Liberty and Individual Sovereignty

John Stuart Mill prefaces his essay, On Liberty with an introduction on the nature of liberty. As he puts it, his inquiry is about "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual" (1929, p.1). For Mill this has been a live feature of human history more or less since day one. Authority has always sought to subordinate the individual to its will, and the individual has struggled to preserve liberty as protection against authority's capricious tyranny.

This has traditionally been done in two ways. First, liberty has meant imposing certain obligations on rulers in the shape of rights and immunities granted to their subjects. Therefore it would be a break with this obligation if the sovereign infringed them. Secondly there has been the crystallisation of these checks into a series of constitutional limits placed on the sovereign's power, which in turn are overseen by a body independent of it. As far as Mill was concerned, the Europe of his day had realised liberty in the first sense but constitutional guarantees were still an objective of liberal campaigners.

There had been other significant gains for liberty too. The advancing tide of democracy had seen a dispersal of sovereignty. Despite autocracy being alive and well in 1859, the days of the ruler standing over and apart from the people were numbered. Liberal democracy was making a serious claim to be the preferred form of bourgeois governance. Sovereignty now lay in the state itself and was exercised by representatives revocable via elections. Under these circumstances it could be argued the concern with liberty no longer applies. The new rulers were drawn from the ranks of the people and won elections on the basis of who best reflects the national will. If the state now reflects the aspirations of the electorate, doesn't the concern with tyranny and liberty become superfluous?

No.

It was now perceived that such phrases as "self-government" and "the power of the people over themselves" do not express the true state of the case. The "people" who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; the "self-government" spoken of is not the government of each by himself but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority: the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number, and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community - that is, to the strongest party therein. (1929, pp.4-5)

If anything the tyrannical potential of the majority is greater than that exercised by the autocrats of the past. There are fewer means of escape when society "decides" to do something, because these decisions can extend beyond the political and encompass general conduct. As Mill puts it "there is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensible to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism"(p.6).

This for Mill is the fundamental principle. But the difficulty lies in establishing the limits. History has bequethed a large body of customs, rules and laws that have arisen through millenia of mundane practices. But also conduct can be derived from a society's attachment or aversion to its rulers and its Gods, in other words the extent to which its morality is rooted in servility. For Mill norms and laws articulate society's likes and dislikes (or fears).

Mill argued that the English politics of his day were, among other things, characterised by a general regard for the protection of private conduct and a popular view of an opposition between the government's and public's interest (an opposition still with us, if recent press coverage is anything to go by). Where the government exercises its powers, invariably there will be an invasion of the sphere set aside for private conduct, and if this is impingeing on areas not to have felt government interference before opposition is more or less a given. But again there are no general principles guiding either government action or public reaction - some would welcome administrative action because it is designed to salve a particular social ill. Others would argue the persistence of that same ill is a price worth paying vis a vis the greater danger of a government expanding its scope. How this opposition is played out is purely conjunctural.

On Liberty aims to remedy this:

The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. The principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection (p.11).

For Mill this is the only principled basis for interference. Apologies that fall short of this such as, for example, "we interfered for their own good" provide no justification. This might offer grounds for arguing and remonstrating with an individual about their conduct, but it falls short of compulsion. The forcible "protection" from harm is in fact forcing harm upon another. In short, if an individual is neither a child or has some sort of impairment, then leave alone.

But On Liberty's idea of the sovereign individual is not a manifesto for the war of all against all. There is such a thing as society. Liberty and society are in tension, but society can find ways of compelling its members without injuring their liberty. For Mill society can reasonably expect individuals to participate in court proceedings and other projects of benefit to society as a whole. Its members are obliged to prevent various ills, such as save a life or defend someone from attack. The rights liberty confers on individuals is balanced by a set of responsibilities. But these are the limits of society's interests. The "portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or, if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary and undeceived consent and participation" (p.14) is off-limits. This is the region of liberty over which society has no rights. Here, liberty, if it means anything, is the liberty of conscience, thought and opinion; the liberty of pursuing one's tastes and pursuits free from interefence; and the freedom to combine with others provided such combinations are voluntary and do not desire to cause others harm. If a society does not guarantee these liberties, regardless of the rhetoric it employs, it cannot be free.

Mill's statement on liberty has the virtue of being simple and clear, but for all that it is problematic from a socialist standpoint. For example the treatment of society here is nebulous and is a million miles from what Victorian capitalism was like, with its stratification, patriarchy, class conflict and competing class fractions. Of course all philosophical statements deal with abstract notions of what society is, but one should always be watchful when abstractions conceal more than they reveal. To be fair Mill's Introductory does nod toward the influence of class on morality - he acknowledges the tendency for it to reflect the ascendent class and how the popularity of a moral code is likely to fall if a pre-eminent class is in decline, but that is as far as it goes here. But a full Marxist critique is beyond the scope of this post and will be returned to down the line.

Somewhat surprisingly given the piece's tone, Mill is able to justify significant infringements of liberty in the name of progress. Despite describing history as a conflict between liberty and authority, strangely, liberty only becomes operative at a certain stage of development, when humanity is able to advance through what Mill calls "free and equitable discussion". Liberty therefore does not apply in "backwards states of society". To demonstrate:

The early difficulties in the way of spontaneous progress are so great that there is seldom any choice of means for overcoming them; and a ruler full of the spirit if improvement is warranted in the use of any expedients that will attain an end perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end (p.12).

How many times have similar sentiments been voiced by Stalin apologists? It's no qualitative leap to justify imperialism, be it of the colonial or "humanitarian" kind, in these terms either.

Nevertheless Mill was a man of his times and the case could be made to excuse his arguments on that basis. After all, Marx and Engels were known to use racial epithets and, in some circumstances, justify colonialism from the standpoint of the development of the productive forces - that didn't necessarily invalidate their work. And so it is true here. Mill's refusal to extend liberty to everyone does not mean he had nothing of value to say about liberty per se. And it is this liberty per se as it applies to thought and discussion that will be dealt with in the next post in this series.

Edit: A complete list of posts on On Liberty can be found here.

Policing the Police

When was the last time the police received so much negative media attention? To compound the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests, the last 72 hours has see the so-called 'pre-emptive' arrest of 114 people who were planning an action at Ratcliffe power station near Nottingham, and footage of a police attack on an unarmed protestor has emerged - also from the G20 protests. The officers involved have now been suspended. In the mean time the Independent Police Complaints Commission has been forced to acknowledge the events surrounding Iain Tomlinson's death have in fact been captured by CCTV. In one of the most heavily surveilled corners of London, to claim otherwise - as they originally did - was an incredulous step too far. Therefore news of a review into 'public order' policing is to be welcomed

This spotlight on police behaviour is welcome. Under the Conservatives and New Labour the police have been deployed as a political tool, from aggressively and ruthlessly prosecuting class struggle from above to intimidating and criminalising dissent. The police themselves have enjoyed ever greater arms-length management and are actively lobbying for more power, and mainstream politicians are only too happy to indulge them.

There is one thing lacking in the mounting print and blog commentary on the left: what is to be done about the police?

Marxists have no illusions in the police. They are the first line of the repressive arm of the state. This state is, to paraphrase Marx, a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie. One of these 'common affairs' is the problem of managing the working class and ensuring it is never in a position to threaten private property in the means of production - the wellspring of bourgeois power in all capitalist societies. For Marxists the police represent a serious obstacle to realising socialism. This is why, traditionally, many a revolutionary programme has argued for disbanding the police and its replacement by militias formed from the conscious workers themselves - to defend and strengthen working class power. The obvious difficulty is outside a revolutionary situation, calling for the abolition of the police invites derision and dismissal. The far left in Britain has either tended to argue this position regardless, compounding their isolation from the bulk of the politically interested population (take your pick from among the colourful array of ultra-lefts), or have maintained a strategic silence, as this otherwise okay piece in Socialist Worker illustrates.

This has tended to leave the far left with very little to say about crime and everyday policing. It may be good on the diagnosis of crime but is decidedly poor in what can be done about it, creating the impression the left is soft on criminality and completely unserious about it. Obviously, this is not good enough - it leaves us disarmed in front of those communities where crime and anti-social behaviour is endemic. And from an 'orthodox' point of view of progressing the class struggle, there is no development of a strategy to neutralise the police as the first line of the capitalist state. It's an issue left hanging in the air, presumably to be sorted out at some point down the line.

Among the revolutionary left the Socialist Party stands unique for developing a set of transitional demands on law and order issues. It recognises working class communities bear the brunt of crime and argues for a variety of strategies to tackle it - more resources is one part, but the other is about empowering those communities through the democratic control of policing. At the moment accountability is haphazard and indirect. Localised policing is overseen by local authority police committees on which sit elected councillors, police liason officers do the rounds at community centres, plus the IPCC quango deals with complaints. Democratic accountability exists partially through the police committees only, and even then they have no rights over policy or personnel. For example, last year Staffordshire Police were very pleased with themselves for clamping down on cannabis factories and raiding businesses for illegal workers - but these are not the crime and policing issues that exercise the press or Potteries people at large.

In the USA, with some variation, there is limited democratic input into policing - for example Sheriffs can be elected. And also looking back into Britain's past there once existed watch committees comprised of notables, but were largely done away with as mass suffrage came into being. Today so-called community policing and neighbourhood watch schemes place greater public expectations and diffuse "demands" on the police from below - but none of these are up to the accountability job. A tier of locally and regionally-based committees made up of lay community representatives in conjunction with a beefed up and democratised police watchdog with powers of scrutiny, policy direction, suspension and dismissal is what the situation demands to rein the police in. In addition the Police Federation (the SPF in Scotland) should be accorded the status of an independent trade union with the full rights enjoyed by other unions. The anti-democratic Association of Chief Police Officers should be abolished.

Reforms of these character are not a magic bullet that would clean crime up over night. Looking at what can be done to regenerate crime "black spots" from the ground up as well as pursuing more intelligent policies on drugs have to be part of any socialist crime and policing strategy. But reforming the police would certainly do more to create the kind of responsive policing the public expect.

Democratising the police would also blunt their role as the gendarme of the ruling class - as with all democratic demands placed on the state it weakens their class power and makes it more difficult for them to use it to defend their interests. It can also act as a response to policing ideology on two levels. It challenges the police on their hegemonic strengths - they portray themselves as the thin blue line between "decent people" and the deviant underworld. These reforms are designed to make sure the police stick to their 'official' role. And secondly, as difficult as some might find this to swallow, a lot of police join up because they subscribe to this ideology - there could exist a base of support from within the police themselves to make the reforms work.

Ultra-leftists are bound to spit blood at these sorts of measures. Some in fact take the SP's position on democratising policing as evidence of its "reformism", because it refuses to parrot the orthodox position. That's fine - they can indulge their love for the sacred texts as much as they like. It's up to them if they want to treat politics as preparation for a re-enactment of 1917, the Spanish Civil War or the French 'May Events'. However, as far as I'm concerned the SP's basic thinking is about making socialism relevant to the situation as it stands and not how we would like it to be, and the call to democratise the police reflects that.

The Politics of the Italian Earthquake

While there has been an outpouring of media coverage in this country about last week's earthquake in central Italy, comparatively little has been written on the disaster's political fall out. Silvio Berlusconi was quick to declare a state of emergency but in recent days has reverted to clownish type, declaring survivors should treat their emergency accomodation as if it were a "camping trip", and joking with a doctor that he "wouldn't mind being resuscitated" by her. But this earthquake has done more than highlight Berlusconi's insensitivity to the suffering of others, it has exposed Italian capitalism's inability to properly prepare for disaster. Christine Thomas of the CWI's Italian section, Lotta has translated this piece from Marco Verrugio, a comrade with the Controcorrente platform of Rifondazione Comunista:

The tsunami which razed the coast to the ground like a bulldozer offered building contractors an opportunity they could never have dreamed of, and they moved quickly to grasp it. (Seth Mydans, Times Southeast Asia correspondent)

We have finally managed to clean up public housing in New Orleans. We didn't know how to do it but God did it for us. (Jim Baker, Republican congressman)

These quotes from Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine show clearly what the capitalists think of natural disasters. While all of the politicians in Italy are talking about 'national unity' and avoiding controversy (including Paolo Ferrero, general secretary of Rifondazione Comunista), it would be useful to reflect on what has happened in order to avoid the Abruzzo tragedy becoming once again a tragedy in two acts: the earthquake and the reconstruction.

Today the mood of people hit by the earthquake is despondent, in some cases distrustful of institutions (there are small towns which were only reached three days after the earthquake) and, above all, worried about their future because in Italy there are earthquake victims who are still living in prefabricated wooden houses 20 years on. But this mood could soon turn to one of anger.

Could it Have Been Foreseen?
Immediately after the tragedy a controversy broke out in the press about whether the earthquake could have been predicted. For months, Abruzzo had experienced a series of tremors which led to the mayor of L’Aquila ordering all schools to be closed in the week before that fateful day. But in particular, there was discussion about the fact that a week previously, Giampaolo Giuliani, a technician and researcher at the Laboratori dell’Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare at Gran Sasso, had predicted the catastrophe. He had subsequently been accused of being alarmist and was called “an imbecile who enjoyed spreading false news” by Bertolaso, the head of Civil Protection.

The international scientific community intervened in support of Bertolaso, testifying that it is not possible to accurately predict earthquakes. While I do not feel qualified enough to get into a controversial scientific discussion of this kind, I would like to reflect politically on what a capitalist government in a country like Italy would do if prediction were possible.

L’Aquila has a population of 73,000. Obviously it would not be possible in every case to determine a priori how far the earthquake would spread, so the government would have to clear a much wider area, evacuating hundreds of thousands of people. If, for example, the cost per head of doing so was a minimum of €50 a day, to evacuate 300,000 people, it would mean spending around €15 million a day, probably for several days, because it would be difficult to predict exactly when the earthquake would begin. In addition it would be necessary to have a structure in place capable of carrying out an operation of this size 365 days a year, which would obviously be quite costly.

It would mean increasing public spending instead of cutting it as all governments have done in the last 20 years. We only have to consider the fact that the provision of hospital beds is based on ‘average occupancy’ so as to avoid empty beds, which means that with an ‘extraordinary’ event such as a ‘flu epidemic, heat wave or natural disaster the hospitals are bursting at the seams. (Recently, at the accident and emergency department of the San Martino hospital in Genoa, some patients had to wait to be seen stretched out on the floor of the hospital and similar incidents happen regularly). What is more, the government has recently drastically cut funds for safety, including for earthquakes.

All of that would be necessary without of course being sure that the earthquake tremors would be strong enough to 'justify' such expenditure, and risk being accused of alarmism and wasting public resources. On the other hand, intervening after the event reduces expenditure because only the damage is covered. Or rather, only part of the damage, because in reality finances compensate only some of the damage suffered by ordinary people, the rest goes to the companies which will be involved in the business of reconstruction. In this way, earthquakes and any natural disasters become yet another opportunity to redistribute wealth from below to above. Workers and ordinary people lose out while the banks and building companies in particular win.

So, can earthquakes be predicted? Or rather, if the government had had wind of the danger, would it have had the will or the capability of intervening to prevent it? In reality, from the capitalist point of view, it is not worth having a huge safety apparatus and applying all the safety norms to protect the population. It is more economical and, in some respects, more profitable to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. The same cynicism which oozes from the quotations cited earlier on can be applied to Abruzzo as much as to South East Asia and New Orleans.

The Building Business
In a period in which the building sector is collapsing, an earthquake is one of those classic 'strokes of luck' which can 'relaunch the economy'. In Abruzzo some buildings collapsed while others just a few metres away remained intact. One building company had built 60 buildings in L’Aquila, none of which collapsed. Media interest concentrated on the San Salvatore hospital, a building which was completed in the year 2000 and was almost destroyed in the earthquake. Work on the hospital began in the ‘70s and, over the years, the cost of building it increased tenfold. Impregilo, a company owned by Benetton-Gavio-Ligresti, which is already involved in numerous scandals and had won the tender to build the bridge over the Messina Straits, worked on the hospital from 1991 to 2000. But it maintains that it merely “made it functional” and does not know who was responsible for the hospital’s walls.

Reconnaissance carried out at the ‘crime scene’ (because what happened was a crime) show that many buildings were not only built without complying to anti-earthquake norms, but without respecting the most elementary building rules - using out of date materials, building on unsuitable land and skimping on strengthening the cement. In particular, cement companies, which are usually subcontracted, use out of date material to mix the cement. Using sea sand instead of quarry sand can mean a doubling of profit margins from 30% to 50-60%. But because sea sand is full of salt, after a few years the metal of the reinforced concrete is corroded and becomes useless. If the percentage of sand is increased, compared to the cement and gravel, the costs decline further. Journalists wrote about blocks of concrete amongst the debris which had crumbled like sand. These kinds of irregularities have also been found in the new high-speed train lines in Italy, in some parts of the motorway system in the Veneto region and in the Genoa underground system.

It is well known that in Central and Southern Italy, and now also in many parts of the North, the cement market is controlled by the mafia-like ‘Camorra’. The subcontracting system allows companies at the top of the chain to entrust the dirty work to small companies and then wash their hands of them. It is also known that this system flourishes because of the links between the Mafia and politicians. In High Speed Corruption, ex-judge and ex-president of the anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission, Ferdinando Imposimato, reveals how, in the 1990s, Romano Prodi, who was then president of the state company IRI, personally guaranteed work for the high-speed rail link in Campania to companies which had a whiff of the Mafia. Some had even been found guilty by the courts. Prodi was brought to trial and acquitted, but the magistrate who had conducted the enquiry was threatened. After the acquittal he transferred to another office before he could contest and appeal against the charge.

Now, having profited by building cardboard houses, these same companies (or other companies controlled by the same people) can see future rich pickings in the rebuilding process in Abruzzo.

As is always the case when there is a big cake to be divided, the employers call for national unity. The political parties have responded docilely and in unison. This includes the left which once again does not understand one of the golden rules of good politics: when you've got nothing intelligent to say it's better to stay quiet! Rifondazione Comunista has organised groups ready to go to Abruzzo to help, even though comrades on the ground say that this is not the main requirement. But it leaves the press to denounce those politically responsible for the massacre. The Pdci (Party of Italian Communists) is silent. Berlusconi on the other hand has said that “there was no malice” and the Italian president, after visiting L’Aquila, decreed that everyone is guilty - those who sold cardboard houses and those who bought them. In other words, everyone is guilty and everyone is innocent. He is sure to be well received at the next reception organised by the association of builders!

A Social and Political Response to the Tragedy
People are anxious about the future. Everyone knows that reconstruction in Italy takes forever. Up until a few years ago in Belice, which was hit by an earthquake in 1968, 400 people were still living in shacks and reconstruction was not complete. The same is true for Irpinia, (hit in 1980), and for Umbria (1997). In Abruzzo, the government recently agreed to requests from builders to further delay any obligation to adopt anti-earthquake measures until 30th June 2010. It has waived payment of electricity and gas bills in the stricken area by way of compensation…but only for two months.

Some community organisations have already started to promote collective discussion and organisation. They have asked Italians to show solidarity with the earthquake victims not by going to Abruzzo but, for the moment, by organising initiatives and the collection of funds throughout Italy and depositing the money in local accounts until the affected community has set up its own representative organisations and projects. At the same time they have underlined the necessity of local control over reconstruction, explicitly banning companies which have previously disregarded building norms.

A left party should reflect on these initiatives, develop them and try to build a political campaign to denounce those responsible for the disaster and to promote a collective response to the needs of those who risk paying the highest price of the catastrophe - workers and small employers in the commercial and craft sector. All expenses should be frozen (bills, mortgages, taxes, charges) and everyone who has lost their house or their job should be guaranteed an income until normality is restored. Reconstruction should be immediately got underway under the control of organisations democratically elected by those who have been hit by the earthquake in order to avoid profiteering.

All building projects should be checked by law before building commences and anyone wanting to start a building company should have to meet specific requirements. At the same time, a more general proposal is needed aimed at finding those responsible for the disaster and avoiding another Abruzzo happening in the future. Large building companies like Impregilo should be nationalised with the aim of creating a large public building company with democratic control over what is built and how it is built.

Maintenance companies which have been privatised should be brought back into local authority control and building companies which have disregarded norms should be forced to pay compensation and be brought into a new public building system. Sub-contracting, which allows infiltration into the public system by small Mafia-controlled companies, should be ended. Illegal working, which in the building sector accounts for up to 40% of work, should be abolished. Workers who are deprived of basic rights are not in a position to denounce irregularities committed by the company they are working for.

A special plan should be launched to check and maintain the country’s buildings, beginning with those in the public sector. In L’Aquila it was not just the hospital and the student halls of residence which collapsed but also the court, the prefecture (from which the civil protection was supposed to have coordinated its assistance), the regional council building and the Land Registry office (where all the important data necessary for monitoring the situation and for reconstruction was housed). In addition it is estimated that around 800 schools in Italy do not meet safety requirements, as was tragically demonstrated a few months ago when the roof of a high school collapsed in a town near Turin killing one pupil.

Looking Back at the Regional Elections
Until a few months ago the Italian Left governed in the Abruzzo region in alliance with the Democratic Party (DP) – known as the ‘cement’ party (or maybe it should now be the ‘sand’ party). Even after the arrest of Ottaviano Del Turco, regional president and DP spokesman, for a scandal linked to the health service, they continued participating in the alliance, covering this decision with the fig leaf of a ‘moral campaign’. On the day of the regional elections themselves the regional secretary of the PD was arrested, accused of corruption. The centre-right won the election in Abruzzo hands down. (Rifondazione Comunista alone lost 40% of its votes compared to the previous regional elections).

If the Left fails to represent the interests of workers and ordinary people when they come into conflict with the interests of the political and business lobbies, it will face self-destruction. In the regional elections in Abruzzo, 50% did not bother to vote. There did not seem to be a ‘clean’ political force. If voting were to take place today perhaps the abstention rate would be as high as 70-80%.

These are the ‘brilliant’ results of a ‘modern’ and ‘reasonable’ Left, without the ‘extremism’ which Controcorrente was accused of when we alone, at a local and national level, were saying that the Left should not ally itself with spokespeople of the ‘committee of builders ’ and a health service based on bribes and when we described the electoral agreement as an “unrealistic attempt at reviving a centre-left buried under its own rubble” (Ali Ghaderi quoted in Il Messagero, 1 November 2008). It remains to be seen whether, in the next few months, those who made that choice will examine their consciences, including at a national level, or whether once again we will be embroiled in another round of electoral alliances in the June local elections with the ‘party of crooks’, only realising the consequences of this when it is too late.

Oi, Sociologist! Whose Side Are You On?

Back in February we were visited by Molly Andrews of the Centre for Narrative Research at the University of East London. Her presentation was on the problems of interviewing activists about their politics - a topic of interest to me because my PhD thesis is based on interviews with fellow socialists, most of whom are also members of the Socialist Party. What is a researcher supposed to do when they're investigating contentious political issues and get asked by research participants for their opinion? Should one pretend no opinion and claim the high ground of objectivity? Say what you think they would want to hear? Be honest?

There's long been an counter-current in sociology that favours the latter option. The celebrated American sociologist, Howard S. Becker diagnosed the problem 40 years ago. He argued fence sitting in sociology is impossible because it is an irreducibly political discipline. To demonstrate the functionalism that dominated American sociology in the middle years of the last century conceptualised society as a vast, cohesive organism. Each element of society existed because it functionally contributed to the existence of the whole. This mean phenomena such as social conflict like strikes, racism, crime and deviance, etc. were symptomatic of dysfunctions and social breakdowns, which could be corrected by social engineering. Though it coveted value neutrality it's not difficult to spot how easily one can draw conservative conclusions from functionalist positions.

This perspective has long since fallen out of sociological flavour. Sociologists not beholden to postmodern nihilism most would agree describing society as an interconnected system rent by internally generated antagonisms and conflicts is not only the wellspring of the most sophisticated and accurate models of society, but it is also an inescapably political act. Talking about conflicts and the groups and classes who profit from them is do not tally with ruling interests, even more so if the argument and data are rigorous and stringently validated. In a society so constructed, the logic of choosing neutrality in the struggle between slave and slave owner becomes operative. Not taking a position is still taking a position, and it is one that benefits the status quo. Sociologists cannot avoid taking a side, and in sociological research contexts one should be open.

For Andrews, in politically sensitive research settings those being studied often suspect a researcher has an agenda beyond the disinterested pursuit of knowledge. To affect neutrality is to compound suspicions, which can lead to respondent reticence and non-cooperation. It's better a sociologist is up front, and so shouldn't be afraid of answering questions about the work's intended audience, why this particular group is worthwhile researching, what use is going to be made of the data and why these people should give you their time. To illustrate, Andrews recalled her work with elderly CPGB activists in the late 80s, and some of the problems she encountered. She initially wrote letters and phoned up activists to see if they were interested in being interviewed. Unfortunately, when she turned up on the doorstep of one prospective interviewee he took exception to her American accent and vowed not to have anything to do with the research. Another woman asked if she was from the CIA. The point is unless one is explicit about research aims (in Andrews case she set out to discover how political commitment is managed as one ages) these sorts of complications are bound to arise.

There are problems with being explicit. For example a fellow PhD student at Keele is writing a thesis on political extremism and how it deals with the banality of everyday politics. For this his chosen subjects have been the BNP and Hizb ut-Tahrir. Surprisingly considering he’s a man of the left he had no problem accessing BNP activists, following them during their political activities and getting volunteers to take part in interviews. Hizb on the other hand did not want to know. Perhaps if he had lied about his research he might have gained access to the latter, but maybe at the cost of the BNP’s cooperation.

My PhD experience was fairly similar. The SP comrades I spoke with either knew me beforehand, had seen me about at party activities and events or, because I was a fellow member, were able to check my ‘bona fides’. During the interviews I asked if they would have still taken part had I not been in the SP or a member of a rival organisation. About half said no. This probably sheds light on why most SWP comrades I approached either declined or ignored my interview requests. Because I was upfront about my “side”, and despite assurances it wasn’t going to be employed for “sectarian” purposes, I’m reasonably sure for a lot of people their interest evaporated when they read ‘member of the Socialist Party’. Hence the comparative element of my thesis has had to be dispensed with. But lying about my affiliation was not an option. Not only would it have been unethical, if the comrades had found out I'd been fibbing, which is likely thanks to the number of SP actions I’ve taken part in since, it would have done my reputation no good and contribute to further distrust between our respective organisations. Deciding to be upfront was the right choice from a moral and political standpoint.

However, it should be stressed being up front about one's positions was particularly suited to the work above. There are other politically sensitive contexts where covert participant observation might be necessary - for example from my point of view I have absolutely no problem with sociologists who might go undercover to study fascists, religious extremists, bad employers and criminal gangs. They do not have to justify their covert research to their subjects, but to satisfy the academic and political audiences of this work the need to be explicit about their position remains.

This kind of reflexivity is good practice for the rest of sociology too. Why study this? Who is the knowledge for? What stake do you have in it?

The royal road to scientific sociology is littered with the rusting wrecks of failed projects. If this aspiration is a viable one - and I believe it is - its starts from acknowledging whose side we are on and what interests are served by putting our work out there. Sociological fence sitting is neither plausible or desirable.

Why the Labour Movement Counts

In the discussion over at Though Cowards Flinch, Paul fished out this quote from Ralph Miliband, the famous Marxist and father to the very New Labour Miliband brothers, David and Ed. They may have forgotten why there's all that socialist stuff hanging around the labour movement, but some of us haven't. Their dad puts it most succinctly:

The primacy of organised labour in struggle arises from the fact that no other group, movement or force in capitalist society is remotely capably of mounting an effective and formidable challenge to the existing structures of power and privilege as it is in the power of organised labour to mount. In no way is this to say that movements of women’s, blacks, peace activists, ecologists gays, and others are not important, or cannot have effect, or that they ought to surrender their separate identity. Not at all. It is only to say that the principal (not the only) ‘grave-digger’of capitalism remains the organised working class. Here is the necessary, indispensable ‘agency of historical change’. And if, as one is constantly told is the case, the organised working class will refuse to do the job, then the job will not be done; and capitalist society will continue, generation after generation, as a conflict-ridden, growingly authoritarian and brutalised social system, poisoned by its inability to make humane and rational use of the immmense resources capitalism itself has brought into being - unless of course the world is pushed into nuclear war.

New Left Review, 1985

The final sentence dates the quote a bit but replace that with environmental and ecological catastrophe and it retains full force. These are words well worth keeping in mind.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth

Smeggin' hell! Red Dwarf's back after a 10 year absence! 

Time for some backstory. Among Red Dwarf fandom, there has long been debates about which series, or rather series of series, are the best. For the purists only seasons I and II were any good. Then there are those who champion series III-VI, and others who defend VII and VIII. I'd place myself in the wishy-washy camp. For my money series I to VI (1988-93) produced some of the finest moments in British comedy. But unfortunately series VII and VIII were, well, not as good. Both suffered the curse of the twee and compared very unfavourably with what went before.

The man mainly responsible was Doug Naylor, who along with Rob Grant formed the Grant Naylor writing partnership. At some point between the end of series VI and the start of VII, Grant quit the partnership determined to have more under his belt than just the 'Dwarf. Several unfunny novels later he's still scribbling away in relative obscurity, determined to escape his history. Naylor proved much smarter. He stuck with Red Dwarf and steered it through those difficult couple of seasons in the dying years of the 90s. But without Grant VII and VIII lacked bite. So when I heard a three-parter was due to be screened on Dave, entirely written and directed by Naylor, my hopes weren't high. But alas I was unprepared for what followed.

Red Dwarf: Back to Earth finds the boys - Lister, Rimmer, The Cat and Kryten continuing to float aimlessly through space. Nothing is happening. But then the crew become aware of a dimension-hopping squid has taken up residence in the ship's remaining water tank. They set out to investigate and inadvertently activate Katrina, a hologram of the ship's deceased chief scientist. Her mission is to use Lister to start off the human race again, and sets about using a severed tentacle to reverse the polarity and open a transdimensional gate way back to Earth. But something goes wrong, we are informed the reality in which they live is invalid and the crew is sucked through. They are vomited out of sets in a TV shop, the screens surrounding them full of the unfolding action. Isn't there something strange going on here? The chaps stumble across a Red Dwarf: Back to Earth DVD and from its blurb learn they are really characters in a TV show and are not real. They also read that they're scheduled to die at the end of the special, and so go off to find the writer and plead for extra life.

The problem is, it's terrible. The clever-clever postmodern plot of media creations becoming self-aware as media creations is hopelessly dated. The thing is you can tell Naylor thinks it's original and edgy, when in fact it is a hopelessly tired trope that's been not only done to death, but also carried off with greater aplomb elsewhere. If one was being generous, and I mean really generous, you could interpret this pomo turn as wry comment and cod philosophy. I'm sure media commodification absorbed a mighty blow when it made hey with Red Dwarf  being brought back to cash in on the nostalgia of an affectionate and devoted fan base. And then there comes the Baudrillardian twist - it is all a dream and it happens we are the outgrowths of their imaginations, not vice versa. Deary me. This plot device could partly be forgiven if the jokes were spot on, but almost without exception they fall completely flat. The only consolation is that as comebacks-long-after-a-series-has-ended go, it's not as awful as Blackadder Back & Forth, but it comes pretty close.

Overall the viewing public pretty much agreed. From ratings of two million for episode one - a triumph for a digital channel - it had fallen by over half last night for episode two, and I doubt it recovered for tonight's finale. On TV and related forums, blogs and the tweetosphere, apart from die-hards who wanted it to be good, the verdict was damning.

There is talk of a 10th series (deliberately skipping the ninth - what it is to be ever so quirky!). If so it really needs to up its game. But I doubt it will work. Our post-ironic, post-alternative and irreverently banal times demands much more than the pen of Doug Naylor can produce.

Edit: Slightly more favorable review from Iain at Leftwing Criminologist here.

Smeargate and Anti-Politics

The silly season must have started early this year. Mainstream bloggers, the press and the 24 hour rolling news media have gone crazy over 'Smeargate': the revelation that Damian McBride, the prime minister's chief political advisor (pictured) was plotting a series of smears against leading Tories. The email was leaked and picked up by Paul "Guido Fawkes" Staines, the fans flamed by Iain Dale, and was run in the press by the Torygraph. The tawdry contents of the email can be found here.

None of this should come as a surprise. The Tory front bench might be an ideas-free zone but the New Labour project is ideologically exhausted. As a creature of high neoliberalism it is woefully unsuited to what are becoming post-neoliberal times. Its reflex actions remain stamped by the old environment, hence its preference for de facto nationalisation of most of Britain's banking sector but without assuming state control, and not forgetting Mandelson's scheme to part-privatise the Royal Mail - though this is unlikely to happen as the government are having a hard time finding someone who will invest. The only way it can respond to political opponents is through negative campaigning. It is incapable of challenging the Tories on the ideological front, and so has to respond with pathetic smearing. A case in point was Labour's "strategy" in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last year, when it resorted to pretty desperate class war rhetoric against the successful Tory candidate, Edward Timpson. And as if to underline the point, the West Midlands Labour slogan for the upcoming European elections is 'Stop the BNP'. Pathetic.

These sorts of scandals are ten-a-penny. But do they really matter in the grand scheme of things? They certainly exercise the Westminster Village and their hangers ons in the media and mainstream blogging, but outside of that few people care whether Derek Draper and other Brownite insiders are for the chop. But what it does is contribute to a general, incoherent anti-politics sentiment. This makes it easier to play the populist card, as UKIP and the BNP have found, but by far the biggest winner is political disengagement. Why bother turning out to vote if all you're going to get are out of touch careerist hacks in it to feather their own nests? It's going to take more than MP's expenses rule changes and a sleaze clean-up to fix Britain's eroding political system.

Dr Who: Crap

I'm very sorry to say this, but tonight's Dr Who Easter special was crap.

For those who did not catch Dr Who and the Planet of the Dead, the plot was typical Who: double decker bus hurtles through a wormhole to a desert planet. The Doctor and Zoe from EastEnders soon find out, with some assistance from crap humanoid aliens with fly heads, that the world was previously populated by some 100 billion people who've been reduced to sand by swarms of floating manta ray/hammerhead metal creature things. The Doctor is able to retrieve the bug-eyed aliens' power supply (alas they get eaten - why can't we save ugly extra-terrestrials?), reverse the polarity or something, and fly the bus back through the portal before the chompy-chompy aliens make it through.

It was dull, the special effects were rubbish, the acting terrible. As if that wasn't bad enough, it had Lee Evans in it.

On these occasions my TV review normally veers off into portrayals of gender, race or class in the show. But not tonight. Instead, out comes the soapbox.

There's no getting away from it. The plot lines are naff. The aliens are naff. The actors are naff, and so is the otherwise lovely David Tennant. Am I the only one annoyed by his over-acting? Naffness just pervades the show, there's no escaping it. And unfortunately, the same is true of its "adult-themed" progeny - Torchwood (despite Eve Myles). King Midas had the golden touch, but everything Russell T Davies caresses is irredeemably twee. You could say the premise of both is cheese in the extreme, but then again so was Buffy and Angel. And yet they were never naff.

What is to be done? 

Populist Politics, the BNP Way

Parties that do not hold office have, it is said, the luxury of opposition. The far left is all too often a case study in this piece of political wisdom. There's been plenty of times I've wondered if much of the far left actually want to recruit millions to its politics - I suspect for many a petty sect and guru, they don't. But for parties that have a little more muscle, electorally speaking, this luxury manifests itself in populism. On the one hand there are the politics of easy solutions to complex problems, and on the other there's being seen to be doing popular things.

This pretty much sums up the political approach of the BNP. Their politics are entirely negative - blame the "Marxists" who run the government and media. Blame the Muslims/blacks/asylum seekers, etc. We know the tiresome drill, and it's unfortunate crap like this can fall on fertile ground in some places. Take Stoke for example. This kind of "politics" is the BNP's stock in trade. Presumably the Potteries would flow with milk and honey if the foreigners depart and take their funny languages, religions and clothes with them.

But there's another aspect to Stoke BNP, and this is the second dimension of populism - of being seen to do popular things. So successful has the BNP been pursuing this that Stoke Central Labour MP, Mark Fisher has publicly stated that he believes them to be good community councillors. What is it that they do?

Take Cllr Steve Batkin, for example. To call him a complete tool in the council chamber would do my screwdriver set a great disservice. But during his first term on the council in Longton North, Batkin built a reputation as a community councillor. Got a lawn needing a mow? Need help with that flatpack cabin bed? Just give your friendly neighbourhood fascist a bell and around he'd come. You could tag-team the MDF as he informed you on the finer points of ornithology and Holocaust revisionism. And if no one required his special services he could be found of an afternoon litter-picking his way around the ward. For this he's earned the almost-affectionate epithet of Bin Bag Batkin.

Credit where credit's due. Old Bin Bag has finally learned to utter a few words in the council chamber, which is more than can be said for his fellow BNP'er, Cllr David Marfleet. Almost two years he's sat there and not uttered a single word. Will he serve a full term without opening his gob?

There is a more damaging aspect to this kind of populism. Ellie and Alby Walker (pictured), who along with Michael Coleman form the "brains" of the local BNP group, are past masters at this sort of activity. One thing the Walkers do without fail is provide a kind of meals on wheels service for some of the old folk around Abbey Hulton and often leave full council to do the rounds. Yes, it's great PR for the BNP. I'm sure their families might appreciate the Walkers' efforts and think about putting a cross in the BNP's box come the next elections.

But hold on a second, shouldn't this be a service provided by the council? If it is failing on meals on wheels, instead of taking on the responsibility themselves wouldn't the Walkers be better serving the voters of the Abbey by making sure this service is available? They obviously do not think so. Not only have they failed to raise the issue in the council chamber, despite plenty of opportunities for doing so, Ellie Walker left one council meeting specifically on elderly provision ... to deliver the meals! And the Walkers have the bare-faced cheek to pretend they're the only ones who care about "our people"!

If the BNP gave a shit they would have addressed the lack of service provision to the Abbey's elderly. But it suits them politically to be seen to be doing something about it themselves. This is not community activism. This is not what being an effective councillor is about. It's pure gesture politics.

EU to Force Through Public Sector Cuts

No2EU Press Release

EU tells UK to cut public spending, No2EU campaigners warn

EU finance ministers have given Britain six months to come up with plans to cut public spending, the EU-critical electoral alliance No2EU – Yes to Democracy warned today.

No2EU - Yes to Democracy West Midlands co-ordinator Cllr Dave Nellist gave the warning after EU finance ministers meeting Prague last week warned the UK to cut its budget deficit to the EU Stability and Growth Pact limit of three per cent within four years.

“The UK government recorded a government deficit of £78 billion last year, equivalent to 5.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, and the Stability and Growth Pact limits budget deficits to three per cent of GDP which currently adds up to £43 billion.

“Reducing the current government budget deficit by £35 billion in a year implies potentially appalling cuts in essential public services.

"Local authorities are already conducting a "doomsday study" of the potential impact on local council budgets of up to 30 per cent funding cuts and it paints an horrific picture for local services,” the former Labour MP warned.

NO2EU - Yes to Democracy convener Bob Crow said that the EU’s strict criteria had enforced the privatisation of capital projects to keep them off the government's books, by means of private finance initiatives (PFI) and the disastrous PPP on London Underground, which had increased the costs of essential public services and subsidised corporate profits.

"It is clear that EU leaders want ordinary working people to pay for the recession, by cutting essential public services, instead of the banks and finance companies that contributed so much to the economic crisis in the first place.

"That's why a vote for No2EU – Yes to Democracy against the EU’s privatisation agenda is so essential on June 4,” the transport union leader said.

For more information contact Cllr Dave Nellist on 07970 294 237 or Brian Denny on 07903376303