Letters

Damaging

I’m sorry that Ruth Tenne (Letters, February 16) didn’t appreciate, still less understand, my letter (February 2). Ruth believes I am engaged in a “crusade” against holocaust deniers, whose only crime, poor dears, is to deny that millions of people were deliberately murdered. It seems that Ruth’s friends, despite their stated commitment to free speech, don’t like criticism!

Ruth doesn’t seem to appreciate that holocaust denial serves the interests of the Zionists, not the Palestinians. There is nothing that the Zionists want more than for supporters of the Palestinians to ‘prove’ Zionist accusations of anti-Semitism correct.

The fact that Ruth doesn’t get it is demonstrated by her quoting the speech of Omar Barghouti, of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions national committee, condemning anti-Semitism at the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign conference. Does she not realise that this speech was aimed at those who have been playing with anti-Semitism and toying with holocaust denial within the Palestine solidarity movement?

Omar pointedly singled out Britain as the epicentre of the boycott movement. The last thing he and the Palestinians want is for the movement to be divided by racists and anti-Semites such as Gilad Atzmon. Omar Barghouti’s speech had a subtext which has entirely eluded Ms Tenne and it is: ‘Don’t play with anti-Semitism; it can only do harm to the cause of the Palestinians.’

It goes without saying that the PSC opposes the Zionist misuse of the holocaust against supporters of the Palestinians. However, we were facing a new situation where elements of the Palestine solidarity movement, led by Atzmon, were beginning to accept the Zionist accusations and, in the words of the “alleged holocaust denier” and “purported anti-Semite”, Frances Clarke-Lowes, were “proud to be a holocaust denier”.

Ms Tenne confirms her own confusion by telling us, on the one hand, of relatives who died in the holocaust and then speaking of “self-searching questions” by those who are “confronting a sacredly-held narrative” which underpins the Israeli state. Ruth Tenne’s capacity to hold, at one and the same time, two ideas which are diametrically opposed to each other, is a wonder to behold.

Red Scribe’s scribblings (Letters, February 16) are no more convincing than Ruth Tenne’s. I am not “ascribing the erroneous views” of those like Paul Eisen and Frances-Clarke Lowes to racism. Indeed I said nothing about causation and I’m perfectly willing to accept that their holocaust denial views originate in their support for the Palestinians, rather than racism.

However, holocaust denial in western society is certainly racist. Unfortunately, Lowes and co took Zionist accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ to heart and began to claim them as their own. Amongst Arabs and people in the third world, holocaust denial is a different phenomenon, being reflective of the predominant anti-Muslim racism.

It is an unfortunate fact that, just as Zionism, a separatist reaction to anti-Semitism, accepted the idea that Jews didn’t belong in non-Jewish society and claimed it as its own, so the separatist reaction to Zionism, instead of denying and rebutting the Zionist libel of anti-Semitism, also claims it as its own. The Zionists say that supporters of the Palestinians and anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic, and Atzmon, Eisen and Clarke-Lowes say, ‘We agree’.

Red Scribe says that I can’t give a “coherent, convincing and political explanation” for why a tiny handful of Jews (Atzmon has, I understand, converted to Christianity) are anti-Semitic or holocaust denial believers. Not true. I perfectly well accept that some Jews are so horrified and ashamed by the actions of the Israeli state, carried out in their name, that instead of questioning Israel’s self-description as a ‘Jewish’ state and the Zionist rationale for their deeds, they end up hating Jews and questioning the very fact of the holocaust.

None of this is new. Did not Marcus Garvey do something similar with his meetings with the Ku Klux Klan? Did not the Zionists collaborate with the Nazis? The road that a few anti-Semitic Jews travel on is well-trodden. But their motivation is unimportant. What is of more concern is the damage they can do.

Damaging
Damaging

Clearly defined

If I had been able to deliver my proposer’s speech at the PSC annual general meeting, I might have helped Tony Greenstein and the Zionists of Harry’s Place to avoid their misunderstanding. Below is the section of my speech explaining part of the motion they had problems with.

“I think some definitions within the definition may be called for. Inherent: existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality or attribute: for example, ‘the inherent right of men to life, liberty and protection’. Trait: habitual patterns of behaviour, thought and emotion (Wikipedia).

“Note that neither of these words need imply anything biological or genetic, though those of a racist inclination might think so (I myself lean heavily to the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate). Moreover, the definition is describing the belief of prejudiced people, not that of the definer.”

The definition used in the motion was adapted from that in Wikidictionary for racism. I think that prejudice and discrimination are the same two mental/intellectual phenomena, whatever their target; of course, the form of discrimination will be different, depending on its subject. My idea, with Ruth Tenne, was to encourage people to think about what makes something anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or racist rather than merely use these labels to condemn opinions they do not like.

Clearly defined
Clearly defined

Proactive

Dave Douglass (Letters, February 16) would indeed have ‘debunked’ another of Arthur Bough’s historical myths - this one on the nature of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders ‘work-in’ - except for one minor problem: I never made any of the claims about it that he attributes to me!

His critique appears to be based on the idea that I have somehow portrayed UCS as a model of how workers can establish socialist production, but I have never said any such thing. In fact, on the anniversary of the occupation, I wrote a three-part blog on the lessons of it, which set out all of the inadequacies of the struggle, in large part stemming from the reformist, Stalinist nature of the leadership. The fact that this leadership merely sought to find an alternative owner - though from the beginning the main emphasis was on the idea of the yard being nationalised - was only a part of that. The reality was that it was also a sectional struggle, whose consequence was that jobs were saved at UCS at the expense of thousands of job losses at other shipyards around the country, under the rationalisation programme that came as the natural product of state ownership.

The only positive lesson I have ever suggested for workers from UCS is it showed that, rather than simply striking, rather than simply sitting outside the gates and placing their faith in intervention by the capitalist state, workers can occupy the factories, take over the means of production and thereby undermine the very nature of capital. As Marx puts it, that is no longer capital employing labour, but labour employing capital. It demonstrates that workers can provide alternatives other than those based on ownership by private or state capitalists.

It shows the only way, as with the occupation of factories by workers during the summer of 1968, that workers can exercise control. But that is all. For it to have gone any further, then the workers would have had to go beyond that, as the workers in the Argentinian occupations have done, and demand that their de facto ownership of the means of production be legitimised so that they can continue production as a cooperative. The Plessey occupation was another good example of that, in the way, like the Zanon occupation, it linked up with the local community.

But none of that, on its own, is adequate either. The reason the French workers restarted production in 68, the reason they restarted production at Zanon, was the fact that workers need to earn a living. But, of course, so long as this occurs within capitalism, it requires there to be a market for the things they produce. For socialists, that need is also combined with our desire that production should be socially useful. That is why, in the case of struggles such as Bombardier or BAe, it is necessary to combine not just those lessons, but the lessons of the Lucas plan, for workers themselves to be proactive in developing alternative production.

Furthermore, as Marx pointed out, such cooperatives could only be successful if they operated not as isolated enterprises, but combined in federations so as to benefit from economies of scale, from being able to coordinate their production, share best practice, centralise resources for investment, and so on.

Finally, of course, as Marx pointed out, beyond a certain point capital will not allow such developments to proceed without opposition. It will require the active support of trade unions and of a workers’ party to defend the workers’ gains against such attacks, just as the co-ops themselves - as happens with Zanon, and as happened with the Co-op in Britain when it supported workers during the General Strike - should act as an instrument of class struggle, by supporting other workers in struggle against capitalist owners.

Proactive
Proactive

Not my intention

Arthur Bough (Letters, January 19) is correct to suggest that my description of “nationalisation, welfare systems, pensions, social housing, free education and social security” as “transitional forms” has the potential to mislead. This was not my intention. If the phrase is interpreted to mean that state provision for workers’ needs can evolve automatically into a socialist society without the overthrow of capitalism on a global scale, then it could be used to reinforce readers’ illusions in social democracy, Labourism, Stalinism and other historical blind alleys.

I guess that Bough’s criticism of my statement that state provision contradicts capitalism is informed by a rejection of left Keynesian solutions to the crisis. He is therefore right to argue that welfare systems and policies of full employment were introduced in order to stabilise capitalism at times of previous crises. Bough’s argument would have been stronger if he had mentioned the political and economic circumstances informing past strategies for systemic stability. Thus the chief source of state revenue used to finance state provision in the imperialist countries was derived from the export of finance capital abroad and the extraction of surplus value from the labour-power of African, Asian and Latin American workers in the colonies or semi-colonies. This required trade unions to abandon a global perspective on proletarian emancipation and support nationalism.

Moreover, the high point of welfare expansion in the 1950s and 1960s coincided with increased arms expenditure and the imposition of bureaucratic controls over workers’ activity. In the west, this entailed the incorporation of trade unions into enforcing wage and price controls on their members. In the east, it meant continued atomisation of workers and their exclusion from democratic participation in setting targets for production, distribution and consumption. It needed a cold war and the threat of nuclear extinction to discipline workers.

Bough reminds readers of the contradiction between value and use-value within the commodity form. However, he seems unaware of how state provision has changed the nature of the use-value of labour-power. Labour-power exchanged for state revenue is no longer productive of value or surplus value. Whilst public sector workers remain alienated, unproductive labour-power loses its character as abstract labour. It is subject to political and bureaucratic controls. Workers in the public sector are politicised and bureaucratised as a result.

State revenue also subsidises the value of labour-power through free education and health. Subsidies to employers and the provision of pensions and social security politicise the regulation of wages, making market mechanisms less efficient. Stabilising the process of capital accumulation through social provision therefore comes with risks. These are a diminution of the control the commodity has over workers and a malfunctioning industrial reserve army of labour. These risks can create new forms of instability. They can lead to deeper and more prolonged crises of the system.

If workers gain more confidence in campaigning for more concessions, then the law of value will be further impeded in its operation. It was this sense I intended to convey when I wrote that state provision contradicts capitalism. In hindsight, rather than calling state provision for workers’ needs “transitional”, it would have been better if I had described it as a form of management of the contradiction between the value and use-value of labour-power in a period of transition from capitalism to socialism.

This period is transitional because capital is no longer strong enough to impose its will on all aspects of social relations, and labour has yet to develop forms of collectivity sufficient to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. Presently, the ruling class has abandoned the funding of state provision as a strategy for the survival of capitalism. It is attempting to restore the conditions that existed prior to the rise of imperialism in the 19th century.

It follows that the only way workers can ensure that society provides for their needs is through mobilising from below and the creation of Marxist parties. Some of the roles of these parties will be to counter propaganda that denies capitalism is in decline, educate workers in the nature of a socialist society, support their taking power and assist the transference of control of the surplus product into the hands of the ordinary worker. This will ensure that the transition to socialism involves the democratic participation of the majority of the population.

Not my intention
Not my intention

CPGB directors

Mark Fischer is quoted in ‘Centralism and autonomy’ as follows: “But democratic centralism means that the party can instruct members in lower committees and other organisations to ‘act in accordance’ with the decisions of higher bodies” (Weekly Worker February 16).

The type of rules suggested above were appropriate to the underground Bolshevik Party prior to 1917. However, for us to act like an underground organisation today, when our work in most countries is primarily that of a propaganda group, is almost comical. The rules of the party we need to build should not be copied or fixed in concrete. A revolutionary party should be flexible - as our tasks change, so should the organisational process change within the party.

There, of course, has to be a division of labour in any serious organisation. But that does not require “higher” or “lower” levels of organisational hierarchy, which only copy corporate structures. The PCC of the CPGB, hopefully, is not the board of directors of the CPGB Corporation.

CPGB directors
CPGB directors

One-sided

I find Eddie Ford’s article on Europe very one-sided (‘Danger of default catastrophe remains’, February 16). His pessimism on the euro is shared by the Eurosceptic political class in the UK - the whole spectrum of little Englanders from left to right. While he is right to oppose austerity measures that hit frontline services and working class wages, we should take a leaf from Iceland and their austerity measures against the banks and put them through bankruptcy.

The British left’s priority should be opposing the bailouts and the quantitative easing which is a bailout by stealth. Bloomberg reported on February 17: “Gold may gain in London ... on speculation that a bailout for Greece will hurt the dollar and boost demand for the precious metal as an alternative asset.” Ford seems to be blind to the currency war propaganda he is spouting on behalf of the pound and the dollar. He does not seem either to recognise the euro as a rival reserve currency while China is biding its time. Also according to Bloomberg, China has pledged to invest in Europe’s bailout funds and sustain its holdings of euro assets.

Railing against the loss of national sovereignty of Greece is also top of the little England agenda. While the project of the euro zone ultimately protects Greece from US hedge funds massively shorting a devalued drachma, this devaluation for export reasons is the supposed purpose, as far as I can tell, for ditching the euro.

The financial crisis on the periphery of Europe, and its corollary in the UK and the US, is plagued by a lack of transparency in the off-balance sheets of the major banks and their investments in credit default swaps, and other complex betting arrangements. The shadow banking system with its offshore accounts is at the heart of these never-ending bailouts, while they are at the same time attempting to eat up the real economy of all countries, including Greece. Europe, with the backing of the powerhouse, Germany, along with the emerging Brics with their large industrial bases, act as a bulwark against this dominance of fictitious capital, which is at the root of modern US/UK imperialism.

Ford, with his one-sidedness, like most of the Atlanticist pundits, cannot hide how much of a basket case the UK has become. The dollar has more to it, for at least it is keeping its status as the world’s reserve currency for present. The BBC’s Robert Preston on November 21 told us: “… by the end of March [2011], the aggregate indebtedness of the UK - that’s the sum of household debts, company debts, government debts and bank debts - had risen to 492% of GDP, or almost five times the value of everything we produce in a single year.”

One-sided
One-sided

All Greek

I’m writing to offer some criticism of Eddie Ford’s recent articles on Greece and the euro zone crisis. I’d really like to see more actual analysis from him, as opposed to rehashed headlines and quotes from the previous week, which only constitute a narrative.

What is incumbent upon anybody writing about economics, financial markets and so on is to occasionally ‘demystify’ the jargon and explain the metaphors. An example from last week’s article: “Ten-year bond yields for Greece have reached an utterly unsustainable 29.8%.”

I’m sorry, but that’s all Greek to me.

All Greek
All Greek

List system

Regarding comrade Mike Macnair’s article, ‘Global fight for reforms’ (February 16), here are my points for criticism that I hope to work on soon:

1. ‘Palliatives’ and ‘state paternalism’ - yes, I know of De Leon’s use of the former term, but one person’s state ‘paternalism’ is another’s ‘state aid’ interventionism on behalf of labour. Politico-ideological independence is a goal, but economic independence ‘this side of revolution’ is illusory.

2. The usual dichotomy between industrial capital and financial capital is tiresome. The real dichotomy is between industrial capital and trade capital, one of which finance capital subordinates itself to at any given point in time.

3. There are no mentions whatsoever of post-Keynesian economics and public policy.

4. The commentary on ‘global money’ is too long.

5. “Suppose we demand a 30-hour week, or indeed a 20-hour week. This in no way involves a nationalist-mercantilist policy. It is a demand which can be applied across the board globally, and not a demand which involves forcing the state to spend more money.” Why isn’t ‘without loss of pay or benefits’ mentioned?

6. Defending is not advancing, with regards to ‘health and safety’. It doesn’t satisfy the questions posed in my previous letter (February 16).

7. On for-profit cooperatives, ‘self-help’, etc, this is too much a British fetish, not really relevant to the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s alternative culture model.

In Lassalle’s day, it was the liberals who employed ‘self-help’ rhetoric. Again, this goes back to the illusion of economic independence. My preference is for the non-profit organisational ‘business model’ over the for-profit co-op ‘business model’. At the end of the day, such a model would stress what the Eisenach programme combined: demands for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for politico-ideological independence and for state aid for economic reform.

List system
List system

Free the six

Six Zimbabwe socialists remain charged with “inciting public violence”, following the dismissal by the magistrate of their application for a discharge in Harare last week. They were arrested on February 19 2011, while meeting to watch video footage of democracy protests in Egypt and Tunisia. Forty-five comrades were originally charged with treason for attending the International Socialist Organisation film screening, and one, David Mpatsi, died following a rapid deterioration in his health while he was imprisoned and denied medical treatment. Although the treason charges were eventually dropped, inciting public violence carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.

The lawyer for the six had applied for the discharge at the close of the state’s case, on the basis that it had failed to produce sufficient evidence to require putting a defence. But the magistrate ruled, without giving any explanation, that the state had established a prima facie case, so the trial is set to continue on February 27. Hopefully the defendants will finish giving their evidence on March 2, but we are now aware of the state’s deliberately frustrating delaying tactics.

It is clear that the state aims to continue with its harassment of any opposition voice despite what transpired during the trial with its ‘star witness’. He called himself Jonathan Shoko and said he was a police officer attached to the Criminal Investigation Unit, but was exposed to be from the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (secret police) and his real name was Rodwell Chitiyo. He took an oath under a false name.

The main purpose of this witness, who had attended the ISO meeting, was to incriminate innocent people. But his evidence, upon which the state is relying, lacked any credibility. He not only lied about his identity, but also about what happened, and it is interesting to note that even the state-sponsored Herald newspaper pointed to the loopholes. The same magistrate could be seen laughing during the time ‘Shoko’ was giving his hilarious, made-up and rehearsed evidence. Any magistrate in an open and democratic society would surely have dismissed the case immediately. When he was handing down the ruling, he avoided looking at the six - an indication that it had been decided by someone other than himself.

The trial is just one example of the harassment of any opposition. On February 14 the police violently broke up the march on parliament organised by the radical Women of Zimbabwe Arise, and a week earlier dozens of armed riot police prevented an academic lecture on ‘The global financial crisis and implication for the third world: the case for Zimbabwe’ from taking place. It was to be addressed by professor Patrick Bond from South Africa at a city hotel, but the police turned away anybody they thought might be participants.

All this sends a strong message of intimidation by Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, as we move towards the proposed constitutional referendum and, possibly, elections this year. The intimidation is meant to silence any opposing voice, as the Zimbabwean political crisis nears its climax.

We were saddened by the court ruling not only for the sake of our six comrades, but for the sake of all Zimbabweans who are willing to fight against the system. Though they had hoped to celebrate the first anniversary of their arrest as free people on February 19, they remain optimistic that they will come through - especially with the support that they continue to receive from families, friends, comrades in Zimbabwe and throughout the world.

We are stepping up our campaign to put the government under pressure to drop the charges against the six and we appeal to comrades outside the country to help us in doing this. The ruling showed that the state thinks it can do anything and, if pressure is not put on them, the six will find themselves sent back to Chikurubi prison. We are appealing to comrades to help us raise funds.

Please use these details when making donations to the solidarity fund in South Africa. Account name: CDL-MINE-LINE Worker Solidarity Fund. Bank: Nedbank, PO Box 87157, Houghton 2041, South Africa. Branch code: 191 60535. Account number: 100 185 3784. Swift code: NEDSZAJJ.

Free the six
Free the six