An Australian capitalist has brought a ‘Ratner’ moment upon himself.

Gerald Ratner was a jewellers CEO who, in 1991, cost his company five hundred million pounds when the Group’s value plummeted following his public remarks that items sold by the Group were cheap because they were crap.

Whilst everyone loves a bargain it seems people don’t like being told that many can only afford the tacky and shoddy which it what capitalists are more than happy to provide and profit from.

This new ‘Ratner’, goes by the name of Tim Gurney. He would appear to want to turn the clock back sufficiently that the most tooth and claw of early naked capitalism values could be reintroduced. He is, without doubt, a (insert expletive of your choice here). We are far too polite to say what we think. Of course there are (your words) amongst the minority asset-owning class, and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of the contempt which many of them have for the exploited majority property-less class who provide their wealth. More importantly, it’s the system which needs to be attacked, scrutinised, and explained so that it may be abolished and replaced.

Anyhoo, he’s said he’s sorrreeeee so that’s okay then.

Gurney said, ‘We need to see pain in the economy…(Australia’s) current unemployment rate of 3.7% should rise by 40-50% to reduce “arrogance in the employment market’. Further, ‘There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them…We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around.’

That would see more than 200,000 people lose their jobs. Perhaps Gurney fancies himself as a political economist and would like to conduct an experiment to see what effect and how quickly, an immediate large influx of an industrial reserve army into the labour market would have?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66803279

‘The position may be summed up as follows. As under present conditions, all commodities are produced for profit, production must cease with the cessation of profit. As profit and wages between them constitute and have their only source in the value created by the worker, profit can only appear while wages are prevented from consuming the whole product of labour. As wages, the price of labour power, are regulated by the relation of supply and demand, a surplus of labour-power (the unemployed), is necessary to prevent wages swallowing up all profit. Therefore the unemployed army is a vital necessity to Capitalist production, and there can be no solution under Capitalism’.

(From the Socialist Standard, December, 1908.)

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2018/09/50-years-ago-why-unemployed-are.htm

An Australian Liberal MP Keith Wolahan said, ‘The loss of a job is not a number. It sees people on the streets and dependent upon food banks’.

Now there’s someone who recognises that under capitalism the vast majority have no choice other than to sell their physical/mental labour power in order to live. Unfortunately, despite his comments he probably doesn’t campaign for the abolition of capitalism.

Some would seem to agree with Gurner –Minerals Council of Australia chairman Andrew Michelmore is quoted as saying,’Employees have got used to earning the same amount of money but not putting in the same hours’. Can you credit those greedy workers? Wanting something for nothing.

‘Tim Gurner btw is the chief executive and founder of Gurner Group and has an estimated worth of A$929 million (£479m; $598m).’ Practically on the breadline then.

He has previously spoken about how loans from his grandfather and former boss helped him get his start as a business owner.

Mr Gurner also previously made controversial comments criticising young home buyers for their spending habits, saying in 2017 that when he was saving for his first home, he “wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each”‘.

A caustic article in The Guardian takes aim at the individual not the system.

Of interest in the article is the plaintive cry offered up that Australian workers ‘have never been so productive’ and ‘yet they are not being rewarded for it.’

Australian capitalists are apparently ‘taking more in profit than they give back in wages.’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/14/tim-gurner-ceo-comments-more-unemployment-millionaire-property-developer-workers-neoliberals

Lots of capitalists no doubt would like to shift the balance even more in favour of themselves and their ability to extract surplus value from workers.

The September 2023 Socialist Standard quoted a private equity chairman who, using much less intemperate language, was arguing for deregulation of labour laws.

‘In a Bloomberg podcast, on 19 May, with Guy Hands, the billionaire chairman of a large private equity company, said, ‘I look at the UK and see that, in 2030, Poland will be wealthier than we are. In 2040, we will be the poor man in Europe’.

He opines, ‘the UK should not have left the EU, as the country needs rule of law and consistency, but not a single politician is talking about going back.’ He lamented that ‘Brexit has essentially thrown the country back 50 years, to the 1970s, a decade that is widely remembered as a time of crisis, with skyrocketing inflation, high unemployment, strikes and power cuts.’

‘Since the UK left the European Union, it has been competing on the world stage, but the country’s current laws are not suitable for the new environment.’

Now that the UK is out of the EU, the British government could take a radical approach and change some of its laws, Hands said, citing the country’s ‘extraordinarily complex’ labour laws that are a ‘nightmare’ compared to other European countries’.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2020s/2023/no-1429-september-2023/the-labour-army-wants-you/

In 1973, then Prime Minister Edward Heath, in relation to the Lonrho affair, came up with the phrase, ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism,’.

Those who benefit the most from it are still displaying the unalterable fact that capitalism will never have an acceptable face despite the considerable efforts that go into persuading the majority that there is no better alternative. Shame on you, or shame on me?

Smoothing it Over

‘Heath tried to salvage something from the Lonrho affair, which showed up another aspect of privilege, by making his instantly famous remark about the “unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.” There are no reports of him choking on the words. The shareholders displayed their feelings by packing the company’s special general meeting and enthusiastically supporting the management policies, big handouts, tax avoidance and all, simply because they had produced big dividends. That is the normal face of capitalism, much more logical than Heath’s pathetic attempt to humbug his way out of the matter. The Tory leader, like any other politician, can accept any face of capitalism without a thought for the savagery of its exploitation. Beside that, there are no grounds for objecting to some company directors fiddling a few hundred thousand on the side’.

Socialist Standard August 1973

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/08/low-life-in-high-places-political.html

 On the 5th October 2023 an election is taking place to elect a Councillor for the Vauxhall Ward within the London Borough of Lambeth. 

Nominations have been received from the usual suspects, Lib/Lab/Con/Green.

Those living within the Vauxhall Ward will, however, have a real choice this time around.

The Socialist Party is fielding a candidate. That election address will be one worth reading!

Anyone who is able to spend some time leafleting please contact head office.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

+44 20 7622 3811

spgb@worldsocialism.org

Fifty year Retrospect in entirety 

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/search/label/September%201954?m=0

‘Birmingham, the largest metropolitan area in the UK outside of London, has effectively declared itself bankrupt as its city council shut down all non-essential spending after being hit with a potential $956 million equal pay settlement bill.

In a statement on Tuesday declaring itself as being in financial distress, Birmingham City Council said it will “tighten the spend controls already in place” and appoint an external administrator to oversee short-term fiscal planning.

“In June, the council announced it had a potential liability relating to equal pay claims in the region of £650m to £760m ($816m to $956m), with an ongoing liability that is accruing at a rate of £5m to £14m ($6.3m to $17.5m) per month,” the statement said.

It added that the council “does not have the resources” to pay the outstanding sum but is “committed to dealing with the financial situation.” The body also said that all new spending is to be ceased, except support to vulnerable people and various statutory services.

The settlement bill stems from a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in favour of predominantly female Birmingham City Council employees who complained that bonus scheme payments had been mainly issued to staff in roles primarily occupied by men.

On Tuesday, deputy council leader Sharon Thompson said that the Labour-run organization is facing “long-standing issues, including the council’s historic equal pay liability concerns.” She added that the council “had £1 billion ($1.25bn) of funding taken away by successive Conservative governments.”

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak responded that “clearly it’s for locally elected councils to manage their own budgets.” Sunak’s office added that Downing Street had “expressed concern about their governance arrangements and has requested assurances from the leader of the council about the best use of taxpayers’ money.”

The budget cuts could affect services that the council is not bound by law to maintain, including libraries and cultural projects and the maintenance of roads and parks. The dire financial situation could also impact the 2026 European Athletics Championships, which are due to take place at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium’.

Boo yoo! Who’d have thunk it? Capitalism is unfair! French poultry farmers are clucking annoyed because Ukrainian chickens are flooding the market at half the cost.

Quelle horreur! The largest Ukrainian poultry ‘manufacturer’ is making profits from this blatant undercutting of EU chicken commodity suppliers.

One hesitates to imagine the conditions in which Ukrainian chickens are factory farmed but it’s hard, given the cost of living crisis across the capitalist world at present to blame consumers for preferring to buy cheaper food when it’s available.

One can only speculate whether Ukrainian workers involved in this industry are being more exploited than EU workers but it certainly sounds like someone needs a lesson in Marxian economics.

Note that ‘the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’. Cheaper food? Forget it! More important to Got to protect capitalists profits.

France’s poultry farmers are suffering losses due to “unfair competition” with Ukrainian producers, chairman of the Association of Chicken Meat Suppliers Anvol, Jean-Michel Schaeffer, told Le Figaro on Wednesday.

He complained that the influx of cheap Ukrainian pIn May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.oultry is hitting local producers, which is typically a family business in France and many other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian exporters belong to a different “category.” The profit from chicken sales goes not to the “Ukrainian people,” but to the country’s largest poultry manufacturer, MHP, Schaeffer emphasized, and urged the European Commission to protect domestic producers.

“Before this unfortunate conflict [in Ukraine], we were importing about 10,000 tons of poultry per month, and now we are importing 20,000 or more tons per month. It’s really a shock,” he said.

He said that the arrival of the giant Ukrainian supplier immediately destabilized the EU’s single market. Producers from the war-torn country are benefiting from low costs due to the absence of trade barriers and the lack of EU production standards in Ukraine.

One kilogram of chicken meat from French producers costs about €4.80 (a bit over $5), while one kilogram of Ukrainian poultry costs €2.40, which represents “unfair competition,” according to Schaeffer.

Farmers across the bloc are also suffering from the unprecedented surge in Ukrainian produce “be it the Germans, the Dutch, the Poles – everyone is in the same situation, when this flow of Ukrainian chickens destabilizes the entire market,” he said.

Last year, the EU lifted tariffs and quotas for exports of Ukrainian agricultural products to help Kiev financially. However, EU nations have faced domestic protests as farmers have struggled to compete with cheaper imports.

Poland was the first to ban imports of Ukrainian produce, followed by Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia.

In May, the European Commission imposed “temporary preventive measures” on Ukrainian imports to ease the impact of plummeting prices in neighbouring EU countries’.

The EU ban on Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seed to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria is set to end on September 15′.

Quelle surprise! Living standards are on track to be worse than they were in 2019. Come the general election in 2024 and political parties will be laying all the blame on the Tory government. Promises will be flying like confetti to persuade workers that, rather like those pictorial depictions in Jehovah Witnesses literature, paradise awaits. And all you have to do is vote for Lab/Lib/ Con! It is a con of course. Whoever gains power will use it for the benefit of the minority exploiting class.

‘UK workers’ living standards will flatline next year, leaving them on track to be 4% worse off heading into the next election than they were in 2019, according to a leading think-tank.

The Resolution Foundation, which focuses its research on low- to middle-income households, said in a report that “never in living memory have families got so much poorer over the course of a parliament”.

Higher mortgage rates, steep tax rises and a stagnant economy meant UK workers were on track before an expected election in 2024 to suffer the worst fall in incomes over a five-year period since the 1950s, it said.

Adam Corlett, the organisation’s principal economist, said stable incomes next year will be a relief for many households, but “the bad news is that the living standards outlook is still dire, with overall stagnation and further income falls on the way for less well-off households”.

In a separate study, economic stagnation next year will be compounded by slowing exports to Europe and the rest of the world following a decline in global trade and unique barriers caused by Brexit red tape.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said in its quarterly economic forecast that the UK had avoided a recession this year but with “a number of economic indicators now flashing red” the next two years would bring “consistently low growth”.

Analysts at the Resolution Foundation said the incomes of typical working-age households were on course to be 4% lower in 2024-25 than they were in 2019-20 – considerably worse than the 1% income fall recorded between 2005-06 and 2010-11.

The report looked at comparable UK data going back to the middle of the 20th century.

While some important elements of economic data was improving, with inflation having fallen from a peak of 11.1% last year to 6.8% in July and the Bank of England likely to halt its interest rate raising cycle within a few months, it said higher mortgage and rental costs, a rise in tax bills and restricted government finances would limit the recovery.

Inflation-adjusted gross pay is expected to rise by 2.9% on average over the course of the parliament (2019-20 to 2024-25), but frozen tax thresholds mean that for the typical employee, post-tax pay will rise by just 0.6% in real terms over this period, it said…

The number of people living in absolute poverty – calculated as below 60% of the 2010-11 median income, adjusted for inflation – was projected to rise by 300,000 next year, reaching 12 million in 2024-25.

The BCC said a modest upgrade to the forecast growth rate of the UK economy this year was overshadowed by steep falls in business investment and weakening exports, limiting growth to between 1% and zero over the following two years’,

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/06/uk-workers-will-be-worse-off-in-2024-than-in-2019-thinktank-warns

‘TEHRAN – A review of the data released by the Statistical Centre of Iran(SCI) shows that Tehran province with 42.1 percent recorded the lowest inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on August22, which marks the end of the fifth Iranian calendar month Mordad.

The highest 12-month inflation rate is related to Yazd province with 57.2 percent, based on the SCI’s statistics.

The SCI has put the country’s average inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on August 22 at 46.7 percent, falling 0.8 percent from the figure for the twelve-month ended to the fourth month.

The centre put the country’s point-to-point inflation rate at 39.8 percent in the fifth month, which means families have paid an average of 39.8 percent more for purchasing the same package of commodities and services in that month, compared to the same month in the preceding year.

The point-to-point inflation rate dropped 0.4 percent in the fifth month from the previous month.

The Statistical Centre of Iran has put the average inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on March 20, 2023, which marks the end of the past Iranian calendar year 1401, at 45.8 percent.

The centre had put the inflation rate in the twelve-month period that ended on March 20, 2022 (the end of the Iranian calendar year 1400) at 40.2 percent and that of the Iranian calendar year 1399 at 36.4 percent.

In mid-July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an economic outlook report said inflation in Iran which was reported to be 49 percent in 2022 is expected to fall to 42 percent in 2023 and then to 30 percent in 2024.’

Tehran Times

It is reported that, ‘Inflation in Türkiye spiked to 58.9% in annual terms in August, its fastest pace this year, from around 48% in July, according to data released on Monday by the Turkish Statistical Institute.

The month-on-month increase was 9.1%, mostly driven by rising energy and food costs. Transport costs jumped 16.6% month-on-month, while food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 8.5% from July and 72.9% from last year. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is seen as a bellwether for future inflation developments, posted an annual gain of 64.9%.

Analysts attribute the spike in inflation to the steep fall in the lira exchange rate and recent tax increases. The Turkish currency has lost about 30% of its value so far this year.

After years of interest rate cuts, which helped trigger a currency crisis in late 2021 and sent inflation to a 24-year peak of 85.51% last October, the Turkish central bank turned back toward more traditional economic policies earlier this year. It has so far hiked the key rate three times to the current 25%, although experts say that more tightening is in order, despite the slight gains in the lira since the latest rate increase in August.

“The recent lira appreciation is unlikely to trigger price discounts, in our view, but it may contribute to a slower pace of price gains through the rest of the year. We maintain our call for a year-end inflation rate of 57%, but recognize risks have emerged on both sides,” economist Selva Bahar Baziki told Bloomberg, commenting on the situation.

Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has warned that the battle against inflation may be a long one.

“We are absolutely determined to fight inflation. We know that the fight against inflation will take some time. We are in the transition period. We will do whatever is necessary – monetary tightening, credit policy and income policies – to bring inflation under control and then lower it,” Simsek wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account after the data release.’

In August, ‘The Turkish central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by 7.5 percentage points on Thursday to 25%, in a bid to curb spiraling inflation.

The hike was significantly higher than the increase to 20% that many economists had expected.

The regulator opted for a major increase in a sign of a turn to more “rational” economic policies after years of rate-cutting, which has been blamed for fuelling inflation and the cost-of-living crisis in Türkiye.

Thursday’s hike is further evidence that policymakers in Ankara are following through on their pledge to return to a more conventional approach to monetary policy. The lira rallied strongly in the wake of the move.

The governor of the Turkish central bank, Hafize Gaye Erkan, who was appointed in June, has nearly tripled benchmark interest rates from 8.5% since being appointed.

The regulator does not rule out further tightening in the coming months until the inflation situation in Türkiye improves. Price growth jumped from 38% in June to almost 48% in July.

The surging inflation has driven the central bank to sharply revise upwards its year-end inflation forecast from 22.3% to 58%.’

In a capitalist society the need to sell one’s physical/mental labour power is necessary in order to ‘earn’ money which allow one to bury the necessaries of life. Capitalism requires a ‘reserve army of labour’ in order to not only to ‘pour encourager les autres’.

It is reported that, ‘Unemployment in Italy grew unexpectedly to reach 7.6% in July after six consecutive months of decline, preliminary official data showed on Thursday.

Some 73,000 jobs were lost during the month, Istat reported, noting that the unemployment rate grew for the first time since February.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected the unemployment rate to drop to 7.4%. In the corresponding month last year, the rate was 8%.

Compared to July 2022, the number of employed in the Eurozone’s third largest economy was 1.6% higher, with 362,000 more jobs this year.

Despite the weak figures recorded in July, in the three months leading up to it, the employment rate in Italy was still up by 0.5%, versus the February-to-April period.

According to the data, the overall employment rate of 61.3% is ranked as one of the lowest in the euro area, and the unemployment rate among young people aged between 15 and 24 saw a month-over-month drop to 22.1%, compared to 22.2% recorded in June.

The preliminary data also showed that Italy’s GDP saw a 0.3% quarter-on-quarter decrease in the April-June period, with the coming quarters expected to demonstrate sluggish results, partially due to the latest hikes of key interest rates.

The government officially forecasts full year GDP to grow by 1% this year, compared with the major expansion of 3.7% recorded in 2022’.

‘Last November the leaders of the 15 member countries of the European Union met in Luxemburg for a summit on unemployment. At the last count there were about 18 million registered unemployed in the Common Market or 11 percent of the active population.

As was to be expected nothing spectacular was decided. Led by fellow conservatives Kohl and Blair, they limited themselves to endorsing measures aimed at helping the economy recover of its own accord. The buzzwords were “flexibility” (making it easier to sack workers), “competitiveness” (not placing any extra cost burdens on employers such as shorter hours with no proportionate loss of pay) and “employability” (sending people on training courses). Not only this but a public works programme, which even pre-Keynesian governments used to resort to in times of slump, was ruled out.

Marx called the unemployed “the reserve army of labour”, as a pool of workers which employers can draw on in periods of rapid growth and send back to in times of slump and stagnation. Changes in the size of this reserve army—the level of unemployment—depend on a number of factors. The growth of the working population obviously, but also on the rate at which jobs are destroyed by the rise in productivity (resulting in the same amount being produced with less workers).

So, for unemployment to fall, the economy must grow not just faster than the growth of the working population but faster than the rise in productivity as well. As Marx put it in a talk given to German workers in 1847, ironically enough in Brussels, “the most favourable situation for the working class” under capitalism is “the most rapid possible growth of capital” in the sense that “the more rapidly the worker increases the wealth of others, the richer will be the crumbs that fall to him, the greater the number of workers that can be employed and called into existence, the more can the mass of slaves dependent on capital be increased” (Wage Labour and Capital).

This basic fact of capitalism is recognised in a discussion paper “Long-term growth potential in the EU and its relation with employment and unemployment” produced by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Economic Affairs. According to this, the working population in the EU countries is more or less static while productivity is growing at 2 percent a year. The rate of growth since 1990, however, has only been 1.4 percent, clearly not enough to reduce the current level of unemployment.

Defining full employment as 3 percent of the working population, the paper calculates that to get unemployment down to this level from its current 11 percent within ten years would require a sustained rate of growth of between 3 and 3.5 percent in each of the coming ten years.

That this could in theory happen is not the question (such rates have been achieved in the past). The question is: how likely is it to happen in practice? The European Commission itself clearly didn’t think it likely as the paper was not presented to the summit and remains a mere departmental discussion document. And the paper itself is not very confident either as its ideas are presented as a mere possible “scenario”.

It does not even offer any reason as to why the rate of growth should suddenly and spontaneously more than double from its current 1.4 percent to the required 3-3.5 percent. It merely mentions in passing increased exports (to where?) and expresses the hope that the currency stability, which it expects the Euro to bring, will give employers the confidence to invest more than up to now.

This is all pretty flimsy. Both the logic and the history of capitalism, which is a system driven by the accumulation of capital out of profits, show that the rate of accumulation only increases as a result of a sustained period of technological innovation (such as the application of the internal combustion engine to transport or the electrification of industry) which requires the stock of capital equipment to be renewed. It has never been consumption-led.

Increased consumption has always been a consequence, never the cause, of a sustained period of economic growth. So it is no good pointing, as reformists do, to the vast unmet need for better schools, hospitals and housing and for more food and clothing for the between 10 and 15 percent of the population living on or below the poverty line. That is not relevant since capitalism as an economic system is not geared to satisfying consumption but to accumulating capital, in the form of more and more productive plant, machinery and equipment.

So there is every reason to remain sceptical and to doubt that in ten year’s time unemployment will be down to 3 percent. Those who claim otherwise are either wishful thinkers or illusion-mongers’

Adam Buick

February 1998 Socialist Standard

The Pew Research Center has a new survey where the majority of Americans say U.S. is one of the greatest countries in the world. The survey does show that not everyone believes this. Real progress will be made when the majority of the working class realise that they have no country.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/29/majority-of-americans-say-us-is-one-of-the-greatest-countries-in-the-world/

The Poison of Nationalism

‘In the struggle to win the minds of the working class Socialists have to contend not, on the whole, with rational critiques of the Socialist position but with deeply held and unquestioned values. A few of these, for example, might be religion, “human nature”, “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” or the association of Socialism with Russia. One of the strongest of these sacred beliefs, and one of the biggest obstacles to the establishment of Socialism, is nationalism ― the loyalty felt by many members of the working class to “their country”, the political unit in which they happen to reside.

Socialists hold that the only real divisions which exist in the world are horizontal ones, between different social and economic groups. In advanced capitalist countries this consists in a division between the capitalist class, which owns and controls the means of production, and the working class, which owns none of them and which has to sell its mental and physical labour-power to the capitalist class in order to live. Feelings of loyalty to a nation-State are purely subjective, having no basis in reality; the working class in Britain has more in common with the workers in other countries than it has with the British capitalist class.

Classes not Kingdoms

There, is however, an alternative view of the world. This is the belief that the important divisions are not horizontal, between different classes, but vertical, between various nations. A “nation” consists, according to this view, of a hierarchy of men and women who, although having differing incomes, social status and power, all have a common interest in working in harmony for the benefit of the whole unit and, if necessary, in fighting against other nations to defend this interest. This completely erroneous outlook is the one held by most members of the working class and nearly all political parties (including the Labour Party). Most historians reject Marx’s declaration that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”, preferring instead to see history as a succession of struggles of nations against foreign domination, of subjects against tyrannical kings and of nations and races against each other.

Broadly speaking, nationalist ideologies and movements represent the interests of the capitalist class. Nationalism as such did not exist in pre-capitalist society and its growth and development represents the parallel development of the capitalist class. Nationalism as we know it today first made its appearance during the French Revolution. In the early stages of the revolution cosmopolitan ideas were prevalent ― it was believed that the rest of Europe would be inspired by France’s example and would likewise overthrow the old order. When this failed to materialise strong feelings of nationalism developed; France was seen as a chosen nation, picked out to be the standard-bearer of revolution throughout Europe.

Ambidextrous Creed

Politically, nationalism is ambiguous, in that it can take on a “rightwing” or a “leftwing” form. This depends upon the position of the capitalist class in the particular time and place. If political power is held by the aristocracy or nobility, and the middle-class is struggling to assert itself, then nationalism will have “leftwing” connotations. This was the case in Europe until 1848, when nationalism was a romantic, revolutionary force against the traditional ruling class. However, once the bourgeoisie has captured and consolidated its power, then nationalism becomes a conservative and rightwing force.

. . . and in Ireland now.

Although every nationalist movement believes it is unique, there exist basically these two forms of nationalism side by side. In the advanced parts of the world ― the United States, Britain, Western Europe ― nationalism is conservative, whilst in pre-industrial countries engaged in struggles against a foreign ruling class, nationalism is a “leftwing” force.

The World Socialist Movement opposes all nationalist movements recognizing that the working class has no country. There are certain other groups ― the Communist Parties of the world, and the so-called revolutionary left ― which, though claiming to have a class outlook, have a wholly opportunist and ambiguous attitude to nationalism, which reflects not so much the interest of the working class as it does Russian or Chinese foreign policy. These groups fully accept the mythology of the existence of “the nation”. For example, from an Anti-Internment League pamphlet:

“The people of each nation have the right to determine how they shall be governed. Foreign interference is a fundamental attack on that right. When one nation takes offensive action against another, by introducing troops or in any other way, we cannot sit on the fence . . . And so to Ireland: Ireland is a nation; Ireland is not Britain; and the Irish have a right to decide whether or not they wish to have any association with the rest of these isles.”

This attitude is a complete denial of Marxism; it is almost incomprehensible that people who describe themselves as Socialists should write of the “right to re-establish Irish nationhood” (from the same pamphlet). The Irish republican movement is in essence no different from any other nationalist movement; it was brought into being because of the need of a fledgling capitalist class to break away from Britain and erect protective tariff barriers in order to build an industrial economy. Socialists give the IRA and Sinn Fein no support whatsoever.

What Marx Meant

It will be argued that Marx and Engels supported nationalist movements and that therefore Socialists should do so today. Such an assertion is based on a faulty understanding of the materialist conception of history. Marx and Engels were living in an era when the bourgeoisie was engaged in a struggle to assert itself against the old feudal regimes. The victory of this class was a historically progressive step at that time in that it brought about the re-organization of society on a capitalist basis, the essential precondition for the establishment of Socialism; and it created an urban proletariat, the only class which can bring about Socialism. This was why Marx supported the rising capitalist class in their bid to capture political power. However, once capitalism reaches the point where Socialism is a practical proposition, there is no need for Socialists to advocate the capitalist industrialization of every corner of the globe; they can concentrate fully on the task of establishing Socialism. Hence we give no support to any nationalist group, and in place of the opportunism and hypocrisy of the myriad Bolshevik groupings in advocating “national self-determination”, Socialists echo the rallying cry of Marx and Engels, “Workers of All Countries, Unite!”’.

Brendan Mee

March 1973 Socialist Standard