If you’re for equality, you are a revolutionary

 

Plenty of people reading this will, no doubt, not consider themselves ‘revolutionaries’ or ‘Marxists’. Indeed, the very idea of revolution probably frightens plenty of people who, nonetheless, would like to change the system. For many on the left the goal is either something called a “socialist government” or a commitment to something called “equality”. They often profess to not only know no theory but see it as an irrelevance. The important thing, they believe, is to fight for and achieve reforms that make the system more equal. Of course, “the revolution” would be nice, but faced with a public that seem largely politically apathetic or worse right leaning, electoral systems that favour the pro-capitalist parties and mass parties on the left such as Labour or the Democrats who long ago abandoned any commitment to socialism, it just seems entirely out of reach. It is only a small minority of people that believe socialist revolution is achievable and they lack both the numbers and the influence to actually make it happen. So the revolutionaries and the reformists form an uneasy alliance and argue about how to take the struggle forward.

Arguments about the goals of socialism and the tactics which socialists should adopt are as old as socialism itself. There is no one true socialism, although until the 1980’s and the fall of the Berlin Wall everybody was engaged in a dialogue with the ghost of Marx. Even today some people profess to be the true inheritors of the Marxist tradition. But, for most people on the left, their activism is spurred on more by a form of moral outrage than a theoretical belief in the inherent contradictions of capitalism. I do not want to push socialist theory down your throat or suggest one formulation is more correct than another but it is possible to look at the past, find parallels today and learn from them. Hence in this article I want to revisit briefly a debate that took place in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century.

In 1899, Rosa Luxemburg wrote a short book called Reform or Revolution in answer to the leader of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German Social Democratic Party) Eduard Bernstein”s booklet called: The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (1899). In this booklet Bernstein set out a path for the German socialist movement encapsulated in the line: “To me that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything.” In short, Bernstein was arguing that it was possible to deliver reforms that would create a form of “capitalist equality” and if this proved to be the case there was no reason to fight for socialism.

In her rebuttal Luxemburg argued that posing the question in this way set up a false dichotomy. She wrote: “The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal – the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labour.” In short she says we must, of course,  engage in the struggle for reforms, but not, as in Bernstein’s formulation, as an end in their own right, but rather as a means to radicalise the workers and bring an end to the social system that enslaves them.

Whilst an argument between two German Marxists over 100 years ago may seem entirely irrelevant and whilst it is unlikely that anybody but academics would today use the same language this debate has dogged the socialist movement and where you stand on it will make a difference to how you act in relation to your commitment to socialism. For many people, socialism is a far-off distant goal. Something to strive for but that they do not expect to actually achieve. Socialism, in this view,  is a word which could so easily be replaced by utopia. And, as we all know, utopia is a place only for dreamers. We can posit against this utopian dream the practical objectives for those calling themselves socialists. Not an unrealistic transformation of society, but rather the achievable aims of winning political power through democratic means, of making workers conditions better through trade union struggle or by ameliorating the worst excesses of poverty by, amongst other things, providing free school meals or extending “universal credit” by £20. 

Bernstein did not want to renounce Marxism altogether, but rather to revise it in the face of evidence of the advances progressive forces appeared to be making in advanced capitalist economies. Luxemburg understood very well that retaining a commitment to socialism, in theory, whilst working day to day on “practical objectives” would have only one outcome. As she puts it: “Either revisionism is correct in its position on the course of capitalist development, and therefore the socialist transformation of society is only a utopia, or socialism is not a utopia, and the theory of “means of adaptation” is false.” By which she means if reform is enough then socialism is utopian, if it is not then reform cannot possibly be enough. For a political movement calling itself socialist to regard socialism as a utopia is to abandon socialism as a goal at all. Is this not what we hear from the majority of Labour MPs who proudly declare themselves ‘socialist’ whilst at the same time telling us ‘socialist policies don’t win elections’. Unlike their predecessors in the SPD today’s revisionists never even had a theory to actually revise, unless you consider “me, me, me” as a theory.

You may not consider yourself a revolutionary, but if you do not think of socialism as a mere utopia; if you believe that it is the social system that is the problem, not the solution; then, by definition you are seeking revolution not evolution, and therefore, even if you have never read a word of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Luxemburg, you are a revolutionary socialist. Which is not to say you favour violence over the ballot box. Very few people, including revolutionary socialists, favour violence. It is just that the ballot box can only change the government not the system.

Samuel Farber, writing for Jacobin Magazine in 2019, summed up why Marxists, but include anybody who believes in socialist revolution, supported the Bernie Sanders vision, but as a means not an end in itself: “For Marxists, Sanders’s progressive agenda is worth fighting for, in as much as it represents a stand against the neoliberal social agenda implemented by Democrats and Republicans alike since the 1970s. Their participation, however, is informed by the distinctive view that, in order to win those struggles, it is necessary to go far beyond the ballot box and take them into the workplaces and neighbourhoods of America, to “socialise” those struggles and turn them into a movement from below, independent of the two parties. Marxist socialism seeks to articulate these and other progressive struggles — against racism and imperialism and for immigrants and refugees — into a long-term view of systemic change: a social revolution that brings down the economic and political system founded on the profit motive, capitalism, and replaces it with a politically and economically democratic one.”

This, surely, is the goal for socialists. Not only a change of government, but a change of culture. For those who believed, as Bernstein came to, that capitalism can be gradually eroded and transformed so that it no longer exists, the rejection of revolution is not a rejection of violence, which they might try to justify it as, but rather a rejection of the very idea of socialism. If you are unfortunate enough to get into a conversation with one of the more rabid right-wingers who populate the Labour Party and dare to suggest that what we need is a total change of the social system, they will not necessarily laugh in your, socially distanced, face, though they might, but more likely give you a pained look that says ‘grow up’. 

Luxemburg, apparently keen on cooking judging by these analogies, answers this puzzlement: “Bernstein settles the question by weighing minutely the good and bad sides of social reform and social revolution. He does it almost in the same manner in which cinnamon or pepper is weighed out in a consumers’ co-operative store...Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at the pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society.”

To be fair, you would be hard pressed to find a right-wing (or as they like to call themselves these days, a centrist) Labour MP who would argue that the goal of ‘socialism’ could be reached by ‘progressive legislative reform’. For this generation of “socialists” the goal is not even ‘progressive reform’ but simply the competent management of a social system that, like a sick parody of Robin Hood, steals from the poor, to make the rich ever more wealthy. In other words, the question of revolution or reform has been settled in favour of neither. 

Part of the issue for modern socialists, still caught in the glare of parliamentary headlights, is to understand that you simply cannot vote away oppression. The idea that we can legislate away racism or sexism in a culture which is institutionally racist and sexist is at best naive and at worst a contributory factor in maintaining the very structures you are supposed to oppose. However, this is not to say that socialists should not support Black Lives Matter or gender equality. Luxemburg, quite rightly, saw such campaigns as essential learning grounds. As Lea Ypi writes in Jacobin magazine: “Reforms, Luxemburg argued, provided crucial learning platforms through which the mass of oppressed people would develop a capacity for autonomous decision-making and prepare for the conquest of political power. Yet such reforms were trials of freedom, they were not freedom itself.”

Martin Luther King Jr is best known for his ‘I have a dream’ speech and is therefore regarded as a leader who above all else wanted equality within capitalism for the black people he represented. What is often forgotten is that King, far from seeking reforms, was a socialist. As he wrote to his then girlfriend Coretta Scott in 1952: “I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic,” concluding that “capitalism has outlived its usefulness.” Matthew Miles Goodrich writes: “Speaking at a staff retreat of the SCLC in 1966, King said that “something is wrong … with capitalism” and “there must be a better distribution of wealth” in the country. “Maybe,” he suggested, “America must move toward a democratic socialism.”” King, who is beloved of latter day centrists and liberals has been, and I use this word ironically, “whitewashed” so that his radical socialism becomes a more passive, and reformist, anti-racism.

Interestingly enough, as Black Lives Matters spilled onto streets around the World following the death of George Floyd in May last year there was a concerted attempt to undermine them by the right-wing media. The main charge was that BLM was a Marxist organisation which sought not just justice but the total overhaul of the social system. Femi Oluwole, a liberal, black activist who spent a good deal of the past 5 years criticising Jeremy Corbyn took to the Big Issue to explain that BLM was not Marxist but was only interested in equality. To be fair Femi is doing quite well out of the current system and just wants the same opportunities as his white friends have. But it is strange that young liberals like Femi feel the need to defend BLM against a charge that it is about more than just “equality”. As he said: “Look at it this way. Marxism is obviously something conservatives don’t like. And yet despite black people constantly saying that #BlackLivesMatter is not about some Marxist organisation and is just about equality, many conservatives insist it is about Marxism.” 

What Femi doesn’t say is what is it about Marxism that Conservatives don’t like. Perhaps it is precisely that Marxists believe in equality. But then if BLM is “just about equality” as he claims shouldn’t they find common cause with Marxism rather than legitimising the hatred Conservatives have of it, and pretending that equality is a realistic prospect within a system that as Martin Luther King Jr said: “It is a well known fact that no social institution can survive when it has outlived its usefulness. This, capitalism has done. It has failed to meet the needs of the masses.” King was clear that racial equality required real and total equality, and that meant that capitalism had to be seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Femi no doubt is sincere in his demand for racial equality, but Femi, privately educated and the son of a paediatrician mother and surgeon father has already done quite well out of the system as it is. He believes that with a few reforms the system can be made to work. But, the problem is that the reforms will leave the basic inequalities in tact. 

Whilst the choice may seem one of fighting inequality in the here and now or putting off everything until after the revolution this has never been the motivation of real socialists. As Lindsay German has written: “Rosa Luxemburg said that the choice facing humanity was between 'socialism or barbarism'. She could not have imagined the barbarism of nuclear war, but her ideas help us in the fight against it. Capitalist competition in the age of imperialism, she argued, takes on more and more the form of military as well as economic competi­tion, which is why the fight against militarism is not the separate or moral fight which the reformists then and today believed it to be, but a fight against the whole capitalist system.” 

The very existence of nuclear weapons coupled with the systematic destruction of the planet renders reforms absolutely useless. If we start to think that ‘revolution’ is something to be ashamed of then we are doomed to repeat the failures of all the socialists of preceding generations who have spent so much time and effort getting people elected only to find that parliament changes them far more than they change parliament.

No socialist worthy of the name would oppose measures that make ordinary people’s lives better. But, at present, the reformist agenda such as it exists at all, relies on elected representatives attempting to pass legislation. When that is not possible we are told that we must work to get more MPs so that the reforms can be passed.  But, it was not a forensic PMQs question that led to the procession of u-turns from the Tories but extra-parliamentary action. So, any organisation emerging from the debris of the five-years spent supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s failed attempt to transform the Labour Party must embrace a bottom-up approach which seeks to use the fight for reforms not as an end in their own right, but as a means for ordinary people to articulate their concerns, and working together come to the same conclusion as Martin Luther King Jr so many years ago. In short, capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It is failing the mass of people, including many of those who think they have a stake in the system because they live in a house that is effectively on loan from a bank.

Fighting for reforms is an important part of our daily struggle toward socialism but it should never become the raison d’etre of the socialist movement. It is a stepping stone bringing more people into the struggle and placing pressure on the system. It is precisely when the pressures for reform cannot be contained that the prospect for radical change can emerge. That is why it was never a case of reform or revolution, but rather a case of reform leading to revolution.

Whilst you’re here. If you like what you’ve read please subscribe by using the widget at the top left.

Can I encourage you to listen to The Socialist Hour podcast. Episode 1 is on Mixcloud now: https://www.mixcloud.com/SocialistHour/socialist-hour-episode-1-a-change-is-gonna-come/

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Towards peace and justice

 

Last week Jeremy Corbyn, supported by a stellar cast that included Noam Chomsky, Zarah Sultana and Len McCluskey, launched the Peace and Justice project. The online rally on Sunday afternoon attracted over 100,000 viewers, and inspired many with its central message of hope and unity.

Despite the large numbers involved and despite the fact that it was led by a former leader of the Labour Party, the mainstream media gave it virtually no coverage at all. The BBC had zero coverage on its website, The Guardian buried the story in the politics section of their website and even that only waited until the fifth paragraph to remind us that “Corbyn was readmitted to the Labour party in November, after being suspended over remarks he made when the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its critical report on the party’s handling of antisemitism.”

No wonder then that on Corbyn’s to do list was reform of the media. As he said at the rally:”We want a powerful and influential media but one that puts power and influence in the hands of the majority not in the hands of the few. A truly free media would expose truth and challenge the powerful. But right now much of the media isn’t free at all. The influence of billionaires and their interests is huge.“

Inspired or disappointed? 

During the rally I tweeted a question to ask people whether they were inspired, disappointed or reserving judgement. According to Twitter this was seen by nearly 30,000 people (please don’t ask me how they calculate that because I’ve no idea). More importantly, it received 227 replies. When I put the tweet up, just before Jeremy Corbyn spoke I had picked up a few tweets from people who seemed slightly ‘underwhelmed’ by the whole thing and I was sitting there thinking “the speakers are great but what do they want me to do?”. Despite what a couple of people thought I was not being negative but wanting to know where this rally and this initiative were leading in terms of picking up the fight against the right, both inside and outside the Labour Party. 

The vast majority of the Twitter replies (probably upwards of 95%) replied with the simple “inspired”. But questions were being asked. QueenAntifa (possibly not her real name) said: “I've signed up, but think a more focused plan of attack on the right would have been a bit more inspiring.” Whilst Leeshx was “looking for it to turn into a electoral party”. Jackie Hilton entirely bucked the trend and found it “Disappointed, I nodded off at one point.....”  Those questioning the direction were answered by an enthusiastic Daphne Parkin, amongst others, who said: “To build the Left starting at the local level, get together with like-minded people on local, national or global issues, supported by the project, grow and expand, become a force for peace and justice.” 

The general feeling was something akin to ‘Jeremy’s back and we’re still with him’. Whilst the launch and the website are big on inspirational words they are, perhaps predictably, lighter on detail. So I certainly understand why some people were if not disappointed not entirely sure how they should feel.  If I was feeling less than inspired that was swept away when I listed to Project Coup’s excellent summary of the rally which if you haven’t listened to I wholeheartedly recommend. (You can also hear some thoughts on a new podcast I’m involved in, The Socialist Hour.)

Careerist snakes

Since the right-wing coup that ousted Jeremy and heralded this disastrous Tory government it is undoubtedly true that not only have the left been under a sustained attack, but have been looking for something they could unite around. Black Lives Matter provided a sense of movement but as disappointment in Labour has intensified, so has a feeling that we need an alternative home. Rachael Swindon had written a blog post prior to the rally in which she argued: “Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right to launch this project, because the Labour Party should be the natural home for peace and justice, rather than the temporary accommodation for the neoliberals, the warmongers, the racists, the smearers, the schemers and the utterly loathsome lying careerist snakes. ” That’s the problem with Rachael she never really says what she thinks!

Whilst I share her disgust at the ‘new leadership’ I think this project has revealed an ambiguous relationship with the Labour Party. All the main British speakers are members of the party many people were hoping that Corbyn would offer an alternative to. He is probably right to resist calls to lead a breakaway because apart from the wonderful Zarah Sultana who ruined any chances of a successful parliamentary career by saying “We don’t just need a more competent, more forensic government we need a socialist government”, it is not clear who in the PLP would follow him.

This strikes me as one of the issues that the left have to work out and I am far from convinced that the Peace and Justice project will be able to do so. Put simply it is this: can the left win back the Labour Party? Clearly many on the left still think that their strength in the constituencies means that this is a possibility. When I suggested during a recent WhatsApp conversation with the left in my own constituency that staying in the Labour Party “is entirely futile” the response was predictable. They are not leaving the party because a) “it’s my party and I’m not handing it over” and b) “it’s a vehicle for making advances for the working classes”. Unfortunately, I don’t share either of those illusions, as I think they are based on myths that too many people subscribe to without any evidence of their truth.

Taking back Labour

People conveniently forget that the party was never established as a mass membership party, but rather as a party to provide the trade union movement with parliamentary representation. For those who think that is incorrect I would advise you to read either Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism or Henry Pelling’s The Origins of the Labour Party. You could also try this blog which I wrote some time back. The point however is that the main focus of the party, from its inception, was the Parliamentary Labour Party. What this means in practice is that members power is largely illusory, and can never override a united PLP, a fact that was only too obvious as his parliamentary colleagues turned on Jeremy Corbyn following his 2015 leadership victory.

I am not seeking to rerun arguments I made here and here. It’s not that the matter is entirely settled, it’s just that I’ve really nothing new to add. In the current context though it means that by definition the left in the U.K. is inexorably split between those who want to spend time fighting for “their party” through interminable party meetings and those who have already decided that the party offers no way forward for those interested in promoting socialism. So, does the Peace and Justice project offer a way of bringing these two groups together?

One thing Jeremy said was that if you sign up the project would put you in touch with other people in your locality (just hoping it’s not the local Labour left who all hate me now!) and this could clearly be a good thing. What is not so clear is what these like minded souls are supposed to do. Helping food banks and trade unions was mentioned, but that is only a start. A start of what exactly is a bigger question and one which will, no doubt, become clearer as the organisation develops. Jeremy’s instincts on this, as so many things, are right. Politics always starts at the local and often with what may appear, the mundane. Everybody comes to the struggle in their own way. For some it is highly personal. Being oppressed on the grounds of totally arbitrary characteristics: gender, skin colour, sexual orientation. For others it is the experience of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and other deprivations. For others it is through trade union struggles for better pay and conditions. And, for others, it is simply a recognition that no matter how comfortable their own life may seem, life could be better for everybody if we tackled the systematic inequalities in wealth, income and opportunities.

Political education

Joining together in solidarity and unity is important and represents a clear strategy. But, political campaigns, particularly local ones, tend to be narrowly focused. The role of socialists is to take those sectional local campaigns and help those involved to generalise their specific issue to the wider struggle for global equality. Jeremy knows this. I’ve heard him speak about it in the past. I was a little surprised therefore that neither the rally nor the website made much about the need to educate both ourselves and others. Perhaps an oversight, or perhaps he feels that in building a mass movement political education is a taken-for-granted.

Rachael Swindon makes a similar point in her post-launch blog: “ Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We all know someone who has got so much to give, but find themselves held back, and I hope this is something Jeremy’s project will address, because change will begin to happen when you empower the people.”

Much was made about progressive policies: the green new deal, media reform, vaccine equality and economic justice. To be honest it was a reassertion of the 2019 manifesto. As Len McCluskey said: “We need the radical alternative policies developed under the leadership of Jeremy and John McDonnell...They took on the economic orthodoxy that had dominated the World for over 40 years and showed that there was an alternative.” The problem is that it is unlikely most of the policies will survive until 2024, a fair few have already been ditched.

So, if the idea is to develop policies what happens to them? Knowing Jeremy Corbyn as we do it cannot be his intention to simply tell us what we should be campaigning on. That means there has to be some sort of democratic forum where the members can influence the direction of the organisation. Although this was never stated it’s hard to think how these policies are to see the light of day otherwise. But there is another possibility. The Peace and Justice project will be a pressure group trying to influence the direction of the Labour Party. If that were to be the case it sets up a confrontation with SirKeith and his right wing cronies. I can’t think anybody on the left would not like to tackle the current crop of Blairites, but all the talk of policies sounded as if Jeremy still had a major say in the party. The reality is that he has never been more marginalised. That he is having to take legal action simply to have the whip restored should tell us everything we need to know about his, or our, chances of changing Labour from within.

Horizontalism

Somebody on my WhatsApp meeting said that the goal of Labour currently was to drive members out of the party. I don’t think that has ever been the goal. They know that members are incredibly useful for putting leaflets through doors and getting out the vote. I have always thought the goal was not to expel the left but to bludgeon it into submission. Some of you may have heard of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. This was a prison designed in such a way that the prisoners never know whether they are being watched, but given the potential of the guards to see them they modify their behaviour on the basis that they are under surveillance. The right are doing something similar to the left. Selective suspensions and expulsions are making people incredibly reluctant to raise issues that the party bureaucracy have deemed ultra vires. 

As I was considering some of these issues I came across a blog by HT4EcoSocialism who laid out some ground rules for a new democratic socialist party:

“1. Horizontalism - no one is more important than anyone else. All members are equal. There are no leaders.

2. The party must be member-led - this follows from horizontalism. All decisions on actions, policies, and programmes are made by the membership.

3. Consensus - this is how the party will make all its decisions. There will be no majority group and no minority group.”

This idea of no leaders feeds into a belief that there are no representatives but delegates. Although on the face of it most people on the left will see the appeal of these ideas, what became clear from comments I received on Twitter about the Peace and Justice project is that for many, if not most, people on the left it is a question of replacing the current leader with a better one, not abandoning the idea of leaders altogether. 

Top heavy?

Perhaps this is an over-harsh judgement but it is entirely plausible to argue that the Peace and Justice project, as currently constituted is top heavy. The ideas and policies are being handed down, but with very little detail. We can all agree that there should be economic justice and that this should extend across borders, but what do we do to take this idea forward? My fear with the Peace and Justice project is that as it stands there is no mechanism for doing what Jeremy said “linking the local, national and international”.

I am not the only one with misgivings about the project. Watching the launch Twitter user Lorraine Locke said she was “underwhelmed” and although she wasn’t attacked as such, it was clear that for some people any suggestion of shortcomings was tantamount to treason. Okay treason is probably a bit harsh but you know what I mean. To raise questions about the project is not the same as wanting it to fail. Steve Topple’s thoughtful piece in The Canary raised many of the same issues I’m discussing here. As he concluded: “I am genuinely concerned that the project is going to be yet another top-down vehicle for middle class people whose hearts are in the right place. There’s no denying that everyone at the launch cares about the world, is egalitarian in their approach and wants better lives for everyone on the planet. But when that manifests as people in positions of socioeconomic comfort helping and supporting those of us at the bottom – it is on their explicit terms.”

Having been involved in working class politics for a number of years I might be deemed as one of those middle class do-gooders Mr Topple is pointing the finger at. I was lucky enough to get from my council estate to university and a home in an area that is decidedly middle class. However, I think it is wrong to see the issues with the project in these terms. Working class people, for very good reasons, can be incredibly difficult to organise and often lack the skills of organisation that are needed to create mass movements. But when motivated they are certainly capable of taking on the ruling classes. See my article on the NUWM for a historic example. But, anybody who was involved in the miners strike will know just how articulate the miners (and their wives) were. But whilst miners were certainly prepared to fight, and whilst middle class people always thought they knew better, the fact was it was an alliance that made that strike so formidable, and in the end it was the failure of political leadership in both the trade unions and the Labour Party that could not bring themselves to support Scargill that doomed it to defeat.

None of this should be taken as meaning I am not enthusiastic about this project. That is certainly not true, but it seems to have been designed, to some extent, in the shadow of Labour and almost as two fingers to those who have sought in Lisa Nandy’s comradely phrase to destroy Jeremy Corbyn as a man. The hope that has been raised by the project, and which has no interest for most of our media, could spark a movement of real significance that changes the political landscape in the U.K. forever. It might not. But it is early days and we shall not know how all this will pan out without getting involved and doing what we can to push it in whatever direction we would like it to go. Which is bound to involve a fair amount of compromise along the way. As Rachael Swindon concluded: “Now is the time for the Peace and Justice 

Project to pick up the baton of socialism, and carry us forward as one movement.” 

Whilst you’re here. If you like what you’ve read please subscribe by using the widget at the top left.

Can I encourage you to listen to The Socialist Hour podcast. Episode 1 is on Mixcloud now: Just click here

And for a great listen, I recommend Project Coups regular shows on Mixcloud: The latest one is here

You can sign up for the Peace and Justice Project headed by Jeremy Corbyn here 

Please write to Julian Assange who is still in Belmarsh: https://writejulian.com

Socialist reading: Please support the following socialist blogs

Charlotte Hughes here

Rachael Swindon here

Jonathan Cooke here

And avoid the MSM and support these left wing sources instead:

The Canary

Skwawkbox

Counterfire 

Morning Star

Byline Times

Support workers struggles by using the brilliant interactive strike map

They shall not starve

In 1944 there were 89,575 persons registered as unemployed in the U.K. . As a result in May 1944 the British Government produced a White Paper on Employment Policy. It’s opening paragraph stated: “the Government accept as one of their primary aims and responsibilities the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment.” By 1954, the unemployed  had increased to 317,767. The fifties are generally regarded as good years for the economy. But despite these being the ‘you've never had it so good’ years the average unemployment figure across the decade was just shy of 370,000. By the end of the decade unemployment was over half a million. The goal of full employment was quietly dropped.

Whilst the numbers fluctuated in the sixties in half the years unemployment remained over half a million workers. But it was not until the 1970’s that unemployment crashed through the million mark. This happened in July 1975 as the Labour government struggled with the twin demands of the IMF and a resurgent trade union movement. Since then unemployment has never fallen below one million, reaching 3.4 million in January 1985 as Thatcher strove to drive ‘socialism’ out of the U.K., a policy that meant the destruction of the trade union movement and the salami-like slicing of the public sector.

The public need to pay attention

Unemployment has never gone away. In December the official number was 1.69 million, an increase of over 400,000 in a year. Unemployment is rising amongst all age groups. The pandemic has exacerbated the trend. All unemployment represents a private tragedy for the person affected. Long-term unemployment is the most pernicious. As journalist and activist Charlotte Hughes told me:”I don’t think most people have a clue what life on benefits is like until they experience it themselves. Years of the benefit scrounger rhetoric has played a big part in this.” Many people assume that not only could unemployment not happen to them personally, but that those reliant on benefits are there through some kind of moral failing. Charlotte continued: “The public need to pay attention to this because quite honestly it could be them next and no job is stable at the moment.”

As Charlotte told me the pandemic has certainly exacerbated things, taking away opportunities for those looking for a way out of poverty whilst simultaneously plunging more and more people into the horrors of the benefit system. However, we should be wary of placing all the blame on Covid-19, unemployment and poverty are long-term, structural features of a capitalist system in decline. Whilst some countries seem better able to resist the worst excesses of the system, for most workers, particularly those with least skills and subsequently lower pay, fear of unemployment is never far away.

Charlotte’s words remind us that unemployment is not just a statistic, it is a life changing experience. Of course, not everybody experiences unemployment in the same way. For many people it is simply a short-term transition from one job to another. But, for many more unemployment is a long-term experience which gradually erodes their sense of self-worth. It is difficult to find accurate figures for how long people have been unemployed. In 2015 the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated the number of long-term unemployed at 570,000, whilst the OECD calculates that 25.1% of the U.K. unemployed in 2019 had been unemployed for more than 12 months. Constant changes in the way these statistics are compiled does not help. As the Politics.co.U.K. Website notes: “Over the last 25 years, numerous revisions to the official definition of "unemployment" have been made, which have almost universally revised it downwards.”

Pushed to breaking point

Barbara Petrongolo notes that “long-term unemployment adversely affects the mental and physical well-being of individuals involved and is one of the most important causes of poverty for their households.” Chris Alston who works with ex-offenders told me: “Job coaches often talk down to people and rather than offer support they are authoritarian which people who have been in prison respond negatively to...The culture for job seeking is mass application..the impact on self-esteem is huge. You have people being rejected left, right and Centre and that builds up feelings of inadequacy and lowers confidence. Over time the cycle of rejection and not having the money to live any sort of life, literally living off charity, pushes people to breaking point. People either commit crime, attempt suicide, or turn to some sort of numbing vice either drink or drugs.”

In 1944 there was a genuine belief that the end of the war would see an end to the type of poverty that had blighted the twenties and thirties. In 1942 the Beveridge Report proposed a new system of national insurance to replace the hated poor laws. It was based on a set of assumptions including full employment which, of course, never happened. Beveridge, a liberal, is often presented as a radical reformer, he was certainly a reformer but whether he was radical depends on your definition. A radical proposal would not have sought to manage poverty but eradicate it once and for all. At the very least a radical might have supported a minimum wage below which no worker could be employed. Whilst what Beveridge proposed was certainly more generous than what had preceded it, he was clear that benefits should remove want without removing the incentive to work. In some ways, the subsistence benefit levels became a de facto minimum wage, though in reality many workers preferred to exist on low wages rather than be reliant on benefits which from the outset were beset by accusations of ‘scrounging’.

The situation that led to the creation of the welfare state was the dire circumstances in which many workers found themselves prior to the outbreak of war. These conditions are encapsulated in the iconic 1936 ‘Jarrow Crusade’ in which two hundred men from Jarrow marched to London to protest against poverty and unemployment. When they got to Parliament they handed in a petition, which was never debated and then they walked back home.

Beveridge credited for communist agitation 

Marches of the unemployed were not uncommon during the 20’s and 30’s. You might wonder why it is only Jarrow that is remembered. The National Unemployed Workers Movement, led by Wal Hannington, organised a series of ‘Hunger Marches’ some attracting hundreds of thousands of participants. Like the Jarrow Marchers that followed them, these marchers, mainly unemployed miners, delivered petitions. Unlike the Jarrow marchers they did not then quietly turn round and go home. They stayed in London agitating for better conditions.

Hannington, a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, founded the NUWM with other great socialists including Thom Mann and Harry McShane. When they teach you about the 30’s in school they somehow omit the bit where the foundation of the modern welfare state was largely a result of communist agitation. Richard Croucher in his book ‘We Refuse To Starve In Silence notes “the NUWM laid the foundation for a new system of social benefits traditionally credited to the Beveridge Report.” It’s better to pretend that the welfare state was the result of well meaning liberals than admit that had it not been for mass demonstrations organised by members of the Communist Party the government would never have conceded the ending of means testing, nor the creation of universal unemployment benefit.

The fact that almost everybody reading this will know of the Jarrow March but hardly anybody will know of the NUWM hunger marches shows clearly enough how history is manipulated to sanitise the message. The Jarrow March was supported by both the Labour Party and the TUC and having marched it is not clear if a single one of the Jarrow men actually got anything but sore feet for their efforts. As University of Newcastle historian Matt Perry concedes: “the Crusade did not succeed in its stated goal. Their strategy of gaining sympathetic press coverage failed to achieve either concessions from the Government or a hearing from ministers. Ironically the now largely forgotten National Hunger March taking place at the same time as the Crusade secured the postponement of new scales of unemployment relief.”

Unemployed Struggles

As Hannington notes in the brilliant ‘Unemployed Struggles’ the election of a Labour Government in 1929 caused great optimism amongst the unemployed that things were about to improve. Optimism that was quickly scotched. The NUWM, by then a mass organisation with branches in virtually every major centre drew up a charter to be presented to the Labour Minister for Employment, Margaret Bondfield. The Charter included the following:

• Raise the benefits of the unemployed above poverty level
• Remove the “not genuinely seeking work” clause
• Abolish the six day waiting period
• Reduce the working day with no loss of pay

The parallels to today are uncanny. Anybody who has dealt with the DWP will know of the 5 week wait for the benefit to arrive. Those seeking what is now called Jobseekers Allowance are expected to take ‘steps’ to show that they are ‘actively seeking work’. The result is that benefit office staff have an enormous and often humiliating (for the claimant) amount of power to decide whether an adult receives a pittance on which to survive.

What is really interesting about Hannington’s memoir is that neither the TUC nor Labour Party wanted anything to do with the NUWM which, they claimed, was controlled by a foreign power - Russia. But the real reason for their antipathy was that they were suspicious of a mass organisation of ordinary people who refused to acknowledge their betters. Indeed, the NUWM had a philosophy which encouraged a belief that only through agitation and struggle could concessions be prised from the hands of capitalists who they regarded as class enemies.

Hannington points out: “In fact, the whole of working-class history proves that the workers have never gained anything by way of improved standards, liberties or democratic rights, without persistent organisation and struggle. The ruling class have never given concessions to the subject class out of good-heartedness or human consideration. Right down the ages all improvements have had to be wrung from the ruling class by the organised strength and action of the workers. Every item of the boasted progressive or protective legislation of the past hundred years - the provision of public health, education, and the other social services - has been preceded by intense agitation, sometimes extending for years, on the part of the workers outside of Parliament.”

People are scared of the DWP

There is no equivalent of the NUWM in the U.K. currently. Organising the unemployed is always difficult. If it’s hard to get people who are in a workplace to join a union, how much more difficult to get people who actually don’t want to have the thing they have in common, in common. As activist Charlotte Hughes says “I’d like to see the equivalent of the hunger marches taking place but we live in different times now. It’s very hard to get people to join movements like this. So many people are scared of the DWP or their employers.” In the 1980’s the TUC organised the People’s March for Jobs. Despite being supported by a rally of over 100,000 people at Hyde Park the march had the same result as the Jarrow March on which it was inspired. Charlotte knows from her own experience how difficult it is to get those at their lowest ebb to join a movement. It takes a lot of hard work and organisation and local organisations rarely have the capacity to go nationwide. Unlike in the 20’s and 30’s the majority of today’s unemployed are not from heavily unionised industries like mining and shipbuilding. They tend to be lower skilled and less well educated and in many cases have never had what you might call a permanent job. In a very real sense they are what Marx termed a ‘reserve army of labour’, able to be deployed quickly and cheaply if capital is expanding, but equally able to be discarded in times of retrenchment.

In an economic system based on consumerism, fuelled by the wages of those working, the unemployed are literally outside the system, despite their eagerness to be brought within. Unemployment is a source of shame for people who know, because they are constantly reminded, that they are not contributing to society in a way which they are expected. This cannot but affect their self-esteem and motivation. The benefit system is designed to be both harsh and punitive in an attempt to drive people into jobs that simply do not exist. In December there were an estimated 547,000 job vacancies which means there are more than 3 unemployed people for every vacancy, and that says nothing about whether people’s qualifications and experience match the jobs on offer.

The campaigns against austerity have become the place that the left organise against unemployment. But, whilst these campaigns have been effective and gained a lot of support they allow unemployment to remain hidden within a catch-all which includes unemployment, under employment, casual employment, more general poverty and issues around disability. All of these are important, but the beauty of the hunger marches was that they were very specific and were able to generate specific demands. More importantly, unemployment and its structural nature gets to the very heart of why capitalism can never deliver the equality so many people believe is simply a government away. The way in which Labour has traditionally dealt with trade unions and the unemployed should be clear enough evidence that those who now control the party are from a tradition that has always put the interests of capital before the interests of workers - whether employed or unemployed.

I am not proposing a hunger march, that would be inappropriate in a pandemic, but the outcry over food boxes reminds us that the easy answer to poverty is some form of charity which, by design or not, encourages a sense of dependence. The public, rightly, are outraged by the thought of children going hungry. But behind every picture of a hungry child is a hungry parent desperately trying to maintain their self-respect. Giving food, or food vouchers provides a sense of doing something. Giving money maintains people’s sense of agency, but what people also need is a sense of belonging, a sense that they are contributing to society in a meaningful way. Nobody wants to be the recipient of a handout, the vast majority of people want simply to live a life with meaning able to feed, clothe and house their family. Anybody who thinks that is obtainable within a capitalism system really hasn’t been paying attention for the past 100 years.

Whilst you’re here. If you like what you’ve read please subscribe by using the widget at the top left.

You can sign up for the Peace and Justice Project headed by Jeremy Corbyn here  

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Socialist reading: Please support the following socialist blogs

Charlotte Hughes https://thepoorsideof.life/

Rachael Swindon http://rachaelswindon.blogspot.com/

Jonathan Cooke https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/

And avoid the MSM and support these left wing sources instead:

The Canary https://www.thecanary.co/

Skwawkbox https://skwawkbox.org/

Counterfire  https://www.counterfire.org/

Morning Star: 

Byline Times: https://bylinetimes.com

And for a great listen, I recommend Project Coups regular shows on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/incapablestaircase/project-coup-1730-12012021/

Support workers struggles by using the brilliant interactive strike map: https://strikemap.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/strike-map/

Saving American democracy

 

“Since World War II, much of Europe has looked to the U.S. as a democratic model”, so said the New York Times daily briefing on Friday 8th January.  “The headlines in newspapers around the world on Thursday showed something else” it continued. “The images of a mob overrunning the U.S. Capitol Building on Wednesday touched a nerve in fractured Western societies, our Paris bureau chief writes: If it could happen at democracy’s heart, it could happen anywhere.”

My immediate reaction reading that was ‘are you kidding?’ Really? ‘A democratic model’. ‘Democracy’s heart’? It takes a particular type of arrogant exceptionalism to not only write that but to believe it is true. America with its history of voter suppression and a system designed to ensure black people are barred from obtaining a majority in a number of states is a model of democracy?

A country that has, literally, started a war in a foreign country in almost every year since 1945 is democracy’s heart? America is big and it is successful but that is true of many bullies. Just ask El Salvador, Nicaragua or Chile whether America is a model of democracy. Or, try Iraq, Libya, Syria or Yemen. 

America is a model only in its own self-belief. And, here I will be careful to avoid tainting all Americans and recognise that in talking of America I am using a reification. But, nonetheless, despite the fact that America has since 1944 had 7 Democrat Presidents, its commitment to maintaining global capitalism has never wavered.

It’s commitment to democracy starts to look thin when we consider that American blacks only got the right to vote in 1965. Although the fifteenth Amendment, passed in 1870 says:“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” most states found ways to deny black people the vote.

It is no coincidence that the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement started in America. Despite formal equality and the first black President, the position of African-Americans remains largely second class. Christian E Weller noted in 2019 that African Americans “continue to face systematically higher unemployment rates, fewer job opportunities, lower pay, poorer benefits, and greater job instability. These persistent differences reflect systematic barriers to quality jobs, such as outright discrimination against African American workers,1 as well as occupational segregation—whereby African American workers often end up in lower-paid jobs than whites2—and segmented labor markets in which Black workers are less likely than white workers to get hired into stable, well-paying jobs.”

The cradle of democracy has an electoral college to select its President that was devised on entirely racist terms. When a direct national election of the President was proposed in 1873 the slave owning states complained that they would be outnumbered by the north. The electoral college therefore used a calculus based on the number of persons including slaves (each counted as two-fifths of a person) which built in an advantage for the southern states, although slaves were denied a vote themselves. As Ackil Reed Amar points out in Time Magazine: “If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.”

Of course, it could be argued that the modern USA cannot be held responsible for its past. Fair enough, but why not then get rid of the symbols of that racist past? 

Democracy, of course, is not just the right to vote. It is an environment which encourages debate and discussion. Clearly, the Trump supporters in evidence at the Capitol on Tuesday were looking for a debate. Or probably not. But whilst right-wing extremists are tolerated, if not actually encouraged left-wing dissent is less so. 

In the 1950’s a ‘red scare’ spread through America in which school teachers, college professors, trade unionists, artists, journalists and others were accused of using their position to promote communism. Most famously a number of Hollywood actors, writers and directors were dragged before the House Unamerican Activities Committee where they were asked by Senator Joseph McCarthy ‘are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?’ This was an assault on free speech which would have been denounced as totalitarian if it had happened in any other country in the World.

Americans, particularly white, middle class Americans love to hold America as ‘the land of the free” conveniently forgetting that the land was stolen through a systematic and brutal genocide of the Native American people. It is estimated that when the first settlers arrived in what they decided was to be called America there were around 15 million indigenous inhabitants. By the late nineteenth century there were around 283,000 left. Latter day revisionists might try to put much of this decline down to disease but settlers regarded the indigenous population as beasts and were paid up to $50 for each adult scalp they presented. 

As the Chinese Global Times (admittedly not the most neutral of sources) points out: “Fifty-eight out of every 1,000 Native American households lack plumbing, compared with 3 out of every 1,000 white households. Native Americans experience more deaths, poverty and higher unemployment rates. The incidence of murders and disappearances against indigenous people is well above average.” These are, however, verifiable facts and the plain truth is that there would be no American democracy without the theft of land and ritual slaughter of the existing inhabitants.

It might be pointed out in retaliation that the British Empire played its part in the slave trade, plundered its way around the World and restricted the franchise to all but a small elite until 1928. I concede all of this and in criticising American myth of democracy I am not arguing that Britain necessarily offers a better model. But one thing I am certain of is that the claims by Americans to be a model democracy are based on an arrogant assumption of American exceptionalism that does not bear scrutiny.

It is often held that America saved democracy in the Second World War by defeating Nazism. This is a narrative promoted by Hollywood. It is overlooked that America is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon. This is justified on the grounds that it brought to an end an awful period of warfare. As the Morning Star noted on VE Day, it was Russian troops who fought their way into Berlin and eventually forced the Nazi defeat. The Americans far from winning the war offered only air support as the Red Army entered Berlin on April 16th 1945. During last years commemoration Russian Communist Party General Secretary Gennady Zyuganov paid tribute to the Red Army. He said: "Twenty-seven million Soviet citizens lost their lives in the war. Of the 13 million soldiers lost by Germany, 10 million fought against the USSR. Despite the defeats of the first weeks of the war, the Red Army and the entire Soviet people defeated Hitler’s blitzkrieg.”

Well, the Morning Star would say that wouldn’t they? But even the Washington Post was forced to accept a simple fact: “It was the Soviet Union that made by far the biggest contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany. All honor to the 400,000 Americans who died in the war, and to the millions of others who fought and died for the Allied cause, from Britain, France, Poland, Serbia, India, China and many other lands. However, the Soviet Union suffered more losses than any other combatant power: 11 million military dead and another 16 million civilian. And between 1941 and 1945, it was the Soviets who fought most of the German military and inflicted most of the German casualties.”

So, America’s role in winning the Second World War has been mythologised by its own media. Numerous war films show heroic Americans outwitting the Germans. But, in itself that is not an affront to democracy. You can be selective with the truth and maintain your democratic credentials, but what of the end of the war in Japan? It is widely believed that America dropped its nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to save tens of thousands of lives that might have been lost in.a ground assault. Whilst the use of such destructive power would still be difficult to justify, that rationale - saving the lives of allied servicemen and women who had already endured 5 years of, often, brutal warfare - might be convincing. That is if that were actually the case. But more recent research suggests that Japan was already looking for a way to surrender without losing face. The Americans knew this and plenty of politicians, diplomats and military figures did not believe a nuclear attack was necessary. So why do it? 

Kate Hudson of CND explored the evidence in a blog post and concluded that: “The US leadership did not inform the Japanese that its surrender terms were more or less acceptable, because it needed an excuse to use the bomb in order to demonstrate its awesome power in a world where only the US was in possession of this weapon. Its only opportunity to do so was before the Japanese surrendered.” And why was this so important? The USA was aware that the Red Army was in Berlin and that Josef Stalin was prepared to invade Japan.  As Kate Hudson notes: “the US would not accept that any part of the world economy should be closed to it,” and herein lies the real reason for the use of the nuclear weapons. Henry Stimson, Truman’s secretary of war, has commented that “Japan had no allies; its navy was almost destroyed; its islands were under a naval blockade; and its cities were undergoing concentrated air attacks”. 

The debate about the use of nuclear weapons which killed something like 400,000 people in the two cities will continue. But, if you intend to hold yourself up as the model democracy you might expect that rather than justify such an attack you would be looking at reasons to make sure that it would never happen again. Yet despite years of non-proliferation agreements no American President has seriously proposed getting rid of nuclear weapons. As time lapses and the imminent threat of nuclear war recedes America still has a nuclear arsenal which it could deploy at any time. And, there is a real fear amongst experts that new aggressions, often stoked by America, are once again threatening nuclear Armageddon. “We have forgotten how to fear nuclear war,” Nicolai Sokov, a Vienna-based disarmament expert told Der Spiegel. “And the bad thing about that is that if people aren’t afraid of it, it will become inevitable.”

We should be very clear about one thing the heart of democracy is, and has been, ruled by people who regard a pre-emptive nuclear attack on any country that threatens their global dominance as a viable military option. Whilst Biden is regarded as a safer pair of hands than Trump, frankly who wouldn’t be, the clever money suggests that Biden will take a more measured approach than Trump, that will fall short of leading by example and de-escalating the nuclear proliferation by destroying nuclear weapons.

Liberal America was appalled at the right-wing mob which threatened Capitol Hill this week. But that mob is perhaps more representative of America than they would like to admit. Liberals love democracy when they are getting their own way, but can be very partial to a lack of democracy for those they oppose. No American President has made any serious attempt to tackle the democratic deficit in apartheid Israel, for example. And, if those running amok were a terrifying sight how much less terrifying were they than the CIA sponsored death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Chile? Did a mob occupying offices shake democracy to its core any more than the US backed total destruction of Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan? 

Liberal America believes that it holds aloft the banner of democracy. After all, didn’t they help to elect Barack Obama? Don’t they champion ‘Me Too’ and within reason ‘Black Lives Matter’? Of course all of these things may be good, but what of supporting ordinary workers? This is where we see the limits of liberal democracy. As The New Yorker pointed out in a recent article: “In 2008, when the Democrats took the House, the Senate, and the White House, labor leaders hoped that politicians would level the playing field. But Barack Obama’s priority was health care. For decades, Rosenfeld writes, there hasn’t been “even one significant piece of pro-union legislation.” Democracy is fine but it must never inconvenience the liberal elites. Strikes are fine provided they are in Poland or Iran, but not so much when they challenge the dominance of the liberal elite.

Liberal America has always had an inflated sense of its own moral superiority. But if America was anything like the democratic beacon it wants the World to believe it would not be pursuing Julian Assange to death for telling the truth about it. If America was anywhere near as democratic as it proclaims it would not need to cover up atrocities committed in its name. A truly democratic state would not have invaded Iraq on the flimsiest of pretexts or been responsible for Abu Ghraib. A truly democratic state would not have police officers that routinely kill black people. George Floyd would not have happened, an action that is the successor to lynchings and the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Trump has been an abomination but when he was first elected most liberal commentators believed that the Republican establishment would come to its senses. The liberal establishment take no responsibility at all for its own role in promoting the multi-millionaire Trump as some kind of anti-establishment hero. Trust me if they had to choose between Trump and Bernie Sanders most liberals would choose the racist, sexist Trump as the lesser of two evils. Like Frankenstein they now stand askance as the monster they created runs wild.

Watching the neo-Nazi supporters of Trump express their disgust at the establishment cannot but make anti-fascists fearful. However, it is delusional to think of America of all places as a cradle of democracy. You can have democracy or you can have global capitalism. You cannot have both and the sooner ordinary Americans wake up from the mythical American dream the sooner we might see a democracy worth the name.

Whilst you’re here. If you like what you’ve read please subscribe by using the widget at the top left.

You can sign up for the Peace and Justice Project headed by Jeremy Corbyn here  

Please write to Julian Assange who is still in Belmarsh: https://writejulian.com

Socialist reading: Please support the following socialist blogs

Charlotte Hughes https://thepoorsideof.life/

Rachael Swindon http://rachaelswindon.blogspot.com/

Jonathan Cooke https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/

And avoid the MSM and support these left wing sources instead:

The Canary https://www.thecanary.co/

Skwawkbox https://skwawkbox.org/

Counterfire  https://www.counterfire.org/

Morning Star

Byline Times: https://bylinetimes.com

And for a great listen, I recommend Project Coups regular shows on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/incapablestaircase/project-coup-1730-22122020/

Support workers struggles by using the brilliant interactive strike map: https://strikemap.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/strike-map/