Letters

Record straight?

I can’t argue with Carla Roberts’ assessment of Chris Reeves’ film on Corbyn, because I haven’t seen it (‘Putting the record straight’, June 29). But I do take issue with the view that Labour’s demand for another European Union referendum and a rejoining policy wasn’t responsible for his defeat.

All major political parties in the UK supported ‘remain’, as did the ruling class, state institutions and industry, etc. This caused a rapid fall from grace among traditional, industrial working class voters for Labour. It led to a general cry of either ‘A plague on all their houses’ or a lean towards the UK Independence Party (Ukip, in case you’ve forgotten!).

With 64% of all parliamentary constituencies voting to leave in the referendum, Corbyn pledged he would honour the decision. His many national TV appearances at this time saw him resolve that we were out and that was it, and now was the time to start taking on the challenge of government. There was a groundswell of support going back to Labour under Corbyn and an optimism that the divisive EU issue was now over and we were moving forward. There was every reason to believe, judging from the mass rallies and confidence and the feeling that Labour was coming back to its roots, that there would be a landslide.

Roberts quotes the BBC as a source when saying “70% of Labour voters ticked ‘remain’”. I don’t know how that was arrived at, since something like eight out of 10 labour constituencies voted leave. So a recognition of the vote to leave was going to be a minimum requirement on the doorstep if you wanted their vote in the ballot box.

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the uncoordinated pincer movement between the Blairites and the mainly London liberal-lefty remainers trapped Corbyn’s political bollocks in a nutcracker. The change to demand another referendum so soon after the first. Promising to campaign for rejoin was a calculated kick in the teeth not only for the punters in the 64% of parliamentary seats who had voted ‘leave’, but also in the majority of Labour-held seats who had voted ‘leave’ in particular. Any fool could see this was a huge sign on Corbyn’s back saying ‘Shoot me’. I believe it was meant to derail his election and that’s exactly what it did.

Starmer and the liberal left had convinced themselves that the generally northern and industrial working class had been painted into a corner, couldn’t possibly vote Tory and, no matter what Labour said, they would hold their noses and vote for them. This time they had been pushed too far and, with piss dripping from their backs, they said, ‘Not this time’. Most abstained, while some were so furious they even voted Tory. What they didn’t do was vote Labour.

David John Douglass
South Shields

Too much nonsense

I was a bit surprised by John Smithee’s letter in last week’s Weekly Worker (June 29). Apparently, there are “too many people” in the world, which has resulted in climate change!

I recall, from a few years ago, George Monbiot giving a relative figure for the carbon emissions (or some such) from North America compared to Africa - around 27:1. True, the global population is growing but it is predicted to taper off. The reason? Poor families - eg, peasants in poor countries - tend to have a lot of children because many of them die young and their parents also need offspring to look after them in their old age. With some, at least, improvements in healthcare this need for large families is reduced.

I recall another article I read a while back, which pointed to the failure of Indian policies. The commentator suggested that the only really successful policy to reduce family sizes was the education of women. In most cases, if an educated woman wants to limit the number of her children, then she will find the means to do so.

Just a little conclusion from the above: if there are too many people in the world then why is it? The world could, I’m sure, fit in a few more of us, but what is causing the climate change that Smithee is keen to fight?

One answer is, of course, capitalism. A look at the policies of the UK government, along with those of the US and other countries, makes this pretty clear. It has been pointed out by many that the UK government is, for instance, keen to expand road transport, while reducing - through confusion and bankruptcy - that of rail. A BBC programme not long ago added a lot of detail to what many of us already knew: that the fossil fuel companies were aware of global warming coming along, due to their own efforts, several decades ago.

Just an aside - Smithee says: “There are too many people in the world, and a shortage of workers - all other things being equal - should lead to a rise in wages.” I assume that he’s looking to the indefinite continuation of capitalist rule. Even so, a shortage of workers might also mean a shortage of customers - oh dear.

But my main fear with “too many people” is Smithee’s advocacy of a policy (advocated by the Greens apparently) for “the population of the UK to be reduced to just 25 million and of the world to just three billion by the year 2100”. That is, very roughly, that each population should be reduced by about two thirds in just under a lifetime.

We’d better start soon then. Is John Smithee volunteering to get this reduction under way? How is it to be done? A voluntary (or compulsory) one-child policy that he so admired in China? That would seem to be a bit chancy. More effective might be mass vasectomies (or just mass murder). Closing down the entire world’s health services - public and private - might accomplish this even more quickly than Smithee and the Greens envisage. We may go further and return to a much smaller medieval level - short lives but a bit of folk dancing.

No, comrade, the world population isn’t the problem. Capitalism is the problem and things are getting worse by the day. We need a mass communist party to lead this growing population in the struggle to get rid of that problem.

Jim Nelson
email

Apologetic

I have been away for a few weeks, so I missed the letter where Frank Kavanagh claims that Arthur Bough has gone beyond Marx (June 15). Given the significance that Frank pays Bough, he may wonder why Bough’s work is not more highly considered within the field!

Seriously though, if you want to read someone who has actually taken Marx forward then look at someone like Samir Amin, who incorporated imperialism and the world market into his analysis of value and surplus value, etc. Then compare that groundbreaking work with the sycophantic and apologetic insult to Marxism that Bough presents. He hasn’t gone beyond Marx, but has instead attempted to rescue Marx for polite bourgeois society!

Frank’s description of a decline from a productive to a service form of capitalism is actually the sort of thinking I would expect of someone who regards Bough as some sort of advance on Marx. Why? Because anyone who thinks this must have no conception of imperialism or that we even have a world market.

Bough’s description of the service economy ironically reinforces Frank’s misconceptions by completely disregarding the huge amount of manufacturing employment taking place outside the imperialist core. A huge operation, currently facilitating the service economy of the core, which vampire-like sucks all the wealth from the periphery. Maybe Frank hasn’t noticed that the world is currently in a very dangerous conflict around the future of this very construct. But, if you regard Bough as an advance, these developments must be pretty mystifying.

If Frank is interested in going beyond Bough, I would recommend John Smith’s ‘Imperialism in a coffee cup’ (Open Democracy July 16 2019) as a good place to start.

Bough’s interpretation of the civilising mission of capitalism appears to me to be his typical neoliberal apologetic, and he seems to imply Marx had a definition of civilisation which is equated to privatisation. Man becomes civilised by aggressive advertising, while consumerism is equated with civilising!

My reading of the civilising mission is more to do with a development in the ways humans relate to the world around them and how they think about the world. Humanity goes from religious idolatry, seeing nature in fear and wonder (god, sacrifice, etc) to a materialistic conception (mastery of nature, etc).

Of course, Bough takes Marx’s concept, distorts it for his own servile ends and leaves out all of Marx’s bitter irony. He then leaves the entire proletariat out of his Shangri-La version of the civilising mission - imagining a world free of industrial labour, leaving only him and his neighbours? Who knows. His description also paints a rather rosy picture of the gig economy, the precariat and zero-hour contracts as freeing the industrial worker!

Steve Cousins
email

True democracy

I have to disagree with comrade Tony Clark (Letters, June 15) that Marx was in some way “led astray” by Blanqui and that somehow the concept of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” is antithetical to the Marxism in the Communist manifesto - and indeed to democratic socialism, as Marx and Engels would have defined it.

Incidentally, I would strongly recommend the two excellent articles by Marc Mulholland on both the dictatorship of the proletariat and the permanent revolution (Weekly Worker March 9 and March 16), which considerably toughens up the latter-day interpretation given to it by Hal Draper and apparently adopted by the Weekly Worker group.

However, Tony is simply wrong about what Marx and Engels actually said, including in the Communist manifesto. In it, they state: “the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat” and that “the first task of the working class in the revolution, to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy”.

There are two key points here. The proletariat must become the new “ruling class”. What can this mean other than the working class ruling using its own state power over the whole of society, including the overthrown bourgeoisie and supporters of the old order in other classes? What is this if not “the dictatorship of the proletariat”?

The other point is the order in which Marx and Engels place the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution. In order “to win the battle of democracy”, they must first overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish themselves as the new ruling class, in order for true democracy to be established. In that way democracy can have its full meaning: ie, rule by the majority, in the interests of the majority.

It should be clear that ‘dictatorship’, or rule, by a majority class is of a qualitatively different nature than previous rules by minority classes. Sheer weight of numbers and the organisations and structures of the working class in power should mean its will can be made to prevail. But that doesn’t mean the ‘dictatorship’ - or forceful or coercive side - disappears altogether. The overthrown classes and their supporters among the middle strata and even within the working class will remain strong and dangerous, and will need to be dealt with through a combination of methods.

Tony is right to strongly and consistently advocate “democratic socialism”, I do too. But you can’t abstract, as he does, democracy from its class content or completely separate off the coercive aspect of class rule from the consensual.

Yes, one would hope the rule of the majority working class would obtain ‘loser’s consent’ from the overthrown classes and their supporters. But I wouldn’t bet any money on it - certainly not the ‘socialist farm’.

Surely, if recalcitrant minorities engage in undemocratic and illegal activities to undermine the rule of the majority working class - ie, democracy and democratic socialism - the working class state would be fully justified in employing force and other measures against such? What is this but the “dictatorship of the proletariat”? It is force to defend true democracy.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Economism

I attended the annual Socialist Workers Party Marxism school at the weekend - it was noticeably busier than previous years, with many young people eager to learn about Marxism. There were some faces I vaguely recognised and many new ones.

Two meetings of note: the first I attended was ‘50 years since the coup in Chile 1973’, where Mario Nain was the opening speaker. The comrade briefly recounted the history and told us that the coalition government of Popular Unity was supported by socialists and communists. President Salvador Allende was compared with Corbyn as being principled and heading a radical government. The mistakes, apparently were that the revolution was only half-hearted.

In my contribution I pointed out that we shouldn’t look to ‘heroes’ that save the day - a man on a white horse like the picture of Bonaparte. I suggested that the coalition government was part of the problem, since there wasn’t a full majority of the left. Secondly rank and file members of the military were not won over, so they could pass arms to workers to defend themselves in a popular militia; and, thirdly, it was necessary not just to smash the constitutional state order (judiciary, military, etc), but also to do what Lenin suggested as part of a minimum programme, as “there was no division between legislative and executive power”: to get rid of one-man management, to get rid of the presidential monarchy. I ended by pointing out that Corbyn needed to be criticised too, and no need to applaud me (which everyone insists on doing after anyone contributes - I’m personally not a good speaker anyway). Not that comrade Nain reflected or commented on what I said in his closing remarks - only those who are members of the SWP who contributed had their points answered.

In Charlie Kimber’s ‘Corbyn to Mélenchon: can left reformism bring change?’, this was a bigger hall, so the dreaded speaker slip system was used (I didn’t get called, despite filling one in). Anyway, essentially comrade Kimber favoured getting out on the streets above using parliament (as if you cannot do both), with demos and strikes, and praised the riots in France (which I think are likely to be more useful for the right). This was, more or less, economism. He also mentioned the BDS campaign against Israel, and said that it was likely the SWP would support and call for a vote for Corbyn if he stands as an independent.

Jack Cooper
Cambridge