Out you go!

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One piece of legislation that fell by the wayside when the election was called was a bill to ban what are known as ‘no-fault evictions’. These involve a landlord giving tenants notice, even though they have paid their rent.

In the north-west of England, such evictions have increased by more than a fifth over the first three months of the year compared to the same period last year. A charity in Manchester has been handing out sleeping bags to families facing homelessness in these circumstances. ‘People are coming to us with suitcases and belongings after being evicted,’ said one manager.

Providing decent housing for everyone is perfectly feasible, but not in a society based on the profit motive.



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



Socialist Sonnet No. 152

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D Day – Four Score On

 

A turbulent sea and shell fire and fear,

Foundering vessels with quailing young men

Grim tides of war brought to the beach: and then,

These remaining mark the eightieth year,

Honouring those who had eighty years stolen

That day, so many liberated from life,

So few now, comrades who’re left with their grief,

For long gone mates lost among the fallen.

Much better there be barefoot children

Building sand castles along that beach

Pounded by army boots directed to reach

Concrete bunkers full of desperate men,

Just like the ones dying to get ashore,

Divided by flags they’d give their lives for.

 

D. A.

Lest We Forget (1944)

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 ‘This editorial is being written as the second world war is being re-enacted on TV. The news for June 1994 is followed by the news for 1944. This time uncensored (which is probably more than can be said for today’s news). Every bomb and bullet seems to have been recorded. What is lost by the absence of glorious technicolour in the dusty archive film is made up for in blood-soaked black-and-white. The unspoken message is repeated again and again: “Here’s something you should be proud of – we won, we won.” To remind us that the business of killing Germans had its funny side, an old repeat of Dad’s Army has just been repeated again. Now it’s back to how we won the war.



The reason for all this is not made clear. If the intention is to remind ourselves of the countless number of men and women who were pointlessly slaughtered – and we should remind ourselves – why the jingoistic display of 1,000 paratroopers descending into Normandy, watched by a smiling Prince Charles? Why the public display of pitiful, worn-out old warriors being interviewed displaying a strange mixture of patriotic pride for the killing along with their shame and their tears and their medals; and all-too-often total incomprehension of the obscenity and futility of it all? “Well I tried to kill him, he tried to kill me, – we both missed and that’s why we’re here.” Ideal material for a Dad’s Army script.


One thing to be thankful for is that enough old soldiers expressed their outrage at the Tory Party plans to make the whole thing a Conservative Party Euro-Election jamboree. The thought of Maggie Thatcher being wheeled out every night to sing “We’ll meet again” would have been just too much to bear. John Major’s Churchillian speech against the homeless beggars was bad enough: “We will fight them on the benches, we will fight them on the pavements” etc.


Of course the victims of war must never be forgotten, whichever side they were unfortunate enough to be killed by. Or the sacrifice they made. Or the lies they were fed to make them go out and kill or be killed by other ordinary, decent people. Or the children involved, or their mothers. Nicholas Humphrey, in his excellent essay Four Minutes to Midnight tells the story of Keiko Sasaki: “When my grandmother came back I asked ’Where’s Mother?’ ’I brought her on my back,’ she answered. I was very happy and shouted ’Mama!’ But when I looked closely, I saw she was only carrying a rucksack. I was disappointed . . . Then my grandmother put the rucksack down and took out of it some bones … I miss my mother very much.”


The bomb that fell on Hiroshima killed 140,000 people. The bomb that fell on Nagasaki killed 70,000. 210,000 people killed by just two bombs. How can we adequately remember the pain of Keiko Sasaki 210,000 times over? Plus the pain of the parents, children and friends of the victims of the Holocaust? And of every soldier, every civilian and every child killed? And that was just one war . . .  50 years ago.


Nor must we forget the sacrifice of those whose human dignity and humanity made them refuse to kill their fellow beings, and how they were punished for it by “their” countries. But to not forget is not enough. We’ve got to overturn this mad, bad system and never allow it to be possible again.’


From the Socialist Standard, July 1994





Holes – Particular and General

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‘ Evan was a cripple who looked after holes, or perhaps it would be truer to say he protected the public from holes. Before the war be had been a “digger of holes,” but having lost a leg in a hole on the Normandy beach, the local council had taken him back as a “hole minder.” During 25 years employment he had become thoroughly conversant with holes of various dimensions and purposes.



There had been occasions during a particularly lean period (due to Government economy) when there were no holes to hand out and Evan, divorced from a job, would complain bitterly. On such occasions be would say—when the Government was in a hole they pinched his. Of course, if he had given the matter more thought he would have realised that in work or out of it, holes and himself were inseparably bound together.




Like most specialists, Evan was an authority on the particular rather than the general. Taking any given hole, he could analyse it from a number of standpoints; its shape, cost, suitability, etc., etc., and more important than all, how long it was likely to remain (the “ life ” of a hole was especially important as his job depended on it). What he failed to see was the unending vista of “ holes ” with which society was riddled, each filled with countless millions of his class striving to clamber out of them. Evan was a strictly “practical” man not given to theorising and only concerned with the “ immediate hole.”


Having told you something of Evan’s difficulties, perhaps it would be advantageous to consider the question of “ holes ” more closely. The term “ hole ” is, of course, widely used in popular parlance to describe “ a condition of things,” so that when people talk of being “ in a hole ” we know what they mean.


The trouble is, that usually, they don’t know that the particular “hole” they have in mind is circumscribed by a much wider and deeper “ hole “—Capitalist Society, and that however much they strive, the workers never succeed in getting out of a “hole ” permanently.


Holes, big and small, that exist everywhere in Capitalist Society, are called by Economists, Government officials, and such like “experts,” “Crises” and no sooner is one filled in than another is created. Sometimes, despite the waste and time involved, crises do afford a short lived measure of sustenance for some but invariably it is at the expense of others. Eventually a “hole” comes along into which thousands tumble with wide spread ruin and loss of life such as when Capitalism goes to war.


And so we say, study the “hole” you are in together with the rest of society of which you are a part, get to understand the nature of “holes,” “crises.” and other impedimenta of Capitalism that frustrate, keeps you poor, and occasionally demands your life and limb. Having understood, take steps to fill them in. The tool for the job is waiting, it is labelled “Socialism.”’
W. Brain

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/09/holesparticular-and-general-1956.html



Socialist Sonnet No. 151

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What Choice to Be Had?

 

Conservatives are the honest party

As it’s not their intention to deceive,

But make a virtue from what they believe:

Capitalism’s the best that can be.

Labour, meanwhile, has carefully nursed

A leftish image when it arranges

Sops and reforms, although little changes,

That can be quickly and easily reversed.

Neither will hinder private wealth taking,

While pursuing general prosperity

Via perpetual austerity

For all those who must work at wealth making.

Whichever party might suffer defeat,

The choice will be between con or de ceit.

 

D. A.

Massacre in Peking 4 June 1989

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‘In the early hours of 4 June, soldiers of the Chinese army moved against the demonstrators who had been encamped since the end of April in Tiananmen Square in the centre of Peking. It had been widely expected that there would be a final confrontation between government forces and the students and others who had repulsed previous army attempts to uproot them. But few had anticipated that the army’s action would be so brutal, with tanks and flamethrowers being used on unarmed civilians. Onlookers were cut down indiscriminately with those who attempted to resist. Thousands perished; nobody will ever know how many, as charred and disfigured corpses were hurriedly disposed of and hospitals were overwhelmed by the injured and dying. In the annals of capitalist bloodletting, this day in Peking will hold a place of its own.


The events had begun peaceably enough with marches in commemoration of the former Party Secretary Hu Yaobang. a supposed “liberal”. They gradually grew, with more and more students boycotting classes, till there were demonstrations in many cities on 4 May, ‘the anniversary of the day in 1919 when students demonstrated against the dispositions of the Versailles Peace Conference, a date usually seen as the beginning of Chinese nationalism. Hu’s successor Zhao Ziyang expressed sympathy with the student’s demands for an end to corruption and for greater democracy (an aim never given much clearer formulation). “Hard-liners” in the government, such as Prime Minister Li Peng, insisted that just a handful of disruptive elements were stirring things up. This was exposed as nonsense when on 17 May over a million people marched through Peking. Li’s faction declared martial law (which had never been done in Peking before), but the first army units sent on to the streets of the capital were unwilling or unable to enforce it fully, as workers set up roadblocks and dissuaded soldiers from attacking them. Public transport virtually ceased, and many shops were closed. The power struggle within the ruling echelons of party and state seemed at first to favour Zhao, but he was apparently placed under house arrest as the hard-liners, led by Li and the power behind the throne Deng Xiaoping, seized the upper hand. Troops from outside Peking were drafted in, as the preparations for the final putsch were made. And the fateful day of 4 June arrived.


Government leaders kept studiously quiet just before and after the massacre; there were rumours that Deng was seriously ill. It looked as if a group of geriatric rulers had determined to preserve their own power at all costs, with little thought to the slaughter that would ensue, the prospect of a country in chaos, the watching TV cameras and the effect of China’s “open door” policy towards overseas investment. This was somehow different even from Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, for it involved Chinese troops killing Chinese workers. Even when Peking was captured by “Communist” armies in 1949, there was no shooting on the streets of the capital. Now the “People’s Liberation Army” was slaughtering those it was ostensibly supposed to protect.


State Capitalist Ruling Class
Not that such armed repression is anything new even in the recent history of China. The savage military attacks in Tibet are only the most blatant example of the government’s willingness to use violence to maintain its position. Many participants in earlier movements for “greater democracy” from the late seventies and early eighties are in prison or labour camp. The death penalty exists for a wide range of acts and is frequently applied. Nevertheless, the scale of the Tiananmen carnage has ensured that it will have an unprecedented impact on Chinese workers.


These workers have seen so many of the rulers getting rich quick as market oriented reforms open the way to corruption and black-market dealing. Only the bureaucrats have the opportunity to buy large quantities of goods at subsidised prices and sell them at massive profits on the open market. At the same time, the new economic arrangements have increased the sense of insecurity felt by so many. Yet, apart from the pervasive opposition to official corruption, there is no sign that the protestors were making economic demands. The call for a free press and other “rights” provided for in the constitution were the central issues for which workers fought with such dignity and heroism.


What crimes are committed in the name of liberty, exclaimed Madame Roland when on the way to be guillotined in the French Revolution. Even more horrendous are the crimes committed in the name of Socialism. The butchery in Peking is only the latest in a long series of acts of violence and brute force by state capitalist ruling classes against workers who dare to take the first tentative steps of resistance. Capitalism usually does not need to use such naked brutality to keep workers in their place, though is of course prepared to do so when necessary. But it is the courageous victims who will be remembered, not their vicious and barbaric murderers.’
Paul Bennett


From the Socialist Standard, July 1989


Which Electoral Strategy for Socialists?

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 The following is from the Socialist Standard, June 2024

‘The Socialist Party stood two candidates in the elections to the Greater London Assembly held on 2 May, the same day that the mayor of London was elected. We stood in the constituencies of Barnet & Camden and Lambeth & Southwark. The total electorate of these four London boroughs was 860,000, which meant that those who voted (about 340,000 did) would have seen our name and emblem on the ballot paper. Members and sympathisers distributed some 15,000 leaflets — not enough, but the bulletin sent to all 6 million electors in London stated that we were standing even though not what we were standing for.

The results were:

Barnet & Camden: Lab 70,749. Con 51,606. Green 18,405. LibDem 12,335. Reform UK 7,703. Socialist 1,639.

Lambeth & Southwark: Lab 84,768. Green 35,144. LibDem 22,030. Con 21,121. Reform UK 8,942. Socialist 2,082.

The Weekly Worker (9 May), commenting on the results, noted:

‘The London Assembly is elected by a complex combination of a party list system plus constituency candidates. The Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain stood in the party list element, while candidates from the Socialist Party of Great Britain and TUSC stood in constituencies. (…) The CPB ranked 13th at 0.4% (10,915 votes) – an improvement on last time, when it obtained 0.3%. (…) On the left, the two SPGB candidates both came in last, with just one percent of the vote. Among the TUSC candidates, in City and East Lois Austin came in 7th (after an independent) with 4,710 (2%); April Jacqueline Ashley in Croydon and Sutton was 6th with 2,766 (0.7%); Andy Walker in Havering & Redbridge was 7th with 2,145 (1.3%); and Nancy Taaffe in North East was 6th with 5,595 (2.7%). These results show TUSC polling in the same range as the SPGB, though ahead of the CPB’.

In other words, TUSC (‘Trade Union and Socialist Alliance’), appealing to trade-union-conscious workers with a programme of attractive-sounding reforms (what used to be called ‘the minimum programme’), polled more or less the same as us standing on a straight platform of socialism — the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living with production directly to meet people’s needs, not profit —and nothing but (what used to be called ‘the maximum programme’).

These different election stances reflected the different approaches of us and them. TUSC is essentially a front organisation for one of the fragments of the old Militant Tendency that calls itself ‘Socialist Party of England and Wales’, or SPEW. As Leninists they consider that workers are capable only of acquiring a trade union consciousness (which on Lenin’s definition includes support for legislative and administrative measures to try to improve the lot of workers under capitalism). So, when they contest elections they see no point in advocating socialism as that would be to cast pearls before swine and so only propose reforms within capitalism. Even when they do talk of socialism they mean nationalisation (state capitalism).

We, on the other hand, argue that workers can understand socialism — can acquire a socialist consciousness, if you want to put it that way — in fact must as a condition for socialism being established. No vanguard can establish socialism on behalf of workers; it is something they must do for themselves. Socialism can only be established when and if a majority want and understand it. So, when we contest elections, we don’t offer to lead or do anything for workers; we put before them the straight case for socialism to, at this stage, as we put it in our election leaflet, allow them to ‘send a message to your neighbours and colleagues that you want a world of common ownership and democratic control’.

We know perfectly well how few workers currently want socialism and were standing to publicise further the case for replacing capitalism with socialism as the only lasting solution to the problems capitalism throws up for wage and salary workers and their dependents.

What the TUSC vote shows is that there would be no point in us combining advocating socialism with advocating reforms, as some have urged. This would not make any difference to the number of votes a socialist candidate would get. But it would confuse the issue by encouraging people to continue to think in terms of getting a better deal under capitalism rather than to get rid of it, to try to mend rather than end capitalism. Not that appealing just to trade-union consciousness got SPEW very far. Workers who want reforms evidently prefer to vote for reformist parties they consider to have a chance of being able to implement some. Meanwhile we will stick to advocating socialism and nothing but.’

Thought for food

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You’ve heard of ‘climate justice’ but what about ‘epistemic justice’? This is the idea put forward by international food experts that knowledge should be democratised so that global food systems can incorporate ‘traditional, Indigenous, and place-based knowledges into decision-making processes to address blind spots in current food system policies and actions’.

Nothing wrong with this proposal, except that it won’t work. Capitalist production is a secretive, competitive affair pursued only for profit. It’s not interested in being open, collaborative, democratic or even in feeding people. Its decision-making processes are a private matter. Its blind spots prefer to remain blind.

What else would you expect in a chaotic rollercoaster of boom & slump market fluctuations? 

Ditch capitalism first, then let’s talk.

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



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