worked tirelessly to put them in power, they will have to start thinking seriously about how to pay school fees, feed the family, and get good accommodation.

The festering of tribalist, nationalist and racist sentiment are nurtured and sustained by the capitalist system of production which produces only for profits and not for needs. The abolition of the profit system and its replacement with socialism based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for production and distribution would put an end to discrimination and bigotry. But this cannot happen unless people understand and see the need for this kind of change. More than ever before, the formation of socialist parties in Africa to take up the task of spreading the socialist message has become urgent.’

Adongo Aidan Avugma

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/09/tribalism-colonialism-and-capitalism.html