Socialist Standard May 2011

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1 Socialist Standard May 2011

May 2011 bdh.indd 1 20/04/2011 10:54




SubScription orderS should be sent to the address above.rateS: One ear subscrpton (normal rate)£15. One ear subscrpton (low/unwaged) £10.Europe rate £20 (Ar mal). Rest of world £25(Ar mal). Voluntar supporters subscrpton£20 or more. Cheques paable to ‘The SocalstPart of Great Brtan’.

may 2011

socialist standard

contentsFeatureS

Crisis? Wht crisis? 10

Profting fro ill-helth 12

Cpitlis – brrier to useful work

14

Wht ws he ghting for? 16

UFOs identied 18

reGuLarS

Pthnders 4

Letters 5

Productions Vlues 5

mteril World 6

Cooking the Books 1 7

Tin Tips 8

Hlo Hlo 8

Gres Pole 9

Cooking the Books 2 19Reviews 20

Proper Gnder 21

meetings 22

action Repl 23

50 yers ago 23

Voice fro the Bck 24

Free Lunch 24

The next meetng of the Executve Commtteewll be on Sy 4 J at the address

above. Correspondence should be sent tothe General Secretar. All artcles, lettersand notces should be sent to the EdtoralCommttee.

th Sls py52 Clapham Hgh Street, LondonSW4 7UN

tl: 0207 622 3811eml: [email protected]: www.worldsocalsm.org/spgbblg: http://socalsmorourmoneback.blogspot.com/

Uk Branches & contactsL ondon cl Ld b. 2nd Wednesday6.30pm. Coffee Republic, 7-12 City Road,EC1 (nearest Tube and rail stations OldStreet and Moorgate).eld d higy b. Thurs12th May, 8pm. Angel Community Centre,

Raynham Rd, NI8.Corres: 17 Dorset Road, N22 7SL.Email:[email protected] Ld b. 1st Tues. 7.00pm.Head Ofce. 52 Clapham High St, SW47UN. Tel: 020 7622 3811W Ld b. 1st & 3rd Tues.8pm,Chiswick Town Hall, Heatheld Terrace(Corner Sutton Court Rd), W4.Corres: 51 Gayford Road, London W12 9BY

MidLands W Midld rgil b. Meetslast Sunday of the month in the Briar Rosepub, 25 Bennetts Hill, Birmingham B2 5RE.

Tel: Tony Gluck 01242 235615.Email: [email protected]

northeast

n b. Contact: Brian Barry,

86 Edgmond Ct, Ryhope, Sunderland SR20DY. Tel: 0191 521 0690.Email: [email protected]

northwest L b. Meets every Monday8.30pm. P. Shannon, 10 Green Street,Lancaster LA1 1DZ. Tel: 01524 382380M b. Paul Bennett, 6Burleigh Mews, Hardy Lane, M21 7LB.

Tel: 0161 860 7189Bl. Tel: H. McLaughlin.01204 844589cumbi. Brendan Cummings, 19 QueenSt, Millom, Cumbria LA18 4BG

clil: Robert Whiteld.Email: [email protected]

Tel: 07906 373975rdl. Tel: R. Chadwick.01706 522365su M. Enquiries: BlanchePreston, 68 Fountains Road, M32 9PH

Yorkshiresip. R Cooper, 1 Caxton Garth,

Thresheld, Skipton BD23 5EZ. Tel: 01756 752621tdmd: Keith Scholey, 1 Leeview Ct,Windsor Rd, OL14 5LJ.

Tel: 01706 814 149

south/southeast/southwestsu W rgil b. Meets everytwo months on a Saturday afternoon inSalisbury. Shane Roberts, 86 High Street,Bristol BS5 6DN.

Tel: 0117 9511199

cbuy. Rob Cox, 4 Stanhope Road,Deal, Kent, CT14 6ABLu. Nick White, 59 Heywood Drive, LU27LPrdu. Harry Sowden, 5 Clarence Villas,Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 1PB.

Tel: 01209 219293

east angLia e agli rgil b. Meetsevery two months on a Saturday afternoon(see meetings page for details).Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Billericay, CM120EX. [email protected] Porter, Eastholme, Bush Drive,Eccles-on-Sea, NR12 0SF.

Tel: 01692 582533.Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs Rd,Hethersett, NR9 3JD.

Tel: 01603 814343.cmbidg. Andrew Westley, 10 MarksbyClose, Duxford, Cambridge CB2 4RS.

Tel: 07890343044

ireLand c: Kevin Cronin, 5 Curragh Woods,Frankeld, Cork. Tel: 021 4896427. Email:[email protected]: Nigel McCullough.

Tel: 028 90852062.

scotLand edibug b.1st Thur. 8-9pm. The Quaker Hall, Victoria Terrace (aboveVictoria Street), Edinburgh.

J. Moir. Tel: 0131 440 0995. [email protected] Branch website:http://geocities.com/edinburghbranch/Glgw b. 3rd Wednesday of eachmonth at 8pm in Community CentralHalls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow. RichardDonnelly, 112 Napiershall Street, GlasgowG20 6HT. Tel: 0141 5794109.Email: [email protected]. Ian Ratcliffe, 16 Birkhall Ave,Wormit, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8PX.

Tel: 01328 541643W Li. 2nd and 4th Weds inmonth, 7.30-9.30. Lanthorn CommunityCentre, Kennilworth Rise, Dedridge,Livingston. Corres: Matt Culbert, 53 FalconBrae, Ladywell, Livingston, West Lothian,EH5 6UW. Tel: 01506 462359Email: [email protected]

waLes sw b. 2nd Mon, 7.30pm,Unitarian Church, High Street. Corres:Geoffrey Williams, 19 Baptist Well Street,Waun Wen, Swansea SA1 6FB.

Tel: 01792 643624cdiff d Dii. Group meets 3pmlast Sat of month Cardiff Arts Centre, 29Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3BA. Corres: B.

Johnson, 1 Pleasant View, Beddau, CF382DT.

InternatIonaL contactsLi ami. J.M. Morel, Calle 7 edif 45apto 102, Multis nuevo La loteria,La Vega, Rep. Dominicana.africaky. Patrick Ndege, PO Box 78105,Nairobi.swzild. Mandla Ntshakala, PO Box 981,Manzini.Zmbi. Kephas Mulenga, PO Box 280168,Kitwe.asiaIdi. World Socialist Group, VillGobardhanpur. PO Amral, Dist. Bankura,722122Jp. Michael. Email:

[email protected]. Graham Taylor, Kjaerslund 9,oor 2 (middle), DK-8260 Viby JGmy. Norbert.

E-mail: [email protected]. Robert Stafford.Email: [email protected]. Gian Maria Freddi, Casella Postale n.28., c/o Ag. PT VR 17, 37131 Veronaspi. Alberto Gordillo, Avenida del Parque2/2/3 Puerta A, 13200 Manzanares.

coMPanIon PartIes oVerseasWld sili Py f auli. P. O. Box 1266 North Richmond3121, Victoria, Australia.. Email:[email protected] Py f cd/Pi silidu cd. Box 4280, Victoria B.C. V8X3X8 Canada.Email:[email protected] sili Py (nw Zld) P.O.Box 1929, Auckland, NI, New Zealand.

Wld sili Py f Uids P.O. Box 440247, Boston, MA02144 USA.Email: [email protected]

Contct Dets

May 2011 bdh.indd 2 20/04/2011 10:54




MERVyN KiNG, the governor of the Bank of England, kcked

off a speech he gave earler ths ear b stealng the words

of the 19th centur Russan novelst Leo Tolsto, author of

War and Peace and Anna Karenina . (The speech s avalable

here: www.bankofengland.co.uk/publcatons/speeches/2011/

speech471.pdf). Kng turns the openng sentence of the latter

novel to hs own purposes, statng that, ‘all happ economes

are alke; each unhapp econom s unhapp n ts own wa’.

He then goes on to tell us what ‘happ’ economes look lke:

the ‘combne growth, stablt of prces and of the nancal

sstem, scal sustanablt, suppl-sde exblt and low

unemploment’. He leaves asde the puzzlng coexstence of

such blessed happness wth hstorcall unprecedented levels

of stress, anxet and depresson, and presses on nstead to

gve some of the reasons for the present unhappness.

One reason we mght be feelng glum, speculates Kng, s

that most of us are gettng poorer. Real take-home pa has

alread fallen 12 percent and s lkel to fall agan n 2011 to

2005 levels. ‘One has to go back to the 1920s to nd a tme

when real wages fell over a perod of sx ears,’ sas Kng.

But ths ‘squeeze n lvng standards s the nevtable prce to

pa for the nancal crss and subsequent rebalancng of the

world and UK economes’. Here Kng nadvertentl nvokes

the ghost of another 19th centur radcal thnker, but does not

menton ths one’s name: t was Karl Marx who taught us that

captalsm nevtabl goes through perods of ‘rebalancng’ (.e.,

of restorng protablt b destrong captal and devalung

labour), whch nevtabl leads to a squeeze n lvng standards

(for the workng class).

Kng concludes hs speech wth Tolsto ‘s concluson to

Anna Karenina. Ths s that, despte lfe’s ups and downs,

happness s less mportant than trng to lve n the rght wa.

Kng must have been smugl proud of hs ntellectual prowess,

connectng somethng as dull as a long speech on naton

wth the words of one of the world’s best loved novelsts. But

the result s revealed as putrd when ou compare Kng’s ntent

wth that of Tolsto’s.

Tolsto was dsturbed and horred b the hgh levels of

povert and mser n the towns of the Russa of hs da, and

turned hs mnd to dentfng the cause of the mser n hs

book, “What Then Must We Do?” Tolsto followed Jesus n

argung that the rst thng rch men lke hmself (and Mervn

Kng) could do would be to ‘get off the backs of the poor’ b

gvng up ther own wealth. Kng msses ths advce.

Tolsto recognzed that even such grand gestures of chart

would not make a dent n the problem, because the problem s

rooted n the whole sstem of propert ownershp and mone,

backed up b the trann of the state machne, whch Tolsto

sad must all be abolshed. Kng strangel mssed these

lessons too. Tolsto was on the rght lnes because he had the

courage and ntellectual honest to pursue socal problems to

the root, and to state hs conclusons regardless of the harm

t mght do to hs prevousl exstng belefs, or socal status or

wealth. That makes Tolsto a truth-tellng hero. What t makes

Mervn Kng we leave our readers to decde for themselves.

What then must we do?

The Socalst Part s lke no other poltcalpart n Brtan. it s made up of people whohave joned together because we want toget rd of the prot sstem and establshreal socalsm. Our am s to persuadeothers to become socalst and act for

themselves, organsng democratcalland wthout leaders, to brng about theknd of socet that we are advocatngn ths journal. We are solel concernedwth buldng a movement of socalsts for socalsm. We are not a reformst partwth a programme of polces to patch upcaptalsm.

We use ever possble opportunt

to make new socalsts. We publshpamphlets and books, as well as CDs,DVDs and varous other nformatvemateral. We also gve talks and takepart n debates; attend ralles, meetngsand demos; run educatonal conferences;

host nternet dscusson forums, makelms presentng our deas, and contestelectons when practcal. Socalstlterature s avalable n Arabc, Bengal,Dutch, Esperanto, French, German,italan, Polsh, Spansh, Swedsh andTurksh as well as Englsh.

The more of ou who jon the SocalstPart the more we wll be able to get our

deas across, the more experences wewll be able to draw on and greater wll bethe new deas for buldng the movementwhch ou wll be able to brng us.

The Socalst Part s an organsaton of equals. There s no leader and there are

no followers. So, f ou are gong to jonwe want ou to be sure that ou agreefull wth what we stand for and that weare satsed that ou understand thecase for socalsm.

if y wl lk m ls

th Sls py, ml

h fm g 23.

Editorial

Introducing The Socst Prty

socialist standard

may 2011

May 2011 bdh.indd 3 20/04/2011 10:54




EVER SiNCE a gaggle of mushroom-ntoxcated neolthcs rst got the deaof plng a bg at stone on top of twouprghts people have been havngcreatve deas about the lvng spacesof the future. Over the length of socalhstor lvng spaces have evolved, frommedeval all-purpose pens contanngbed, hearth, tolet, anmals,humans, rats and plague,to the Vctoran taxonomcmana for catalogungand categorsng, puttngever human functonfrom snorng to shttng tosnooker n ts own walledchamber. Now thngs arechangng agan as centralheatng and double glazng,

as well as a pressureof space and cost, drve a return tomore open-plan knock-throughs andmultpurpose domestc envronments(‘The Stor of Our Rooms’, BBC Online,12 Aprl).

Wth the hgh prort now bengplaced on low-carbon lvng and low-mpact buldng methods and materals,scence s ncreasngl beng desgnednto plannng models. As old structuresage and have to be replaced anwa,what f – sa the scentsts – whole ctescould be redesgned to factor n all the

known elements necessar to make themvrtuall self-sustanable?

if one were reall to rebuld wholectes from scratch, magne the energsavngs. A ct lke Los Angeles, a chaotcurban mega-sprawl, s a huge energsnk whch forces most people to drvemles to ther nearest supermarket, and

even more mles to work.Ratonal plannng mghthave optmsed all utltesand transport networksnto the ver crown joulesof ergonomc desgn. Andbg ctes have ther ownform of econom of scale,wth smaller envronmentalfootprnts and hgher

standard of lvng per capta

than small ones. if one wereto pull them down and start agan, onecould buld modular urban centres thatwere carbon-efcent, pedestran-frendl,accessble and navgable.

Some planners promote desgns for just ths (New Scientist , 26 March).Zetgest’s Venus Project s another, 3Drendered attempt. The trouble s, even onthe page these smmetrcal desgns looksoul-destrong, lke laborator mazes for lobotomsed rats. it’s no wonder manZetgest supporters are reportedl n twomnds about the dea of self-sufcent

crcular ctes. Somewhere n the debateabout efcenc the human elementgets left out. What s beautful about oldctes s ther rotous and labrnthnerregulart, forced on them b theconstrants of ct walls and overbuldng,as well as ther elaborate and artstc

but ‘nefcent’ constructon. The moreplanned a ctscape s, the more dreart tends to look and the worse t s tolve n. Well-meanng but paternalstcexperments n 1950s urban plannnggave rse n the UK to the horrors of hgh-rses and dsaffected concrete counclestates, wth all ther attendant socalproblems, as Lnse Hanle documentsn her entertanng book Estates: An

Intimate History (Granta, 2007).Could planners ever plan efcenc

to look lke Vence or Rouen or york?Does the future alwas have to look lkea plastc Thunderbrds set? Nowadasthere s the potental of wk-ctzenrto offer collectve nput so as to avodplanners mposng antseptc structureson our aesthetc sensbltes. But ths

just mght mean a commttee-desgnedcamel nstead of a geek-planned horse.Sometmes there s somethng humanand endearng about organc nefcenc.in socalsm there wll no doubt be plentof people callng for large-scale ‘socalengneerng’ projects. Let ths be the rstsalvo red n opposton to such notons.

INTERESTINGLY, GIVEN all the hoo-ha about ‘obscene’ bankers’ bonuses, not many ever question theapparently self-evident truism that money is a greatmotivator. Socialists have always gone against thecommonly received wisdom by claiming that, conversely,money is actually a poor motivator and in many casesno motivator at all. As evidence we cite the voluntarysector, so large that it is known as the ‘third sector’ of the economy, but then we might be biased giventhat we propose a social system composed entirelyof volunteers. Support however comes from studies

which suggest that not only are external motivatorslike money decoupled from internal ones like interest,commitment or curiosity, they may indeed be inverselyrelated, so that an excess of one can lead to a deciencyin the other (New Scientist , 9 April). It is perhaps

surprising and counter-intuitive tolearn that nancial rewards actuallyreduce the incentive to work hard, but“the facts are absolutely clear”, saysone long-time researcher. “In virtually

all circumstances in which people aredoing things in order to get rewards,

extrinsic tangible rewards undermineintrinsic motivation”. Next time you hearsome know-nothing blather on about how

money drives progress, youmight point out that

the science saysotherwise. Peopleare not spurred on

by money, they are simply

whipped on by fear of poverty.

‘OWiNG TO unfavourable economc condtons the search for the ultmate explanaton of lfe, the unverse and everthnghas been suspended.’ Perhaps ths s ptchng t a bt strong,but wth the Large Hadron Collder due to close for a ear for extensve repars ou would have thought that ths was precselnot the tme to be shuttng down ts nearest and dearest rval,the Fermlab Tevatron. The Tevatron, named because t canaccelerate protons up to energes approachng a trllon electronvolts or 1 TeV, s supposedl obsolete now because the LHCcan manage energes up to 7 TeV. Of course that’s n theor.in realt the LHC has onl once reached half ths energ, hasalread broken down twce and now s due for another extendedpt-stop. Most notabl, of course, t hasn’t found anthng,unlke the Tevatron whch last month announced the dscover,to wthn 3 orders of certant, of a new partcle that ma be

evdence of a ‘fth force’ of nature (‘Tevatron accelerator eldshnts of new partcle’, BBC Online, 7 Aprl). Meanwhle thefamous Hggs, as well as mthcal dark matter ‘neutralnos’ couldbe lurkng out theren an eV range, soeven wth two colldersoperatng t wouldbe lke two explorerssearchng for penguns,one n the northernhemsphere and one nthe south. Keepng theTevatron gong wouldcost a measl $35m – peanuts b ther standards – and there’sno engneerng mpedment, but the beancounters have gven tthe thumbs down. An socalst comment on captalst prortesat ths pont would be as redundant as a Chcago phscst.

r ls

Venus Project circular city

R.I.P. T.eV

May 2011 bdh.indd 4 20/04/2011 10:54




Letters

sili d W

Dear Editors The SPGB has opposed all wars. Todate my view is that every war theUK has been involved in since WW2has been unjust. With hindsight do

you still stand by your position in theknowledge of what the Nazis did inthe holocaust? I’m not trying to catch

you out as I nd the party interestingbut I would just like to know yourviews on this and whether you thinkit is ever right to intervene if it isto prevent genocide. Or does it notprevent it?SIMON O’CONNOR, (by email)

Reply : Our policy regarding the wars that capitalism inevitablygenerates is one of opposition onthe grounds that in the modern

world wars are fought to defend“vital” capitalist interests – accessto sources of raw materials andmarkets; and to defend strategicpoints and trade routes. Because weare propertyless members of society

we workers have no such interests.It’s not a question of “justice” (and

what a weasel word that can be!); it’snot a question of “democracy”; it’s aquestion of class interest.

We recognise that Marx and Engelshad during their lifetime advocatedthe use of war as a defensivemeasure against autocratic andreactionary regimes. Their somewhat

romantic view of war ignored thetechnical developments taking placein the eld of armaments. By theturn of the century war had becomeimmensely more destructive. Ithad ceased to be something remote

– it had become “total war” wagedon civilians because every workerengaged on the production of mechanised war was now in the frontline and everything had to serve war.

The destruction of life and propertyin modern war means that war hasbecome an essentially different thing.

It was in the light of these changesthat we adopted the view that waris not an instrument that can beused by socialists or supported bysocialists and that democracy couldnot be defended by ghting. This wasthe position we adopted in WW2 justas we had done in WW1.Whateverthe outcome of wars world capitalism

would remain essentially unchanged.It would still be riven by internationalrivalries in which national, racial andreligious hatreds could be stoked up

when the need arose.In any case democracy in

itself cannot solve a single problemof the working class. Democracy

for the working class can only beconsolidated and extended to theextent that the working class adoptsa socialist standpoint. To renouncesocialism so that democracy maybe defended, means ultimately therenunciation of both socialism anddemocracy.

Whether we would have decideddifferently in possible pre-knowledgeof the mass murder of European

Jews is too speculative a questionto be answered denitively—the “ifs”of history are as fascinating as theyare futile. That war had its roots ininternational rivalry. In particular thestruggle by two “late arrivals” on the

world stage—Germany and Japan— to obtain political and economicposition and inuence more in line

with their economic power and toreplace the existing world order

iud pg 22

A sideways glanceat capitalismthrough some of its products. This

month: the laptop.

ONE OF the more vocferous cheerleaders for captalsm and thewonders of the market sstem (though he seems to have been abt queter on that score n recent ears) s Thomas L Fredman.Most famousl he s the author of the spurous Golden ArchesTheor of Conct Preventon. Ths s the theor that no countreswhch both have a branch of McDonalds have been at war. (Thatths unlkel theor has – on numerous occasons – n factbeen found to be false does not seem to have caused hmto revew the theor).

in hs book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Fredman ex-alted n the ver pece of equpment he was tpng hs bookon. Hs laptop then, was held up as the eptome of all thats wonderful about captalsm. After all, t comprsed hun-dreds of dfferent parts and sub-components – them-

selves the product of hghl complex productonprocesses and resources from ve contnents – all magcall transported around the world andassembled together n a dozen countres before nallptchng up at hs local store when he went to bu t to wrte hslatest masterpece.

The laptop i am wrtng on however s no less amazng. Whleopposed to captalsm, we socalsts shouldn’t be afrad of ac-knowledgng how massvel complex, sophstcated and mpres-sve s global producton and dstrbuton nsde captalsm. indeedt s thanks to the ncrease n the productve forces of captalsmthat we can even consder socalsm and producton for use to bea practcable next step s human socal organsaton.

Man deologcal defenders of captalsm (and not just Fred-man) extol the wonders of the market sstem as t (apparentl)

enables all the rght bts and peces to be brought together wth just the rght tmng, to be assembled and placed onto the storeshelves. indeed man members of the workng class – who oth-

erwse ma have no real enthusasm for captalsm tself – canfeel daunted b the argument of socalsts that we should doawa wth the market sstem as a means for matchng supplwth demand.

Of course ths fear s to a large part a consequence of the great

bg convenent untruth that has underpnned debates about cap-talsm and socalsm for almost a centur now: speccall thatthe centralsed plannng of the sovet unon s the onl alternatveto the market sstem, and somehow has somethng to do wthsocalsm.

in fact, World Socalsts have no tme for central commttees or 5-ear plans. We are opposed to the market sstem whether t s

supposedl “free” or restrcted, and whether t sregulated or not. in man was socalsm wll befar more responsve to real human needs andgenune preferences. Producton decson-mak-ng nsde socalsm – both qualtatve (e how wllths be produced?) and quanttatve (how much?)- wll be far less centralsed than the sovet ver-son of captalsm and arguabl even “western”

captalsm.We would argue that we can retan much of

the (apparentl) chaotc, networked decen-tralsed producton decsons that are present

wthn captalsm. We should not be daunted b thecom- plextes of ndustral producton. We can do awa wththe overarchng prot logc of the market, and at the same tmehave condence that ndvdual human bengs wll stll expressther self-dened needs b gong to the local store and takngwhat the want wthout the ratonng sstem of mone and prce.And thereb the – not some plannng commttee - wll enablethe dauntngl complex producton arrangements that end up nthe laptop i am wrtng ths on. Rather than a trbute to the ms-terous work of some “nvsble hand”, the laptop – lke so manproducts – s a testament to the ngenut of real, co-operatve

human hands.nx mh: w sh lgh h zy wl f

ms.

May 2011 bdh.indd 5 20/04/2011 10:54




Rare Earth Metals and the

Not-So-Clean Energy Economy

THE EXTRACTION,transport and burningof fossil fuels – oil, gas

and coal – are directlyresponsible for widespreadenvironmental devastation.

The struggle over controlof these resources has alsolong been a major cause of international conict.

But let’s look to thefuture. The shift to a “cleanenergy economy” basedon solar, wind and otherrenewable power sourceshas nally begun. True,it is too slow and too late to avert some disasters arisingfrom climate change. All the same, surely there is reasonto hope that renewable energy will eventually bring usrelief from war and pollution?

Not necessarily. Sun, wind and tides are hardly in shortsupply, but there are certain areas where conditions arebest for harnessing their power. It is conceivable thatconict will arise over control of these areas.

r hsA more immediate issue concerns some of the materialresources required to generate renewable energy andproduce machines that run on such energy. In particular,our masters are currently very worried about ensuringadequate and stable supplies of the 17 elements knownas “rare earth metals”. Due to their special properties,

these metals have numerous crucial uses in high-techindustrial, medical, scientic, military and computerequipment. Their “clean energy” applications includethe manufacture of magnets for wind turbines, energy-efcient uorescent lamps, and batteries for hybrid andelectric cars. The metallic elements themselves are not all that rare

in the planet’s crust, but they are highly dispersed. It isthe soils (earths) containing concentrated mineral oresthat are relatively rare, though they have been foundin several parts of the world, such as South Africa,India, Vietnam, Australia and North America. Currently,however, China has a near-monopoly on the extraction of rare earth metals, controlling about 95 percent of globalsupply – and for certain elements over 99 percent.

pl f In September 2010, China suspended exports of rareearth metals to Japan after a Chinese trawler shingin disputed waters in the East China Sea collided with

Japanese Coast Guard vessels and its captain wasdetained. He was soon released and exports resumed.

The incident prompted hack Paul Krugman to castigateChina as a dangerous and irresponsible “rogue economicsuperpower” (New York Times , Oct. 17).

More signicant is the long-term trend for China toplace increasingly strict limits on exports of rare earthmetals to all countries. In 2009 it became known thatthe Chinese government was planning to ban exportsof ve especially rare elements altogether. Under strong

pressure from Western governments and corporations,the ban was replaced by annual quotas.Despite the accusations that China is exploiting its

near-monopoly to bully othercountries, its main reason forrestricting exports is probablya desire to give priority to

satisfying rapidly rising domesticdemand, fuelled by China’s owntechnological development. TheUS and other countries haveresponded to the situation byurgently exploring and developingalternative sources of supply.Nevertheless, there is clearlya growing potential here forinternational conict (whetherinvolving China or not), especiallyas the shift to the “clean energyeconomy” gathers pace.

tx slg The mining and processing of rare earths is an extremelydirty process. Rening them to extract pure metalsrequires the use of toxic acids. Ores are often radioactivedue to the presence of uranium and thorium. Thedisposal of toxic waste is an enormous problem.Almost half (45 percent) of the current world outputof rare earth metals comes from a mine in the town of Baotou Obo, part of the larger mining district of Baotouin Inner Mongolia. Baotou is right on the Yellow River,on which much of North China depends for water. TheBaotou section of the river is already contaminated withcopper, lead, zinc and cadmium (Fan Qingyun et al.,Chemical Speciation and Bioavailability , June 2008).

The waste from the rare earth metal mine in Baotou Obo

– a radioactive sludge laced with toxic compounds – ispumped into a reservoir (10 square kilometers in area)surrounded by an earthen embankment. If (when?) thereis an accident similar to what happened in October 2010in Hungary, where another reservoir of toxic sludgeburst its banks, this mass of poisonous goo will engulf local residents and pour into the Yellow River, furtherenriching its chemical composition.

n s lOn close examination, therefore, the “clean energyeconomy” turns out to be not so clean after all.Renewable energy may still be a big improvement onfossil fuels, but in itself it will solve neither the problem of

war nor that of environmental devastation.

What will be the policy of socialist society regarding theuse of rare earth metals? What will be done with the

waste? Or will people somehow manage without thesesubstances?

Socialism will mitigate the problem in a number of ways. Less material will be required because there willbe no built-in obsolescence: equipment will be made tolast for very long periods. And, of course, there will be noproduction of military equipment. Without the imperativeto maximise prots, much higher priority can be given toprotecting the environment.

Yet mitigating a problem is not the same as solving it.What if the supply of a certain material is essential tothe satisfaction of human needs, but no technical meanscan be found of extracting it without serious harm to

the environment? Even the people of socialist society arelikely to nd themselves facing hard choices.steFan

Mining in Mongolia

May 2011 bdh.indd 6 20/04/2011 10:54




All prces nclude postage and packng. For sx or more of an publcaton,

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Return ths form along wth our cheque or mone order to:th Sls py f G b, FreepoSt, L, SW4

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ogs ws

LAST SEPTEMBER the French Frends of the Earth pub-lshed a stud of “L’obsolescence programmée”. in hs1960 book The Waste Makers Vance Packard mentoned

Brooks Stevens, a well-known ndustral desgner of thetme, as one of those favourng the practce. in the Febru-ar 1960 ssue of The Rotarian Stevens quoted from theWeekly People, the paper of the SLP of Amerca:

“But there s another form of waste that s delberate-l planned b the captalsts, and whch the outspokenamong them openl admt s essental to ther prospert. its called planned obsolescence, or forced obsolescence.Ths conssts of a delberate scheme, carred out b meansof advertsng and product desgn, to persuade people tobecome dssatsed wth what the have purchased a ear or two ago, and to throw t awa before t s worn out.”

He repled that obsolete tems such as cars were not nfact thrown awa but were bought b people who couldn’tafford to bu a new car. Hs other argument was that t pro-

vded jobs. As he had alread clamed n 1958: “Our wholeeconom s based on planned obsolescence, and ever-bod who can read wthout movng hs lps should knowt b now. We make good products, we nduce people tobu them, and then next ear we delberatel ntroducesomethng that wll make these products old fashoned,out of date, obsolete.”

Stevens had a pont about cars and to some extent aboutsome other goods such as frdges, washng machnes andTV sets, but that some people are so poor as to have torel for basc applances on second-hand, shodd stuff s tself a crtcsm of captalsm. Accordng to the Frenchstud, some new goods are not much better:

“The search for a low prce takes place to the detrment

of the soldt and qualt of applances. Ths s agrantfor other current consumer goods such as textles, butalso affects household electrcal applances: some drumsn washng machnes are not made of metal toda but of plastc, whch ncreases ther fraglt.”

Ths provdes a clue about wh captalsm has recourseto “planned obsolescence” . it’s to provde cheap goodsfor wage and salar workers so as to keep wages down.To argue that “our whole econom s based on planned ob-solescence” s wrong. The organsed waste that plannedobsolescence represents does take place under captal-sm and the fact that t does s part of the case aganstcaptalsm, but captalsm s not kept gong b repeat salesof goods consumed b workers.

in fact captalsm s not kept gong b consumer demand

at all as ths s onl a consequence of what does keep tgong – the accumulaton of captal out of prots extractedfrom wage-labour and converted nto mone through saleson a market. Consumer demand represents for the mostpart what workers and ther dependents are able to buout of ther wages and salares, and goes up and downwth the level of emploment whch n ts turn depends oncaptal accumulaton.

There s no techncal reason wh sold and relable elec-trc and electronc applances wth easl changeable andcompatble parts and able to ncorporate nnovatons couldnot be produced. industral desgners would surel love todo ths but under captalsm t s the marketng departmentthat calls the shots, as what s beng produced are not

smpl products to be used, but commodtes to be sold ona market wth a vew to prot.

May 2011 bdh.indd 7 20/04/2011 10:54




pg h H Hlss Wl.

SOCIALISTS UNDERSTAND why people accept religious ideas.

What can be hard to understand though is the irrationality of some of the beliefs, or what they will do to back them up. The idea of sin for example. As far as Christianity is

concerned we are all sinners. By design. We’re born with it, whether we want it or not. We were created, apparently, by agod who wants us to be good, yet programmes us with ‘originalsin’ at birth. It’s all to do with Adam and Eve eating that applein the Garden of Eden.

(But if god is all-knowing he must have known that Eve wasgoing to eat the bloody apple - even before he created her. Whydidn’t he create her with a bit more will-power?)

When it comes to wacky irrationality though, few are moreirrational than Terry Jones in Florida. Jones is the Christianpastor, you remember, who put a Koran on trial in hischurch. After an eight minute hearing he found it guilty of

crimes against humanity and sentenced to be executed - bybeing burnt. He has announced his plans to put the prophetMohammed (who died in 632 AD) on trial next. The outcome of this (at the time of writing) was that after

2 days of rioting in Afghanistan by Moslems who, in protestof Jones antics, decided to take revenge on Westerners, morethan 20 innocent people have been killed (2 by beheading)and numerous more injured. Hopefully the Christian and theIslamic gods will be satised with the blood sacrices made tothem so far.

On a happier note it’s recently been announced that a thornfrom Jesus Christ’s crown held at Stoneyhurst College (a JesuitBoarding school in Lancashire) whose previous owners includeKing Louis IX of France and Mary Queen of Scots is to bedisplayed at the British Museum.

We know it’s a genuine thorn because according to theCatholic Encyclopaedia “two holy thorns are at presentvenerated, the one at St. Michaels Church in Ghent, the otherat Stonyhurst College both professing, upon what seems quitesatisfactory evidence, to be the thorn given by Mary Queen of Scots to Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland”.

“Quite satisfactory evidence” you see. You can’t argue withthat. The thorn from Stoneyhurst College, which is displayed in its

own casket, comes complete with a string of pearls (also onceowned by Mary Queen of Scots) entwined around it - well youunderstand, it’s not just any old thorn - will be on display atthe British Museum from 23 June until 9 October.

If you are unable to get there you may like to console yourself

by taking advantage of The Socialist Party’s special offer. -Anyone taking out a subscription to the Socialist Standard thismonth will be entitled to a free whisker from Karl

Marx’s beard. Like theCatholics and their

thorn, we “professupon what seemsquite satisfactoryevidence” that oursupply of Charlie’s whiskers aregenuine.

Ever wonder what $60,000 jeans feel lke? you’llnever know. Because ou ddn’t bu that $60,000par of Levs 501s from 1890 -- the most pad for a par of jeans, ever. Here are the most expensvetems ever sold -- the record-settng car, baseballcard, to, and even tooth:

h://yl.m/3lfsxs

UK Uncut doesn’t have leaders, herarch, a PRrm or funders, et n sx months t has changed theface of Brtsh poltcs:

h://yl.m/53vf8

The state that nfamousl hosted the ScopesMonke Tral more than 85 ears ago s at tagan. yesterda Tennessee’s General Assembloverwhelmngl passed a bll that would make teaser for publc schools to teach creatonsm. Thebll would requre educators to “assst teachers

to nd effectve was to present the scencecurrculum as t addresses scentc controverses.”it lsts four “controverses” rpe for pedagogcaltnkerng: bologcal evoluton, the chemcal orgnsof lfe, global warmng, and human clonng. “Ths spart of a long held creatonst strateg,” sas StevenNewton, polc drector for the Natonal Center for Scence Educaton. “B dong everthng exceptmenton the Bble, the are attackng evolutonwthout the theolog.”

h://yl.m/6kvkf

in a PPP poll released Thursda, a 46% pluraltof regstered Republcan voters sad the thoughtnterracal marrage was not just wrong, but thatt should be llegal. 40% sad nterracal marrageshould be legal:

h://yl.m/3yhl

A 14-ear-old Bangladesh grl, Hena, allegedlwas ambushed when she went to an outdoor tolet, gagged, beaten and raped b an older mann her vllage (who was actuall her cousn). Thewere caught b the wfe of the alleged rapst, andthe wfe then beat Hena up. An mam at a localmosque ssued a fatwa sang that Hena was gultof adulter and must be punshed, and a vllagemakeshft court sentenced Hena to 100 lashes n apublc whppng:

Her last words were protestatons of nnocence.An excellent CNN blog post, based on ntervewswth faml members, sas that the parents “had nochoce but to mnd the mam’s order. The watchedas the whp broke the skn of ther oungest chldand she fell unconscous to the ground.” Henacollapsed after 70 lashes and was taken to thehosptal. She ded a week later, b some accountsbecause of nternal bleedng and a general loss of blood. The doctors recorded her death as a sucde.(Women and grls who are raped are tpcallexpected to commt sucde, to spare everone theembarrassment of an honor crme.)h://yl.m/4zq

May 2011 bdh.indd 8 20/04/2011 10:54




Re-Inventing the Losers

ONE YEAR after That Election, the wretched group who are no longer entitled to be known as HonourableMembers Of The Most Exclusive Club In The Landhave had time to adjust to their new, cruel reality.

Time to accept that they are no longer waved througha doorway by a smiling policeman. To bravely suffer anunaccustomed lack of interest in them by the media. Tocontemplate a life made unbearable without the weeklysession of verbal hooliganism called Prime Minister’sQuestions. To manage their homes, gardens and thelike without support from a self-designed, self-regulatedexpenses system. To re-invent themselves in a new,bitterly unforeseen image reminding them of those other,unexciting people who voted for them to manipulate theirlives in the name of democracy, justice, equity…

WiddmbSome of these victims of the voters’ verdict will have

clearly had difculty in rebuilding their self-esteem butthis has not been so for Ann Widdecombe, because sheslipped away from Westminster without waiting for anelection. Which is not to say that her re-invention hasbeen any less grotesque. Widdecombe sat for Maidstone,later Maidstone and The Weald; before that she hadtried for the candidature in Burnley and PlymouthDevenport. During the Thatcher governments she was,famously, Minister of State for Prisons under HomeSecretary Michael Howard. She quickly assured herself of a welcome from the more apoplectic of the Tory rankand le by calling for zero tolerance for cannabis users,opposition to equal rights for gays and defending thepolicy of shackling pregnant women prisoners whenthey were in hospital. More controversially, in the Tory

leadership election of 1997 she denounced MichaelHoward as having “something of the night” about him.Her meaning was not entirely clear but she provided alot of material for cartoonists eager to depict Howard asa sort of vampire – which may have helped towards himcoming last in the contest.

Ldip In fact Widdecombe herself had something of

a bumpy relationship with the post of PartyLeader; having failed in 2001 to raiseenough support among MPs for herown bid she switched her support to asuccession of other failures – Michael

Ancram (Michael Who?), Ken Clarke,Liam Fox, David Davis. When DavidCameron, as the new Leader, was keento prove his credentials as a new broom orbreath of fresh air or whatever, announceda more equal “A List” of parliamentarycandidates she opposed this as “aninsult to women”. Having at rstdeclared, in October 2007, that she

would leave the Commons at thenext election she soon experiencedso dramatic a change of mind thatshe allowed herself to stand forSpeaker of the House in the voteto replace the serially unpopular

and questionable Michael Martin.Eventually, to widespread relief,she did retire at the 2010 election,

selling her homes in London and Kent and moving to ahouse on Dartmoor.

Mdi

So – after all the strident hard-lines, diversions,backtracking…there was clearly some need forWiddecombe to demonstrate that there was anotherperson, a reinvention of the MP, within her. Much of thatperson has, disconcertingly for those who admired her forbeing above earning any money in such a way, sproutedin the media – where they obviously can recognise agood protable thing when they see it. She has been anagony aunt in the Guardian (which must have causedsome hiccups at many a suburban breakfast table)and for both BBC television (Ann Widdecombe to theRescue) and ITV. She took part in Celebratory Fit Clubas both a competitor and a judge and she is a columnistin the Daily Express . But the height – or should it be

the depth – of all this, in terms of her exposure andthe public response, was on the hugely popular StrictlyCome Dancing. The news that she was to be a contestantin this programme provoked much ribaldry in many asaloon bar, on the theme of speculating about whichmale partner would be patient and strong enough to twirlsomeone of her build around the dance oor. To prolongthe amusement there were enough viewers, perhaps of the same cussedness as Widdecombe herself had reliedon to get her through her career, to repeatedly voteagainst the judges to keep her dancing. Until Decemberthat is, when matters got rather serious and, shrinkingfrom the prospect of voting her into the nal, they endedit all.

agyBut it does not follow that her re-invention is at an end;

that she will sink quietly from sight. She can be engagedfor some kind of public appearance through the GordonPoole Agency and Talent Bureau – who will gladly let youknow how available she is for whatever exposure youhave in mind and what it will cost you. For the right sortof money she may even tell you what she thinks of it allnow, of her devoted preparations for a political career, her

change from being an agnostic to a Roman catholic,her hopes of becoming leader of her party and then

of the House of Commons itself. It does not makea pretty story.

But the capitalist system with its

contradictions its anarchy its impoverishmentand diseases is not pretty. The spectacle of cynical politicians presenting themselves

in what they hope will be the mosteffectively deceptive way is stunningly

ugly. And if Widdecombe evergets to reect on her politicalcareer, driven as it was by herabrasive eccentricity and dogged

ambition, she might devotea word or two on how it all

says as depressingly muchabout those who were

captivated by her asabout herself.IVan

May 2011 bdh.indd 9 20/04/2011 10:54




There is no crisis. That deserves to be said twice.

There is no crisis. What

happened in Japan wasa crisis. Haiti was a crisis.What we have is a failure

of mathematics – the

mathematics of greed.

Crisis? What crisis?W

e as a society have neverbeen so productive, and

we have never had such wealth available to us, as we have

today. Our ability to produce hasgrown faster even than is needed toprovide for longer and happier lives. Think what has supposedly causedthis crisis. Too much was produced.In particular, too many houses wereproduced for poor Americans. Wehad not yet produced enough forour whole community, but we weredoing well – all too well.What happened? Building workers

were stopped from building. Peopleliving in good houses were thrownout of them, and the houses left tobecome derelict. Across the world,

workers who were producing wealthfor their communities were stoppedfrom doing so, by being thrown outof work; and then we were all forcedto live on less.Why would something so crazy

happen? Because production isnot for use, it is for a prot. No

work is allowed to take place, nohouses can be lived in, no food anddrink can be consumed, beforerst one person makes a protout of another person’s work. Thebasic matter of producing wealthand consuming it is interrupted

until rst those who claim to own what we all have made in the past,can prot from what we all makenow. We are bought and sold: but

whereas once we were bought andsold for a lifetime, now it is by thehour.As workers we all, if we are lucky,

have enough to live on, to tide usover when we are ill or unemployed,and to provide some care for when

we can no longer work. That is all.Some are more comfortable; somelive on far less, or are crushed bydebt. And this brings us to thepoint: indebtedness. What weproduce as a community is taken

from us and held by a few. Since wedo not own the means to supportourselves, we have to work forthese people, in effect paying off

the loan of the very things that weand our forebears made. We are likeindentured workers, who contracta large debt and are left paying itoff for years, decades, except in ourcase it is our entire lives.

As for students – students aregetting indentured servitude forreal. Many will retire before everpaying off their debts incurredbefore even starting work. Slave-owners across the ages wouldapplaud such an ingenious scheme. The answer to this is twofold.

Firstly, as trade unionists, we

must resist any attempt to maketheir problem, our problem. Weare able to produce quite handilyfor ourselves; if the equations of capitalism – the trade in our lives

– no longer make sense, then thatis a matter for the economists.Our demand here remains a fairday’s pay for a fair day’s work – that means at the very minimumthe maintenance of pensions asthey stand and yearly increases in

wages at a minimum in line withRPI – along with compensation forthe years of restraint that we have

had. At all levels, the workplace, thenational negotiating bodies, evengovernment, we should turn roundand say that we are producing very

well, thank you very much, there isno real crisis, and they should puttheir house in order at their ownexpense, not ours.

Secondly, we should take thisas an object lesson. There is nofairness here, only the war of asmall group of people against theentire community to control all of its wealth and keep us poor unless

we do as we are told and hand overthe large part of what we produceto them for their own entertainment

May 2011 bdh.indd 10 20/04/2011 10:54




Some people assocate captalsm justwth the sort of nancal wheelng anddealng that goes on n places lke Wall

Street and the Ct of London. Others – supporters as well as crtcs – see tas prvate enterprse and a so-calledfree market as markets free from statenterference and regulaton. in fact, thss probabl the most wdespread den-ton of captalsm.

The trouble wth ths denton s thatt means that captalsm has never ex-sted or has onl exsted as a polc or polc objectve (roncall, to be mple-mented b the state). But markets havenever exsted wthout state nterven-ton. Captalsm nall trumphed onl

through state nterventon and s man-taned b ths. Captalsm and the statego together, the are not oppostes.

Captalsm s more than nancaldealngs, a government polc or pr-vate enterprse or legal prvate owner-shp or prvate enterprse. it’s a wa of producng and dstrbutng wealth whchhas two ke, denng features.

Frst, that the actual producton of wealth s carred out b people hred todo ths for a wage or a salar. Captalsms producton b wage-labour. (Whchalread presupposes a dvson of soc-et nto those who own and control the

means of producton and the rest of uswho don’t.) Another name for captalsms that t’s the wages sstem.

Second, captalsm s not just a ss-tem of producton for sale on a market.it s a sstem of sale on a market wth avew to prot. it’s the prot sstem.

Captalsm s the wages-and-protssstem.

it’s the pursut of prots b separatecompetng enterprses that drves thecaptalst econom, but ths s not justto provde the ownng class wth a prv-leged lfestle. Not even manl. The

economc forces unleashed b the com-pettve struggle for prots mean that, f the are to sta n the race for prots,captalst enterprses must nvest mostof ther prots n new, more up-to-dateand modern productve equpment soas to tr to keep ther costs equal to or below those of ther rvals.

So, most prots have to be accumu-lated as more captal. Ths s wh cap-talsm was orgnall called captalsm.it’s a sstem of captal accumulatonout of prots made b explotng wage-labour, an mpersonal economc mech-ansm that n the end s not controlled

b anone (not even captalsts) and sn fact uncontrollable.

What isCaPiTaliSm?

and to keep us further indebted inthe future. It is not a governmentthat needs to be overthrown; it is anew and rened system of slavery,

where we are bought and sold by thehour because of the fact that we donot own the things we produce.

All of this will happen again, andagain, and again: debt is to us whatshackles are to the slave. Capitalismmust be abolished, in order for usto do the simplest of things whichis to produce and consume in ourcommunities, free from fear and freefrom exploitation. The equations thathold us in thrall must be overthrownin our minds, and then we mustoverthrow those who keep us in thosemental chains. That doesn’t justmean a new capitalist government,no matter how well-intentioned: it’snot ‘a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s

work’. It’s the abolition of the wagessystem, not in the future, but now;

we already produce more than the

capitalists can handle, and we can dofar more for ourselves. They need us.We don’t need them.sJW

Above: crises in Japan and Haiti, and a

failure of mathematics

May 2011 bdh.indd 11 20/04/2011 10:54




In 2002 it was estimated thatthe joint prots of $35.9billion amassed by the ten

pharmaceutical companies thatfeatured in the Fortune 500 were$2.2 billion more than the protsof all the other 490 businesses puttogether. So there’s plenty of moneyin drug-dealing. Here’s what some of the top dealers pocketed in earningsin 2007 (source FiercePharma) :

1.Miles White - Abbott - $33.4m2. Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough - $30.1m3. Bill Weldon - Johnson &

Johnson - $25.1m4. Bob Essner - Wyeth - $24.1m5. Robert Parkinson - Baxter -$17.6m

The sale of drugs has a relativelyshort history when it’s compared

to our

own history. For tens of thousandsof years we experimented with theraw materials that are freely foundin nature and form the basis of themodern day pharmaceutical industry.It is recorded that pharmacists inBaghdad opened the rst pharmacyin 754. This spread throughoutthe Islamic world and into feudalEurope. As capitalism developed outof feudalism so too did the healthbusiness. By the early 20th centurythe strong had been graduallyeradicating the weak leaving thenucleus of today’s most powerfulpharmaceutical companies. The mass production of drugs

arose from the discovery of insulinin the 1920s and later of penicillin.Wealth, through surplus value, wasaccumulating in to the hands of thecapitalists who owned and controlledthese companies. Trade was wellon its way to becoming global, andcapitalists in Europe and NorthAmerica must have realised that theyhad found their own gold mines.

The minor companies that enteredthe market were continuouslyswallowed by the major ones

via mutually benecialpartnerships, corporatebuyouts, mergers andtakeovers. The City asever eased the way,greasing its own palm inthe process, so that theglobal manufacture of drugs is now dominated bya handful of cartels.IMS Health (7 September2009) estimates that

the value of the globalpharmaceutical marketin 2010 is expected toexceed $825 billion, and isexpected to expand to $975+billion by 2013. Capitalism’sdrug dealers will salivate

in anticipation. Only thenaive and the ideologicallyhandicapped believe thattrade under capitalism is notsynonymous with corruption.Once money enters into anytransaction, principles, nomatter how well-meaning, get

undermined. And the drug tradeis no exception.

tf: Israeli bio-technology

company Nogdan ImmunochemicalsLtd patented a technology thatcan almost immediately detectany current disease and forecastthe probability of disease in thefuture. The sharks circled Nogdanin September 1995, through theagency of Biosite and Epimmune.And, with the active complicity of an Israeli attorney and two leadingacademics, conspired to steal thepatent. They went on to sign deals

with the top drug cartels such asMonsanto, Novartis, Merck and Co.,Searle GD, Elan, Pharmacia, HumanGenome Sciences, IDM, and others,for the use of the patent. Billions of dollars in prots have already beengenerated by these companies. Andit has been estimated that over thenext ten years hundreds of billionsof dollars more will be added to theirbalance sheets (chemeurope.com/news).

Biby: Remember the scarestories that ooded the media in2008/09 about H1N1; a global u

inuenza. A report published by theBritish Medical Journal , reveals thehidden links that made the World Health Organisation [WHO] declareH1N1 a pandemic. The result wasbillions of dollars in prots forvaccine manufacturers. “Severalkey advisors who urged the WHO todeclare a pandemic received directnancial compensation from thevery same vaccine manufacturers

who received a windfall of protsfrom the pandemic announcement…All the kickbacks were swept underthe table” …the “ WHO somehow

didn’t think it was important to letthe world know that it was receivingpolicy advice from individuals whostood to make millions of dollars

when a pandemic was declared”(jmbblog.com/2010/06/h1n1-and-

who-scandal).Mud: “During the meningitis

epidemic in Niger in 1995, over50,000 people were inoculated withfake vaccines, received as a gift froma country which thought they weresafe. The exercise resulted in 2,500deaths. Of the one million deathsthat occur from malaria annually, as

many as 200,000 would be avoidableif the medicines available wereeffective, of good quality and used

The coalition government’s plan to allow more prot-seeking enterprises to provide health care hasstirred up controversy and opposition. But despite the NHS huge prots have long been made out of health provision.

Profiting from ill-health

12

May 2011 bdh.indd 12 20/04/2011 10:54




correctly” (WHO, 2003 FS 275).On 9 March 1983, a Peter Lumley,

spokesman for the Associationof the British PharmaceuticalIndustry (ABPI), was pleased toinform Guardian readers “that drugcompanies now average a 22 percent rate of return from the NHS”.

Twenty plus years later that gure

has hardly uctuated. Between 1988and 2008 according to Prescriptions

Dispensed in the Community,England: Statistics for 1998 to 2008,

prescription items increased byalmost two thirds. In 1998, the netingredient cost of all prescriptionsdispensed was £4,701.5 million. In2008 The net ingredient cost of allprescriptions dispensed was £8,325.5million.

Unsurprisingly, Daily Telegraph

readers discovered in 2004 that “TheRoyal College of General Practitionershas accused drug companies of

‘disease-mongering’ in order to boostsales…says the pharmaceuticalindustry is taking the NationalHealth Service to the brink of collapse by encouraging unnecessaryprescribing of costly drugs…Thecollege lists hypertension, highcholesterol, osteoporosis, anxiety anddepression as examples of commonconditions that, in mild forms, areoften inappropriately treated withdrugs” (29 August 2004).

Conicts emerged when RichardLey, a spokesman for the ABPI, said:“It seems odd for this criticism tocome from the Royal College of allorganisations, because a decisionon when and how to treat a patientis the doctor’s.” And the conictcontinues according to the samearticle: “Some observers are also

worried about “hard-sell” methodsapplied to general practice. Last year,a survey of 1,000 GPs published inthe British Medical Journal foundthat those who saw drugs-companyrepresentatives at least once a week

were more likely to prescribe drugsthat were not needed.”

Then there’s the Observer (29 June 2003) quoting Glasgow GPDes Spence who “had started anadvisory post, which meant heinuenced prescribing practices forhalf a dozen local practices, whenhe started receiving invitations tomeetings abroad, ‘endless’ lunchesand dinners and offers of substantialfees for lectures and chairmanships

– and felt he was nally getting therecognition he deserved. That is untilhis wife made him realise that he was‘just being used and manipulated bybig pharma, that it was the patients

they were interested in, not me’.”He underlined this by claiming that“GPs who see drug reps at least once

a week are more likely to prescribedrugs for conditions that willprobably clear up on their own”.

Even if yourGP has the bestof intentionsand closes thesurgery doorto the drug rep

(pusher) thedrug cartels stillinuence events,the Observer reported,because:“around half of postgraduateeducationfor doctorsis funded byindustry. Andaround two-thirds of clinicaltrials in Britain

are funded bythe pharmaceutical industry. A newstudy shows that such research isfour times more likely to be biased infavour of the product belonging to thesponsors than independent studies...Equally worrying, medical expertsfeatured in press coverage of thelatest pharmaceutical breakthroughor disaster could well have been‘recruited and trained as opinionleaders to speak on behalf of thesponsoring company.’ says the BMJ.” The state has devised new

roles for doctors in line with theirideological aims. In March last

year Yvette Cooper, then Work andPensions Secretary under the Labourgovernment, notied us that morethan 500 doctors are to be mobilisedto assess whether the 2.6 millionpeople on incapacity benet arecapable of work. That’s 500 doctorsremoved from the work that theyswore by the Hippocratic oath toundertake. And later in the year thatthe Coalition’s Health and SocialCare Bill will allow doctors to takecontrol of a huge slice of the NHS

health budget in England, which for2010-11 is forecast to be just under£110bn. A bait that will have thedrug cartels smiling condently. Orperhaps it is being too cynical to aska couple of pertinent questions asMichele Bohan did in evidence to aparliamentary committee in February2011:

“Why is £80 billion pounds of public money to be handed overto GPs with no experience of commissioning health servicesand why are GPs to be awardedcash bonuses for running the

consortia?”and

“How are we to prevent

unscrupulous companies likeUnited Healthcare (an Americanrm bidding to run services

here) – which hasbeen ned millionsof pounds over anumber of yearsfor defrauding theAmerican healthcare

system doing thesame thing herein the UK? Theiroffences involved‘cheating patientsout of money‘,‘denying treatment’ and ‘overcharging’”.(www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmpublic/health/memo/m40.htm)

Good questionsMichele, but don’t

expect a lucid answer.Here’s a tip for survival under

capitalism borne out of experience:don’t get ill. Unemployment is onequick way to penury. But getting illcompounds that situation. In 1989Dr Iona Heath, a North LondonGP drew attention to capitalism’sultimate answer to the problem of ill-health: “How can we escape thelogical conclusion of the market-place that for the elderly and thechronically sick the most economicsolution is death.” (quoted Socialist Standard , January 1990).

So would healthcare be anydifferent if socialism wereestablished? Yes it would. Why?Because from day one money woulddisappear. And that means themarket would cease to exist. Takeone or two minutes out and justthink how the non-existence of

wages, prots and budgets wouldchange the present situation.

Then think about the end of thehierarchies that dominate healthcareat present. No more capitalist ponces,and no more layers of useless

bureaucrats skimming their share of the kitty.Instead healthcare would be

conceived and administered,democratically by us, the people

who brought socialism about.Globally, doctors, nurses, scientistsand everyone at present involved inhealthcare at the human level wouldact as guides. Informing people as to

where healthcare is capable of goingonce the articial barriers of moneyhad been eliminated. It’s up to you.Use your imagination and join us. Orsit back on your sofa and hope that

you don’t get ill.anDY MattheWs

Snake oil on sale in Marrakech

May 2011 bdh.indd 13 20/04/2011 10:54




the problems of unemploymentare huge – worldwide problemsaffecting millions in some

countries and billions globally if

we include the massive numbersof ‘informal’ workers, those

recognisedas outside of the system,many of them non-

personsliving onthe veryedge of

existence with no access to even thebasic services.

What is this strange system thatgrants ‘remunerated employment’

to some who produce nothing worthwhile or useful for themselvesand others whilst totally rejectingothers who have the skills and abilityto grow food, to build houses, torecycle others’ rubbish, to contributeall manner of useful work? Whysuch a seeming imbalance betweenthe work we can all see needing tobe done but left undone and actualavailable work?

Given the way the world economicsystem is structured, we recognisethe logic that requires a surplus of labour, a spare pool to be drawn on

as and when required, a surplus thatkeeps down wages and favours theemployer minority over the employedmajority. But, as a member of humansociety, who can recognise any logicbased even faintly on empathy orsolidarity or common sense use of human capacities for the benet of society as a whole?

Much of worldwide discontentand dissent is predicated aroundthis matter of unemployment

which creates unnecessary andunnatural divisions betweensections of both domestic andinternational communities. Migrantlabourers working for a pittance inlands which themselves have highdomestic unemployment; migrantskilled workers enjoying articiallyhigh wages in lands where localgraduates can’t nd work; youngpeople fresh out of education withlittle or no prospect of nding work

while those wishing for retirementare told to expect to work for longerbefore earning such a luxury;production decimated in manydeveloped countries because overseas

underdeveloped countries have wonthe competition for the lowest wages. This disconnect, this illogicality

stares us all in the face. We know itmakes no sense for any of us as aclass, a class of workers, or would-be workers. Over the years we have

experienced the circumstancesgetting worse, not better for many.We worry for our children, ourgrandchildren, the next generation,the stability of the world and the

whole human race. We see theinequity (and iniquities) and worry.

t w b d vuvilbl wIf we were to approach the problemfrom a different angle we could seehow to turn something totally illogicalinto something that would workbetter for everybody wherever they

are in the world. Doing this wouldentail ridding ourselves of useless

work and wasted time and effort andresult in getting the work that is

widely recognised as necessary to bedone for the good of the people done,by the people.

It will be natural for anyoneconsidering this topic to focusrst on their own country and, inparticular, their own locality, if onlybecause this is the most familiarand best understood. However,considering at the same time the

wider world in general will greatlyincrease individual capacity to focuson the enormity of the shortfall facingthe global population, a shortfalldeliberately ignored by the minority

who capitalize greatly by theirneglect. This shortfall, this work needing

to be done, includes all the obviousstuff seen around any location butneglected because of a different kindof shortfall, lack of funds in theindividual, municipal, national orinternational budget. It can rangefrom the very basic to much larger

issues. Housing in disrepair for which private owners are withoutthe means for proper upkeep, public

Many are suffering the misery of unemployment while much useful, necessary work remainsundone. One of the contradictions of capitalism. We want free time, to reduce the working day so that we can move beyond the tyranny of survival into free and creative mutual activity. Bothemployment and unemployment are capitalism preventing our human development in thisdirection.

Capitalism – barrier

to useful work

Unemployment during

the Depression

May 2011 bdh.indd 14 20/04/2011 10:54




housing which is underfunded andslums which should have beencleared long ago. Holes in the road.Leaks in classroom ceilings. Grubbytown centres. Negligence with regardto the safety of the general public.Heavily polluting industries affectingair and water quality. Poor standardsof safety allied to working conditions.

Old, substandard, decaying orlack of infrastructure of all kinds.Shoddy public transport poorlyplanned to meet the needs of thegreater community. Inadequate andinappropriate energy provision. Lackof local production facilities, whetherfood or industry. Localities notstructured to meet the requirementsof citizens. Health and education

provision woefully inadequate withinsufcient trained personnel to meetthe wide and varied needs. These examples can be expanded

ad innitum according to the localneighbourhood or the wider regionsof the globe. The one thing they havein common is that there is much

work waiting to be done that, in alllikelihood, will not get done for avery long time, if ever, within theconstraints of capitalism. The logicof the capitalist system is that protmust be considered above all else,society’s needs are a poor also-ran.

Useful work is manifold andincludes the production anddistribution of material goodsand food, scientic research

and development, aesthetic andartistic endeavours, service of all kinds including installations,communications, infrastructure,maintenance, health, education,recreational, technological and social;producing and providing the goodsand services required and neededby society as a whole on an ongoingbasis.

As unemployment gures reachever higher it must point to thefact that there just isn’t enoughremunerated work available.Meanwhile, if a comparison is made

of the above work waiting to be done with much of the worthless, useless work currently being undertaken for

remuneration by millions worldwideit begins to become clear just whata crazy system we are operating

within. Work that offers no product,service or benet to society mustsurely be considered useless work.What cannot be considered usefulor necessary includes all the jobscurrently involved in the huge

nancial industry; jobs which aretied to the movement of money fromone place or person to another.

Being considered unnecessarybecause they produce nothing of use,provide no useful service and are of no benet to society a large numberof institutions would be redundant.All banking establishments,insurance companies, tax collection,

benets and pension ofces, to namea few, would no longer be requiredand, as a consequence, manybuildings would be freed up for useto be decided upon by civil society

whilst technicians, ofce and otherassociated staff would be availablefor more people-benecial workschemes.

t w – mplym migful upi?When we consider in detail thevast range of tasks undertaken byhumanity of blue or white collarvariety – manager, foreman, labourer,part-time, full-time, self-employed,indentured, casual, indoor, outdoor,on land, sea or in the air – all are

employed in order to full the samerequirement, their ongoing needs. Allrequire regular remuneration in orderto feed and clothe themselves andtheir dependents and keep a roof overtheir heads.

We must wonder why then,in some quarters, there is still aderogatory slant to the use of theterm ‘worker’. For what is it in realitybut a misunderstanding of one’s ownposition in the scheme of things?Whether labourer or architect,hairdresser or world-famous model,cashier at a supermarket or hedge

fund computer screen minder,BMW production line worker orBMW owner – whoever must work

on a regular ongoing basis in orderto live, whatever the size of theirremuneration, is a worker. S/he

works. S/he is a member of the working class. Anyone not convincedshould ask themselves how long asan individual they can afford to beout of work and without pay beforetheir own personal crisis happens?

Isn’t it ridiculous, too, that thereare still those who can’t recognizethe different but equal importance of all contributions to society? Who’s tosay what or who is more importantor necessary to society’s functions

when we know that (a) even if we wanted to we can’t all do everything,all the tasks that are needed inour lifetime because we all have

limited skills and time, (b) we wouldsuffer as a society without all theseemingly menial, dirty, dangerousor difcult tasks being taken care of and (c) as individuals we don’t wantto be denigrated or undervaluedfor our own contribution. When

we acknowledge these terms weare also ready to accept all others’ contributions as valuable too. Apartfrom not being able to do everything,most of us probably don’t want tohave to do everything, preferringto have the time to engage in thethings that take our individual fancy,interest or passion; time that themajority do not have at their disposalnow.

‘Not enough jobs to go around!’

This is the mantra. Of course thereare! In a global socialist societyunemployment will be a wordconned to the history books. In a

world of voluntary work and freeaccess to goods and services, whensociety is structured deliberatelyand logically to do the work that we,the people, declare to be necessaryand important, there will be ampleoccupation for all, liberating us, atlast, to forsake individual advantagein favour of the common good nowand into the future.Janet sUrMan

Carpenter: worker Hairdresser: worker Model: worker

May 2011 bdh.indd 15 20/04/2011 10:54




A new documentary lm on the life and musicof Phil Ochs, “There But For Fortune”, isbeing shown in several US cities now. It

hasn’t come too soon, certainly, because Ochstoday is largely unknown outside the circle of leftybaby-boomers.

Often Ochs is dismissed as a “topical”songwriter whose music, for that reason, hasn’t

stood the test of time. “He’s no Bob Dylan,” hiscritics sometimes say. Dylan himself famouslytold Ochs he was “just a journalist” (as he threwhim out of his limousine). This image of Ochs owes much to his own

statements, for he frankly admitted that the pagesof newspapers and magazines were a source of songs ideas, saying “every headline is a potentialsong.” He underscored this by naming his rstalbum “All The News That’s Fit To Sing” – punningon the masthead of The New York Times . The origin of a song hardly determines its value,

though; and in his best political songs, Ochscultivated poetry out of such pulpy fertilizer, justlike Hank Williams nding song ideas from hissister’s True Romance comic books.

Whatever one thinks of his music, though, it wasclearly linked to the 1960s New Left movement. Ochs’smusical career rose with the movement, his songschampioned its causes, and by the time of his suicide in1976 the movement was dead as a social force. Listeningto Ochs’s albums today is a way of tracing the rise andfall of this radical (but reformist) political movement.

Fl -vivl

The combative optimism of the New Left movement in thedays when it was still new comes across on Ochs’s rsttwo albums (1964–65). In particular, his song “What’s

That I Hear” gives listeners an idea of the excitement

young leftists felt as fties conservatism gave way tosixties radicalism, with Ochs describing the sound, off in the distance, of “freedom calling” and the “old waysfalling”.

Ochs in those early albums is not only looking forward with condence, but also looking back to see what can besalvaged from the radical past. He had rst encounteredthe history of the radical left in the late fties throughhis university roommate Jim Glover, a folk musician whounlike Ochs had been raised in a leftwing family. The early song “Links On The Chain” shows Ochs

contrasting radical past with conservative present, as hecompares complacent trade unionist with the militants

who formed the unions – and with the civil-rightsactivists of the time “All that they [activists] are doing

is all that you have showed / That you gotta strike, yougotta ght to get what you are owed.”

What Ochs and the New Left did not learn from the

history of leftwing radicalism, unfortunately, was its

limits: how it never truly sought to replace this socialsystem in which workers continually have to ght justto “get what they are owed”. The sixties radicals werethus doomed to travel down the same dusty reformistroad the “old left” (Communist Party) had trodden before.Ultimately, the line separating old left and new left wasa generational difference in style and temperament, nota true distinction between reformist and revolutionarypolitics. The early sixties “folk revival” owed much to the old

left and its earlier revival of folk music in the 1930s. Thebest way to understand the politics of the earlier folkmusicians is to listen to the songs of Woody Guthrieas well as the Almanac Singers – a band that includedGuthrie, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and others.

These musicians stuck to the CP line through thick andthin – and they started sounding pretty thick after 1941,

when they ditched their (good) antiwar songs for crass warmongering songs like Pete Seeger’s horrifyingly awful“Dear Mr. President”. But even at their political andartistic best, the old-left songs glorify the futile effort tofundamentally reform capitalism.

“Sis” Cunningham, one of the Almanac Singers, andher husband Gordon Friesen took Ochs under their wing

when he arrived in Greenwich Village in 1962. That wasthe year the couple started their soon-to-be inuentialmagazine Broadside , which brought Ochs to widerattention by publishing the lyrics and music to his songs.Ochs was inuenced by Woody Guthrie, as Bob Dylanand so many others were, but he never tried to imitateGuthrie’s folksy ways (as Dylan does at times on hisdebut album). Rather, Ochs was drawn to Guthrie’sapproach of using contemporary struggles as songwriting

Wh ws

h ghg

f?Phil Ochs as the Sound of the “New Left”

May 2011 bdh.indd 16 20/04/2011 10:54




material and expressing a clear political opinion. Thisapproach comes through on Ochs’s tribute to Guthrie,“Bound for Glory”, which culminates with the lines: “Whysing the songs and forget about the aim / He wrote themfor a reason why not sing them for the same.”

rdil fmi

Ochs was a reformist, as is clear from his songs, butof the radical persuasion. He bandied about the word

“revolution” at times and had little patience for timidleftists. Ochs put down such types for all time inhis brilliant song “Love Me I’m A Liberal”, where hisstereotypical (but true to life!) liberal pleads with radicalslike Ochs: “Don’t talk about revolution / That’s going alittle bit too far.”

It was the revolutionary act of tearing down a rottensystem – more than the question of what might replace it

– that seemed to fascinate New Left radicals at times. Inthe song “Ringing of Revolution,” Ochs brilliantly depictsmembers of a once arrogant ruling class cowering beforethe irresistible power of a revolutionary uprising. Whatthe revolution aims to accomplish, however, is anyone’sguess.

“The movement is everything, the nal aim is nothing”

(Bernstein) – this was the basic attitude of sixtiesactivists. And “the movement” then mainly comprised thestruggle for civil rights and the growing opposition to theVietnam War. These two political issues inspired Ochs to

write numerous songs.On his early albums, Ochs often relied on satire

to skewer racists and warmongers. “Whenever thereis a deep tragedy, there is always something of theridiculous,” is how Ochs once introduced to an audiencehis song “Talking Birmingham Jam”. For that song andother topical ones like it, Ochs borrowed the “talkingblues” format that Guthrie had used. In some of his bestsatirical songs, Ochs has the target of the satire do thetalking, like the pro-war hypocrite in “Draft Dodger Rag”

who knows that “somone’s gotta go over there [Vietnam],and that someone isn’t me”. The absurdity of war and racism also inspired some of

Ochs’s most mournful songs (“Too Many Martyrs” and“Song of a Soldier”), as well as his angriest and mostrousing songs (“Here’s to the State of Mississippi” and“One More Parade”). Listening to the variety of songs thatthe two burning political issues in the 1960s inspired himto write pokes holes in the assumption that topical orpolitical music is a limited art form.

The sheer amount of energy that Phil Ochs derived from,and poured into, the two political movements, however,could only be sustained as long as the movements werestill gathering strength.

nw Lf gw ldI don’t know / But it seems that every single

dream’s / Painted pretty pictures in the air / Then it tumbles in despair / And it starts to bend /Until by the end it’s a nightmare (“Cross My Heart”).

Songs on his later albums, like this one from the 1967album “Pleasures of the Harbor”, document how Ochs’sradical élan gave way to despair in the late sixties. Attimes, Ochs tries to buck himself up, as in the refrain to“Cross My Heart” where he pledges: “But I’m gonna giveall that I’ve got to give / Cross my heart and I hope tolive.” These half-hearted lines, among the clumsiest heever wrote, could hardly have raised his morale. Now theyseem poignant, though, knowing as we do the suicidalend of his story.

The mental turmoil of Phil Ochs in the late sixtiesseems to have resulted from a number of different butinterrelated crises. His musical career was foundering, he

sensed that his youth had become a memory, and he hadalways been in tune with the melancholic side of life (aseven his earliest songs attest).

On top of this, or perhaps at the bottom of things, was the fact that the radical political movement was nolonger in its optimistic early stage. The Vietnam War

was widening despite the growth of protests against it,and every year brought new assassinations of civil rightsleaders. The frustrations of radicals crystallized with

the 1968 demonstrations at the Democratic nationalconvention. Chicago police beating down the protesterscame as a shock of disillusionment, leading the moreimpatient and imbecilic radicals to begin toying withterrorism.

Phil Ochs was in Chicago that summer for theconvention and witnessed the “police riot” during theYippie’s Festival of Youth in Lincoln Park. The 1968 eventseemed to dissolve the remaining political optimism of Ochs, who was supporting the presidential candidateEugene McCarthy. The following year he released an album pessimistically

titled “Rehearsals for Retirement,” featuring a cover photoof his own gravestone, with the inscription: Phil Ochs(American) Born: El Paso, Texas, 1940, Died: Chicago,

Illinois, 1968. The events in Chicago marked his own“spiritual death,” Ochs felt.

It is rather simplistic to imagine that the policebrutality in Chicago suddenly dissolved Ochs’s optimism.More likely, it occurred at point when he already feltthat he was reaching a dead end as a musician and anactivist, and was looking for a new way forward. (Sadly,the music industry and his own fans at the time did notembrace his later songs, which are among his best.)

Ochs did not abandon leftwing politics after 1968, butthe thrill of activism was gone. And how could his radicalenthusiasm have persisted without any real belief in thepossibility of a post-capitalist society? The movement

was everything for Ochs in the early sixties; and hehad thought it could broadly reform American society.Even in those years, though, Ochs sensed the fragilityof the reform movement and recognized the power of the “establishment”, as is reected in the many earlysongs he wrote about martyrs. Perhaps Ochs imagineda glorious defeat for himself, which is the ultimate goal

when the nal aim is nothing.He did not die in Chicago, though, and the New Left

kept going too. A few years later they discovered that it was not glorious defeat but a pyrrhic victory that awaitedthem. The end of the Vietnam War may have been thevictory of the antiwar movement, in a sense, but it wasthe end of the New Left. Opposing the war was everythingto the movement, so its end left activists without a senseof purpose.

But capitalism continued. Later the US government would pluck up enough courage to wage new wars,and the problems of racism and poverty never wentaway. So a new “new left” could rise to ght the samestruggles again. Some point to these familiar problems todemonstrate the “relevance” of Phil Ochs’s music today.“Just change a few names and places,” they say, “andthe songs become contemporary.” Yes, quite true. Butthe same old capitalist problems popping up, again andagain, despite the best efforts of activists like Ochs, reallyspeaks to the utter irrelevance of reformism.

Ochs’s reformism is clear from his songs, but eventhose songs most clearly inspired by New Left ideashave lines that can sound revolutionary to socialist ears,straining to hear the sound of freedom calling and the old

ways falling.MIke schaUerte

May 2011 bdh.indd 17 20/04/2011 10:54




Saddam Hussein did not have any Weapons of MassDestruction. But America has. Many. And storedall over the world, including in England. And, of

course, in the United States itself, including the Ne-vada nuclear test site southwest of the Nellis Air ForceRange, also known as Area 51 shown on old maps. Up to1994, the Pentagon denied the existence of the so-calledDreamland base, although later that year the US AirForce (USAF) nally admitted to its existence. Even now,much of what goes on at “Area 51” is ofcially secret.

LdArea 51 was founded in 1954 as a secret base in which

the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation could develop spy-planes, and other aircraft, for the Central IntelligenceAgency (CIA). Lockheed rst developed, and constructed,the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft there. More than 55, invarious versions, are known to have been built, accordingto Jeffrey Richelson in his The U.S. Intelligence Commu-

nity (p.157).On November 24, 1954, at a meeting with CIA chief

Allen Dulles and other top ofcials, President Eisenhowergave approval for a programme to build 30 special highperformance aircraft at a cost of $35 million. RichardBissell, CIA Director of Plans, was given responsibilityfor the project. On August 8, the following year, the rstplane, designated Utility-2 (or just U-2) made its ofcialight from the secret CIA facility at Groom Lake, Area 51,in Nevada. By 1956 the CIA deployed the rst two U-2sfrom the RAF airbase at Lakenheath (American Espionage and the Soviet Target , Jeffrey Richelson, pp.140-142).

On October 29, 1956 the US Air Force awarded Lock-heed a further contract to develop Weapons System117L, later known as Pied Piper; and in 1958, Dullesand Bissell obtained Eisenhower’s approval to develop afollow-on aircraft to the U-2, the SR-71, also developedby Lockheed. By then Lockheed were well-established inNevada, at Area 51.

UFo d ali fm M?For decades, maps of a vast area beginning about 100

miles north of Las Vegas merely showed nothing more

than barren desert. Yet there are roads, building, bun-kers and a massive runway. And much more besides. There are within Area 51.

Public access to the area is strictly forbidden. Onenotice states: “Photography of this area is prohibited.18 U.S.C. 795.” Another, ominously, says: “WARNING.Restricted Area. It is unlawful to enter this area without

permission of the Instal-lation Commander. See21, Internal SecurityAct of 1950, U.S.C. 795.While on this Installa-tion all personnel andthe property under theircontrol are subject to

search. Use of deadlyforce authorized.” In-deed, trespass-

ers have been arrested, put in leg-irons, strip-searched,heavily ned and even jailed for ignoring the warningsigns.

Not surprisingly, ever since the Area 51 base wasestablished, people reported seeing odd-looking objectsin the sky. Rumours of alien spacecraft, and little greyor green men from Mars, abounded. At rst, such claims

were rubbished. There were no UFOs, they asserted. Nolittle men.

In 1997, however, the CIA admitted that it had liedabout alleged UFOs, particularly during the 1950s and1960s. They weren’t from Mars or outer space but theydid, and do, exist. To some extent, it probably suited the

authorities for observers to imagine they had seen yingsaucers from outer space.

t cIa cm clIn a report, “The CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs,

1947-90”, published on the 3rd August 1997, the Agencyadmitted it had lied to the public about the real natureof UFOs, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s to preservesecrecy during the Cold War.

It admitted the validity of reports of hundreds of sight-ings from the public, aviation experts and pilots. Initially,they were supersonic spy planes such as the U-2 andBlackbird.

Said the report:“More than half of all UFO reports from the late 1950s

through the 1960s were accounted for by manned recon-naissance ights… This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive

statements to the public in order to allay public fears,and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national secu-rity project.”

Commenting on the CIA report, the Guardian (4 August1997) says:

“The planes were built at Area 51, or Dreamland base,in Nevada, whose existence the Pentagon still denies. TheU-2s ew to more than 60,000 ft and the Blackbird to80,000 ft.” The CIA report added that the decision to paint the

aircraft black, as well as with the Stealth bombers was,

not just to camouage them militarily, but to reduce UFOsightings. The report noted that, originally, the U-2s’ silver bodies “reected the rays of the sun,” encouragingthe sightings of “ery objects.” At the time, and for yearsafter, UFO fever became a huge obsession in the UnitedStates, notes the Guardian .

More recently UFOs were reported over Afghanistanand Pakistan. These, in fact, are unmanned drones.Although the CIA, or any other US government agency, isunlikely to admit it, it is more than likely that these pilot-less aircraft, which have caused havoc, and killed andinjured many people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, werealso developed at the Area 51 site.

What a useless and destructive waste of natural re-sources!

Peter e. neWeLL

UFOs

identified

Socialist Standard May 2011

Area 51

May 2011 bdh.indd 18 20/04/2011 10:54




a gll ls lss?

iS THERE a global, “transnatonal” captalst class? Ths s anssue that s dvdng those n what can broadl be called theMarxst tradton (as those who analse captalsm usng thesame categores that Marx dd; so, ver broadl).

One vew s that the world s dvded nto ndependent,terrtorall-based states representng and pursung the nter-ests of captalsts from wthn ther borders, and that the worldeconom s charactersed b competng separate natonalcaptals onl. The other vew s that the captalst sstem hasalwas been a sngle econom, even f dvded poltcall andgeographcall nto separate “naton states”, and that the re-cent globalsaton represents the emergence of a global cap-talst class not ted to a partcular natonal state.

One exponent of the second vew s Wllam i. Robnsonwho argues n an artcle “Beond the theor of mperalsm.Global captalsm and the transnatonal state” n Marxism and

World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism (edted b Alex-ander Anevas and publshed b Routledge ths ear) that:

“We have entered a qualtatvel new transnatonal stage nthe ongong evoluton of world captalsm marked b a number of fundamental shfts n the captalst sstem, among them:

– the rse of trul transnatonal captal and the ntegratonof ever countr nto a new global producton and nancalsstem;

– the appearance of a new transnatonal captalst class(TCC), a class group grounded n new global markets andcrcuts of accumulaton, rather than natonal markets and cr-cuts;

– the rse of transnatonal state (TNS) apparatuses, (…).”Obvousl, natonal states have not dsappeared and are

stll powerful plaers n the captalst econom. Robnsondoes not den ths but argues that the transnatonal captalstclass uses them, through favourable poltcans and govern-ments, to pursue ts transnatonal nterests (rather than thembeng used b a natonal captalst class to pursue ts natonalnterests).

Ever snce the last World War, freer trade has been the pol-c of the domnant captalst countres (n fact t could evenbe sad to have been the man war am of Amerca and Brt-an). But has ths now led to the emergence of a transnatonalcaptalst class? Robnson makes out a good case for ths andt would explan the present stuff of natonal poltcs n that atransnatonal captalst class stll has to act va natonal statesto get them to pursue polces favourng free trade and tran-snatonal nvestment and to set up transnatonal nsttutons,such as the WTO and the iMF, to facltate and regulate ths(whch he sees as an embronc “transnatonal state”).

However, an transnatonal captalst class would onl bea secton of the captalst class of the world. There are stllplent of natonal captalsts, actual and would-be, whose n-terests are not the same as those of the transnatonal sec-ton. So, although poltcal power n the advanced captalstcountres, ma be n the hands of poltcans favourable totransnatonal captalsts, there s stll opposton to them.

The deolog of natonal captalsm, reectng the nterestsof small-scale captalsts, s stll strong and nds support bothfrom the “rght” and the “left” (who beat the same natonalstdrum durng referendums and votes on the EU) as well asfrom consprac theorsts denouncng the “new world order”.Outsde Europe there are states controlled b opponents of the transnatonal captalsts such as Cuba, Venezuela, NorthKorea, iran, Burma and, above all and for the moment, Ch-na.

Leftsts n effect argue that workers should support natonal

as opposed to transnatonal captalsm. Socalsts, on theother hand, don’t take sdes n ths conct between dfferentsectons of the captalst class.

When a mgici offrs you coic of crds, it dos’t mttr

ow you dcid to pick o, you’ll lwys gt t crd ty wt

you to.It’s t sm wit y jokr wo tiks tt cpitlism c b

md to srv us ll. Govrmt is tr to mk sur tt t

uqul rltios of cpitlism r mitid.

not bcus of som cospircy but bcus y prty i pow-

r ds itslf cofrotd by t migt of t popl wo ow our

socity. It ds up rulig i tir itrsts, rtr t t vst

mjority wo work for livig.

Tt’s wy i t cil crisis w’r big md to py wit

lost jobs d wgs.

You’r big skd to coos w wy of lctig tos gov-

rmts tt ttck you. It’s somtig tt mttrs lot to

politicis, bcus it dcids ow my of tm d tir mts

gt t good jobs.Wt mttrs mor is wt w us our vots for. If w vot

for mor rulrs d t owrsip of t world by dful of

popl t it dos’t rlly mttr ow politicis sr t

spoils. But if workrs us t vot to rjct t fls coics

tt r frmd witi t cotxt of owig clss domit-

ig otr clss, w will b furtr o t rod towrds truly

dmocrtic socity.

If w vot to mk t wlt of t world commo proprty

i wic w ll v qul sy, t w c lly v wt

w cll Socilism. W c put d to miority rul, d w c

orgis our ffirs i our ow itrst.

Tt’s wy t rl coic bfor you tis My is’t aV or First

Pst t Post, but coosig to rjct clss bsd socity. T bstcoic you c mk tis My is to joi us i cmpigig for

commo owrsip.

or alternative

society?

Alternative vote

Pick a card,any card...

May 2011 bdh.indd 19 20/04/2011 10:54




Book Review

cii: i f

Business As Usual: The Economic

Crisis And The Failure Of

Capitalism . Pul Mi.ri B: 2011. £12.95

Just yesterday, we were allsupposed tobelieve that theglobalisation of capitalism andfree markets

was the route tofreedom, peaceand prosperityfor all. Then,

with barely anexplanation,

and somewhat out of the blue, the

story changed. Now we are to believethat, due to circumstances beyondanyone’s control, prosperity will haveto give way to austerity. The goodtimes are over.

It is characteristic of crises thatthe stories we are expected to believesuddenly change. But how can weunderstand the change? And mightthere not be better stories than therather grim and gloomy one we’vebeen ordered to swallow? PaulMattick Jnr’s short book is just suchan alternative. For him the crisissignals the complete bankruptcy

and destruction of mainstreameconomics.

Why did the crisis appear asa bolt out of the blue? Why wasit not expected or anticipated byany economist or mainstreamcommentator? In short, becausethere is no place in the standardeconomic story for crisis, any morethan there’s a place for wizards andinterstellar travel in a 19th-centuryrealist novel. The old story goessomething like this:

“Capitalism is a system forproducing wealth to satisfy consumerneeds. Individuals set up in businesslooking out only for their owninterest, but in doing so produce forsociety. Only what can be sold will beproduced; money will be borrowed,land rented and labour hired onlybecause the resulting productionmeets a need. The money earnedby selling one’s product will thenbe spent either on consumption orfurther production. The economytherefore tends naturally to abalanced state, in which allproducts nd buyers. There may

be momentary imbalances betweensupply and demand, but rising andfalling prices soon take care of those.

In this way, capitalism creates the wealth of nations, and all is well inthe best of all possible worlds.”

No doubt the story soundsreasonable – it is, after all, part of ourcultural inheritance, as familiar asNoah and his ark, Jesus and the wisemen, Little Red Riding Hood and hergranny. But there’s no room in this

picture for the kind of crisis we’recurrently living through. The crisisappears as a shock and is regardedas a mystery simply because there’sno framework within which it makessense. We can understand that avery small scale ‘crisis’ will result if a business fails to meet consumerneed: it may go bust, and this willbe a crisis for those relying on thatbusiness for their living. But there’sno reason why this should causemuch of a problem for the systemas a whole – and economists neverexpect it to. Within the framework

outlined above, there is no room forthe sort of crises we actually see inthe real world – society-wide andglobal crises where vast amountsof real wealth and the means of producing it (factories, mines, ofcesand so on) exist side by side withgrinding poverty and unemployment.

This kind of insanity makes nosense in terms of the story. Surely,great masses of wealth would justgo to satisfy consumer demand?And if wealth outstripped consumerdemand, then, well, great! The ageof leisure and abundance, longpromised by capitalism, would nallybe upon us, and we could collectivelylay back and enjoy it.

Unable to nd a satisfyingexplanation from within the story,the storytellers are obliged tosmuggle in some bogeymen fromthe wings. The balance we expectfrom the story is then upset byone of various villains, which onedepending on the predilections of the storyteller: state interference orlargesse, insufcient (or too much)regulation, greed, and so on. Quite

why these things sometimes causea crisis and sometimes not whenthey’re always lurking in the wings isleft unexplained.

However, there are some thinkers,Mattick among them, who were notat all surprised by the crisis. This isnot, as Mattick says at the start of his book, because they are clevererthan the mainstream storytellers. Norhave they access to more or betterinformation – in fact, for the mostpart, rather the opposite. Instead itis a matter “of knowing how to thinkabout what is going on”. Or, in the

terms we’ve introduced in this article,of having access to better stories

– stories that capture what’s actually

going on in the real world. Here’sMattick’s story:

“Capitalism is not primarily asystem for producing wealth to meetconsumer demand, but for makingmoney. This is what business isall about: using money to makemore money. The capitalist (or,increasingly, a capitalist institution

subsidised and backed by the state)starts off with a sum of money,

which he throws into circulation inthe expectation that it will return tohim as a greater sum than he started

with. To this end, the capitalist buysmeans of production and labourpower on the market, then putsthese to work to produce goods,

which he then takes to market in theexpectation not just of sales, but of prots. If he is successful in his aim,and if he is to remain a capitalistand keep up with the competition,he must reinvest at least a portion

of that prot in yet more production,buying yet more labour power andmeans of production, to produce yetmore wealth and, potentially, moneyprots. And then the cycle beginsagain, on an ever-expanding scale.” The motive here is not the

satisfaction of consumer need – arelatively straightforward matter – but the production and appropriationof prots on an ever-expandingscale – a much more tricky thingto achieve. And as the productionof social wealth increasingly takeson this capitalist character, theproduction of the things we needincreasingly relies not on our needfor them, nor on our ability toproduce them, but on the ability of capitalists to make prots from the

whole process. When they cannotmake or do not expect to make aprot from production, or when theyproduce too much to sell protably,they will not invest in production, butin speculation, or will not invest atall, and hoard money. This can affectnot just their own line of business,but the whole system of wealth

production. Crisis, in this view, isnot caused by any bogeyman in the wings, but is a necessary result of the process itself.

Once we’ve understood this story,our expectations are turned on theirhead. We are no longer shockedby capitalism’s periodic crises, butexpect them. The question then is,do we really need to forever makeour lives hostage to capitalist prot;or might we be able to do things in adifferent way? In the mainstream, thedebate over how to resolve the crisisis between two alternatives. The rst

is to just let things collapse so theeconomy undergoes the necessarycorrection, restoring protability and

May 2011 bdh.indd 20 20/04/2011 10:54




eventually returning the system tobusiness as usual. The second is thatthe central banks should continueto print money and the state bail-out bankrupt banks and countriesand so on, so that ‘business asusual’ is not disrupted by potentiallycatastrophic upheavals (as was thecase in the Great Depression of

the 1930s). The debate is betweenthe needs of business, on the onehand, and the need to preservesocial cohesion (for the needs of business) on the other. Businessmenand policy-makers are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.But what are usually thought of as‘socialist’ alternatives are unlikelyto work either – history has shownthat reformist social democracyand ‘communist’ central planninghave been no better at controllingcapitalism’s crises than anythingelse. It’s no good, says Mattick,

demanding jobs from a system that would happily give us the jobs if itcould.

If there’s hope, it’s in the belief thathuman beings will eventually tire of

walking into brick walls and begin tolook for a door. If you have a concernthat produces socially necessarygoods or services, on the one hand,and poor and unemployed peopleon the other, and there is no way of putting the two together in a way thatproduces prots for owners, thenthat’s what capitalism calls a crisis.

The solution – bringing workers, theunemployed, the poor and the meansof producing wealth together, not inorder to make prots, but to provide

for need – is called socialism.We’ve left the name of this

alternative story till the end becauseit is liable to scare unwary readers.

That’s because, in the standardstory, it’s portrayed as one of thosebogeymen waiting in the wings.

The name is Marxian socialism.Mattick’s is the second major book

from a Marxist thinker to appearsince the onset of the crisis (therst was David Harvey’s Enigma Of Capital , favourably reviewed inthe June 2010 Socialist Standard ).And we highly recommend it – it’sa brilliantly comprehensive and

yet miraculously short history andanalysis of capitalist crisis. TheMarxists associated with this journal

will have their differences with thedetails of Mattick’s account. Inparticular, we would say he puts toomuch emphasis on Marx’s law of thetendency of the rate of prot to fall,

and throws the baby out with thebathwater when he rightly rejects theold left but places his faith seeminglymore in the spontaneous appearanceof mutual aid and communistformations than in working-classpolitical organisation. But what’smore important than the minordisagreements is the framework thatMarxism provides for understanding

what’s going on in the real world,and for that, Mattick’s book is anessential guide.stUart WatkIns

th SfGzs

THE TERM ‘realt televson’ hasbecome even more of an oxmoronwth the latest mutaton of the genre.The Onl Wa is Essex (iTV2) lets us

n to the lves of a bronzed breed of Essex

geezers and grls. For these walkng harstles, lfe s justa permanent loop of nghtclubs, boobjobs, salons and bo/grlfrend dfcultes. Somehow the manage

to spend more tme talkng about relatonshpsthan actuall havng them.

Whether or not the vewers can relate toths lfestle s besde the pont. Where the

programme detaches from realt s n tsstaged set-ups. What the group of frends dos drected b the puppeteers at iTV2, whowere no doubt cacklng manacall throughout.it’s not clear how much of the show s fake,

though. The producers sa that most of t sreal, despte everthng appearng structured,

lmed and edted lke a cheap soap opera.So, the partcpants perform as themselves n

scenaros whch have been guded to some extent. Usuall,ths pans out as somethng lke ‘hunk x chucks blonde then

rts wth blonde ’s frend, brunette z’.The Onl Wa is Essex’s bzarre mx of fact and cton s

less dsorentatng f ou thnk of t as mprovsatonal theatre.The dfference, of course, s that ths show s lved for real.Who would have such a ms grasp on ther lves to hand

them over to a lm crew? Presumabl, the partcpants enjothe exposure, even f t means beng portraed wth less

depth than a puddle. For people so self-obsessed, the don’tseem to care how much the’re beng manpulated.

Prevous realt TV showshave had the dscreton to be setn ther own lttle world, such asa mn-recreaton of the past or

Bg Brother’s bunker. But TheOnl Wa is Essex has beenlet loose n suburba. So t’smore lke The Truman Show,

but where everone’s n on t.Or mabe the nal epsodewll reveal that t’s all beenan extended remake of The

Stepford Wves?Mk Fs

The Socialist Partyof Great Britain

enamelled badge

Please send cheque or postal order (no

cash) for £10.00 paable to SPGB SW

Regonal Branch, c/o Veronca Clanch,

FAO: South West Regonal Branch, 42

Wnfred Road, Poole, Dorset. BH15

3PU. An queres, please phone 01202

569826. Please nclude own phone

number or other contact detals.

Essex girls‘in action’

May 2011 bdh.indd 21 20/04/2011 10:54




This declaration is the basis of our organisation and, becauseit is also an important historical document dating from theformation of the party in 1904,

its original language has beenretained.

ojth slshm f sysmf sy s hmm wsh m l f hms sms f g sgwlh y h s f h whl mmy.

dl f plsThe Socalst Part of GreatBrtan holds

1.That socet as at present

consttuted s based upon theownershp of the means of lvng(.e., land, factores, ralwas, etc.)

b the captalst or master class,and the consequent enslavementof the workng class, b whoselabour alone wealth s produced.

2.That n socet, therefore, theres an antagonsm of nterests,manfestng tself as a classstruggle between those whopossess but do not produce andthose who produce but do notpossess.

3.That ths antagonsm canbe abolshed onl b theemancpaton of the workng classfrom the domnaton of the master class, b the converson nto thecommon propert of socet of the means of producton anddstrbuton, and ther democratccontrol b the whole people.

4.That as n the order of socalevoluton the workng class s thelast class to acheve ts freedom,

the emancpaton of the workngclass wl nvolve the emancpatonof all manknd, wthout dstnctonof race or sex.

5. That ths emancpaton mustbe the work of the workng classtself.

6.That as the machner of government, ncludng the armedforces of the naton, exsts onlto conserve the monopol b thecaptalst class of the wealth takenfrom the workers, the workngclass must organze conscousland poltcall for the conquestof the powers of government,natonal and local, n order thatths machner, ncludng theseforces, ma be converted from annstrument of oppresson nto theagent of emancpaton and the

overthrow of prvlege, arstocratcand plutocratc.

7.That as all poltcal partesare but the expresson of classnterests, and as the nterest of the workng class s dametrcallopposed to the nterests of all

sectons of the master class,the part seekng workng classemancpaton must be hostle toever other part.

8.The Socalst Part of GreatBrtan, therefore, enters the eldof poltcal acton determnedto wage war aganst all other poltcal partes, whether allegedlabour or avowedl captalst,and calls upon the members of the workng class of ths countrto muster under ts banner to theend that a speed termnatonma be wrought to the sstemwhch deprves them of the frutsof ther labour, and that povert

ma gve place to comfort,prvlege to equalt, and slaverto freedom.

Declaration of Principles

p cscv : Ann Wddecombe - Manchester2k6 PublcDoman. Model - Gu K.T.Heah © 2008 CreatveCommons Attrbuton 2.0 Generc. Area 51 - SmonJohansson 2006 Publc Doman.4: Venus Project - Zetgest.org4: Tevatron, Fermlab, Redar Hahn, Publc Doman5: Laptop PC – Marus 2007 Publc Doman6: Mnng n Mongola, Brücke-Osteuropa, 2009,Publc Doman11: Hat - UN Photo/Logan Abass © 201012: Pll bottle, Chlaborewan, 2010, CreatveCommons Attrbuton-Share Alke 3.0 Unported lcense.13: Snake ol n Marrakesh, Davd Loong, 2006,Creatve Commons Attrbuton-Share Alke 2.0 Generclcense. Creatve Commons Attrbuton 2.0 Generc.Japan tsunam – US Federal Government Publc

Doman.15: Barber - Robert Lawton © 2006 CreatveCommons Attrbuton-Share Alke 2.5 Generc.16: Phl Ochs, Phl-Ochs.com18: Area 51 sgn - X51 © 2003 GNU FreeDocumentaton Lcense, Verson 1.2.20: Business book - www.word-power.co.uk.21: Essex grl - Pgott 2006 Publc Doman.23: Racng car - sltz © 2010 Creatve CommonsAttrbuton 2.0 Generc. Ton Benn - www.sxtesct.com24: Spderman - 1962, Amazng Fantas

For full detals of all our meetngs and

events see our M ste:http://www.meetup.com/The-Socalst-

Part-of-Great-Brtan/

es aglSaturda 28 My, 2 to 5pm

THE MiDDLE EAST: LESSONS FROM

THE POWDER KEG.

Speaker: Gwnn Thomas.

Quebec Tavern, 93-97 Quebec Road

Norwch NR1 4Hy.

(The meetng takes place n a sde room

separate to the bar.)

Meetings

Mhs Monda 23 My 8.30pm

THE RiSE OF CHiNESE CAPiTALiSM.

Uncorn, Church Street, Ct Centre.

with one more advantageous to theirnational interests. Which would have

justied continued opposition to the war.

The full extent of Nazi persecutiondid not become clear until the

war was well under way and theinformation was not available to the

general public at the time. In anycase, there is an ongoing debate asto whether the mass murder of the

Jews of Europe had been intendedall along or whether it was in agreat part brought on by wartimecircumstances and was a by-productof war rather than a settled war aim.

The question is not as clear cut asis often believed. In any case Nazirace hate in Europe does not explainthe outbreak of war in the Pacic in1941.

What is clear then is that World

War Two was not fought to save Jews from the massacre as this didnot get fully under way until sometime in 1942. Even when it was clearthat something unprecedented washappening to Jews, the Allies failedto mount any signicant rescueoperations when these becamepossible. Their political and militarycalculation was that not to help the

Jews was to help defeat Hitler; killingthe Jews meant Germany divertingtroops and resources from the frontline, thus contributing to an Alliedvictory. According to Paul Johnson

in his 1988 A History of the Jews, “...the Holocaust was one of thefactors which were losing Hitler the

war. The British and American ledgovernments knew this.” – Editors.

L iud

egh Glsgwdy ShlSaturda 14 My 1pm to 5pm

‘A SOCiETy iN CRiSiS’

The Mddle East Powder Keg: Speaker

Gwnn Thomas (South London)The Rse of Chnese Captalsm: Speaker

Paul Bennett (Manchester)

Has Captalsm a Future? Speaker John

Cummng (Glasgow)

Admsson free, wth lght refreshments

served.

Communt Central Halls, 304 Marhll

Road, Glasgow G20 7yE.

SlsySaturda 14 My 2pm

South West Regonal Branch meetng.

SOCiALiSM: WORLD OF ABUNDANCE

Speaker: Adam BuckRalwa Tavern,135 S Western Road,

Salsbur SP2 7RR.

bmghmSunda 29 My 3pm

West Mdlands regonal Branch meetng

The Brar Rose, 25 Bennetts Hll,

Brmngham B2 5RE

May 2011 bdh.indd 22 20/04/2011 10:54




Kcked upstrs

MR. ANTHONy Wedg-wood Benn has fought afurous ght aganst hstransfer to the House of Lords. Despte hs strug-gles, the government

showed that the weredetermned to have hmkcked upstars.

Some lobb corre-spondents whspered thatMr. Macmllan personallgave the thumbs-down toMr. Benn’s efforts to re-

nounce hs peerage. The P.M., sad the ru-mour, s at odds wth Lord Halsham, anddoesn’t want to set a prece-dent whch mght brng him back to the commons.

Mr. Benn’s predcaments not free of ron. The

Labour Part, of course,once stood for the ab-olton of the House

of Lords. And Mr. Benn’s consttuencused to elect Sr Stafford Crpps, who wasat one tme an ardent opponent of roalt,ttles and the rest.

B the tme Labour acheved power n1945, the had dropped ther old pledge

about the Lords. Now, n fact, the do ther bt towards helpng the Upper House alveb supplng ther share of lfe peerages.

it s Mr. Benn’s bad luck tohave been born the son of a peer. Hs membershpof the Labour Part sa dfferent matter. Hema not be able to re-

sgn hs ttle: but he canalwas leave the

part whch hassupported the ss-tem of pomp andprvlege.

(“News nRevew”, Socialist

Standard , Ma

For mor dtils bout T Socilist Prty, or to rqust fr 3-mot subscriptio

to t Socialist Standard pls complt d rtur tis form to 52 Clph High

Street, London SW4 7UN

Pls sd m ifo pck

Pls sd m fr 3-mot subscriptio to t Socialist Standard, jourl of

T Socilist Prty.

nm..................................................................................................................

ass..............................................................................................................

.............................................................................................................................

.............................................................................................................................

.............................................................................................................................

ps............................................................................................................

CircuitTraining

AH, FOR the old days of motor rac-ing, the days of Stirling Moss and co,

when the driver’s skill was what re-ally counted and overtaking was cen-tral. Drivers still need to be skilledand t and have quick reactions,but their central role is sidelinedin favour of large organisation and

behind-the-scenes work. As overtak-ing has become harder and technol-ogy has taken over, spectator interesthas declined. At the Barcelona track,the last ten grand prix winners havestarted in pole position on the gridand stayed there, so it’s become par-ticularly boring.

With Formula One races becomingessentially processions, some weirdideas to retain public interest haveemerged, such as random wateringof the track to make things moreexciting. Tyres are being developedthat will degrade more quickly, thus

potentially leading to more unpredict-able racing and an increase in thenumber of pit stops. This season thecars have a movable ap in their rear

wing, which the driver can use inspecic circumstances, again to givemore opportunity for overtaking (butthere are worries that it may makeovertaking too easy and so underval-ued).

From the late 1990s, private teamssuch as Ligier and Jordan ceasedto operate in F1 as the emphasisswitched to the big car manufactur-ers such as Ferrari and Renault.

The telecom capitalist, Carlos Slim(the world’s richest man, accord-ing to some) is now backing one of the newer drivers. This is appropri-ate since, of course, it’s money thatguides the F1 world. Melbourne haslost £147m over fourteen years of staging the Australian Grand Prix,but the track in Shanghai was builtat a cost of £280m, in the hope of attracting big crowds and TV money.And for some, F1 really is a cash cow:Bernie Ecclestone, the boss of the

whole business, is the twenty-fourth

richest person in the UK, with a tidybank balance of nearly £1.5billion.PB

May 2011 bdh.indd 23 20/04/2011 10:54



th clss dvin a recent ssue of the Guardian newspaper there was an nsertedleaet from the chart WaterAid . it wasappealng for £52 mllon n a campagn

to change the lves of 884 mllon peoplewho stll lack clean water and the 2.6bllon who have nowhere safe to goto the tolet. Accordng to the leaet“it’s a fact that around 4,000 chldrende ever da fromdarrhoea becausethe lack clean water and santaton.” if £52 mllon seemslke a lot of mone tshould be noted nthat same newspaper there was an artclethat reported the sale

of super luxurousats n London. “Thepropert tcoonsbehnd London’s mostlavsh resdentaldevelopment are£62 mllon better off after fresh detalsemerged of sales atOne Hde Park. TheCand brothers, Nckand Chrstan, and ther backers havepocketed the sum after sellng one sxthoor propert for £22m, and one on thesecond oor for £21.6m .... A penthouseat n the development s understoodto have been sold for £135m, but LandRegstr documents have et to be led”(Guardian, 16 March). WaterAid’s appealfor £52 mllon seems modest comparedwth these sums, but that s howcaptalsm works. The poor de oungand the rch lve n luxur based on themser of the poor. 4,000 kds are dngever da, are ou gong to do anthngabout t?

cm bk clsmCaptalsm s an nsane socet that

values thngs much more than humanbengs. The followng news tem shouldbe read wth the knowledge that mllons

of people are trng to exst on theequvalent of $1.25 a da. “A comccollector has been caught n Spder-Man’s web, pang $1.1 mllon for anear-mnt cop of “Amazing Fantasy”

No. 15 that features the wall-crawler’sdebut. The ssue, rst publshed n 1962,was sold Monda b a prvate seller to a prvate buer, ComcConnect.comchef executve Stephen Fshler told The

Assocated Press on Tuesda.it’s not the hghest prce ever pad for a comc book, anhonor that goes to “Action

Comics” No. 1 wth Supermanon the cover, whch went for $1.5 mllon” (Yahoo News,9 March). Mllons of dollarsspent on nonsense whle realhuman bengs de of hunger. it

s not funn, t s not comc. it sdsgraceful.

ah dy, ah dss Newspapers are quck tocover a stor lke the mnersrescued from the cave-n nChle, but mnng dsasters areso common that the hardlregster n the meda compared

to mportant events lke a Roal weddng.So t should come as no surprse to learnof the followng event onl beng coveredb a few lnes n the natonal press. “Atleast sx workers were klled and 46trapped b a methane explosonn a coal mne n southwesternPakstan. An ofcal sad thatthe mne was declareddangerous two weeks ago,but the warnng was gnored”(Times, 21 March). The realtnsde a captalst socet s thatcoal and the prots that can accruefrom t s much more mportant thathuman lves.

rh a p i th uSa

in a recent newspaper debate aboutthe growng nequaltes of wealthn the USA enttled “Rsng Wealth

inequalt: Should We Care? Wh doAmercans seem unperturbed about thegrowng gap between the rch and thepoor?”, Mchael i Norton, an assocateprofessor at the Harvard Busness

School, who s currentl co-wrtng abook on mone and happness, madesome nterestng observatons: “in arecent surve of Amercans, m colleagueDan Arel and i found that Amercansdrastcall underestmated the level of wealth nequalt n the Unted States.Whle recent data ndcates that therchest 20 percent of Amercans own 84percent of all wealth, people estmatedthat ths group owned just 59 percentbelevng that total wealth n ths countrs far more evenl dvded among poorer Amercans” (New York Times, 22 March).it ma have escaped the professors’

notce, but all the meda s owned b therch and t s n ther nterest to spread thefalse noton that captalsm s a far andequtable socet.

ths Lzy Wks ag“Almost ever NHS nurse works morethan ther contracted hours and onen ve does so ever shft, a new pollshows. Some 95% of nurses sa thework longer hours than the are pad for,accordng to iCM research for the RoalCollege of Nursng. ..Man nurses sathe have to skp meals and rarel or never get the breaks at work to whchthe are enttled...” (Observer , 10 Aprl).

Fmly Vls“Brtsh famles are facng the bggest

peacetme squeeze on ther nancessnce 1921, accordng to a leadngeconomc consultanc. Soarngnaton and weak earnng growth

wll leave the average faml£910 worse off than twoears ago, accordng toanalss b the Centre for

Economcs and BusnessResearch (CEBR)”

(Sunday Times, 10Aprl).

Documents

Socialist Standard May 2011