Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism

Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism Campaign

A Global Social Media Experiment

Comrades,
We are informing you about an exciting new project. We urge you to become involved in it. If you know of others who might be sympathetic, even if they are not members of our organisation, encourage them to become involved as well.

Basically, this is an experiment.  But it is an experiment on a large scale. In fact, it is the first serious attempt ever to organise the practical collaboration and cooperation of socialists right across the world.  The purpose of the exercise is to significantly boost the amount of publicity that we, as a movement, receive by using the immensely powerful tool of the social media to draw attention to the literature, websites and existence of all the companion parties of the WSM.

The idea is very simple and it requires an absolutely minimal amount of effort on your part.  That is why it is called the “Ten-Minutes-a-Month-for-Socialism” campaign. It will take up only 10 minutes of your time every month (although, of course, you are welcome to spend more time on it if you so wish!)

If you have internet access, the chances are you have a Facebook account. If you are on FB you are probably a member of several FB groups. There are, of course, countless thousands of FB groups but what is being proposed here is that you join a few of these that are of a political nature. It’s probably best to focus more on Left-leaning groups than others as the members of these groups are more like to be receptive to what we have to say.

Here are just a few random examples; you probably know many more:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greatphilosophicalproblems/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thespectreofcommunism/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1434654420087854/

If you are not on Facebook, and do not wish to be on it, there are many other forum websites to join such as Quora (where several of us are already active) or Reddit. If you don’t wish to reveal your identity, for whatever reason, it is very easy to use a pseudonym.

So how does this project work? The idea is so simple. Let us say you have joined 10 Facebook groups of a political nature. What you do each month is create a post with a link to a particular piece of socialist literature. Perhaps it could be a particular article in this month’s Socialist Standard. You can add a simple comment like “Great article!” or “This is interesting...”. You can then copy and paste your comment plus the link in all 10 of your Facebook groups - it would take about 10 minutes to do everything – and sit back and wait for the responses! That’s pretty easy, isn’t it?

The point is that anyone clicking on the link you posted will be directed to the SPGB’s website at https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/   

Once there, the chances are they will begin to look around that site and read other material. The more of them who do this, the more publicity contacts we create. And the more publicity contacts we create, the greater the possibility of more individuals eventually coming to join our movement. We now know for a fact that, these days, internet is becoming more and more THE main route through which people come into contact with the socialist movement and join it.

Of course, we need to promote not just the SPGB but other Companion Parties too. These also have their own literature and websites. Linking to them will help to provide publicity contacts for these parties too.  
Here is a list of them:
https://www.wspus.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/canada/
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/
https://www.worldsocialism.org/nz/

As stated, this project or experiment, is the first serious attempt to mobilise possibly hundreds of individuals across the world in a coordinated attempt to promote our cause.  As isolated individuals it is very difficult to make any kind of impression on public opinion. But, by working together collectively as a movement, we can benefit greatly from the Reinforcement Effect. We can begin to make serious progress in attracting more workers to the socialist cause.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, as the saying goes.  We strongly urge you to join with us in this collective effort

PS: If you do know of good websites on which to post links to WSM literature, let other people know! Contact your Party HQ and share the information. This will attract more people to use the website you recommend and, therefore, your own interventions on this website will become more effective through the power of reinforcement!

Hard work - No Reward

According to an OECD report, Mexicans are the hardest-working people in 29 of the world’s more advanced economies. Mexicans work an average of 595 minutes a day – five minutes short of 10 hours. Of this time, 253 minutes (four hours and 13 minutes) are unpaid – time spent on cooking, cleaning and other everyday chores. In contrast, the average OECD workday is 480 minutes – eight hours. Why the difference? In part, it’s because much of women’s work is unpaid. Mexican women work four hours and 21 minutes a day more than men on unpaid work – compared with two hours and 28 minutes for the average OECD woman, one hour and 42 minutes for the average North American woman. The U.S. escapes much work by not cooking. Americans spend only 30 minutes a day preparing meals and cleaning up after them – the lowest percentage of any country in the OECD survey. They also spend the least time eating: one hour and 14 minutes a day, on average. The consequences of so much fast food, alas, are grim: Americans are also the most obese – 34 per cent of the adult population (compared with the OECD average of 17 per cent).
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/does-hard-work-pay-off-ask-the-mexicans/article2152478/

Does hard work pay off? Mexicans may not always think so. Their country has the highest level of relative poverty, according to this survey: one person in five. The OECD average is one in 10. In 2010, Mexico had 53 million people living in poverty, according to the Monterrey Institute of Technology. Half the country's population lives in poverty and almost 20 percent in extreme poverty. Some estimate that there are more workers in the economy's informal sector than in the formal one. Even for those working, according to the Bank of Mexico, 95 percent of the 800,000 jobs created in 2010 paid only $10 a day. Yet, in a Tijuana or Juarez supermarket, a gallon of milk can cost even more than it would on the US side. In five years, the number of Mexicans in poverty has grown by ten million, that working income has dropped by a third and that three million more people find themselves jobless. The crisis has hit especially hard at young people, who are the fastest growing segment of the population. Seven million of them can't find work and have no money to go to school. According to UNICEF, there are 24.7 million children under the age of 17 living in poverty in Mexico. According to research by MIT economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo nearly one out of every 14 Mexican children dies before his or her first birthday — a rate as bad as the Ivory Coast's. 50,000 dead, mostly innocent civilians, over the last five years in a politically motivated war on drugs.

The bottom fifth of the country earns about 4 percent of the income while the top tenth controls 41 percent, according to the World Bank. In a recent diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, the US government admits, "The net wealth of the 10 richest people in Mexico - a country where more than 40 percent of the population lives in poverty - represents roughly 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product." Carlos Slim became the world's richest man. Forbes calculated that the 71-year-old Slim had a net worth of $74 billion, beating out Gates by $18 billion. To put that in perspective, $18 billion is enough to extend wireless broadband to 98 percent of Americans or equal to the entire wealth of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The absolute poverty cutoff in Mexico is 79 cents a day. More than 3.5 million people in Mexico lived on less than that in 2008, according to the World Bank. So the money Slim lost in the first few days of August with the stock-market declineis equivalent to more than seven times the yearly income of all 3.5 million people in Mexico living in absolute poverty. Slim is only managing to make an annual return of 2 percent off his wealth. He's still collecting $360 million a year more in income than his nearest competitor in the wealth rankings. Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who owns TV Azteca, is now worth $8 billion, and Emilio Azcárraga Jean, who owns Televisa, is worth $2.3 billion.

Adapted from here

Already by 1993, the income of the poorest region, Oaxaca, was less than one-sixth that of the Federal District that includes Mexico City — reflecting considerably worse education, health, and infrastructure alongside the poor quality of local institutions.

"We planted our seeds, but the earth is no longer productive. We've had too much rain, even more than last year, and the harvest was ruined," says Ermelinda Santiago of the Me'phaa indigenous people. The 25-year-old woman is one of thousands of native people who migrate every year from the municipality of Tlapa and its surroundings in the southern state of Guerrero, to pick fruit and vegetables in the north of the country. "We have to migrate, because there is no food, and no money," said Santiago
Tlapa, one of the poorest places in Mexico, is ravaged by deforestation, intermittent drought and torrential rains, so that farming is not an economically viable occupation for local people. ogether with factors like poverty, lack of job opportunities and high crime rates, environmental degradation has become an additional element driving migration, both within the country and abroad. Every year some 500,000 people emigrate from Mexico to the United States, where some eight million Mexicans are living without the necessary legal documents, according to specialist agencies. The National Institute for Statistics and Geography reports that the areas receiving the largest numbers of internal migrants are Mexico City, the western state of Jalisco, Baja California on the border with the United States, and the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, while the centre, south and mid-west of the country are the major sources of migrants. Meanwhile Shuaizhang Feng, Alan Krueger and Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University in the U.S. state of New Jersey concluded that a 10 percent reduction in crop yields in Mexico leads an additional two percent of the population to emigrate. By approximately the year 2080, they estimated climate change would induce 1.4 to 6.7 million Mexicans to emigrate to the United States, because of declines in agricultural productivity.

THE BALLAD OF A RIGHT CHARLIE! (Poem)

THE BALLAD OF A RIGHT CHARLIE!

(25/10/13 Buckingham Palace denies that

Prince Charles is dreading becoming King.)

When at my Coronation I’m,

Anointed as your King;                   

I’m going to be an idle fop,

And not do anything.                     

I’m going to lay down the law,

That it’s my Royal right;

To do sweet f.a. every day,

And even less at night!

Because whilst I’m the Royal Heir,

I still have to pretend;

That I am quite industrious,

And thus have to attend, 

A few engagements quite nearby,

That are a frightful drag;

Believe me that unveiling loos,

Is really not my bag!

It’s claimed that my engagements fill,

Each day of every year;

Because all my advisors say,

It really must appear,

That I be seen by everyone,

As a hard-working guy;

Although, as I’ve admitted here,

Most visits are close by. 

I’ll spend ten minutes opening,

A factory making glue;

And then ten minutes looking thrilled,

At the adjacent two,

That counts as three engagements on,

My own Press Agent’s score;

At most less than an hour’s work,

Oh crikey! What a bore!

I’ll then retire to change my clothes,

Including a fresh truss;

And then go shooting Geese or Grice, ⁽¹⁾

With Daddy’s blunderbuss.

To demonstrate to all on Earth,

How those of noble mien;

Are mean enough to thus pretend,

Their fowl play’s always Green!

The Earth’s Environmental health,

Is my sole job to save;

From my own Carbon Footprints ‘til,

I reach my Abbey grave.

‘Cause being most important means,

I need not justify;

My usage of the Royal Train,

Or when I choose to fly.

Conspicuous consumption is,

Without a single doubt;

The greatest evil on this Earth,

But please don’t kick me out!

I talk to flowers every day,

And try and do my bit;

I play sweet music to my plants,

Oh dear! I am a twit!

I’ll save the world from Devil’s Veg.,

(Those beastly GM crops!)                            

So I instruct my Nanny when,

She cycles to the shops, 

To buy the best organic food,

Which I know isn’t cheap;

But quite unlike you load of mugs,

I don’t pay for my keep!  

     

The reason I first introduced,

And launched the Prince’s Trust;

Was to help spotty yobs like you,

To earn a measly crust.

The British Monarchy is like,

My private charity;

It’s helping spotty yobs like you,

Keep dotty nobs like me!

When I am crowned as your new King,

I’ll occupy Buck Hice; ⁽¹⁾

(Received Pronunciation is,

So jolly twee and nice!)

My speeches will be well-received,

By all the likes of you;

My subjects, who I subject to,

Some subjects quite taboo. ⁽²⁾

For when I am your well-loved King,

I will be speaking out;

On all those many topics that,

I know naff-all about! 

For as ‘Defender of the Faith’, ⁽³⁾

It’s my first job to try;

To set your moral compasses,

To that pie in the sky!

I’m qualified to speak upon,

The woes of normal life;

As now I am a Pensioner ⁽⁴⁾

I suffer real-life strife,

Can you believe my Butler Jeeves,

Confessed last week to me;

That he’d mislaid the Crumpet Cakes,

And ruined Birthday Tea! ⁽⁴⁾

As Heir I earned the O.M. gong, ⁽⁴⁾

Because I took on board;

The field of Homeopathy,

Which like faith’s not a fraud.

In fact I’ve rows of medals from,

Both peacetime and from war;

For courage and for bravery,

They stack up by the score.

I’ve uniforms with so much gilt,

They almost drip with yolk;

With golden epaulettes and braid,

To emphasise the joke. 

Yes I’ll admit this poppycock,

Appears as somewhat trite;

But all this ritual masks the fact,

That I’m a parasite!

When I am crowned I will enjoy,

A huge excess of bling;

My toothpaste squeezed by C.P-B., 

Meet for a brand new King!

But as I’ve now reached Sixty-Five, ⁽³⁾

It’s getting a bit late;

Oh! Mummy, Mummy, hurry-up,

And say you’ll abdicate!     

⁽¹⁾ Royal ‘Received Pronunciation’ for Grouse and House.

⁽²⁾ Charles is noted for meddling in others affairs.

⁽³⁾ Or “Defender of Faiths”.

⁽⁴⁾ 14/11/2013: Charles was 65.

⁽⁵⁾ Order of Merit.

© Richard Layton                

Squeezed Workers Versus Power And Wealth

The Supreme Court kicked off its 2014-2015 term with a case called Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk. The issue in the case is whether employees who do work for Amazon had a right to be paid for time they spent waiting - for as long as 25 minutes - to be screened for theft.
Or, to be more accurate, this is a case in which Amazon was not named as a party in the case, because other corporations acted on Amazon's behalf. In this case, the named defendant was Integrity Staffing Solutions (ISS).
The Integrity Staffing Solutions website clearly shows that it is an agent of Amazon who acts on Amazon's behalf. For example, the website says, "Here's where to find Amazon warehouse jobs, light industrial work, temporary and seasonal jobs, part-time employment and a job to make you proud." Indeed, Integrity Staffing's website advertises a number of jobs, but it has specific links only to jobs at Amazon.

What This Case Is About
No doubt, there are many ways to think about this case. It is certainly fair to say that this is a case involving a powerful and wealthy corporation that uses its power and wealth to squeeze workers who have little-to-no power and no wealth. What evidence do we have that Amazon has used that wealth and power in this case? According to www.oyez.org:

At the end of each day, all the workers were required to pass through a security clearance checkpoint where they had to remove their keys, wallets, and belts, pass through a metal detector, and submit to being searched. The whole process could take up to 25 minutes. Similarly, up to ten minutes of the workers' 30-minute lunch period was consumed by security clearance and transition time. In 2010, Busk and Castro sued Integrity and argued that these practices violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as well as Nevada state labor laws.

Amazon is known for creating systems that generate as much revenue as possible for Amazon and that do so by squeezing every penny out of Amazon's system.

Amazon Is Not a Party to the Case or Is It? 
The American Bar Association's website for this case - and all Supreme Court cases - includes links to the parties' briefs and to amicus briefs. In the Amazon case, notice that, although the plaintiff-employees were doing work for Amazon and Amazon was calling the shots, Amazon was not the focus of this case. In fact, Amazon was not even a party in the case.
The parties are plaintiffs Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro, and the defendant is Integrity Staffing Solutions, not Amazon. It may seem odd that Amazon was not a party when the work was carried out on Amazon's behalf, and the outcome of this case could affect Amazon in the future.

In fact, even though there is almost no mention of Amazon, Amazon's interests were well represented. Amazon's subcontractor - Integrity Staffing Solutions - was the defendant and effectively represented Amazon's interests.
Amazon's interests were also represented by most of the organizations that filed amicus briefs in support of Integrity Staffing Solutions, including briefs by National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, the International City/County Management Association, US Conference of Mayors, Government Finance Officers Association, International Municipal Lawyers Association, National Public Employer Labor Relations Association, and the International Public Management Association For Human Resources, National Retail Federation, the Retail Litigation Center, Inc., Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, Society for Human Resource Management, National Association of Manufacturers, National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, and the United States.

Only two amicus briefs were filed on behalf of the plaintiff employees, one filed by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the other filed by the National Employment Lawyers Association.

What Is at Stake in This Case?

It appears that Amazon, that is, Integrity Staffing Solutions, has chosen to be a thoroughly modern, cost-cutting corporation that uses every angle to pay its workers as little as possible. For example, Integrity's workers have an unpaid, half hour lunch, during which the workers must also spend roughly 10 minutes being scanned and searched.
If the plaintiff employees win this case, their employer will no longer be able to get free work, and the employer will have an incentive to hire more workers to speed up the time it takes the workers to go through the security line during their lunchtime and at their shift's end.

taken from here

Whilst recognising the seemingly 'unfair' aspect of extra time spent on work premises without pay - another benefit for the employer - the employer is always able to 'get free work', and every day does 'get free work' from ALL employees.
Ask 'where does the wealth come from?'


" How does profit arise from the exploitation of workers? Workers are paid (generally and more or less) the full value of what they sold – their labour-power – yet are still exploited because the exercise of their labour-power produces a greater value than that of their labour-power. This “surplus value” is the source of their employer’s profit and of all capitalist property incomes."
(See here for full explanation)

Socialism down your street

FOLKESTONE - Street Stall
Saturday, 12th March - 12:00pm

Folkestone Town Hall, junction of Sandgate Road and Guildhall Street, CT20 1DY

About ten minutes walk from Folkestone Central rail station

CANTERBURY - Street Stall
Saturday, 19th March - 12:00pm

In the Parade pedestrian precinct from 12 noon

About 8 minutes walk from Canterbury East rail station and 10 minutes walk from Canterbury West rail station

LONDON WOOD GREEN - Street Stall
Sunday, 20th March  11:00am - 1:00pm

Near Wood Green Library, 187 High Road, London N22 6XD

 About 200 metres south of Wood Green tube on the Piccadilly line

Fast Food - Fast Strikes

McDonald’s, Wendy’s and KFC along with dozens of profitable Wall Street-listed fast food and retail chains, is being rocked by unprecedented workforce- and consumer-led protests over wages and conditions. On December 5, many workers at fast-food restaurants around the country took strike action  for higher pay and better working conditions. Their primary demand is an increase in their base hourly wages to $15 an hour. Earlier this month thousands of fast food workers in cities including New York, Chicago and Detroit took to the streets, many wearing red “Fight for 15” T-shirts - a reference to the popular call for a $15 (£9.70) hourly wage, almost double the current minimum. With more protests planned for the autumn, America’s most marginalized, vulnerable and exploited workforce is on the march.

“We’re frustrated and we’re angry,” says Alex Mack, 33, a worker at Wendy’s in Chicago. “I make $8.25 an hour and it’s impossible to live on. I’m a father, a husband. I’m always robbing Peter to pay Paul, shorting one bill to pay another.” But Mack is optimistic that the strike action will be successful. “If we stick together, it’s not impossible,” he says. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/11/318247/fastfood-workers-protests-starvation-wages/

Here are things you should know.

1. If wages had kept pace with productivity gains, the minimum wage would be over $16 an hour.

Corporate profits have soared. Workers are producing more, but they’re not sharing in the rewards.  Productivity and the minimum wage generally increased at the same rate from 1947 to 1969, during this country’s postwar boom years. Using a conservative benchmark, economists Dean Baker and Will Kimball determined that the minimum wage would be $16.54 today if it had continued to keep pace with productivity. The strikers are asking for $15 an hour.

2. The average fast food worker makes $8.69 an hour.  Many jobs pay at or near the minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour. And an estimated 87 percent of fast food workers receive no health benefits.

3. The CEO of McDonald’s Corporation makes $13.8 million per year. That’s a 237 percent pay increase over last year, when he was paid a “mere” $4.1 million. Presumably health benefits are also included.

4. McDonald’s cost the American taxpayer an estimated $1.2 billion in public assistance per year. In other words, taxpayer money is subsidizing this large corporation’s profits - at the expense of American workers. The 10 largest fast food companies cost taxpayers an estimated $3.9 billion in government health assistance and $1.04 billion in food assistance. With all the talk of deficit reduction, it’s surprising that no one has pointed out that a great way to lower expenditures would be by ending these back-door subsidies for highly profitable corporations. Fast food workers are more than twice as likely to be on public assistance.  25 percent of American workers receive some form of public assistance - which is a disturbing figure itself. For fast food workers that figure was 52 percent. And it’s not just part-time work that’s causing the problem. More than half of full-time fast food workers receive some form of public assistance.

5. McDonald’s made $1.5 billion in profits last quarter.  That’s up 5 percent from the previous year.

6. These 10 companies earned $7.4 billion in profits last year.  They also paid out $7.7 billion in dividends.

7. Most of the workers who would be affected by this wage change are adults. We also hear that it’s not necessary to raise the minimum wage, especially for fast food workers, because most of them are “kids” working a few hours each week for pocket money. But it’s not true. Most low-wage workers are adults. Nationally, adults make up 88 percent of the workers who would receive a raise if the minimum wage were increased to $10.10 per hour. In locales as distinct as New York State and Albuquerque, New Mexico, that figure rises to 92 percent.

8. Over 7 million children live in minimum-wage households.  And many of these workers are parents. Seven million children - nearly one American child in ten - feels the effects of low wages.

9. This strike is targeting large employers.  66 percent of low-wage workers are employed by organizations with 100 employees or more. Thursday’s strikers aren’t targeting mom-and-pop operations. They’re striking against some of America’s largest corporations. How large? McDonald’s employs 707,850 people. Yum! Brands (better known as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC) employs 379,449 people. Altogether these 10 companies employ 2,251,956 people. Forty years ago the largest employers in the US were unionized companies such as General Electric and US Steel, paying more than the median household income. Now, when minimum wage companies are the largest employers The workforce for these ten companies is greater than the populations of Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming, states which hold 28 seats in the United States Senate.

McDonald's is so immersed in a patrician philosophy that it offers its 700,000 U.S. workers clueless advice instead of decent wages. Earlier this year, McDonald's provided workers with a budget to help them make ends meet on pittance pay. McDonald's told them to take a second job, work 80 hours a week! Even then, the budget didn't account for heating bills.  A raise would work much better for most workers. That's exactly what McDonald's gave its CEOs last year. It tripled the pay of its new and retiring CEOs. The new guy, Jim Skinner, now gets $27.7 million. At Thanksgiving, McDonald's offered its workers some more advice -- including breaking their food into small pieces so they'll feel full after eating less. Good advice for workers who can't afford a Happy Meal, let alone a turkey and trimmings. McDonald's McResource site tells workers not to whine about their low wages and empty stomachs. Don't worry, be happy, it warns: "Stress hormone levels rise by 15% after ten minutes of complaining." Many McDonald's workers are now ignoring that counsel.

 “The McDonald’s wage - like any minimum wage - is basically a starvation wage,” says John Mason, a professor of politics at William Paterson University in New Jersey. “It effectively places you at 30% below the official poverty budget. They only succeed in this strategy because they’re massively subsidised by the government through food stamps and Medicare.”

Generation X were locked into “McJobs”. Now those same jobs are filled with older, better-educated workers, many trying to support families. It’s those workers in “poverty-wage” employment who are pressing for reform, says Jonathan Westin, director of Fast Food Forward. “Many have been pushed out of well-paying jobs and found themselves in the fast food industry struggling to get by,” he says. “It’s not teenagers working for pocket money, it’s mothers and fathers.” He adds “Folks at the bottom are not seeing the benefit of huge corporate profits and the rising stock marke. They see the price of everything going up except their wages.”

A typical McDonald’s franchise earns around six cents on the dollar; the combined profit of major US retailers, restaurant chains and supermarkets in the Fortune 500 index is smaller than the profits of Apple alone. A recent study suggests the cost to consumers if the wage demands were met would be only 20 cents per item. For companies, the pressure to ensure corporate profit hasoutweighed the demands of labor, says Professor Arne Kalleberg, author of Good Jobs, Bad Jobs.

UK Election: The View From China

As an English teacher working in a Chinese university, I took the opportunity following the recent UK election to introduce my students to a little something called democracy. They didn’t relish this as much as you may think, as many of them have been successfully conditioned into believing that one-party government is the best way. However, they did enjoy the opportunity to learn more about the British system, as all of them will be travelling overseas to work or study, many of them to Britain.
I have three cohorts of students: university foundation course students destined to join British universities; local government workers being sent to study in British universities; and Chinese professors planning to go overseas, mostly to America, as visiting scholars.

Socioeconomically these groups are quite divergent. The university students are largely from wealthy families who can afford to pay the high fees that British universities charge overseas students. Conversely, many of the university professors hail from very poor backgrounds, although having fought their way to the upper echelons of Chinese society, they can now gain lucrative work on government projects that can substantially boost their relatively meagre teaching wages. The local government workers are probably the most middle class of the three cohorts, although they would insist they aren’t because most Chinese people consider themselves comfortably off only when they are rich.

During my week of classes I gave the students in each of my classes (totalling around 180 students) a brief overview of the election pledges of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, the Greens and UKIP. As a class we then went through the overview together while I explained difficult words (and ideas) such as referendum where necessary, being careful not to sway their decision-making process by offering any of my own views on the five parties. Once they understood what each of the five parties were offering I gave them ten minutes to make a decision and allowed them to discuss openly amongst themselves.

Then came the voting. This required two or three attempts with most classes, as Chinese students of any age don’t like to vote on anything. This may not, however, be due to unfamiliarity with the act, but rather because they are mortally afraid of ‘losing face’, by saying or doing the wrong thing in front of their peers. In English classes this situation is likely more pronounced. Once all votes had been successfully registered, I found that their choices were markedly different to the UK electorate’s.

In every class the Greens were the winners, usually by a landslide, with the students telling me (with varying degrees of fluency) that they liked the ten- pound per hour living wage paid for by taxing large firms. They also thought the environment should play a big role in government decision-making. I had somewhat expected this amongst the eighteen-year-old university students but was more surprised to find the older, more sophisticated professors and government workers agreeing with them. The three parties that alternated in coming a distant second in different classes were Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP. Among them, policies the students liked were Labour’s eight-pound per hour minimum wage (which some saw as more realistic than a living wage), the Liberal Democrats’ pro-European stance and UKIP’s plan to lower income tax but raise corporation tax.

The party who resonated least with the students were the Conservatives, although those who voted for them liked their plan to increase apprenticeships and help start-up businesses. Entirely of their own accord they seemed to have come to the same conclusion as many in Britain: that they are the ‘nasty party’. This was odd considering that I did let slip that UKIP aren’t too enamoured with foreigners. And it was even odder given that the source of my election primer (the simplest one I could find) was www.bridalbuyer.com, not exactly a hotbed for anti-Conservatism judging by their advertisers, articles and the omission of the SNP from their primer.

Once votes had been registered we then got to the fun part: the real result. Many of the students knew that the Conservatives had won, but they didn’t realise how that result had come about and what it meant. So on the board I showed them the percentage of votes that each of the main parties had gained in the UK election. They were mightily surprised to see that the Greens had fared so badly. However they were more surprised when I showed them the parliamentary seats each party had won.

Once they saw that the Conservatives had translated 36.9% of the popular vote into 331 seats, yet Labour’s 30.4% equated to only 232 seats, the more observant students saw that something didn’t quite add up. For the rest it was left to the apparently third-placed party to really let the absurdity of the British voting system sink in, as 12.6% of the vote had translated into only one parliamentary seat: a good thing for them, I assured them, but not for the idea of democracy. That the ‘fourth-placed’ party had gained eight times that number of seats turned many shocked expressions into bemused ones. And that the Greens had won just one seat, seemed to sadden many. I further deflated them by letting them know that the voter turnout of 66% meant that only about 25% of the voting-age UK population had voted for the ‘nasty party’, but that they now enjoy a clear parliamentary majority. And so the unwitting lesson in British democracy ended on a sour note and, I’m sure, most of the students went back to the Chinese world about them filled not with the hope of one day achieving democracy, but rather with the determination of staving it off.

by Ben Keegan from here

An Old Fable Retold

In the days before man had completely established his domination over the animal world, the poultry of a certain country, unnamed in my record, met in solemn conference in the largest hall they could hire for their money: the period was serious, for it was drawing near Christmas, and the question in debate partook of the gravity of the times; for, in short, various resolutions, the wording of which, has not come down to us were to be moved on the all-important subject, `with what sauce shall we be eaten?'

Needless to say that the hall was crowded to suffocation, or that an overflow meeting (presided over by working-class leaders) was held on the neighbouring dung-hill.

All went smoothly; the meeting was apparently unanimous and certainly enthusiastic, abundant wisdom was poured out on the all-important question, and the hearts of all glowed with satisfaction at the progress of the race of poultry. The very bantam hens were made happy by the assurance that their claims to cackling were to be seriously considered.

But when the hands of the clock were pointing to ten minutes to ten the excited audience, as they recovered from the enthusiasm produced by one of the great speeches of the evening, saw on the platform beside the chairman a battered looking and middle-aged barn-door cock, who they perceived was holding forth in a lugubrious voice, praising the career and motives of every advanced politician of the poultry yard. This bored the audience a good deal, but being used to it they stood it with patience for some time, till at last the orator's voice got rather, clearer and louder, and he spoke somewhat as follows:- "Sir, I know I have little right to air my own theories (cheers) after the remarkable and clear exposition of the rights of the poultry, which has been delivered in various ways on this platform to-night (loud cheers), but I am free to confess that one idea has occurred to me which seems to have escaped the more educated minds of our leaders to-night; (cries of Oh, Oh) - the idea is this!" Here he stopped dead, and amid ironical cheers tried nervously to help himself to water from the long-ago emptied decanter, then at last blurted out in a trembling, shrieking voice not without a suspicion of tears in it "In short I don't want to be eaten at all: is it possi --"

But here a storm of disapproving cries broke out amongst which could be heard loudest the words `practical politics!' county franchise, `great liberal party,' ` municipal government ' for - Coxstead!' which at last all calmed themselves down into a steady howl of `question, question!' in the midst of which the ragged, middle-aged cock withdrew, apparently not much more depressed than when he first stood up.

After his departure, the meeting ended in all harmony and a resolution was passed with great enthusiasm that the conclusions come to as embodied in the foregoing resolutions should be engrossed and forwarded to the farmer's wife (or widow was it?) and the head poulterer.

A rumour has reached us that while there were doubts as to the sauce to be used in the serving up, slow stewing was settled on as the least revolutionary form of cookery.

Moral: Citizens, pray draw it for yourselves.

WILLIAM MORRIS.

Justice, 19th January 1884.

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Lonmin, Sharpville & Peterloo

Today has seen members of the working class, miners and police, killed at a platinum mine in South Africa.   The slaughter has echoes of earlier conflicts such as Sharpville and Peterloo, where on this day on 16 August 1819, troops attacked a radical meeting held on St Peter's Field in Manchester. At least eleven of the crowd were killed, and over 600 injured. Within a few days the massacre was being ironically styled 'Peterloo'. It was an event of enormous significance, not just for the north west area but for the history of working class struggle in Britain.

The back-ground to Peterloo can be traced within the development of industrial capitalism and workers' response. Trade unions, though strictly illegal, were active during the second half of the eighteenth century (primarily among skilled workers and organised on a purely local basis), and were of ten reasonably successful in defending wages. Political activity among artisans and other workers grew in the 1790s, mainly aimed at reforming the antiquated electoral system by introducing manhood suffrage and annual elections. Despite the mildness of the measures proposed, the government and ruling class were unable to countenance any independent political action by .workers, and they reacted with vicious repression, including charges of treason ( England being at war with . France). By 1799 all the most prominent activists were in prison or in exile.

The economic depression which followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars led to a growth of unrest and the passing of the Corn Laws to benefit the landowners by keeping up the price of wheat. From 1816 mass meetings of workers . resumed for the first time since the repression of the 1790s. The government fought back with spies, agent provocateurs, and prosecutions; Habeas Corpus was suspended for a while. By 1819 there were many outdoor meetings for parliamentary reform: this was seen, even by working class radicals, as a necessary means to the economic end of a more equitable taxation system.

The new industrial cities were the centres for much of the protest. The economy of the Manchester area was based on cotton, and there was particular support for radicalism from the hand loom weavers, who worked in their own homes (unlike the industry's other workers, the spinners, who worked in the mills operating spinning machines). As early as 1808, a weaver was killed by troops, at a Manchester meeting for a minimum wage bill. The depression hit the cotton trade especially hard, and by 1819 weavers could only earn half the wages of a few years before. 'Passages in the life of A Radical', by the Middleton weaver Samuel Bamford, gives a vivid account of working class political activity during this period; the clandestine meetings, the constant fear of informers, the effects of government repression. The 1817 Blanketeers' March intended to be from Manchester to London to petition for the relief of distress, was broken up by troops within a few miles of Manchester. By 1819 mass meetings were being held in Manchester as in other large Towns, and the city's magistrates were becoming alarmed, and making military preparations against what they feared might befall.  

The 16 August meeting on St Peter's Field was intended to be the largest gathering of all, and men and women and children came from the cotton towns around Manchester, eventually forming a crowd of around sixty thousand. The magistrates assembled in a house overlooking the site, and had fifteen hundred troops, both hussars (regular soldiers) and yeomanry (part-time force of local merchants and factory-owners), waiting on horse back in nearby streets, even though the meeting itself was illegal. When Henry Hunt, one of the prominent radical organisers, was speaking, the magistrates decided Manchester was in danger and ordered Hunt's arrest. Troops were summoned to effect this, and the yeomanry began to ride through the packed crowd, striking out with their swords when they could not make their way forward. The hussars were then called in to disperse the crowd. In ten minutes, among scenes of unbelievable chaos and carnage, St Peter's Field were cleared, leaving the dead and injured to be take n away as best could be arranged. Bamford provides a dramatic eye-witness description of the scene:

"Over the whole field, were strewed caps, bonnets, hats, and shoes, and other parts of male and female dress; trampled, torn, and bloody....Several mounds of human beings still remained where they had fallen, crushed down and smothered. Some of these still groaning, - others with staring eyes, were gasping for breath, and others never breathe more.... Person might sometimes be noticed peeping from attics and over the tall ridgings of houses, but they quickly withdrew, as if fearful of being observed, or unable to sustain the full gaze, of a scene so hideous and abhorrent." The rulers had replied as decisively as they knew to working class demands.

Eleven of the main radical leaders were arrested by the troops. They were originally charged with high treason, though this was later amended to conspiracy and illegal assembly. Hunt was sentenced to two and half years in prison, Bamford and others to one year. Further repressive legislation was passed, and by 1820 working class resistance was greatly reduced. Many radicals rejected the policy of peaceful agitation promoted by Hunt and turned to violent action; the same year, five men were executed for high treason in the Cato Street Conspiracy, when they plotted to assassinate members of the Cabinet. The Government supported the actions of the magistrates at Peterloo, and refused to hold an inquiry into their conduct. Some were even given financial rewards; William Hay was a clergyman and magistrate in Salford, he was awarded a sinecure worth £730 a year (at a time when weavers earned perhaps £25 a year).

It is impossible to believe, as has sometimes been suggested, that the events of 16 August were a chapter of accidents, leading to an outcome that no body wanted. In an atmosphere of government repression and provocation stretching back a quarter of a century, there can be no doubt that the massacre fitted in with the strategy of the ruling class. The use of state power against those who were unprepared simply to accept their lot continued: in 1831; at least two dozen workers were killed by troops after the uprising in Merthyr Tydfil, and in 1834 six trade unionists were transported from Tolpuddle, this even after the 'reform' of the House of Commons in 1832 (which still left the vast majority of workers without a vote).

But Peterloo is probably the clearest demonstration of the viciousness of ruling class politics in the nineteenth century, of the fact that the vote and trade unions' rights were not handed to workers on a plate but had to be fought for against savage repression. The courage and commitment of those in the early working class movement remains astonishing and humbling even now.

PB
(Socialist Standard, August 1994)

Published on behalf of Hallblithe.

Losing the jewel (1997)

 From the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty years ago this month Britain relinquished control over the Indian subcontinent. It was the start of a thirty-year period in which European imperial powers progressively withdrew from direct rule of their overseas possessions.

It had been accepted as far back as 1833 that India would at some stage advance to self-government. The British practice of granting former colonies self-rule and Dominion status encouraged Indian nationalists to believe that India would follow. In the meantime various measures of "Indianisation" such as the Indian Councils Act of 1861 gave the elite some say in the running of Indian affairs.

The Indian National Congress (subsequently abbreviated to Congress), founded in 1885 by an anglicised elite, at first campaigned for examinations for entry into the Indian Civil Service to be held in the sub-continent as well as in Britain.They also pressed to have more elected members on the legislative councils of the central and provincial governments in India. Unrest arose among those who studied but failed to gain the positions to which they aspired in government administration. But it was not until 1906 that Congress started to demand self-rule for India as a means of obtaining more control over Indian affairs, and to gain access to government employment. In common with other independence movements organised resistance to foreign domination in India originated not with the peasant masses (although they were subsequently mobilised to that end) but from classes educated in Western ways.

Westernised elite

British occupation of India, while destroying some native industry, had stimulated the rise of a new class of native industrial and commercial capitalists. The development of communications gave easier access to markets and encouraged the commercial development of cotton, jute and other non-edible cash crops produced for sale. Indians also entered professions such as the law as a means of social advancement. These groups formed the backbone of the nationalist movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They advocated self-rule for India as a means of progressing their economic class interests. Unable to meet free-trade competition, Indian industrialists sought protection to exploit home market potential behind tariff barriers against British trade. This policy split them away from the landed aristocracy who had allied themselves with British rule in part as a protection against rural unrest and uprisings.

The first world war brought with it far-reaching economic and social change as the European colonial powers utilised their possessions for the raw materials and manpower necessary to wage war. India provided one-and-a-half million troops to defend the interests of British capitalists and their experiences inevitably coloured their outlook. The war had an impact on the price of goods and foodstuffs which rose faster than incomes. Further hardship resulted from the increase of taxation on the peasantry.

At the end of the war the westernised elites began demanding rewards for the sacrifices made. A number of reforms were enacted which provided for direct elections to the legislatures. However the property and education qualifications restricted the electorate to some seven million voters only. i.e. three percent of the population. More importantly Britain retained absolute control over key areas such as finance and the police. This was clearly seen by the Indian nationalists as a sop by the British who hoped to buy off their more radical demands. When it came to the push the British showed how far they were prepared to go if necessary to defend their interests in India. On 13 April 1919 a meeting of protest at British occupation was fired on by British troops. The firing continued for ten minutes and only ceased when the ammunition ran out. The Amritsar massacre left 400 dead and 1.200 injured.

Richer peasants

During the 1920s the nature and composition of Congress changed. It became a mass party with a largely rural base. Membership fees were deliberately kept low to encourage recruitment which proved very successful. One police official reported that the old Congress intelligentsia had been "swamped in a mass of semi-educated persons". In this period Congress policies proved attractive to the richer peasants. These were people who owned ten or more acres of land, and who grew cash crops and employed landless peasants as wage labour. Their interests lay in proposed measures of land reform intended to break up and redistribute the larger land holdings of the aristocracy. It was the alliance of the industrialists and this potential class of agricultural capitalists that made Congress the important force it was. Gandhi's economic ideas did not threaten their interests. His espousal of swadeshi— the use of things from one’s "own" country with neighbours supplying economic wants—emphasised local production. It was a "buy Indian" policy in which foreign goods were boycotted. Imports of British cotton fell by more than half while Indian production and sales were unaffected. He aimed at a revival of the traditional Indian village community—a return to an idealised pre-capitalist past which proved attractive in a society experiencing the disruptive extension of the cash economy and the contraction of previously communally owned land.

Between 1921 and 1941 grain production per head fell by more than a quarter. At the outbreak of the second world war the majority of Indians had less to eat than their forebears. An analysis which blamed British rule, rather than the economic organisation of society, for the poverty and suffering the vast majority experienced won mass support and a willingness to make sacrifices for their beliefs. Under the influence of Mohandas K. Gandhi the new-style Congress put into effect a number of campaigns of non-co-operation with the British authorities. Demonstrations, rioting and the burning of symbols of oppression such as police stations took place. The deaths that occurred during this period of unrest caused Gandhi to call off the campaign. Congress renewed its campaign of civil disobedience in March 1930 when Gandhi deliberately invited arrest by publicly breaking the government monopoly of the production of salt. Many Congress members followed his example and in the 1930s 130,000 had served terms of imprisonment. In January 1932 the British government outlawed Congress and imprisoned its leaders following the breakdown of talks. Realising that civil disobedience was merely an annoyance to the British, and that political power could be won through the ballot box, Congress returned to contesting elections.This led to an increase in membership which rose to 4.5 million in 1939, the majority coming from the ranks of rich peasants and small and middle landlords.

Congress split over support for Britain on the outbreak of war in 1939, the supporters of Gandhi instigating a "Quit India" campaign which radicalised the independence movement and led to another banning and jailing of 60,000 members. The subsequent revolt in the countryside took 80 battalions of British troops to put down and involved beatings, torture, burning of property and collective fines.

Muslim businessmen

As a divisive measure the British had in 1905 encouraged the formation of the Muslim League made up of aspiring Muslim businessmen fearful that the majority Hindu population might swamp them and their interests. The League now offered support and co-operation to the British, as a means of advancing their interests, and furthering their particularist demands. It became clear that the main question was how to grant independence without dividing the country along religious lines. It was a question that failed to be resolved. Negotiations became deadlocked and both Hindu and Muslim factions used the hiatus in proceedings to whip up the fear and hatred which had for years simmered beneath the surface of Indian life.

Coming to power in 1945 the British Labour Party had no policy worked out regarding the Empire, a subject which had not been mentioned in their election manifesto. Indeed at their 1943 Annual Conference a resolution had been passed which declared that colonial peoples were not ready for self-government. As a result they acted pragmatically in response to circumstances. In India Wavell. the Viceroy, commented on the psychological effects of revolts in French Indo-China (Vietnam) and in Indonesia which had produced a situation "more dangerous than at any time in the past ninety years". Influential public opinion in Britain was also changing and according to the Times (18 September 1945) "the entire practice of the rule of one race by another" was now "discredited".

By 1945 British economic interests in India were considerably less than they had been. In 1900 British goods represented 69 percent of Indian imports but in 1945 the figure was less than 20 percent. In 1870 India had sent 53 percent of its exports to Britain while in 1945 only 28 percent of its exports were. Although still of some importance to the British economy India did not play as important role as, for example, Malaya which was a dollar-earner useful in the support of sterling. During the inter-war depression the value of exports to India had fallen by half, foreign penetration and import substitution contributing to the decline. On balance it was no longer worth the cost of attempting to further delay the granting of independence—better to pull out as gracefully as possible and try and maintain links with a new leadership which still had some sympathy and respect for things British.

Change of exploiters

Independence solved none of the problems resulting from exploitation. Indian governments were wedded to the same set of priorities and subject to the same constraints as any other capitalist government. Poverty in the midst of a potential for plenty remains a running sore, exploitation and massive disparities of wealth continue to exist, war with Pakistan claimed the lives of those with no class interest in the outcome, environmental degradation continues virtually unabated.

Improvements in agriculture (mainly due to the "Green Revolution” which benefited the richer farmers who could finance the necessary inputs) means that India is “self-sufficient" in food production. It also means that India has suffered the "problem" of plenty since independence. In 1968 for example there was a massive pile up of wheat in Punjab and Haryana provinces where 200,000 tonnes of wheat worth Rs 180m lay rotting in the open for lack of adequate storage facilities (Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 June 1968.) In 1974 the province of West Bengal suffered the worst famine since 1943—this time the cause was "not outright lack of food, but that the poor have no money to buy it” (Observer 13 October 1974). The larger farmers, hoping to profit by high prices, refused to pay landless labourers in kind. It was said that the cash wages paid to some 20 million "are so low that they cannot afford to buy rice at current prices" (Times, 18 October 1974).

Great Britain's period of rule in India can be seen as a period of arrested economic development, but the subsequent period of "Five Year Plans" for economic self-sufficiency have only been partially successful. Projected growth rates failed to materialise. Business and industry now account for one-third of national income compared to 5 percent in 1947. Of the 70 percent still engaged in agriculture, half suffer from poverty and malnutrition and many have been subjected to harassment and evictions to make way for commercial agriculture. The number of landless labourers increased from 17 percent in 1961 to 26 percent of the population (37 percent of the rural labour force) in 1971 when Mrs Gandhi was campaigning on the slogan "get rid of poverty". Reforms intended to put a ceiling on the size of land-holdings have been subject to legal challenge and evasion by subterfuge and have proved ineffective.

It can be seen in retrospect that independence for the vast majority of the people of India has simply meant the exchange of one set of exploiters for another. As we pointed out in this journal and elsewhere in the years prior to 1947, independence would solve no peasant or working-class problems, only the establishment of Socialism could do that. In 1935 we wrote "Now is the time for those in India who really desire Socialism to strike a blow for it by preparing the way for the genuine Socialist Party of India, which has yet to be formed" (Socialist Standard, February 1935). Such a party now exists, and we welcome our comrades in India and join with them in the work that needs to be done before the system that exploits us all can be brought to an end.

Gwynn Thomas

World Socialism Party (India)

Email: wspindia@hotmail.com

Website: http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/