THE SOCIALIST PARTY will be at the London Radical BookFair

  

Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.

The First World War poet, Wilfred Owen called it ‘The Old Lie.’ It wasn’t sweet and fitting then, it never was, and it isn’t now.

If the report in the New York Times is correct then hasten the day when no one is fit or willing to fight the capitalist’s wars for them. Hasten the day when the structural necessity of capitalism to compete for resources and power is consigned to the trash can of history by socialism, a social system based upon the production of quality goods and services for free use and available to all. Ex capitalists included.

‘The US Army, Navy and Air Force are facing shortfalls in recruitment targets this year, as the Pentagon struggles to compete with civilian employment, while up to 77% of young people have been deemed ineligible to enlist, the New York Times has said.

By the end of its recruitment year on September 30, the US Army fell short of its target of adding 65,000 people to its ranks, the NYT says, instead ending up with about 50,000 new personnel. It is the third successive year that the army has not met its goal, prompting military bosses to cut unfilled positions and shrink its active duty membership to 452,000 from 485,000 in 2021.

The recruitment logjam has created “an existential issue for us,” Army Secretary Christine E. Wormuth told reporters this month, even as some branches of the military relax recruitment standards and even offer financial compensation of up to $75,000 to join.

Primary factors in the stalled recruitment effort include many Americans seeking employment in the private civilian sector, as well as large sections of US youth being deemed ineligible to even apply. A recent report by the US Department of Defense concluded that up to 77% of young people in the United States cannot enlist for a variety of reasons, including being overweight, drug abuse, or having physical or mental impairments.

The US Navy also fell short by about 7,500 hires this year, despite recruitment initiatives, including financial incentives. Even the Air Force, traditionally considered an attractive destination for new recruits, added about 10% less than expected.

“It’s been getting harder to recruit, and the military expects it to continue to get harder,” David R. Segal, a University of Maryland professor who studies historical enlistment trends, said according to the NYT.

However, one US military branch not experiencing such issues is its Marine Corps. By the September 30 deadline, the Marines had already exceeded its goal of 28,900 enlistments – and did so with little-to-no extra perks or financial incentives.

“Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine,” a Marine Corps commandant said earlier this year, according to the Times. “That’s your bonus.”’

Draft Resistance and Conscience (1968)

‘Over Vietnam, the majority of Americans go willingly to war—or at any rate keep their fears and doubts to themselves. President Johnson, under pressure about the war, replies that this is no time to argue; American boys are in battle over there. Most Americans accept this cynically emotional appeal and close their ranks—and perhaps their minds as well.

Only a minority, now graced (or cursed) with the name Draft Dodgers, stand aside and refuse to join in the killing. These young men, opposed to the Vietnam war, refuse service in the army under the United States selective service system. They sometimes destroy their draft cards, sometimes return them to the authorities—even give them to the enemy, the Vietnamese National Liberation Front.

Some of the objectors—for example the Quakers—are acting in line with a persistent opposition to war wherever it is fought. Others resist only the war in Vietnam:

I am not a pacifist or a conscientious objector in the narrow sense, but I am a conscientious objector with regard to the Vietnam war. I do not object to conscription as such. (Michael Haag.)

I totally want to dissociate myself from my country’s course in what I consider a disgraceful, cynical war. It is not a war against communism. (Joel Gladstone.) (Both quoted in The American, 15/12/67.)

We can see how small a minority the draft dodgers are, from the figures issued by the U.S. Justice Department of prosecutions for draft evasion. About 160,000 men are registered for the draft each month, only a part of them being called up. In the year July 1965/June 1966 the call up was 336,530; only 658 men were prosecuted. For the year July 1966/June 1967 the figures were: call up 288,000; prosecutions 1,409.

Young Americans can apply for registration as conscientious objectors but, according to the Sunday Times (21/1/68) the only people likely to be granted this are Quakers or members of the American Friends’ Church. (In this country, during 1914/18, the C. O. Tribunals rarely accepted what they called a “political” objection to war.) Very often, then, the only way out is to evade the draft laws —refuse to register, destroy or return the draft card. The legal penalty for this can be a fine of up to $10,000 and a prison sentence up to five years. There can also be illegal penalties—victimisation in employment or, as some of the card burners have experienced, a beating up from patriotic hooligans.

The draft dodgers are the latest in a long line of war resisters—a line with a mixed pedigree. There were the Christians who refused to serve in the Roman militiae; the Quakers who went by sledge to Moscow to protest against the Crimean War; the unenduring resolutions of the Second International. In this there is a discernible change; the development of capitalism had its effect on the anti-war movement. For capitalism made war total, with everyone under fire and with a modem state machine recruiting all its resources—including people—if necessary by compulsion. But at the same time capitalism needed to school its people in its productive techniques, which gave rise to a working class with political fights, often seeing capitalism’s problems as political issues. Thus when conscription came in, the opposition to it was often in political terms. Pacifism, in the words of Christopher Driver tended to become secularised.

In his book Pacifism and Conscientious Objection Professor G. C. Field, who sat on a C.O. Tribunal from 1940 to 1944, recalls among the people who came before him:

…adherents of fifty one different religious bodies… those, comparatively few in number, whose objections were based on ethical or humanitarian grounds independently of any religious beliefs . . . a few whom we classified as political objectors and a few, also, who could only be described as objectors on aesthetic grounds.

This was the result of a development which started in 1914. Before the First World War, Britain was the only major European power to rely on a volunteer army. As the war drew closer, a conscription pressure group grew in strength and in 1902 gave birth to the National Service League (President the Duke of Wellington; supporters Rudyard Kipling, the Duke of Westminster, the Bishop of Chester.)

The outbreak of war, and the growing threat of conscription, threw up an opposition—the No Conscription Fellowship (Chairman Clifford Allen; supporters Fenner Brockway, Bertrand Russell, Bernard Boothryd.) On December 3 1914 the NCF declared itself:

. . . it would, we think, be as well if men of enlistment age who are not prepared to take a combatant’s part, whatever the penalty for refusing, formed an organisation for mutual counsel and action.

Stage by stage, as the war settled down into a pattern of interminable murder, the government progressed towards conscription—its appetite, as Philip Snowden pointed out, growing by what it fed upon. In March 1916 the final blow came; the Military Service Act gave the unmarried man of military age a choice between enlisting immediately or being called up in his group. If he did neither he would be “deemed to have enlisted”—in other words he was a soldier whether he liked it or not.

This was a vital provision. It meant that an objector who was turned down by his tribunal was instructed to report to his unit. If he did not go he was a deserter; if he was taken and then refused to put on a uniform he was disobeying a military command. As he was legally a soldier he was subject to army discipline; he could be sent to a military prison, court martialled, sentenced to undergo such experiences as Field Punishment Number One or even—as happened to thirty four men—could be sentenced to be shot.

Under army detention the C.O.s were subjected to a variety of brutality and torture. In the civil prisons they fared only a little better. J. Allen Skinner was one who spent time in both Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs during 1916/17. In 1960 he was in prison again—in Brixton after a Ban the Bomb demonstration. He told the Governor of Brixton of his earlier sentences. “That”, said the governor feelingly “must have been a terrible experience.” (See The Disarmers by Christopher Driver.)

And so it was—for Skinner and for all the other objectors to that war. There were about sixteen thousand of them (12,000 with “political” objections) and seventy three died as a result of the treatment they received.

The pacifist movement, dying down after 1918, came back to life in 1935, once more at the approach of a major European war. That was the year when the Peace Pledge Union was formed; over 100,000 signed its renunciation of war. The PPU was swept along on a wave of enthusiasm; in 1937 its Leader, the Rev. Dick Sheppard, was elected Rector of Glasgow University.

The 1939 war, as many thought it would, exposed the Pledge. (Professor Field claimed: “. . . a clear-sighted pacifist friend said to me, the Peace Pledge was really a piece of bluff”) Only about 65,000 men registered as C.O.s during the entire war and of course not all of these had signed the Pledge. British capitalism had learned a lesson. Conscription was in force before war was declared, the tribunals operated with a lighter hand (about seventy per cent of objectors were found to he “genuine”) nobody was “deemed to have enlisted”, sentences (there were about four thousand of them) were served in civil prisons. There was no torture, no death sentences, hardly any discernible victimisation, no outrages worthy of the name.

The Second World War saw a decline in the numbers of “political” objectors; from about 12,000 in 1914/18 to about 3,250 in 1939/45. This can be explained by the fact that most of these in the first war were members of the ILP which was then part of the Labour Party. By 1939 the ILP had all but disappeared arid the Labour Party no longer had any doubts about its support for capitalism’s wars.

What of the pacifists? The word covers a multitude of opinions on war, but implies the basic agreement of regarding war in the idealistic sense, as an evil in itself which can be abolished by a policy of righteousness. Thus Dr. Alfred Salter in his pamphlet Religion of a C.O. (1914):

There is a great place waiting in history for the first nation . . . that will dare to base its national existence on righteous dealing, and not on force . . .

This is typical of the pacifist attempt to deal with war in isolation from the very surrounding conditions which cause it. It avoids the all-important question of why governments base their existence on force—even a government like the Attlee administration, which included men who were objectors with Dr. Salter in 1914/18. What did their pacifism do for their policies, when they had the chance to try a little righteous dealing?

This same question was still being evaded when the Second World War came. On September 8 1939 the PPU Council agreed that “. . .in all ways possible the PPU should strive to make the Government publish terms of peace by consent.” In August 1944 they were demonstrating for a negotiated peace and “just peace terms”. (See I Renounce War by Sybil Morrison.)

It is a massive contradiction to accept all the pre-conditions for war and social violence—to accept the capitalist system and its governments, its diplomacy, its “peace” talks and treaties—and at the same time to object to war. This basic fallacy runs like a thread through pacifist thought. The people who marched from San Francisco to Moscow in 1961 distributed a leaflet along their route which said:

We believe that the Soviet Union and the United States with other countries should pool their resources to remove such suffering—by using the money now wasted on weapons of destruction.

And Richard Gregg, in The Power of Nonviolence, says:

Nonviolent resistance is more efficient than war because it costs far less in money as well as in lives and suffering.

Pacifists like Gregg believe that war and violence are an effect of inferior ideas (“. . . a large part of the activities of the state are founded upon a mistake, namely, the idea that fear is the strongest and best sanction for group action and association.”) But it is impossible to conceive of capitalism without war. The private ownership of the means of production divides the world into antagonistic classes, competing firms, rival nations and international power blocs. It is this competitive nature of capitalism which causes its wars, which are as much a part of the system as the governments, the money and the treaties which the pacifists are prepared to accept. Modern war is fought to settle the squabbles of capitalism’s master class; it does not involve the interests of the ordinary people except that it brings them nothing but suffering. If the working class refuse to fight—as we say they should—it should be on these grounds—and this should apply to all war, not just to Vietnam, or Korea, or Algeria. If the pacifist, idealist objection to war is futile how much more so is that which stands out against only one particular war?

The draft dodgers may claim to have made a start. If so, they must go on to realise that there is nothing special about Vietnam— nothing special about its causes, its history, its horrors. The war resisters have won the honourable distinction of showing that capitalism need not have it all its own way—that even in face of overwhelming propaganda the working class can recognise a problem and protest. They have shown their power, and that courage does not have to wear a uniform. These qualities will stand us in good stead, when we have a society where war is only a black memory.’

Ivan

From Socialist Standard March 1968 https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/02/draft-resistance-and-conscience-1968.html

It’s reported that ‘The lights went out in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, after a Turkish energy company cut off power supplies over an unpaid debt of $17 million, Economy Minister Suleimane Seidi announced on 17 October.

 According to the official, the state-owned Electricity and Water Company of Guinea-Bissau, which owes the arrears, was due to pay $15 million of the debt within 15 days.

“Karpower has agreed to renegotiate with the government to ensure that the backlog does not become a problem,” Seidi told reporters, acknowledging the arrears.

Karpowership is one of the world’s largest electricity operators and owner of a fleet of powerships supplying several African states. According to its website, the Turkish company, which is part of the Karadeniz Energy Group, has provided 100% of Guinea-Bissau’s electricity needs since 2019.

“Unfortunately, following a protracted period of nonpayment, our (floating power plant) is now unable to continue operating,” a Karpowership spokesperson said in a statement.

“We are working around the clock with officials to resolve this issue, and we aim to have generation back online as soon as possible,” the company added.

In September, Karpowership turned off the power supply to Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, due to an unpaid debt of about $40 million.’

Eighty Three per cent of population lives in extreme poverty.

Whilst the world is focused on the horrors in the major conflagrations presently taking place in the world which are affecting thousands of innocent children and adults, there are other ongoing frightful events taking place.

‘The armed conflict in Sudan between the military and rival paramilitary groups has killed up to 9,000 people and forced over 5.6 million others to flee their homes in the past six months, the UN said on 15 October.

“Half a year of war has plunged Sudan into one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history,” Martin Griffiths, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in a statement, adding that “25 million people are in need of aid.”

Intense fighting broke out in the African nation’s capital, Khartoum, on April 15 after months of tensions between Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The fighting has spread to other parts of the Sahel nation, including the already conflict-torn western Darfur region, where Governor Khamis Abdullah Abakar was assassinated in mid-June for allegedly accusing the RSF of genocide.

According to Griffiths, “civilians – particularly in Khartoum, Darfur, and Kordofan – have known no respite from bloodshed and terror for the past six months.”

“Horrific reports of rape and sexual violence continue to emerge, and clashes are increasingly taking place along ethnic lines, particularly in Darfur,” the UN humanitarian chief added.

Last month, the UN and the World Health Organization said that repeated attacks on hospitals and medical teams in Sudan had worsened disease outbreaks and fatalities.

They claimed that between mid-May and September, more than 1,200 children under the age of five died in refugee camps in Sudan’s White Nile state as a result of a lethal combination of a suspected measles outbreak and severe malnutrition. Health facilities have been overwhelmed due to a lack of staff, life-saving medicines, and critical equipment, the UN and WHO added.

On Sunday, Griffiths said at least 45 aid workers had been killed or detained since the conflict began, and that “almost all of them are national staff.”

The UN has urged Sudan’s warring factions to comply with international humanitarian law and to protect civilians, allow aid, and recommit to dialogue to end the conflict.

In August, RSF chief Dagalo expressed a desire to reach a long-term ceasefire agreement with Burhan as part of a strategy to end the conflict and build a “new Sudan.” The RSF proposal was rejected by the army chief, who stated that he would not “make deals with traitors.”’

Also see article in the Guardian 3 October.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/03/sudan-conflict-like-planning-for-the-apocalypse-say-aid-workers

Is anyone seriously giving any thought to the question, won’t someone think of the children? Children all across the world are increasingly victims of conflicts and the capitalist system. How much longer are we all prepared to let that continue?

As the writer of the Socialist Standard article (below) articulates, this is insanity and ‘The real trouble for the people of the Sudan is the profit system, and the only future which can hold anything worth while for them—and for everyone else—is Socialism all over the world.’’

Children’s deaths in the Sudan

‘More than 1,200 children under the age of five died in refugee camps in war-torn Sudan between mid-May and September as a result of a lethal combination of a suspected measles outbreak and severe malnutrition, the United Nations and the World Health Organization have said.

The deaths occurred in Sudan’s White Nile state, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and WHO said in a joint statement reiterating their concern about the “worsening” health situation in the African country as a result of fighting between rival army groups since April.

Over 3,100 suspected cases of measles and high malnutrition, as well as more than 500 suspected cases of cholera, have been reported in other parts of the country, according to the UNHCR teams.

Health facilities are overwhelmed because of shortages of staff, life-saving medicines, and critical equipment, the organizations said, adding that repeated attacks on hospitals and medical teams have exacerbated service delivery challenges, worsening disease outbreaks and fatalities.

“…dozens of children are dying every day – a result of this devastating conflict and a lack of global attention. We can prevent more deaths, but need money for the response, access to those in need, and above all, an end to the fighting,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said local health workers, with assistance from the WHO and its partners, are making every effort under “very difficult conditions” to prevent more fatalities and the escalation of outbreaks.

“They desperately need the support of the international community to prevent further deaths and the spread of outbreaks. We call on donors to be generous and on the warring parties to protect health workers and access to health for all those who need it,” Tedros insisted.

The conflict that erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15 has killed more than 7,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

Last month, (August) aid agency Save the Children reported that at least 498 children in the North African country, including two dozen babies at a state orphanage, had died as a result of food shortages and the closure of nutrition centres caused by fighting.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Tuesday, the UN children’s agency (UNICEF) spokesman James Elder estimated that thousands of newborns will die across the war-torn country by the end of the year.

“Every month 55,000 children require treatment for the most lethal form of malnutrition, and yet in Khartoum less than one in 50 nutrition centres is functional,” Elder was quoted by AFP as saying.’

The Future of the Sudan

‘Commentary on the recent coup d’état in the Sudan has been curiously limited. It is true that the seizure of power in mid-November by a military council was accomplished in unspectacular bloodless fashion; nevertheless, the overthrow of a government in so close proximity to the centre of recent world troubles ought, one thinks, to have made bigger news. Even the serious informational papers had not much to say. The Observer provided only 26 column-inches about it in two issues and the Manchester Guardian, though it gave most of all, did so largely in reference to the northern cotton market.

The reason is not hard to see. Events are quickly told, but the commentary on them must depend chiefly on their consequences—and the consequences of the Sudan happening are not yet apparent. The new government is politically unrevealed so far, and what fresh relationship may arise between the Sudan and the western world is still unknown. General Abboud may take the stage as a second Nasser to be hissed for a foxy schemer from the galleries of the west, or contrariwise as the golden-haired lad bearing freedom’s banner. For that, we must wait and see.

What is much more to the point is to ask what has happened and why. Briefly to go over recent events, the coup was announced on November 17th. The coalition government of Abdullah Khalil was known to be on its way out. Its two factors, the People’s Democratic Party and the Umma party, were in disagreement over the Sudan’s relations with Egypt: mainly, it is said, over fresh Egyptian plans for the Aswan High Dam made in the light of the proferred Russian loan. The new régime, in which General Abboud holds supreme power, announced itself as working “in the interest of no party or group” but aiming at “the elimination of incompetence and corruption among politicians in general,” with a hint about knowing the way to good terms with Egypt (Manchester Guardian, 18th November, 1958).

This has come in the face not only of Egyptian pressure, however, but also of economic troubles. The Sudan is a cotton-producing country. Eighty per cent of its exports are of cotton (largely to Lancashire), and the present condition of the world’s cotton markets has meant a huge unsaleable surplus, stated by the Observer correspondent in Khartoum to include 48.000 tons left over from 1957. Under the Anglo-Egyptian regime big sums were invested in irrigation projects and plans for government-assisted peasant production to develop the cotton yield, so that the Sudan is dependent always on world prices for its staple crop. Before the war the Sudanese people were considered better-off than the natives of most other colonized parts of Africa; now the country’s economy is in a critical phase without much prospect of improvement.

The growth and the varied outlooks of the Sudanese political parties have come partly through economic development and partly from the patterns set by the fifty-eight years of joint British and Egyptian rule which ended in 1956. The history of this companionate rule is in fact a series of quarrels over who should really rule a country which bordered the Suez canal and enclosed the upper Nile. The existence of pro-British and pro-Egyptian parties comes from this period, when each of the dual rulers tried to create its own body of support in the Sudan. The Umma is descended from the Mahdi’s followers who drove out Turco-Egyptian rule and is thus traditionally anti-Egyptian; the P.D.P., on the other hand, is an offshoot of the National Unity Party which has always seen advantage in alliance with Egypt.

As in all other colonial countries, a powerful vein of nationalism appeared with the vista of economic independence that the development schemes afforded. (It is an irony of imperialism that the leaders of nationalist movements are produced by the imperialists’ own needs for officials, technical assistants and the rest of the new “middle classes” which this stage of economic progress must turn out.) All the Sudanese parties, including the “Socialist” National Unity Party and the Anti-Imperialist Front (the Communists) are shot through with this strong desire for “national independence,” and the new military government lost no time in stating that it did not differ from them. The day after assuming power. General Abboud said his regime would “accept anything it considered in the interests of the country, but would reject anything which might harm its independence and sovereignty.”

The truth is, however, that the Sudan cannot be independent except in the nominal sense of not being any other nation’s colony. The change which has just taken place was forced by external conditions and happenings, and the policies of the Abboud government—even the vague ones which were immediately announced—are bound to be determined almost wholly from outside. The resuscitation of the limping Sudanese economy depends on, more than anything else at the present time, the government’s negotiations with Egypt and (a not-unconnected matter) its success in playing-off America and Russia to attract loans from either or both. On November 30th the Foreign Minister announced that “foreign capital without strings would be welcomed.” and that his government had already taken 15 million dollars’ worth of foreign exchange from America (Manchester Guardian, 1st December. 1958).

The outstanding questions between Egypt and the Sudan are the Aswan Dam project and the frontiers. To the Egyptian government the Dam, with its promise of irrigation and electric power, is vital for maintaining the economy (with its already desperate population problem) and making the economy maintain the army. Now, with the promise of Russian aid. it appears within reach, but there must first be agreement with the government of Sudan. From Egypt’s point of view a compliant Sudan would be the answer; Mr. Khalil, indeed, alleged in London last September that there were forces working to this end within the Sudanese government. For the Sudan, on the other hand, agreement can only mean a share in the benefits of the Dam.

What of the Sudanese people? Here, when one asks this question, stands forth a remarkable example of the stupidity and cruelty of commercialism and nationalism. For the Sudanese people are desperately, pitifully poor. In nearly three years of “independence” they have been governed by the National Unity “Socialists,” a coalition, and now the military—and none has made a scrap of difference to their poverty. It is worth pointing out that the Egyptian people have had the same experience: they were poverty-stricken under fat Farouk, and are equally so under Nasser. What have the political pretensions of their government done for them?

Assuming, however, that the building of the new High Dam would lighten these peoples’ burdens, the approaches to it have been made entirely in terms of not those but the rulers’ interests. First, there has to be money—obvious enough, but in itself a condemnation of the entire modern world where the need is pressing, the materials and labour plentiful, yet the fulfilment must wait on the djinn of this idiotic Aladdin’s lamp. When it was offered to Egypt by the West, the offer was based and then foundered on considerations of political advantage in the cold war. Now it appears again from Russia, with similar considerations in view (while a team of “American aid experts ” descends on the Sudan).

Who, then, cares about the Sudanese people? It is not that this or the preceding governments, or the government of Egypt, is deliberately negligent; on the contrary, it would be to the rulers’ benefit to have the support of prosperous and satisfied populations. The Sudan, however, has been pulled into the whirlpool of Capitalist world politics. From a colony in the once-majestic scheme of British imperialism, developed to make its cotton contribution to British trade, it has become another nation forced to struggle for advantage in the pitiless dogfights of world markets and big politics.

The future of the Sudan is bound up in the future of the world. Economic development and political contact have opened the windows for this country on the amenities of modern civilization, hence the nationalism, the reformist politics, and the anxiety to benefit by “getting in” on the bigger powers’ calculated generosity. Ideally, the Sudanese people stand to gain in every way from contact and interchange—in a word, “progress.” But modern civilization is far from ideal. Whatever progress is made will be directed at furthering only the interests of the property-owners of the Sudan: the important thing to recognize about the Abboud regime is that, whatever is said about ending corruption and the rest, this is its prime aim. However good a proportion of the High Dam potentialities is obtained for the Sudan, the sad fact is that the Dam is really wanted as a source of power and profits for the commercial class.

There is no sanity in this. It is not only in the Sudan, but everywhere; this small flare-up illumines a little more of what is going on all over the world. Nationalism and the political game are impediments to genuine productive development, standing in the way of what could be done by man for man—but they are parts of the superstructure of Capitalist society, which limits human activity to what will yield the best profits. The real trouble for the people of the Sudan is the profit system, and the only future which can hold anything worth while for them—and for everyone else—is Socialism all over the world.’

Robert Barltrop

From the Socialist Standard January 1959

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2019/04/blog-post_36.html

In 1961 the American President Dwight Eisenhower in a speech at the end of his presidency gave a short speech at which he warned against the “military-industrial complex.”

‘As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defence spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War’s arms race. Nonetheless, the American military services and the defence industry had expanded a great deal in the 1950s. Eisenhower thought this growth was needed to counter the Soviet Union, but it confounded him. Though he did not say so explicitly, his standing as a military leader helped give him the credibility to stand up to the pressures of this new, powerful interest group. He eventually described it as a ‘necessary evil.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defence; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.’

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address

In an example of how the more things change the more they stay the same the under Capitalism the American establishment is now boasting/ threatening that it can and will support and increase the likelihood of the conflagrations taking place in the world at present into something of even more danger to the planet and to everyone on it.

‘US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that Washington can “certainly” afford to support wars on two separate fronts, saying that its coffers are in good shape to continue backing US interests overseas in its support for Ukraine and amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.

“America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel’s military needs and we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia,” Yellen said in a Monday interview with UK broadcaster Sky News in advance of a meeting with Eurogroup finance ministers in Luxembourg.

Yellen added that the United States’ financial outlook is sufficient to back its allies abroad. However, she warned that the potential economic ramifications of a larger conflict in the Middle East remains unknown, particularly amid an already volatile global oil and natural gas market that has contributed to a cost-of-living crisis in several Western economies in the past year.

A former chair of the US National Reserve, Yellen also noted that inflation is easing but called on Republicans to expedite attempts to appoint a new House Speaker to ensure that financial aid can flow overseas. California Republican Kevin McCarthy was removed from the position earlier this month, leading to concerns of a possible economic and legislative logjam in Washington.

“We do need to come up with funds, both for Israel and for Ukraine,” Yellen said, adding that this remains a “priority” of Biden’s administration. “It’s really up to the House to find, seat a speaker and to put us in a position where legislation can be passed.”

Yellen’s comments follow her appearance last week at an IMF/World Bank conference in Morocco during which economic leaders discussed the possible fallout of a deepening crisis between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

To date, the United States has already approved at least $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, according to recent calculations from the US State Department Office of Inspector General. However, CNN reported last week that the US military has called on defence producers to ramp up production to make up for shortfalls in stockpiles due to arms being transferred to Ukraine, in order to ensure it can supply munitions to Israel.’ (Our emphasis).

Amid renewed focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has warned in recent days that “international attention” should not be shifted away from his country.

Polling conducted in August, also by CNN, reflected a swelling discontent in the US over the authorization of additional funding to support Kiev in its conflict with Moscow – with 55% of respondents calling for Ukraine spending to be withdrawn.’

The USA National Debt now stands at thirty three trillion plus dollars and rising. One hundred and twenty four per cent of GDP.

Israel-Gaza War

Some say that the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East would not have happened if the State of Israel had never been founded. But it was and it exists. And the same kind of thing could be said about countless conflict situations in the world today. So we must look at the situation as it is and, if we do, we find that, as in other such conflicts, the underlying cause is not undying enmity between two groups – Jews and Arabs – but a fight between different capitalist factions, via their respective governments, over land, resources and strategic routes. In Gaza, the Hamas organisation, who are both anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic, came to power via elections in 2007 with the stated aim ‘to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’. But that was the end of any form of democracy there and, in their time in office, they have crushed multiple protests against them by rivals, expelling their officials to make sure there would never be another round of elections and killing dozens of their own people, many of them civilians. During that time the people of Gaza have been plunged increasingly into poverty with, for example, 40 per cent unemployment, with their leaders enriching themselves assisted by backers from other Arab countries and enjoying multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt.

The continuing oppression by Israel (a country by the way where 22% of its own households live in poverty) has also of course been a significant factor, as its government has sought to facilitate the enrichment of its own capitalist class by grabbing land and keeping a tight lid on protest. Now the lid has come off – and in the most horrific way.

There is no excuse for the horrors unleashed on innocent people by Hamas nor for Israel’s savage retaliation, killing hundreds, depriving a land of food, water and power and threatening to flatten its infrastructure regardless of what may happen to the inhabitants in the short and long term. Of course Israel’s government will support its own capitalist class to the hilt – after all that is its role. And it is all part of a play book, which we see played out time and time again as governments representing their capitalist classes fail to resolve conflicts by diplomacy and resort to horrifying violence. We can only repeat the same thing we have always said when this has happened – that workers (in this case Arab and Israeli ones) have no interest in fighting one another but have a common interest in uniting with other workers to abolish capitalism and establish socialism.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

The Australia Institute published an interesting report in April. 

Titled, Inequality on Steroids: The Distribution of Economic Growth in Australia, the report analysed the share of wealth that accrued to Australians between the period of 1950 and 2019.

In the first ten year period four per cent of the gains went to the top ten per cent.

In the next twenty year period sixteen per cent of the gains went to the top ten per cent.

In the next eight year period forty eight per cent of gains went to the top ten per cent.

In the next seventeen year period thirty six per cent of gains went to the top ten per cent.

In the next ten years up until 2019 ninety three per cent, that’s ninety three per cent of gains went to the top ten per cent.

https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Inequality-on-Steroids-Who-Benefits-From-Economic-Growth-in-Australia-WEB511-copy.pdf

From the Socialist Standard June 1992

The Rich get Richer

One further aspect needs to be dealt with in this the on the concentration of wealth ownership in Britain, and that is the question of what happens over time. Do the richer get richer?

From the point of view of economic theory, this is what you would expect to happen. Capitalism is based on the concentration into the hands of a tiny minority of the population of the ownership of the means of production. These function as capital for them in the sense of providing them with an unearned income. The source of this unearned income that accrues to capital is the labour of those who operate the means of production and actually produce wealth.

Ownership of capital, in other words, confers the right to appropriate a part of the new wealth that is being produced every day. Most of this new wealth—around 80 percent in fact—is used as means of consumption, by workers from their wages and salaries, by capitalists from their rent, interest and dividends, and by the state from the taxes it levies. The rest, under the spur of competition between capitalist firms to maximise profits, is accumulated as means of production, as further capital to yield an unearned income for their owners. This accumulation of capital out of profits produced by those who operate the means of production is what capitalism is all about. Capitalism is an economic system under which means of production are accumulated in the form of profit-yielding capital.

In concrete terms what this means is that the stock both of physical means of production (factories, machinery, plant, materials, etc) and of its monetary form, capital, grows over time. This is by no means a steady process—it is halted and even reversed from time to time, as in wars (when wealth is physically destroyed) and in slumps (when the same thing happens and when the value of the rest falls)—but the long term trend is upward. This must mean that in the long run those who own the means of production—the rich—get to own more means of production, more capital, i. e. get richer.

Changing estimates

So much for the theory, but is it confirmed by the facts? For all but the recent past the facts are not easy to come by. In Britain they nearly all come from the statistics about estates left in wills which the Inland Revenue has been collecting since death duties were introduced in 1894. Until 1960 it was left to individual academics to convert these into figures for the ownership of wealth by the living. They often used different methods, which meant that their estimates were not always comparable, but there was broad agreement that until the Second World War the top 1 percent owned about 60 percent and the top 10 percent about 90 percent of personal wealth, as a study quoted by the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth in its first report in 1975 showed (Table 1).

This slow long-term fall in the percentage shares of the top groups should not be equated with a fall in the amount of wealth they owned, but rather, as we shall see, with a slower rate of increase in their wealth than that of other groups.

From 1960 the Inland Revenue began producing its own yearly estimates. According to these, between 1960 and 1975 the share of the top 1 percent declined from 38 percent to 23 percent, that of the top 5 percent from 64 percent to 47 percent and that of the top 10 percent from 77 percent to 62 percent.

These figures were challenged by those who argued that they underestimated the concentration of wealth ownership. The critics correctly pointed out that the figures, being based on wealth declared to the Inland Revenue for death duty purposes, inevitably left out the wealth of the rich that was placed in discretionary trusts and other such devices or given to relatives before death precisely to avoid paying death duties. Defenders of capitalism, on the other hand, argued that the figures overestimated the degree of inequality as they did not take into account the wealth owned by the 60 percent or so of the population whose estates did not have to be declared to the Inland Revenue because they were too small. Individually the amounts were small but, in view of the millions of individuals involved, when added together made up a significant amount.

The Labour government that came into office in 1974 set up a Royal Commission, in the time honoured way, to bury its promises “to launch a fundamental attack on the principle of the hereditary transmission of great wealth, with its associated power and privilege” and “to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families”. (Did the Labour Party once really talk like this?). This recommended that both types of non-included wealth should be taken into account, and the Inland Revenue now produces each year adjusted figures which do this. This new series of statistics began in 1976 and in fact shows that the distribution of wealth has changed very little since then (Table 2).

So the change between 1975, when the top 10 percent were said to own 62 percent, and 1976, when they were said to own 50 percent, resulted purely from a change in the way the statistics were calculated. Calculated on the old basis the figure for the top 10 percent in 1989 would still be between 60 and 70 percent.

Statistical illusion

But this is not the only purely statistical factor that is involved in the figures. What the figures show are the percentage shares, and not the actual amounts of wealth, of the various categories. These shares are shares in a cake (the stock of wealth) which, as we saw, expands in the long run. This means that, for one group to maintain its share, it must get the same share of the new wealth that is being accumulated. Thus if, as is generally assumed, before the First World War the top 10 percent owned 90 percent of accumulated wealth, then, for them to maintain their share, 90 percent of the newly accumulating wealth would also have to go to them. That they were in fact able to more or less maintain this share until the Second World War (see Table 1) is a testimony to the poverty of the rest of the population whose incomes were so low that they had to spend most of it on items of immediate consumption.

If during this period the other 90 percent had between them been able to accumulate more than 10 percent of the newly accumulated wealth, then the share of the top 10 percent would have fallen, despite the fact that they were continuing to accumulate wealth and even to accumulate more of it in real (as opposed to percentage) terms than the rest of the population.

It was precisely this situation that did occur from the 1950s on. Regular and more or less steadily-rising real wages and salaries meant that the non-rich began to acquire more wealth in the form of household goods, cars and houses. When included in the figures this had the effect of reducing the share of the rich, but this is the only effect it has had and it is purely statistical.

Independently of what has happened to the non-rich, the rich have gone on accumulating wealth and so getting richer. The November 1991 issue of the official government publication Economic Trends contained a table which showed how the total amount of “marketable wealth”, broken down by category, had changed each year from 1976 to 1988, all in 1988 money so as to

be comparable. The general trend was upward, though there was a fall in 1981 corresponding to the last recession; the total increased from £752 billion in 1976 to £1317 billion in 1988. Of this extra £565 billion, 13 percent went to the top 1 percent, 39 percent to the top 5 percent and a massive 58 percent to the top 10 percent (which explains why their share increased over the period from 50 percent to 53 per cent), while a meagre 4 percent went to be shared amongst the 22 million in the bottom 50 percent.

What is even more interesting than how the total amount was divided amongst the categories is how the average amounts of wealth held by each person in the categories changed (Table 3). As can be seen, despite a smaller percentage increase than the rest of the top 50 percent, the average holding of those in the top 1 percent increased by some £132,000, more than that of those in any of the other groups. So the gap between the amount of wealth held by the individual members of top 1 percent and that held by the rest of the population increased. There is no reason to suppose that these years were exceptional in this respect, except perhaps that in some earlier years the gap between the average holding of the top 1 percent and that of the top 5 percent may have narrowed.

So the conclusion can only be that the so-called decline of the rich this century is a statistical illusion. Their share has only fallen, and then only after the Second World War, because the non-rich came to acquire more wealth. But this acquisition of wealth by the non-rich made no difference whatsoever to the position of the rich. They continued to get richer in the sense of coming to own more wealth in real terms (the only meaningful sense of the word “richer”). But not only this their average holding of wealth increased more in real terms than that of the non-rich. Defenders of capitalism who say that the rich have not got richer are conveying misinformation.

Adam Buick

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-rich-get-richer-1992.html

How does a money-free society where quality goods and services are produced for free use, not for profit begin to sound? And no longer being cash-strapped is the only benefit either. No leaders misleading, no states competing with each other for resources and sending workers to fight other workers. Want a real equal society? No classes either.

‘Retail sales in the UK dropped in September as the high cost of living continues to pressure households’ budgets, according to the latest sales-monitor report from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG published this week.

The survey said that UK retailers reported weak sales last month as cash-strapped consumers avoided big-ticket spending and delayed winter clothing purchases due to unseasonably warm weather.

Although the amount of money Britons spent while shopping rose by 2.7% year-on-year in September, expenditures were down by 4.1% compared to August, figures showed.

“Big-ticket items such as furniture and electronics performed poorly as consumers limited spending in the face of higher housing, rental, and fuel costs,” said Helen Dickinson, CEO of the BRC. “The Indian summer also meant sales of autumn clothing, knitwear, and coats have yet to materialize.”

September marked the second weakest month of the year so far and was well below the inflation rate, indicating the volume of goods sold declined.

Sluggish retail sales have added to concerns over year-end profits, as soaring interest rates squeeze household incomes while the number of jobless is rising in the UK. The downturn in sales comes ahead of the so-called “golden quarter,” the run-up to Christmas when shop owners can make the most of their annual yields.

“The fight for Christmas shoppers will be fierce this year, with promotions likely to be earlier and abundant in a bid to loosen tight household purse strings,” said Paul Martin, UK head of retail at KPMG.

“Consumers will continue to seek out good deals, with price driving purchasing decisions. This is likely to be one of the most important golden quarters that we have seen in years.”

The cost of living crisis in the UK has sent consumption plummeting, while fears of a recession in the country are mounting as successive interest-rate hikes are taking their toll.

The Purchasing Managers Index, a measure reflecting overall economic health, indicated a contraction in August and September, and unemployment has been climbing for three straight months.’

As John Keats has it: ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun…

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft…

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies’.

Gathering swallows X in the skies doesn’t have quite the same ring to it does it?

Thankfully the season when the various circuses known as known as Party Conferences, roll into various towns is over for another year. If William Shakespeare were around to chronicle these events would he write them as comedies, or as tragedies?

At the Tory Party conference the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt threw some red meat to the acolytes gathered there.

‘Government plans to impose tougher benefit sanctions to drive people into work will cause “destitution” and “punish people already struggling to afford essentials in the cost of living crisis”, charities have warned.

Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said 100,00 people are leaving the labour market every year for a “life on benefits”. He said this is why the government is replacing work capability assessments and examining the sanctions regime.

Hunt claimed: “It isn’t fair that someone who refuses to look for a job gets the same as someone trying their best.” But charities have expressed fear that further punishments will force people to seek low paid work which poses a serious danger to their health – or risk being plunged into greater poverty.’

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/benefit-rules-sanctions-jeremy-hunt-tory-party-conference/

Not to be outdone, the ‘workers’ friend’ Party, laughing called the Labour Party, gave notice of where their priorities lie: ‘MILLIONS of out-of-work Brits are a “horrible, painful toll” on the public purse and are “dragging” down the economy, a top Starmer ally declared.

Shadow Cabinet Minister Peter Kyle said: “There are 2.5million people that are just unknown to the economy for reasons that we don’t understand, and there’s no exercise to go find them.

“There are 700,000 young people who are not in education, training or work. And that figure has been growing, not diminishing.”

The shadow science and tech secretary hit out: “All of these things are personal tragedies, but they’re also taking a horrible, painful toll on our economy. “It is dragging our economy down. So we need to get cracking on it.”

The tough talk came on first day of the Labour Party conference, with Mr Kyle suggesting they should instead be put to work in tech and green energy jobs.’

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/24329382/scale-of-jobless-brits-is-horrible-painful-toll/

Both messages should please their capitalist masters who are always looking for more workers to exploit and provide them with more surplus value.

Isn’t it well past the time when the working class, employed wage slaves or not, should be looking at the real alternative? Don’t be taken in by these charlatans!

A news source reports that,  ‘Argentina’s central bank on 12 October hiked the country’s benchmark interest rate for the sixth time this year, in yet another attempt to reign in soaring prices that have been weighing heavily on incomes, pushing millions below the poverty line.

The rate was raised to 133% from 118%, shortly after September inflation data showed that consumer prices in the country spiked 12.7% month-on-month and 138% annually, which is the highest rate in three decades.

According to a report by the National Institute for Statistics and Census (INDEC) released last month, soaring prices pushed Argentina’s poverty rate to 40.1% in the first half of 2023. This means that two out of every five people in Argentina now live below the poverty line, some 11.8 million people.

Another report by the Centre of Argentine Economic Politics (CEPA) think tank showed that wages in the country are unable to catch up with inflation, with the median wage only covering 85.6% of the basic food basket in August.

Some analysts suggest that with the economic crisis this deep the latest key rate hike may have come too late.

“It is no longer useful to raise the rate, expectations have gone away and raising it at this time is not going to contain the flight from pesos to dollars,” a national private banking manager told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Private analysts forecast inflation to reach 173.2% this year, while the rating agency Moody’s projects 200% for this year and 350% for 2024.

The rate hike came just ten days before the presidential election in the country scheduled for October 22. Most candidates have pledged to cut spending to close Argentina’s fiscal deficit, a key element that is driving inflation. However, outsider candidate Javier Milei, who won the August presidential primary, has put the focus of his campaign on getting rid of the peso entirely and adopting the US dollar.’