Around 3.2 million people crammed into the upper hall of ULU on Sunday morning to hear SWP national secretary, Martin Smith (pictured) debate Socialist Party deputy general secretary, Hannah Sell, on building a revolutionary party in the 21st century. That the SWP agreed to send a representative along to Socialism was certainly a welcome development, having been some years since the comrades had sent someone along. It's just a pity Martin came alone - without any of his comrades acting as a counter weight there was always the danger it could have been a one-sided bitchfest. But that didn't happen thanks to skillful chairing and taking speakers from outside the SP's ranks.
In the real world the neoliberal consensus has collapsed, a mass political mobilisation has just defeated the Republicans in the US, and global capital is undergoing its worse crisis in 80 years, so why bother with this debate? Can't the SP and SWP as the largest currents on the far left in Britain just unite? This was the starting point of Hannah's contribution. Her argument was that should a new workers' party emerge over the next few years and many thousands of activists are attracted to socialist politics, the differences between the two will assume greater significance. It is therefore not sectarian to discuss differences, but rather allows for greater clarity about our trajectories and mistakes so we can operate and cooperate more smoothly in the future.
As far as Hannah was concerned, the criticisms the SP has of the SWP boils down to a question of method and perspectives. The SWP has a 'year zero' approach to politics. Whereas the SP constantly discusses its own practice in an attempt to learn from it, the SWP has a tendency to abruptly abandon its previous practice and move on to something new - so it is theoretically possible to meet a new SWP every week.
This is tied in with the SWP's mistaken assessment of the period we've just come out of. The collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe and the USSR gave capital a tremendous ideological victory. Grotesque bureaucratic caricatures of socialism they may have been, nevertheless they showed the ruling class that an alternative to capitalism was possible, that their system was not immortal and could be overturned when it is weak. Their passing was marked by an orgy of bourgeois triumphalism and neoliberalism - already the ideological hegemon in most English-speaking countries - rapidly spread beyond the borders of its Anglo-American heartland. Privatisation, outsourcing, increased global capital flows, and intensified exploitation became the order of the day. Labour and social democratic parties the world over elected to swim with the free market stream, and trade unions adapted to the new realities by emphasising boss/worker "partnerships". This was not a precipitous time for socialist ideas, never mind any kind of independent working class politics.
The SWP however felt it was a favourable period. The collapse of Stalinism was a step sideways from state capitalism to market-based capitalism, therefore nothing had fundamentally changed. Tony Cliff had characterised the 1990s as the '1930s in slow motion', implying it was to be a decade of titanic and strategic class battles. It also claimed the 90s was marked by a popular attitudinal adjustment to the left (though Hannah didn't mention this, the SWP's argument that New Labour's election victory in 1997 was a 'class vote', and the fact its membership mushroomed (particularly in the early 90s) could be taken as "support" for this claim). By the end of the decade, the SWP's optimistic perspective saw it hail the emergence of an anti-capitalist/global justice movement as 'the greatest opportunity for the left since the 1960s'. While it was certainly a welcome development from the SP's point of view, its significance should not be overstated. For instance, compared with the mobilisations of the 1980s it was on a much lower level. Nevertheless the SP took part in this movement, as did the SWP, but because of the different methods of building a party, the SWP ended up tailing the movement. Via Globalise Resistance, the SWP uncritically adopted the slogan 'another world is possible' and adopted the strategy of being the movement's most militant and dynamic builders - an approach that would attract the best activists. The SP however sought to implant socialist ideas as deeply as possible, which doesn't at all preclude working to be the most visible and authoritative current.
Hannah went on to note the SWP took a similar line at the founding conference of Solidarity. The organisation, which split with the SSP in the wake of the Tommy Sheridan affair, is currently sub-titled 'Scotland's Socialist Movement'. The SWP voted against the inclusion of socialism and the setting up of Solidarity as a socialist organisation. She also criticised the top-down culture of the SWP, its behaviour over the Socialist Alliance and Respect, and what she thought was its heavy-handed attitude to the RMT when it tentatively explored the possibility of standing in this year's London Assembly elections. Despite this, Hannah concluded that should a new workers' party emerge, the SP and SWP will both be involved. The question remains if the SWP could act as a positive force or as a block on the process.
Martin Smith then began his reply. He thanked the SP for the invite and prefaced his contribution by saying he doesn't normally attend events like this because he knows the SWP would come under attack. That said, he was here to see what we were saying and hoped to sketch out where our organisations are going, not trade blows.
Martin's starting point were the US elections. He and the SWP have no illusions in Barack Obama, but the outcome cannot be dismissed as another round of Tweedle Dum Tweedle Dee politics. What Obama's victory shows is a (positive) reaction against the reckless policies responsible for the economic crisis, a desire to see withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a projection by millions of their hopes for a better world onto Obama's incoming presidency. But despite this there is no reason why the left will automatically benefit from the crisis - hope can very quickly tip over into despair. For example, there are projections that unemployment could hit two million by Christmas. By this time next year it could have grown to as much as 3.5 million. Over the same period, thanks to falling stocks and the financial crisis the value of pensions could fall by as much as 30 per cent.
Highlighting the difference between the SWP and SP on the Labour party (as a bourgeois workers' party vs an outright party of business), the economic crisis is likely to compound the problem of Labour as a strategic obstacle facing socialists. We have seen the 'Brown bounce' in the polls off the back of his conference performance and apparent competence in handling the crisis, so Martin was not surprised Labour held on in the Glenrothes by-election. Labour does continue to haemorrhage members (which could now be as low as 120,000 members) but people will still be prepared to support it at the polls, particularly large numbers of older workers. Building a left alternative means coming to terms with this.
He then turned to a common criticism made of the SWP - that it is overoptimistic. He admitted this was true, but so were the Bolsheviks. He argued optimism was necessary because it allows socialists to seize the initiative once the weight of history and potential on/in any given situation is understood. It is this kind of optimism that has allowed the SWP and SP to hold our organisations together in, what he conceded, were difficult times. But we do need to learn from each other - we all make mistakes. Those that don't do anything (nodding toward the ultra-left) have the luxury of being correct about everything. For instance, the SWP knew it got the poll tax struggle wrong (initially calling for non-collection by council workers rather than mass non-payment), but it soon realised its errors and got involved in the campaign, with some of its comrades getting imprisoned for not paying.
Returning to the present political period, Martin suggested there were two things going on. A currently low but nevertheless rising curve of working class militancy (which he timed from the election of the so-called awkward squad is about to collide with a section of trade union leaders who are utterly craven vis the government. The task of socialists is to help this process along, which is why the SWP disagree with the decision of the PCS executive to postpone strike action, which would have taken place this Monday. SP members on the executive voted for this decision as well. In fact, Martin was glad his comrades voted against postponement as he believed that when workers vote yes on a strike ballot you are duty bound to go for it. However, he accepted this was a tactical question and not something the SP and SWP should fall out over.
Responding to the earlier points about the anti-capitalist/global justice movement, Martin said 'another world is possible' was not the SWP's slogan, but belonged to Globalise Resistance(!) The SWP were planning to continue in 'united front work' and argued for more unity in action, not less. Singling out the SWP's involvement in Defend Council Housing, Stop the War, and UAF (among others), it is unfair to say the SWP don't "stick the course".
He also rebutted Hannah's comments on the RMT/Respect talks regards the London Assembly elections. Respect did not "demand" the RMT climb on board its electoral ship. Instead it said it was ludicrous for both to stand against each other and instead possibilities for a united slate should be explored. He then touched on Respect and said it wasn't the case George Galloway was blameless and the SWP were the font of all evil. Its biggest problem was only one MP and one trade union leader broke toward it. If more had come on board, including the SP, we wouldn't have had the acrimonious split. But to keep the coalition together until the split, the SWP had to vote down positions it would otherwise have agreed with, such as a mandatory workers' wage for MPs. And it might be prepared to do so again because the party is still committed to a broad left alternative and it will happen at some stage. The struggles ahead will help realign and remake the left, and we will have to work together more often.
And now it came to contributions from the floor. One comrade got up and defended the actions of the SP on the PCS exec. She was at pains to emphasise that action had only been suspended. The government had agreed to talk about pay with the union for the first time in 20 years, and it would be a mistake to at least not listen to what it had to say - especially as the union had conceded nothing to get these talks. In Lois Austen's contribution, she argued the SWP had no method for looking at events. Citing an email put out by SWP staffers working for Stop the War, it read the coalition was "delighted" that Obama had won the presidency. This she felt was typical SWP fare, which is basically an emotional response. Andrew Price argued the SWP does not systematically learn from its mistakes and is always in danger of replicating them. Judy Beishon argued that any unity between the SP and SWP needs to be genuine and open, but this has not been the track record of the comrades in numerous campaigns over the years - and cited the SWP's actions in the Socialist Alliance as the example par excellence.
An independent comrade who sits on the steering committee of the CNWP congratulated the SP for its behaviour in the campaign and suggested if we contrast it and the SWP's relationship with external groupings, the SP's record is more favourable. Another indie asked if the SP and SWP could keep the dialogue going after this meeting, and Toby Abse singled out the NSSN as a possible way forward while warning that any left formation without either organisation on board was bound to fail.
James Palmer of the Spartacist League was left to supply the comedic element. The comrade said programme came before unity and tactics, before boldly stating there were two trends in the workers' movement: Marxism and social democracy. In his opinion, the SP and SWP belong to the latter (presumably, and given its hostility toward other left groups, the nine or ten Sparts in Britain is what's left of the Marxist trend). Amid much guffawing, he explained the Sparts were the best Trotskyists because they defended the USSR to the end. He also criticised the SP for daring to support the POA, and condemned our attitude to the police. Did we not know that a worker who dons a policeman's uniform becomes a bourgeois cop? It seems tactical nuance is beyond the simplistic black and white world of our Spart friends.
Time was now short, so it was left to Martin and Hannah to briefly reply to contributions. Martin returned once again to the anti-capitalist movement and said it was a wake up call for the entire left, which may have been caught up in the inertia of the period. Seattle, for example, was basically an alliance between trade unionists and a new generation of young people new to activism. It was pregnant with possibilities, albeit one that miscarried under the impact of September 11th. But the movement did not go away, instead it involved itself in other activities. Some were key sectors mobilised by the anti-war movement, others fed into the movement around Social Forums. The correctness of intervening here, Martin argued, is best shown in the US where the movement was, for the main part, ignored by the Trotskyists but embraced by the Maoists, and it is they who are reaping the long term benefits of recruits and influence today. He also returned to the PCS and the postponed strike. It was not a disgrace that the strike had been delayed, but it was disappointing. He thought that having up to 500,000 workers coming out could have had an electrifying political effect. He also said of the SP that his comrades in the PCS caucus do moan and criticise it for this and that, but he tells them not to get caught up on what the SP does but just get down to business. He ended by saying the SWP and SP need to find ways of talking because regroupment, when it happens, will be on a wider scale this time round, and the more cohesive socialists are, the better.
In her reply to the debate, Hannah hoped that reps from the SP would get a look-in at the SWP's Marxism next year, because conversations between Marxists do matter because we can draw lessons from them. She also said revolutionaries need to be optimistic and scientific. There are no benefits in chasing after something simply because it looks good. And finally she agreed with Martin that a mass party will happen and she looked forward to seeing masses of working class people fresh to politics move into activity.
I thought this was a useful discussion, even if Martin did not answer all the points put to him. It showed the SP is keen to have dialogue with the SWP, and hopefully Martin's acceptance of the speaking invite means they are too. It also served to put on show many of the main criticisms the left outside of the SWP has of its practice. It may well be the case SWP comrades disagree and might, in some cases, find them unfair. But even if that is true, the point is the SWP is perceived in this way. The best way of refuting these criticisms is by examining its practice systematically and learn from it, and hopefully it will do so. One final point, the SP and SWP are probably the most dynamic organisations in British politics. They have the activists and energy to make a real difference to any new left/new workers' formation that comes along. Neither current will ever fully see eye to eye on strategy and tactics, but if more joint work is undertaken, if basic trust and dialogue can be built up, the less chance there is of disputes getting out of hand and alienating workers fresh to revolutionary politics.
This is the first of several posts I'm planning to churn out to give readers a flavour of the Socialist Party's annual Socialism school. Who knows? Perhaps it might even move some people to make the time and come down for the weekend next year? Over this week then you can expect me to comment on the Saturday and Sunday rallies and the three sessions I attended (on Pakistan, the debate between Hannah Sell and Martin Smith of the SWP, and the Fourth International). As yet none are available, but I expect footage of the rally and some of the sessions will be posted here. Also my comrade and fellow SP blogger, Leftwing Criminologist will also be discussing Socialism.
This post will be an overview of the decidedly non-political aspects of the weekend.
Stoke branch managed to sell a record number of tickets this year and equal it by transporting most of them down to sunny Bloomsbury, an achievement that dovetails the almost silly (but very welcome!) rate of recruitment us Stokies are experiencing at present. But anyway. The Potteries' Marxists managed to turn up some time between 11.30 and 12.00 on Saturday, having held heated discussions on Workers' Hammer, the old Stafford branch of Militant, the branch programme, and ... cat sick. Despite all this there was one thought occupying my mind - accommodation. Owing to a slight hiccup, eight of our contingent, including yours truly, arrived at ULU without a bed sorted. Visions of a cold night on a bench in Hyde Park beckoned ... But thanks to the tireless efforts of Kevin Parslow four were found beds/sofas/floors/airing cupboards in comrades' houses and the rest were packed off to the hostel. But more about that shortly.
This year brother N couldn't make it, so our fabled t-shirt stall didn't materialise. So it was down to other comrades to fill the entrepreneurial void. The Brummie Bolsheviks were seen about the place hawking a cushion full of rather smart Socialist Students pins. Centre had sorted a pile of their own socialist t-shirts and were flogging CWI-branded pint glasses. The Manchester and Liverpool comrades had put together a DVD of Terry Fields speeches, and the party used the occasion to launch Peter Taaffe's latest book, Socialism and Left Unity. Who says socialism and the entrepreneurial spirit is incompatible?
One thing that disappointed me was the relative absence of the ultra-left. Socialism regulars, the IBT were there flogging 1917 and plugging their Sunday fringe meeting on fascism and anti-fascism. I certainly fancied this meeting as an opportunity to discover how the IBT fights the fascists in the here and now, and to see if it would degenerate into a bun fight with the Sparts. I hope next year they will schedule their meeting so it doesn't clash with anything. As it was, because neither sent representatives to score points at the 'Fourth International and After' session, I can only conclude they were too preoccupied knocking lumps out of each other. Sadly Socialist Appeal, Workers' Action, the AWL and cpgbs were either absent or failed to make their presence felt. Presumably richer pickings were to be had at the Left Alternative/SWP conference.
I was greeted by a mad scramble after the end of the Rally for Socialism to try and introduce the new comrades to those they would be staying with. But somehow I muddled through. Then it was to Euston station with sister A and Brothers F and G1 for my annual Murder King and a series of bad taste observations from the latter comrade. Do all socialists have a (guilty) love of black humour? Before long it was to the traditional Socialism watering hole, The Euston Flyer for a little of a natter and gossip. It was all a bit of a blur for me - and I hadn't even touched a drop! Before I knew it, some comrades had decided to head to the hostel, the grimly-entitled Clink. Unfortunately, we turned left outside The Flyer instead of right and ended up pissing about outside for 40-odd minutes when we didn't need to. That wouldn't have been too bad if the weather had been kind. But no, the heavens opened. We were pretty soggy by the time we found The Clink.
The next morning I got my coco pops and settled down to hear comrades' dorm horror stories. I passed the night relatively lightly. The bloke on the bunk above me let out the occasional shriek and sigh, but nothing too untoward. G1 reported a chap near him let out a constant stream of guttural groans and squeals of what worryingly sounded like pleasure. But poor Brother F had it worse, the comrade could be psychologically scarred. At 3am on the bed next to him a couple of bonkin' Bolsheviks got down to "business". Nice!
I left The Clink with comrade R relatively early so I'd be able to get into the SP/SWP debate (the room it was due to be held in had only 55 seats - woefully inadequate for what was bound to attract a much larger number). But in a triumph of democratic socialist planning it received the old switcher-roo and moved to a 120 seater. And quite interesting and (mostly!) comradely it was too - but you're going to have to wait a bit for a report.
The Sunday just flew by and all too quickly it was time to board the mini-bus back to Stoke. I'm afraid politics took a dive out the window on the way back, and the conversations, among other things, descended into torture porn flicks, various drinking games/experiences and the infamous 2 Girls, 1 Cup. Yep, this really is what the flower of humanity likes to talk about. But all in all, everyone had a great time and look forward to doing the same in 2009!
Yes, more slow blogging has been the order of the day (or rather, the week). I suppose I'm saving myself up for the blog-a-thon that will be taking place after this weekend. But honestly, what a week to get blogger's block! The USA votes for its first black president and millions around the world celebrate the beginning of the end of Bush's tenure. One thing that strikes me about Barack Obama's campaign has been his and his team's ability to mobilise massive numbers to get the vote out. One would hope that with the election over, not all of this energy has been safely dissipated by the electoral process. Now millions have actively participated in a successful political movement, primarily because they identify itself with the progressive cloth Obama has draped himself in, I'm audacious enough to hope the labour movement will absorb some of this energy and drive.
The Republicans have certainly made a dogs dinner out of their campaign. One mistake (welcome from the socialist point of view) was the stupidity of McCain to label Obama's obviously popular plan to deliver a tax cut for 95 per cent of Americans as 'socialist'. By associating this with socialism, you can be sure a few million are doing their bit to investigate socialist ideas in more depth, and even if they don't go much beyond the Wikipedia page, this is a very welcome development.
Speaking of welcome developments - for the government - Gordon Brown must be a happy man today. The media's 'Labour's recovery' narrative now seems halfway plausible. Labour actually increased its vote on the 2005 tally (19,395 to 19,946), whereas the big losers were the Tories and the Lib Dems. The Tories saw their support halve and the yellow party's vote collapsed. The swing to the SNP seemed to come from these quarters rather than Labour. And once again, the far left vote performed very badly - the combined vote being significantly lower than the SSP's 2005 performance (299, down from 705). I may not have much time for political science, but it is an empirical truism that the electorate tends to punish disunity. Amateur psephologists can compare 2008 and 2005 here and here.
Right, I'm off. See you on the other side of Socialism!
It's that time of year Socialist Party comrades across the country fold up their stalls, put away their papers and descend upon London en masse. Yes, nearly a year has passed since our last annual weekend school and the behemoth that is Socialism 2008 is upon us! I particularly look forward to it because not only do I get to see all my old muckers, it gives me a few days worth of blogging material!
You can read about previous adventures at Socialism here, here, here, and here. Hopefully more of it will be filmed and put online this year too.
Looking at the agenda, there's plenty of stuff to keep us occupied. On the Saturday afternoon yours truly will probably go to 'Is China the world's new superpower?' with Peter Taaffe and Fang Guoli, or maybe Simon Kaplan's look at 'Pakistan and the permanent revolution today'. On Sunday morning there's one session all the ultra lefts will be attending: 'Building a revolutionary party in the 21st century: A debate Between Hannah Sell of the SP and a representative of the SWP'. I will be going along too. Hopefully it will be a constructive session where the differences between the two are thrashed out in a comradely manner, and I hope the SWP rep brings along some supporting speakers from the floor too (what are the chances the Sparts use the occasion to denounce the IBT?) My advice to comrades is to get to that one early. If I can't get into that session I'll be going along to hear Pete Mason speak on 'Marxism and the Big Bang'. I wonder if any Grantites will turn up for that one? And finally, my Sunday afternoon talk of choice is Niall Mulholland on the 'Fourth International and after', before heading to the closing session with speeches from Mark Serwotka of the PCS, our Hannah and Dave, and representatives from Respect and the LRC.
If you fancy spending the weekend rubbing shoulders with The Marxists, you can book here. And if you do come, I might even let you buy me a pint ;)
Can you imagine getting cut off from the outside world for up to 90 days with only odious house mates, the cameras and Big Brother's occasional edicts for company? Can you then imagine the deep unease if the alarms, the deliveries and the cameras stopped? Is it a power cut? Have terrorists bombed Elstree Studios? Is there a plague? Have we gone to war? Has Britain been engulfed by a zombie holocaust? Well, in the nightmare scenario to have emerged from the brain of Charlie Brooker, the latter is exactly what's happened. Dead Set imagines a Britain overwhelmed by hordes of the flesh eating undead. And these aren't your slightly comical stiff-with-rigor shuffling zombies either. As Brooker notes in his interview, since 2002 (i.e. since the release of 28 Days Later), zombies have learned to run.
When you're dealing with zombies, you can't help but be derivative. It is now canonical that you kill the living dead by shooting or stabbing them in the head. Also a recurring theme is survivors finding secure sanctuary from the undead, which, in this case, is the Big Brother house. Then you're allowed a brief moment to relax, to enjoy the smug superiority of humanity over the dim-witted zombies, until it all goes horribly wrong and someone leaves a door or gate open, or hatches a foolhardy escape plan from nice secure location to the zombie-infested wilderness. Perhaps humans aren't so smart after all.
I'm not going to outline the plot. If you want more read about it here, or better still, why not watch it? As mini-series go, it's excellent.
Needless to say, you can't really have zombies without a nod to satire, a golden rule of the zombie genre forgotten by the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. And Charlie Brooker being Charlie Brooker couldn't resist having a few swipes at the Big Brother format. The zombies gathered at the studio gates, the spectacle of a zombiefied Davina McCall feasting on human flesh, their blank stares into monitors, all of it is pretty straightforward. As Brooker says, "while you could spend your time watching it thinking ”Mmmmm, yes, a satirical point”, most of the time you're going to be thinking ”Help! Here come the zombies!“ It's kind of a scary romp, first and foremost. It's not a chin-stroking exercise."
But I'd like to offer an alternative reading, which, like all readings, is a tenuous exercise, but is still a half-way plausible one. You could argue Dead Set is all about ruling class anxiety. Our masters, who were once so sure of themselves that even their official ideology trumpeted capitalism, red in tooth and claw, are now no longer certain. The economic shockwave came out of nowhere and knocked them all for six. Politicians' ritual invoking of deregulatory voodoo economics has only succeeded in reanimating Keynes, a figure whose body of thought they previously regarded a stinking corpse. Some have been bitten by the Keynesian bug (New Labour above all) and indecently abandoned the previous orthodoxy. Others remain huddled around neoliberalism's coffin, hoping it won't be long before they can break open the casket. All look to the future with a degree of fear and uncertainty.
Dead Set works through this nightmare. Big Brother stands in for the place the ruling class occupies. Like the bourgeoisie, Big Brother contestants and senior production staff expect to be the centre of attention. The public duly votes to evict their least favourite nominee while the real decisions, the real power, the manipulation and the edits are done away from the public gaze. But on eviction night, the occasion when Big Brother publicly celebrates its hubris, nemesis strikes and the studios are overrun by the living dead. They become an abattoir. Zombies are uncontrollable, unreasonable, single minded, and totally thick. The aura of Big Brother, the circus that once kept millions in its thrall, has lost its power. The shabby, smelly masses are now out for blood, their blood. The survivors holed up in the house are able to erect defences against the mass, which successfully holds the gibbering horde at bay for a short while. But they cannot keep the tide back. No matter how clever or ingenious they are, their better organisation is fractured by internal bickering and scheming. It is only a matter of time before the zombies of the working class are feasting on bourgeois flesh.
Dead Set not only taps into the anxiety of getting overrun by the dangerous but simple-minded mass, it shows the bourgeoisie the fear of their superfluity. Zombies are clearly violent. The presence of the living sends them into paroxysms of bloodlust. Safety is only guaranteed if one lives in a gated community. But when the remaining housemates become zombie fodder and everyone is (un)dead, a strange calm descends upon the land. Zombies shuffle around the trappings of bourgeois civilisation, their unblinking eyes wide open in almost innocent wonder at their surroundings. The hierarchy and power of Big Brother is gone and all is left is a new society of sorts, one achieved only by them coming together as a collective and using their numbers to sweep the old order away. Life (of sorts) goes on without the bourgeoisie/Big Brother. There is no more violence and no more suffering. Zombie communism is the order of the day.
Marx's Wages, Price and Profit was published posthumously in 1898, it began life as a series of lectures delivered by Marx in 1865 polemicising against the ideas of John Weston. Not a household name in 21st century militants' homes, Weston was a leading member of the General Council of what we now call the First International. At the time, while Europe was in the grip of a strike wave, Weston published a series of counter-productive pieces. He (bizarrely) argued the quantity of commodities a nation produces and wages (which are measured by the amount of commodities they can purchase) were fixed. This meant the relationship between productivity and wages is set in stone.
Weston's position was harmful to the workers' cause for the following reason. Suppose a strike forced the bosses to increase their pay from £200 to £250/week. Because production is fixed, the sum total of commodities the new wage would be able to buy could only be the same as the old. If wages go up, the capitalists have to increase prices too. In other words, an inflationary price spiral would occur negating any wage gain. The struggle for better pay was pointless so workers might as well forget about taking their bosses on. You can see now why Marx was so keen to counter Weston.
Facts are real world developments in wages and prices had refuted Weston's argument even before they were uttered by his lips. In the 1849-59 period the wages of agricultural and factory workers rose 40 per cent. If Weston was right, prices should have galloped upwards by the same amount. But in fact the wheat produced by these better renumerated farm workers fell by 16 per cent! What's going on? In this case labour productivity increased alongside a rising demand for wheat to feed the growing urban population. Supply not only successfully met demand, but managed to outstrip it. You cannot then argue, as the establishment often does, that wages determine prices. So what does?
When you look at the immense collection of commodities that constitute the market, it appears their values are relative to one another. For example, my diary cost £4 and my much-coveted man bag, £12. The value of the latter could be expressed by three of the former, but what determines the ratio? For Marx, commodities in their essence can all be reduced to a third party, and that is (abstract) labour. Commodity values differ, as Marx puts it, "only by representing greater or smaller quantities of labour ... for example, a greater amount of labour may be worked up in a silken handkerchief than a brick" (p.34). Labour, or rather as Marx and Marxists later called labour power, is measured by time. Therefore a commodity's value is determined by the amount of labour power necessary for its production, not by wages.
The labour time necessary for production (socially necessary labour) is a certain average of the conditions of production pertaining at any given time and increases/reduces according to the course of historical development. As competition between capitals compels employers to constantly revolutionise the forces of production, more quantities of commodities can be produced in less and/or the same time. The extent of the labour socially necessary is reduced and the values of commodities fall. But if anything impinges upon the productivity of labour, such as weather events or resource shortages, the volume of necessary labour increases pushing up value.
Now this is where it gets a bit tricky. Value is not the same price. Historical development has seen precious metals, then coin, then paper money stand as the representative of abstract labour. The more valuable a commodity, i.e. the more abstract labour bound up in it, the higher the price. Where price perfectly expresses value, we have 'natural price'. But commodities tend to trade at their 'market price', which Marx defines as "the average amount of social labour necessary, under the average conditions of production, to supply the market with a certain mass of a certain article" (p.40). If you like natural price is the element market prices for commodities fluctuate around. If supply and demand are in balance there is a tendency to sell at natural price. If there isn't, if supply outstrips demand or demand cannot be met the market price will swing above and below this level.
Where does profit come into it? As commodities are sold at their value (modified bby market price), profit does not come from selling at above their value. If this was the case then a scenario similar to Weston's would result. As everyone would be forced to do the same, what the seller gains they lose as a buyer. Profit therefore is interior to the system of commodity exchange, but how? A worker agrees to sell their ability to labour to an employer for a given period of time in return for a wage. For argument's sake, let that stand at £250 for a 39 hour week. This wages stands for the money a worker needs to reproduce themselves as a worker physically and culturally. Once in work, suppose it takes them 10 hours to produce £250 worth of commodities. This is paid to them as wages. Yet there's still 29 hours of the week to go! From this standpoint, this remainder is 'surplus labour', and the value they generate accrues to their employer as surplus value. But it immediately appears that this is not the case. Because the wage for 39 hours is £250, common sense suggests £250 is the value of 39 hours. Surplus extraction, therefore, is hidden by the wage relation. Where commodities are concerned then, they may be concentrations of abstract labour, but part is paid, and part of it is unpaid surplus labour. When they are sold at their value it still reflects all the labour embodied in them, realising surplus value.
This surplus value is not identical to profit. Once it has been realised, part of it is paid out on rental and mortgage payments, part as interest payments on loans from the banks, and part on any other obligations the owner may have. What is left is profit, which can be disposed of as they wish. We can therefore work out the rate of profit as a ratio between the capital that was originally thrown into the production process and the profit it realises. Therefore if wages are increased, the rate of profit falls, but this does not necessarily mean a rise in commodity prices. That decision is solely the province of the bosses. But if profit is to be increased, the reverse is true. More surplus value is demanded, which can either be done via new production technologies and/or increasing the quantity of unpaid labour done by lengthening the working day at little or no extra wages. As Marx says:
A man who has no free time to dispose of, whose whole lifetime, apart from the mere physical interruptions by sleep, meals, and so forth, is absorbed by his labour for the capitalist, is less than a beast of burden. He is a mere machine for producing Foreign Wealth, broken in body and brutalized in mind. Yet the whole history of modern industry shows that capital, if not checked, will recklessly and ruthlessly work to cast down the whole working class to this utmost state of degradation. (p.67-8)
This scenario has not come to pass only because of working class political action down the ages. There is a historical tendency for capital to push workers to their limits, which are the (historically and geographically variable) absolute minimum standard of living. While the bosses coin it workers are compelled to fight to retain their present conditions. But as Marx concludes, "quite apart form the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. They ought, therefore, not to be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerilla fights incessantly springing up from the never ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!" they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wages system!""
Yes, it's true. According to the ever reliable Popbitch, Esquire magazine asked four of America's best known racists who they will be supporting in next week's presidential election, and strangely, Barack Obama comes out on top! Witness:
"Tom Metzger, Director, White Aryan Resistance: "McCain ... He's a scary, scary person - more dangerous than Bush. Obama, according to his book, Dreams Of My Father, is a racist and I have no problem with black racists."
Erich Glieber, Chairman, National Alliance: "Obama ... He's a very intelligent man, an excellent speaker and has charisma ... My only problem with Obama is perhaps he's not black enough."
Rocky Suhayda, Chairman, American Nazi Party: "White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I'd prefer the negro."
The odd one out is Ron Edwards, Imperial Wizard of the Imperial Klans of America: "Obama, I think he's a piece of shit.""
I thought I'd go and see what the master race in the BNP had to say about Obama and what side they would come down on. Unfortunately, not a sausage can be found. Searching his name turns up one mention from July, when he visited these shores to thank Gordon Brown and Tony Blair for their support in the Iraq war. With bare-faced cheek they conclude their article with this claim:
"It is worthwhile mentioning that the first political party to warn that the entire war was based on a pack of lies, and should not be undertaken, was the British National Party, which published its findings on the baseless lies for the war on its web site in April 2003."
(!)
Keele Socialist Students this week visited the question of tuition fees and what we can do about them. Our visiting speaker was A of the Socialist Party's national committee. Though not currently a student, like me, he was involved in the campaign against their introduction back in 1997/8.
He began outlining government plans on the future of tuition fees. At the moment students are liable for a yearly fee capped at £3,000 and, if they fall beneath a £25,000 parental earnings threshold, a grant with a maximum ceiling of £2,825/year (I've never understood the logic of giving with one hand but taking away with another, but I digress). If the government gets its way it will see the cap removed and university's given the power to charge what they like. Inevitably a two-tier system will result - the top universities will charge thousands, ensuring they're even more a bastion of the rich and privileged. At the other end many universities, particularly the post-1992 institutions, will offer "budget" degrees to compete for students. The effect this will have on the employment prospects of graduates do not need spelling out.
But there's more than future careers at stake. At present the average student debt upon graduation stands at £12,000 - but the £20,000 figure is not uncommon. Already hundreds of thousands have to work to pay their way through university, often in low waged, insecure and exploitative jobs. The time these students have dedicated to their studies can and often are truncated by the demands of the workplace. Small wonder some 22 per cent of students drop out, a quarter of whom citing debt as the main reason.
Can this situation be reversed? The government says not. "We can't afford it" they say, an argument that's already threadbare after the mammoth funds it has splashed out to save the banks. If we rule out borrowing as a solution to the problem, there's still plenty of resources to be found. There are approximately two million students in Britain. If tuition fees were abolished and a grant of £5,000 were awarded all students this would cost approximately £15 billion. Right now, New Labour have earmarked a massive £76 billion for Trident. Is this really necessary? Furthermore the corporation tax rate in Britain stands at 28 per cent compared to 30 per cent in Germany and 35 per cent in France. If it was raised up to the French level an extra £10 billion would flow into government coffers. Additional funds could also be realised by actually forcing more British-registered companies to pay their tax. Of the top 700, only one third pay their way. Another third fiddle the system so they pay less then £10 million between them. And the final third paid nothing at all.
The 'can't afford' argument doesn't wash. So how to achieve our campaigning aims? Not by pursuing the NUS strategy. Its current position on fees is to limit it to keeping the cap, something it shares with Labour Students. Apparently, the argument goes, we have more chance of changing the government's mind if we stick only to this objective. As far as Socialist Students are concerned, at Keele and elsewhere, we will work with anyone to achieve this but think we need to campaign more widely. The NUS and Labour Students have no strategy addressing fees per se, grants and debt. It devolves to socialists to take the lead on these issues, and we can, as the experience at Bangor demonstrates.
Ok, ok, already. There's no need to jam my inbox full of where art thou-style messages. It's been a touch tight for time in AVPS towers for the left's most glamorous bloggers; yours truly and the mercurial enigma that is Brother S. But there may just be a chance blogging can once again assume its normal schedule. Pleasingly Stoke Socialist Party has grown very well these past three months, which will eventually enable your Stakhanovite heroes of socialist labour time off to pursue other things, like PhDs, paid work and the occasional blog. So don't be too surprised if a shat load of new pieces are vomited out of the RSS feed in a short space of time.
One thing that has been pleasing me is even though the posting has lagged and the blog has shown no signs of life for up to a week, the stats are holding up. Before you figures freaks get excited, I'm holding them back for the AVPS second birthday splurge in December. I'm afraid I'm going to have to delay your gratifications. But part of the reason the blog is attracting an audience in a quiet period is because of this. My piece on Lisa Roger's documentary about lady bits has them queuing up to have a peek. The most popular keyword search leading to my blog is, unsurprisingly, 'the perfect vagina'. But not far behind are 'beautiful porn vagina', 'very old vaginas'(!), 'how many average depth of g spot from vagina opening point with picture image', 'how do guys feel about the way a womens vagina looks?', 'it fits perfectly in your vagina', and my personal favourite, 'hanging ham vagina'. There must be a lot of disappointed folks out there when they click through to my blog post!
While we're talking key word analyses, this one jumped out at me: 'gorilla costume- articulating jaw'. Pourquoi? I know Stroppy used to get loads of visitors looking for 'nun porn' (again, why?) - have other readers' blogs been hit by seemingly off-beam/porny/random/incongruous searches?
This Saturday saw Socialist Party members from across the West Midlands descend upon Birmingham for an afternoon school on the economic crisis. We heard from SP deputy general secretary, Hannah Sell on the politics of the crisis in Britain, but I would like to concentrate on the contribution made by Lynn Walsh, editor of Socialism Today.
Lynn began noting how the last 16-17 years should have been a golden age for capitalism. The Soviet bloc had collapsed and what remained, principally China, embraced the market (even if the market in China is primarily between state-owned firms). The working class suffered a series of defeats that had stunned it into political quietude. Wages stagnated and the labour markets in Britain and the USA became more flexible than ever before (i.e. flexible from the point of view of capital, not from the shoes of our class). Bosses had the whip hand, real wages stagnated and the finance sector was deregulated. In other words, they'd never had it so good! And yet it still came crashing down around their ears.
For Lynn this was very much a crisis of speculative capitalism. This came into being as a response to the crisis in the Keynesian regime of accumulation of the post-war period. Reagan and Thatcher's programme (though, it has to be said, Carter and Callaghan were moving in this direction prior to being dumped out of office) deregulated the finance sector, privatised as much as they could and concentrated policy on the control of the money supply. Their "achievement" was to see an increasing share of total profits accrue to finance capital. In 1980 just 10 per cent of profits were from financial activity. In 2008 that figure, depending on who you believe, stood at between 30-50 per cent. Particularly in Britain speculation was a more attractive option than manufacturing - the profits for banking were twice as large.
The hegemony of finance capital was strengthened every time the boom it had created began to falter. The bursting of the dot com bubble? September 11th attacks? Just cut interest rates and make more government bonds available. But cheap credit can't keep the economic boat afloat forever. Something was bound to bring the edifice down, which as we now know, was the breakdown of the US sub-prime mortgage market.
The availability of cheap credit enabled millions of Americans to get on the housing ladder, and mortgage providers were only too willing to oblige. Proper credit checks went out the window as agents could accrue fees on the basis of a successful sale. In other words there were tempting short term gains to be made, which overrode the ability to keep up payments. Very quickly the finance industry cottoned on to this problem - if the debts are of poor quality it is very difficult to sell them on the markets. The solution was to chop them up and mix them in with good quality mortgages in securities. The advantage of doing so is the risky mortgages are tempered by the prime. If someone defaults on their mortgage it doesn't really matter because the payment guarantees of the prime debts cancels out the loss. At least this was what the top credit agencies thought - these packages were awarded a AAA rating, an almost zero risk! The promise of a virtually guaranteed return helped drive the expansion of credit, spurred ever more complex ways of packaging and repackaging debt and drove a boom in house building. But an economic bubble inflated by debt cannot be sustained indefinitely.
In early 2007 the credit locomotive hit the buffers. Finally the credit system began to run up against its limits as more and more people defaulted on their mortgages. Not only did the bottom of the mortgage market fall away, because of the shake 'n' bake packaging of debt no one knew whether one security was riskier than another. The composition of debt was completely unknown. Just as one apple spoils the barrel, the whole lot became toxic very quickly and the damage rippled out across the financial system, damage exacerbated by these packages being used as collateral for inter-bank loans. They panicked, inter-bank lending froze and the debts started getting called in. Northern Rock and Bear Sterns were early casualties, but more were to follow.
The crisis matured during the summer months and erupted back into the open in September. As stock markets plunged and the city went cap in hand to the US and UK governments, Bush and his advisers tried to draw a line in the sand as Lehman Brothers collapsed. They were mindful of the angry response welling up from the depths of American society and were keen not to be seen bailing out tremendously wealthy companies. The decision to let Lehman Brothers go to the wall was political. But alas it was to have tremendous economic repercussions. It's no exaggeration to say it helped deepen the panic in the markets and spread the crisis around the world. Lehman's debt obligations ignored the borders of the United States. All of a sudden it looked as though many more financial institutions were in for a rougher ride. This time governments did step in - the US and its $700 billion bail out, which, under the pressure of events, moved from a strategy for the buying up of banking debts to outright nationalisations, which currently stand at nine big and regional banks. But the UK government has really set the tone. No doubt some were impressed by the audaciousness and the apparently decisive actions taken by Brown and Darling. £500 billion has been pledged to sure up the system and the banking sector is now part nationalised. But it was events that forced their hands. The British banking system was on the brink of a 1929-style meltdown if they hadn't so acted.
But one question a lot of people are asking is where the money has come from? Printing presses haven't been going into overdrive, so Zimbabwe-style inflation is a very remote prospect. For Lynn the money governments got their hands on came from three sources. First, the last 16 years saw the largest redistribution of wealth in modern times - from the poor to the rich. Some corporations coined it like never before and those not compromised by the crisis are looking for safe places to invest their capital. The rate of return may be low but at least (for the moment) government bonds appear to be risk-free. Then there's China. By virtue of its position as the new workshop of the world it has accumulated tremendous trade surpluses. Some two trillion dollars are sitting in Chinese banks. So they have the money AND the interest in bailing out the West. If their markets dry up its rapid economic growth could run out of steam, throwing oil onto an already combustible domestic situation. And finally there are the oil producing states, particularly in the Middle East. Because of their low populations and underdeveloped infrastructures, the Arab ruling classes deposited their surpluses in Western banks for speculative accumulation. Like the corporations, this capital is looking for secure outlets.
The ruling class and their system have left a right mess. But things are much clearer for socialists. It shows up the failure of free markets. It illustrates how vast amounts of money can be found when the system is threatened. It reveals the hollowness of neoliberalism. And, incredibly, some sections of capital are falling over themselves to show their ingratitude. The part-nationalisation of banks via a system of government-owned preference shares have riled some up. You'd think they'd rather see banks fail than have the government getting first dibs on any profits, or have its appointees running the show (even if, like themselves, they are city people).
A socialist response to the crisis would be outright nationalisation of the banks, but crucially they would be taken out of the hands of the executives, speculators and spivs and run democratically by the people that work there and those who deposit in them. This would enable an immediate programme of debt cancellation, a replacement of repossessions by transferring defaulting borrowers homes into rented housing at cheap rates and a restitution of loans to small businesses on favourable terms. And because the crisis is global, similar measures would have to be taken all over the world.
These measures may be radical and complex, but they're a damn sight more realistic than the pious hope of fixing the cycle of boom and bust and the social devastation it leaves in its wake.
