CHARTISTFor democratic socialism March/April 2014 #267 £2

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Katy Clark MPLabour’s alternativeDon FlynnImmigrationDot LewisSouth AfricaJulia WickhamSyriaSteve FreemanLeft Unity

Labour’s opportunity?

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 3

4 EDITORIALLabour needs its own tune

6 POINTS AND CROSSINGSPaul Salveson sees great possibilitiesfor a federal England stemming fromthe Scottish independence debate.

7 MARGINAL NOTESKeith Savage on the Tory slaughter oflocal government

13 OUR HISTORY 53Zelda Kahan - Principles of Socialism1908

26 BOOK REVIEWS Andrew Coates on Mitterand, PaulSalveson on libertarian socialism,Andy Morton on capitalist crisis,Duncan Bowie on millenariansocialism and Mont Pelerin and MikeDavis on Marx.

32 YOUTH VIEWDermot Neligan on the necessity ofprolonged universalism

CHARTISTFOR DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISMNumber 267 March/April 2014

FEATURES

REGULARS

Cover�cartoon�by�Martin�Rowson

Syria: page 22

Labour’s ch..ch...choices: pages 8 to12

South Africa post-Mandela: page 16

CONTENTS

Editorial PolicyThe editorial policy of CHARTIST is topromote debate amongst people active inradical politics about the contemporaryrelevance of democratic socialism acrossthe spec t rum of po l i t i cs , economics ,science, philosophy, art, interpersonalrelations – in short, the whole realm ofsocial life.

Our concern is with both democracy andsocialism. The history of the last centuryhas made i t abundant ly c lear that themass of the population of the advancedcapitalist countries will have no interestin any form of social ism which is notthoroughly democratic in its principles,its practices, its morality and its ideals.Yet the consequences of this deep attach-ment to democracy – one of the greatestadvances o f our epoch – a re se ldomreflected in the discussion and debatesamongst active socialists.

CHARTIST is not a party publication. Itbrings together people who are interestedin socialism, some of whom are active theLabour Party and the trade union move-men t . I t i s conce rned to deepen andextend a dialogue with all other socialistsand with activists from other movementsinvolved in the struggle to find democrat-ic alternatives to the oppression, exploita-tion and injustices of capitalism and class society

Editorial BoardCHARTIST is published six times a yearby the Chartist Collective. This issue wasproduced by an Editorial Board consistingof Duncan Bowie (Reviews), Peter Chalk,Mike Davis (Editor), David Floyd, DonF lynn , Roge r G i l l ham, Pe t e r Kenyon(Treasurer), Frank Lee, Dave Lister, AndyMor ton (P roduc t i on Ed i t o r ) , Ma rySouthcott , Cat Smith, James Grayson,Pa t r i c i a d ’A rdenne and She i l aOsmanowicz.

Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the EB

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8 THE RIGHT RESPONSEKaty Clark urges Labour to find a realalternative to austerity

9 AUSTERITY ALTERNATIVESChartist contibutors off suggestions thatEd Miliband must consider

10 LABOUR’S IMMIGRATION PAINSDon Flynn urges a party re-think

12 SCOTTISH CROSS ROADSCailean Gallagher examines ScottishLabour’s choices for the independencevote

14 THE RISE AND FALL OF DETROITFrank Lee explains the remarkablecollapse and its implications for the US

16 SOUTH AFRICA POST-MADIBADot Lewis presents her concerns fordemocracy in South Africa

18 IN NEED OF A PEACE MOVEMENTTony Simpson sees important lessonsfrom within Europe

19 AN IRISH RECOVERY?Lily Murphy urges caution at claims fromthe Emerald Isle that it has regained itsCeltic Tiger status

20 YUGOSLAVIASheila Osmanovic describes a brokenformer Yugoslavia and its on-goingproblems

22 SYRIA’S CONTINUED FALLJulia Wickham sees a country fallingdeeper into civil war as the world looks on

24 TURKISH TUMULTAmina Patak and Mary Southcott viewTurkey’s foreign and domestic problems

25 LEFT UNITYSteve Freeman offers a rebuttal to PeteRowlands’ dismissal of Left Unity

*NEW CHARTIST WEBSITE LAUNCHED*New blog, features, access to Chartist publications, archive site and much more. Join the debate!!!

www.CHARTIST.org.uk

4 CHARTIST March/April 2014 March/April 2014 CHARTIST 5

EDITORIALLETTERS

As DavidCameron’seyesswivel tothe UKIPserpent,Labourmust bewary

The british electorate goes to the polls forthe European parliamentary and localgovernment elections on 22nd May. primeMinister David Cameron remainsmesmerised by UkIp and its poisonous

anti-immigrant rhetoric. This political challenge isalso a litmus test for left of centre parties. DonFlynn is doubtful Labour’s stance is sufficientlyenlightened to resist the Tories and the charmedUkIp snake. only a resolute defence of the econom-ic, moral, social and political rights , benefits of freemovement of people in Europe and a humane immi-gration policy for the rest of the world will do.

Labour realised a smidgen of consolation from theby-election victory in Manchester Wythenshawe andSale East securing 55% of the popular vote up from44% at the 2010 General election, while the Torieswere forced into third place just behind the poor sec-ond UkIp. but there is still no room for complacen-cy. As Katy Clark MP argues in thisissue, unless Labour abandons itsattachment to austerity it will beunable to offer an effective alternativeto the british people. With the specialconference set to seal a deal with thetrade unions to establish associatemembers, change the proportion ofvotes in the electoral college for leader-ship elections while maintaining unionvoting power at conference it remainsto be seen whether this stance willboost or blight the party.

Despite osborne’s talk of growth, economic recov-ery is not translating into improved living stan-dards. Unemployment remains stubbornly high,most people are at least £1500 worse off than whenthe Tory led coalition came to power, with those atthe bottom end taking the brunt of austerity mea-sures. Even the head of the Catholic church inEngland and Wales waded into government welfarecuts and the bedroom tax saying they are hitting thepoor and sending thousands into penury.

To cap it all we have floods with thousands facingmonths of homelessness, power failures and water-destroyed homes, farms andsmall businesses. This crisisis not the result of gay mar-riages as a UkIp representa-tive would have it, but asNicholas Stern, president ofthe royal Academy warns ofman-made climate change,25% cuts in EnvironmentAgency budget and staff havemade matters worse. ‘If wedo not cut emissions we faceeven more devastating consequences’, warns Stern.

The coalition shows no signs of letting up with itsruthless austerity programme set to last until 2020,unless the british electorate votes in a Labourmajority government in May next year. This poses amassive challenge for Labour Ed Miliband. Milibandcontinues to be battered by the blairites and theirneo-liberal obsessions. In this issue Chartist offersits own suggestions about how Labour can resumeits historic role championing the interests of thegreat mass of working people whether white or bluecollar, young, old or jobless. These form part of

Chartist's submission to the Labour AssemblyAgainst Austerity

Ed Miliband is also beginning to talk the talkabout devolving power to communities and localbodies in opposition to the sham localism of theTories that penalises local councils seeking to raiserevenue and is crippling local public services.Liverpool council, one of the poorest, recently report-ed 56% of its funding gone and the prospect of 25%cuts in statutory adult and children social serviceswith closure of libraries, leisure and day centres.This picture is repeated around the country, as theInstitute of fiscal Studies reports, with a planned40% cut in public sector jobs hitting the poorestparts of britain hardest.

In his february Hugo young lecture Milibandsaid that the next Labour government would seek to‘put more power in the hands of patients, parentsand all users of services. We will help people work

together with each other and with thoseprofessionals who serve them, givingthem a voice as well as a choice.’

Two problems here: public servicesneed investment, funded by progressivetaxation. Will Labour halt the plannedcuts? Second, will the workers who pro-vide the services, have more say?Miliband gave the example of parentpower. Dissatisfaction with their localschool should mean parents are able tocall in teams of local school improvementstaff to put things right. A problem here:

most School Impovement Teams (SITs) were thefirst to be cut in the great coalition staff cull. SoLabour must commit to invest in all public services(not just health and education) and restore decisionmaking and revenue raising power to accountablelocal councils, as Keith Savage explains, if it isserious about ‘people power’.

The May Local Government and European elec-tions will provide the real test of Labour’s politicalalternative. In this issue we have several articlesfocusing on the politics of Europe: Lily Murphyquestions the nature of Ireland’s economic recovery,

while Sheila Osmanovicexamines the character ofthe yugoslav model of social-ism and its subsequent fate.Greece, Cyprus and Turkeyare also briefly featured asthe frontline states in thebattle against austerity andcorruption while TonySimpson looks at the stateof the European peace move-ment.

The other looming test for Labour will be theScottish independence referendum in September.Labour member Cailean Gallagher puts the casefor a 'yes 'vote and we invite readers to join thedebate on nationalism, socialism and autonomy.

finally on the international terrain Dot Lewisexamines the politics of South Africa post Mandela,Dan Thea explains the crisis in Africa’s new stateof South Sudan while Julia Wickham seeks tounravel the tangled conflicts in Syria making thecase for humane, political non-military intervention.

Labour needs its own tune

Only a resolute defence of theeconomic, moral, social andpolitical rights, benefits of freemovement of people in Europeand a humane immigration policyfor the rest of the world will do

Nationalism – what for?Dear Chartist,

What is nationalism for? And whydoes the Left need it? Stevefreeman got me wondering aboutthese questions in his recentarticle on the coming Scottishindependence referendum(Chartist, Jan/feb).

Steve refers to the Scottishparliament ‘and some of its socialdemocratic policies including itsrejection of NHS privatisationand its different approach touniversity student finance. ofcourse the Scottish parliamentdoesn't have policies; it's the

party, or parties, that form theScottish government that havethe policies.

Surely, if you want socialism,you can simply vote for it in theUk parliament by electing social-ist candidates? How wouldScottish socialism be different?

Some other things baffled mein Steve's report about theradical Independence Conferencein Glasgow. Apparently, ‘reac-tionary forces are more thanwilling to exploit any divisionbetween people of England andScotland’. yet, would not a fullyindependent Scotland simply

widen any such divide?How would a fully independent

Scottish parliament help working-class unity?

This returns me to my initialquestions about the use of nation-alism by the Left. We need a dis-cussion about the whole ideologyof nationalism (Scottish, Englishor Welsh). What does 'national-ism' really mean for working peo-ple and why do they need it?

GrAEME kEMpWELLINGToN, SHropSHIrE

The Scottish republic and theEnglish working class Dear Chartist,

In 2014 there will be a majornational debate over the future ofthe union between England,Wales, Northern Ireland andScotland. This parliamentaryunion of England and Scotland in1707 was a key stage in theformation of the United kingdomas a constitutional monarchist,unionist and imperial state. Thiswas further consolidated by the1801 union between Great britainand Ireland.

The democratic response to theunionist state has been the cham-pioning of the right of self-deter-mination. The process of breakingup the Uk state was started in

Ireland in the Easter uprising1916 and is posed again by thereferendum on independence forScotland.

We have no illusions in theSNp vision of the future ofScotland. Neither do we have anyillusions in Crown governmentwhich is committed to extendingneo-liberal policies as far as possi-ble in Scotland if the Unionistparties can win the referendum.

However the referendumprovides an opportunity to makethe case for a Scottish republicwhich is democratic, secular andsocial and is internationalist inoutlook.

The largest section of the work-ing class in the Uk is in England.

The most politically active sectionof the working class, and the sec-tion of workers organised in thetrade union movement must bewon to the case for a Scottishrepublic. It is vital the demandsfor a Scottish republic are given awide hearing in England.

We call on all left parties, polit-ical groups and active tradeunionists in England to give max-imum support for these democrat-ic demands during the referen-dum campaign.

rCN (SCoTLAND), rADICALINDEpENDENCE CoNfErENCE(EDINbUrGH), rEpUbLICANSoCIALIST pLATforM (LEfT UNITy).

CHARTIST havelaunched its newwebsite. It willinclude themagazine’s blog,access to themagazine and alink to oldcontent in ournew archvie site

A report from GreeceDear Chartist,

In January the Greek high courtdeclared pay cuts for judges, armyand police illegal. This is unlikelyto derail the neo-liberal NewDemocracy government at thisstage, but will certainly createdifficulties for it; both with thepublic, but more worrying forthem with the Troika.

The government could findways around the judgement, butit would cost them with thosedirectly affected and it wouldforce them to even more blatantacts of undermining the constitu-tion.

It also seems that further cases(involving other classes of publicservants) are to follow. There is ofcourse a certain irony involved inthe fact that the fightback willstart with the judges of all people- usually the staunchest support-ers of the establishment - butthen ... they were judgingwhether their own salaries andperks should be cut, or shouldthey be exempted from the aus-terity regime.

A likely scenario is that thegovernment will be forced to atleast partially implement thejudgement imposing more cutselsewhere (in order to satisfy the

Troika). Meanwhile Syriza rides high in

opinion polls and the fascistGolden Dawn changes its name toNational Dawn to fight theEuropean elections.

The Greece SolidarityCampaign will be discussing thedemocratic movement againstausterity at its AGM on SaturdayMarch 1st at UNITE offices inHolborn, London. Detailswww.greecesolidarity.org

ISIDoroS DIAkIDES, LoNDoN.

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 76 CHARTIST March/April 2014

P&CS

Is this a reasonable aspiration for a Labour gov-ernment, working in partnership with local govern-ment, over the course of five years – to reduce thenumbers of working poor and cap the salaries ofchief executives (some of whom are now paid£200,000+)? This is not to propose jumping into bedwith the Tax payers’ Alliance – the overall wage billmight go up rather than down – but it would be astatement about what our values are.

A change of government

In some parts of the country a major issue is to dowith planning permission for new homes. Whilstmost people accept that more housing may be need-ed – especially smaller, affordable homes for singlepeople of all ages – not everyone wants developmentclose to their own house.

Again, a change of government in 2015 might notchange much – Labour wants 200,000 new homes

built each year.However, the all-partyLocal GovernmentAssociation, which ishardly the most radicalvoice around, has calledfor stronger compulsorypurchase powers so thatempty homes can berestored to use. Labourmight also legislate toforce the prior develop-ment of brownfield sites

(rather than allowing the easy and profitable optionof greenfield development). This would reverse aCoalition policy.

In 1995 the price of a house in the Uk was about3.5 times the average salary; now homes cost morethan six times an average salary. for many people ahuge proportion of their income is tied up in mort-gages and money is sucked out the local economy. ALabour government – again in partnership withcouncils – should work to see new homes built inplaces that are acceptable to existing communitiesand at prices that are genuinely affordable.planning rules need to be amended in favour ofcouncils and communities rather than the presentpresumption in favour of developers.

Those Labour candidates hoping to be elected inMay need something from the party leadership tocling on to. The next 12 months will surely be grimand the ‘post-austerity’ landscape will change slow-ly. In the meantime Labour councils can be some-thing of a rallying point. recently, for example,Derbyshire County Council has promised fundingfor foodbanks and is to create 500 apprenticeshipspaid at the minimum wage rate rather than the£2.65 an hour rate paid by the previous Tory admin-istration. These are small but hopeful decisions; weneed clear signals about how Labour will use thepower of central and local government to work withand for local communities.

The English left has a very uneasy relation-ship with the concept of patriotism, forgood reason. It smacks of empire, racism,and that delightfully old-fashioned term‘jingoism’. Its ugliest contemporary mani-

festations are seen in the English Defence League,bNp and the wilder fringes of UkIp. It has had afew recent defenders on the left, notably billy braggbut also Jon Cruddas, who revived GeorgeLansbury’s notion of ‘radical democratic patriotism’in his very powerful and thoughtful lecture inhonour of the East End socialist, last November.

I’m talking ‘English’ patriotism here. It’s becom-ing increasingly difficult to talk of a british politicsany longer, with the growing autonomy of Scotlandand Wales. A Scottish or Welsh patriotism is, ofcourse, much less problematic. As the debate onindependence hots up, large sections of the Scottishleft are able to tap into a re-awakened sense of Scottishpatriotism which is inclusiveand radical. plaid Cymru hasmade a similar pitch in Wales,electing a leader – Leanne Wood- who is far to the left of anybodyon Labour’s front bench.

England is different. It wasthe core of the british Empireand while it’s no longer the normto conflate ‘English’ with‘british’ it did reveal a certainreality that it was England thatwas the dominant force. britishpatriotism was regularly used bygovernments to whip up support for colonial wars,culminating in the bloodbath whose outbreak we arecurrently ‘celebrating’.

yet the 19th century did see the left using patrio-tism as part of its own political toolbox at certainpoints. Some of the Chartists were adept atintegrating democracy and a radical patriotism,attacking their upper class opponents for being self-interested and opposed to the national ‘commongood’. More problematically, two of the key figuresin late 19th century socialism – robert blatchfordand H M Hyndman - cloaked themselves in theunion jack. blatchford wrote perhaps the most popu-lar socialist tract ever published in britain, tellinglycalled Merrie England, whilst Hyndman’s ‘foundingtext’ of british Marxism was England for All. Theywere not on their own, and William Morris was fondof proclaiming the rights of the ‘free-bornEnglishman’ without the jingoist baggage ofHyndman and blatchford.

The ‘radical patriotism’ of blatchford andHyndman led them to becoming enthusiastic sup-porters of Empire and re-armament, becomingrecruiting sergeants for the british Army in 1914.And they displayed an ugly anti-semitic strainwhich was not uncommon within the british left.Even socialist opponents of the war, like philipSnowden, showed a passionate commitment to what

he called ‘our dear land’. The point was, this dearland of ours had been expropriated by an alien classof landlords and capitalists who did not have thenation’s collective interest at heart.

fast forward to the 21st century, and the britishEmpire lies in ruins. Is there scope for a new form ofpatriotism that isn’t reactionary? billy bragg posit-ed a ‘left nationalism’ in The Progressive Patriot, buthis support for an ‘English parliament’ won fewconverts. More recently, he refined his stance andproposed an ‘England of the regions’ which wouldinvolve a radical democratisation of the britishstate: national devolution for Scotland and Wales,regional devolution to the North, Midlands, South-West and East.

Maybe that is the way to nurture a ‘progressivepatriotism’ which stands for a diverse and decen-tralised England which can build a new, equal, rela-

tionship with Scotland, Wales– and Ireland, both north andsouth. Jon Cruddas’s argu-ment for what Lansburycalled a ‘national, popular’patriotic socialism needs a lotof careful thought and debate,which should begin to echothe ferment of ideas beingdiscussed north of the border– mostly by the ‘yes’ cam-paigners. patriotism isn’tsimply reducible to one levelof ‘nationhood’. Within theUk it’s highly contentiouswhat we mean by that any-

way: in the past ‘british patriotism’ has held swaybut britain isn’t a ‘nation’, it’s a state based on anincreasingly reluctant federation of nations - withEngland predominant. I remain slightly confused asto what Ed Miliband means by ‘one Nation’ – whichone, Ed?

It’s a truism that people’s identities operate onmany levels: from a very local, neighbourhood iden-tity to a town or city, county, region, nation and –perhaps less common – global. Each is valid andpotentially ‘a good thing’, capable of releasingenergy and vitality, providing thatlocal/regional/national patriotism doesn’t degenerateinto hostility towards ‘others’. but subsuming, forexample, regional identities within a centralised,super-imposed entity, be it England or ‘Greatbritain’ doesn’t seem to me, at any rate, to be theright way to go in the future. Constructing a federalbritain, based on a new settlement between thenations which make up these british Isles, is howev-er a potentially exciting project. England needs spe-cial treatment given its size and historic power.Contrary to what some so-called ‘English patriots’say, an England of the regions isn’t about weaken-ing our sceptr’d isle, but re-balancing a very unbal-anced and centralised nation and encouraging a newvitality in the regions beyond London and theSouth-East. And that seems to me highly patriotic.

Patriotism: The lastrefuge for scoundrels?

PaulSalvesonsurveyspatriotism,Englishnessand the leftresponse inPoints andCrossings

MARGINAL NOTES

The ‘post-austerity’landscapewill be verytough forLabour-ledcouncils.What canthe partyfocus onasks KeithSavage

The Tory slaughter oflocal government

Paul’s website iswww.paulsalveson.org.uk

This year’s round of local government elec-tions coincides with those for theEuropean parliament. This is likely tomean that the media focus will be on theperennial issue of ‘in or out’ of Europe.

This is an important political debate, of course, butif it makes it more difficult to get across what ishappening in local government, that will be a pity.

for Labour candidates and for existing councillorsthere is the matter of trying to arrive at a strategyfor local government in ‘difficult times’ (that is whenplanned spending is being cut by 43%, £20bn, overthe next two years). The instinctive reaction maywell be to say, “What’s the point? Why be elected ifall you can do is carry out Coalition cuts?”

There were local elections in 2013. one of the fewLabour gains was the county of Derbyshire. overthe next four years the county has – to comply withosborne’s spending review - to cut £157m from itsbudget, a cut of around 7% for 2014/2015 alone.Some provision is protect-ed by law but there willbe cuts to services for vul-nerable adults and chil-dren. Hundreds of jobsare to be lost too.

None of the recentlyelected Labour council-lors will have happilyvoted through a new bud-get that can only causedamage to services, staffmorale and the localeconomy. This story is likely to be retold all over thecountry; there is no point in pretending that all willchange for the better after the 2015 general election– even if Labour forms a majority government. So,what is to be done?

Turn out

Turn out for the May elections will probably bearound 40% at best (compared with 65% at the lastgeneral election). This percentage has been declin-ing slowly but steadily over the last 30 years. Votershave either reached the conclusion that there is nogood reason to vote – spending cuts will happen any-way – or the political compact between parties andthe public is being eroded. What might Labour beginto do to address this?

richard Wilkinson and kate pickett argued inThe Spirit Level (2009) that large income differen-tials are socially unhealthy. The Uk has some of thewidest differentials between the best paid and theworst. According to Wilkinson and pickett the ratiobetween the top and bottom of the salary laddershould not be more than about 1:8. What might thatmean if applied to local government pay scales? payat £9 an hour would be needed to get the lowestearners anywhere near an estimated ‘living wage’ of£17,000. Multiplied by eight you would have a maxi-mum salary of £136,000.

In 1995 the price of a house in the UKwas about 3.5 times the average salary;now homes cost more than six times anaverage salary. For many people a hugeproportion of their income is tied up inmortgages and money is sucked out thelocal economy

8 CHARTIST March/April 2014

debate the recent policyannouncements from Ed ballsalso raise questions about howpolicy within the Labour party isdetermined. In the 2014 Hugoyoung lecture Ed Miliband spokeof empowering individuals andcommunities so that they are ableto help shape the future of theirpublic services. This approachneeds to be extended to theLabour party itself. While thepolicy review remains ongoingthus far policy commitments,even those with widespread partybacking, at present appear to bemade by individual front benchspokespeople in conjunction withthe leader’s office. This is espe-cially the case in relation toeconomic policy where decisionscontinue to be taken behindclosed doors by the leader andshadow chancellor. on the otherhand policies determined by partymembers at conference such asthe re-nationalisation of the rail-ways and of royal Mail have sim-ply been ignored.

The Labour party should beproud of our links with the tradeunions. Any reform to our partyrules and structures shouldtherefore look to strengthen theseties and give working people agreater voice in our party. Timewill tell if the Collins review pro-

Ed Miliband pledged afresh start followinghis election as leaderin 2010 and famouslypromised a blank sheet

of paper on policy. This has beenfollowed up with a policy reviewwhich has been ongoing sinceJune 2011. In that time, front-benchers in the House ofCommons have been cautious notto make any pledges for beyondthe next General Election, partic-ularly in relation to spendingcommitments. The youth jobsguarantee and reversal of theTories’ top-down reorganisation ofthe NHS being notable excep-tions.

This has changed in recentmonths. At he 2013 party confer-ence it was announced that thenext Labour Government wouldrepeal the Tory/LibDem bedroomtax and freeze energy bills until2017. in January this year shad-ow chancellor Ed balls announcedthat the 50p tax rate would be re-introduced. Each of these policiescreates a clear contrast betweenLabour and the Tories – clear redwater - and each of them will ben-efit working people and con-tribute to making britain a fairersociety. Unsurprisingly they haveproved popular with party mem-bers.

Further spending cuts

Unfortunately when it comes tochallenging austerity the pictureis less positive. In the samespeech in which he announced thereturn of the 50p tax rate Edballs also re-emphasised a previ-ous pledge to use the coalition’s2015/16 spending plans as astarting point and commit afuture Labour Government tofurther spending cuts. Such anapproach risks choking growthand stunting the positive impactwhich the positive measuresabove will have. As many in themedia claim further cuts areinevitable. So campaigns such asthe Labour Assembly AgainstAusterity are vital in ensuringthat alternatives to austerity areheard within the party.

As well as igniting an economic

Austerity – Labour's blind alleyKaty Clark MP acknowledges Ed Miliband’s pledge to empower people, but this mustinclude party members and be open to alternatives to austerity

posals will achieve this. The moveto make affiliated union memberswho chose to opt in ‘associatemembers’ could potentially be apositive move which gives tradeunion members a much greaterrole within the party. Much willdepend however on how manymembers choose to opt in and thebenefits which becoming an asso-ciate member brings. The right tovote in future leadership electionswill not be enough, particularly asthis is a right which political levypayers in affiliated unions haveenjoyed for many years. A mean-ingful say in determining ourpolicies when in Governmentwould be a much more attractiveoffer.

LABOUR

Katy Clark is MPfor NorthAyrshire andArran

The Labour response to austerity needs to be got right

Bewildered Balls

EconomyLabour will present a growth budget as soonas possible after the 2015 General Election.We want local government and other publicbodies to know we will quickly lift restric-tions on borrowing for capital investment.So they can plan to help rebuild one nationbritain for the benefit of all. We accept thatwe will be stuck with Tory austerity plansfor current spending in 2015/16 for our firstyear in office. Every effort will be made toencourage increases in disposable income forthose on the lowest incomes by promoting aliving wage. With regard to payment oftaxes, we will work with progressive govern-ments around the world to promote fairtaxes and close down tax havens. In themeantime targets will be set for HMrC tocollect taxes that are due. business andentrepreneurship, whether private, public orsocial, will continue to be encouraged along-side the promotion of tax fairness to re-establish full employment.

Labour's 2015 election manifesto Chartist contributors set out some manifesto must-haves as an antidote to austerity for the LabourParty's last National Policy Forum meeting ahead ofthe 2015 General Election

TU/working peopleLabour acknowledges that today the majority of Thatcher’s labourlaw reforms are still place. During 13 years of Labour rule a nation-al minimum wage was enacted, but enforcement was lacking andyoung people were not offered adequate protection. Labour nowunderstands that workers rights and economic democracy, have tobe actively promoted. We propose to reassert the principle of eco-nomic democracy and workers’ rights in the next parliement by leg-islating for workers on company boards and reconstructing sectoralcollective bargaining in the Uk labour market. This will includelegal reforms targeting new individual and collective labour lawrights as well as government intervention to incentivise collectivebargaining as part of our commitment to granting people power..

HousingLabour will implement a programme of newsocial rented housing with low rents andsecure tenancies. Subsidy will be provided tothose local authorities who cannot fund fromtheir own resources. The programme will beconcentrated in the South-East and otherareas where need is greatest and markethomes are least affordable. Local authoritieswill be given the freedom to borrow to fundnew homes. rent increases for existing coun-cil and housing association tenants will be nogreater than the average increase in earn-ings and benefits. Labour will improve stan-dards and hold down rents in the privaterented sector and where necessary localauthorities will be funded to take propertiesover from under-performing landlords.Councils will be able to acquire land for newhomes at pre-existing use value. Wheredevelopments are undertaken on privatelyowned land, part of the profit of landownersand developers will be used to support essen-tial infrastructure and other community ben-efits.

Stamp duty on home purchase will bereplaced by a tax on the increase in the valueof private property with the tax receipts to beused to fund the new programme of secureand affordable rented homes.

Democracy and Politics Labour recognises a need for a change of political culture. This willreflect the new ways we communicate, the lack of deference, theimportance of listening and problem solving, rather than having 'an-swers'. We need diversity in every decision-making body whichreflects today's society, an equality which is not sameness, respect fordifference, a new collectivism whereby people join together to take onstructures which are insensitive or irresponsive to their needs.Subsidiary is the best arrangement without the hierarchy that oftenexists with it. bottom up is better than top down. So linking outcomein people’s lives with democratic change will include votes at sixteen,citizenship education, devolution to England, unitary authorities per-haps linked to parish councils, with a strategic layer at regional orsubregional level which reflects that already existing in London,Labour will reform the second chamber to help keep the union togeth-er, and extend electoral reform to make sense of our voting.

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 9

Health Labour will promote health equality as the central purpose of theNHS. It will address the funding gap between the current NHSspend and the impact of an ageing population, and higher publicexpectations of healthcare as result of clinical developments. Tothese ends Labour will repeal the current Health and Social CareAct, reverse privatisation of NHS services, and halt the letting ofNHS contracts to commercial providers of healthcare whereaccountability is to shareholders, not the public. The health needsof those with mental illness currently costing the british economy£70 billion/year will be addressed by identifying and supportingsufferers still in work. public health initiatives on obesity, sub-stance misuse and sexual health will be introduced to reducehealth inequality.

Contributors: Patricia d'Ardenne (Health), DuncanBowie (Housing), Peter Kenyon (Economy), AndyMorton (TU/working people), Mary Southcott(Democracy and Politics)

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 11 10 CHARTIST March/April 2014

The coalition govern-ment's Immigration billis wending its waythrough the last stagesof parliamentary proce-

dure, the expectation is that itwill be in force by the early sum-mer.

Its passage has been a bruisingexperience for the prime Ministerand his Home Secretary. When itwas announced as the centrepieceof its legislative programme backin May 2013, Mr Cameron musthave envisaged a timely measureaimed at showing his supportersthat he was on top of all the talkabout fresh influxes of migrantsfrom bulgaria and romania andhad everything in place to ‘stemthe tide’. This would have been astrong card to play against thethreat from UkIp in the run-upto local government andEuropean parliamentary elec-tions in May 2014 and the topman could have hoped for somecredit for having engineered thisoutcome.

Appeal rights

but the contest over the billturned out to be less about itsobnoxious details – intended bythe Home Secretary to create a'hostile environment' for migrants– and more on big vision stuffrelating to Europe, human rightsand welfare abuse. It has turnedout that the relentless raising ofthese issues by Conservativeright wingers of the stature ofNigel Mills and Dominic raab didfar more to define opposition tothe bill than anything that camefrom the Labour benches.

To her credit, the oppositionhome affairs shadow, yvetteCooper, cottoned on to the impor-tance of opposing the abolition ofappeal rights in matters concern-ing the correct application of theimmigration regulations andLabour did its best to force a divi-sion on this issue during its finalday in the Commons. This aside,on important issues like therequirement for landlord checkson the immigration status of

prospective tenants, and theimposition of health charges onanyone not settled as a long termresident, the Labour positionharped on the theme that 'theGovernment hasn't explained howthis will actually work.' It oftenseemed that if a satisfactoryanswer could be provided on thatscore, Labour would have beenquite content to vote in favour ofthe measure, rather than merelyabstain, which is what they did inthe end (with only 12 Labour Mpsvoting against).

because of this the officialopposition to Government policyon immigration policy now seemsto come from a bunch of a hun-dred or so rabid right wingers onthe malcontent wing of the Toryparty. Added to this are a halfdozen votes from Labour's has-been tendency, rather incompe-tently led by the likes of Davidblunkett and Jack Straw.

The party leadership probablythinks that this is a perfectlydecent exercise of the triangula-tion tactic, which involves grab-bing your opponents’ star policiesand reconfiguring them as yourown. rumour has it that Coopertalks to those in her circle of notwanting to see space large enoughfor the insertion of a cigarette

folk. A helping hand to get themthe rate for the job tends to earntheir gratitude. but is this anexplicit enough message to makeits mark on the thinking of the60-70% of public opinion pollrespondents who worry thatimmigration is out of control andits making its detrimental markon their standard of living?

Bigger picture

Almost certainly it is not. Thisline of defence leaves intact thepowerful sense across that largesection of the population whichlives week-by-week, or month-by-month, on its pay packet andoperates with the profound beliefthat its way of life is being abol-ished. once it was holidays inSpain that were leveraged fromcredit companies and tallymen:now it is the business of payingthe rent and having food on thetable during that last week beforethe wages go in the bank, whichneeds to be covered.

Where does migration fit intothis bigger picture? Notions ofglobalisation and the footloosenature of modern business beginto swirl around here. Companiesdon't want to pay the taxes thatwere once used to finance theeducation and health servicesthat played the useful role ofsecuring their supply of fit, ableand literate workers to help maketheir profits. In conditions ofopen markets and the free move-ment of labour and services thecost of producing the modern pro-letariat can be pushed furtherdown the line, stripping out theneed for welfare and public ser-vice budgets. Instead the cost willdraw on the scant resources offamilies abroad and their willing-ness to make greater sacrifices togive their kids a start in the jobsmarket, either in their homeregions or, increasingly likely, insome far off place abroad.

for the right wing the issue ofimmigration is situated in the cri-sis of the national state and itscapacity to act with sufficientlysevere measures to allow itsnative working class to be disci-plined and dragooned into labourmarkets. The European Unionand the paraphernalia of humanrights appear to be major obsta-cles to achieving this end, givingmore mobile and enterprisingworkers the ability to up thevalue of their labour power bymoving far and wide to otherplaces where the wages are high-er. for employers who have todeal with the perceived rubbish

that is left behind, EU regulationand human rights pops up torestrain the use of the whip andlash which is really needed to getthem back in line and clocking on.

Labour to date has failed tochallenge the essential features ofthis vision. Its ideologues havetheir own explanations as to whythe welfare state is in crisis, oftenrooted in claims about the erosionof common values which once sus-tained the communal sense offairness, which is itself a victim ofthe increased social diversity thatimmigration has brought. Theyhold out the hope that it mightstill be possible to produce a 'mod-ernised' version of the class settle-ment that was put in place afterWorld War II, with social fairnessbeing handed out to those whoseration cards show that they havemade the necessary contributions.

yet there is an alternative tothe political stances which formthe poles of the harshness of freemarket realism and the nostalgichankering for common valuesthat guides the social democraticcentrists. Its starting point has tobe a better understanding of theconditions in which the contempo-rary working class is produced byglobal capitalism and the nodes ofresistance which emerge to thedispossession and exploitationthat this inevitably involves. Theformation of communities and theforging of values of mutual aidand solidarity takes place withinthese processes as much as theydid in the European 18th and19th centuries, when a militantworking class emerged in the poi-soned and overcrowded cities ofearly industrial capitalism.

Issues of welfare

Issues of welfare and socialinsurance, nowadays scorned asnothing more than the feather-bedding of the bone-idle, willcome back onto the agenda as thenew working class finds ways toprotect themselves from the worstof the risks they are newlyexposed to in the context of mobil-ity and migration. The portion ofwelfare that globalisation has

clawed out of the hands of wageearners and placed at the disposalof the holders of assets who seekincreased rents and dividendswill be eyed once again by leadersof the new working class, andstrategies will be found to sum-mon up and consolidate thepotential power of wage earnersin ways which mirror capitalism'sown ability to mobilise resourcesacross national frontiers.

A useful role

If Labour is to play a usefulrole in supporting the efforts ofworking class people to realisetheir potential for power and self-determination then it will have toundergo a profound change in itsattitude to immigration. Itspolicies should cease to be guidedby the project it shares with theright wing, to control and disci-pline the movement of people asthey cross frontiers, and insteadwork with the fact that mobilityhas the potential to empowerwage earners in resisting thedominance of capitalism. Thecurrent interest in countering theexploitation which migrants areexposed to is a sign of at leastearly steps in the right direction.It needs to be followed up withmuch more strategic thinking onhow we move from migrationregimes which express the domi-nance of capital to ones which arebased on the rights of migrantsand work to strengthen the capac-ity of the whole of working classand act in defence of its owninterests.

Labour on wrong track withImmigration BillDon Flynn explains what Labour needs to do if it is to change minds and challenge theright wing consensus

paper between her position onimmigration and that of theTories.

It seems likely that EdMiliband wants to push theboundaries of difference a littlebeyond this glum point. His fewspeeches on immigration sincewinning the leadership contesthave explored the theme ofmigrant exploitation and haveplayed with it as the real reasonwhy the wages of newcomers areoften so low. This opens up a lineof defence against many of hisparty's working class supporters,who blame immigration for theirwage levels being held in checkthrough most of the last decade.There is space for saying that thiscould be turned around if only theminimum wage inspectorate werebeefed up and bad employersmade to stump up.

Labour's best allies on thesepoints tend to be the researcherswho work away at the data insuch bodies with acronyms likeNIESr, IfS, CreAM, Ippr andthe more helpfully entitledMigration observatory. Thestunningly obvious fact thatemerges from much of their com-mentary is that migrants don'tactually like being paid less fortheir daily labours than other

IMMIGRATION

Don Flynn isDirector ofMigrant RightsNetwork

If Labour is to play a useful role insupporting the efforts of workingclass people to realise their potentialfor power and self-determination thenit will have to undergo a profoundchange in its attitude to immigration

The result of Labour’s immigration policies of recent times is plain to see

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 1312 CHARTIST March/April 2014

Towards the end ofJanuary, at a packedpro-independence meet-ing in Airdrie footballclub amongst the hous-

ing blocks and sprawling estatesof Scotland’s central belt, anelderly women rose from herchair to say that she never leftthe Labour party, the Labourparty left her, and she looked for-ward to when a revived Labourparty would become the govern-ment of an independent Scotland.

The week before over 200 peo-ple had gathered at a meeting ofa campaign group called Labourfor Independence, at the ScottishTrade Union Congress inGlasgow, to hear Dennis Canavanand other ex-Labour figuresspeak on the potential forLabour’s renewal after a yes vote.The visions were radical, theanalysis was class-based, and thelanguage was socialist.

Pro-Union Labour

Meanwhile, ConstituencyLabour party meetings across thecountry have a more sombremood, as pro-Union Labouractivists anxiously recount theirdoorstep experience during therecent by-election in the Labourheartland of Cowdenbeath, wherelong-term Labour voters said thatyes they would be voting for theLabour candidate, but would alsobe voting yes on September 18th.The reason was a loss of faith inthe potential for deep andgenuine change throughWestminster, even with a Labourgovernment elected in 2015.

If my partisan update soundsrather fragmentary, let me offersome more traditional evidencefor this groundswell of left-inclined, residual Labour supportfor an independent Scotland.research shows that many tradi-tional Labour supporters areundecided and are numerousenough to determine the result.research also suggests that of allthe ‘social groupings’ – gender,

age, location – it is class that isthe firmest indicator of votingintentions: the lower your class,the higher the likelihood that youwill vote yes in September.Meanwhile the pollster IpsosMori said last year that deprivedparts of the population would beencouraged to vote yes by a ‘radi-cal’ plan to use the powers andstrength of a sovereign Scottishstate for social and economicgain.

In this context, a raft of pollssince the New year has shown afirm, significant and consistentshift towards yes, with potentialshifts still to come.

All these facts point towards tothe potential revival of Labour inScotland as a party rooted in theinterests and support of workingpeople. It leads many to believethat the powers of an indepen-dent Scotland can be claimed by aradical Labour party, which canmove away from its appeal tomore privileged classes concen-trated in southern parts of theisland, and draw on the supportof the many former members andtrade unionists who say theynever really left Labour.

There is one huge problem. TheLabour party itself remains sofirmly and staunchly opposed to ayes vote that they will not evendiscuss Labour’s post-indepen-dence prospects. Not only theleadership but careerists and loy-alists remain silent on the possi-bilities, dismissing the referen-dum exercise as constitutionalpolitics, a great distraction fromreal issues facing ordinary work-ing people.

Labour Unionists combine thisaccusation with other frustratingtactics. They insist that Scottishindependence and the referen-dum are all about Alex Salmondand the SNp. They will not dis-cuss a yes vote in terms of radi-cal transfer of powers fromLondon to Edinburgh, and willnot debate whether ‘indepen-dence-lite’ with a continuing cur-rency union might resemble the

SCOTLAND

old Labour demand for Homerule. They will not acknowledgethe prospect for a Labour govern-ment in an empowered Scottishparliament to use the new andextensive powers – over corporateregulation, wages, taxation,finance and security – to dis-tribute not just wealth but powerto the people of Scotland who forso many generations have lackedthe party organisation or politicalprogramme to claim it.

This lack of strategy

There have been some attemptsat crafting a democratic socialistprogramme for after a yes vote,most notably in a new book by theone-time Mp and founder of theScottish Labour party, JimSillars. Some members of thesocialist red paper Collectivehave made hints about how fullpowers might be used, but thegroup remains attached to a Novote. So voters are waiting to seea strategy and vision that is cred-ible, radical and recognizable.

This lack of strategy raises con-cerns for those of us in Labourwho favour a yes vote. Supposingthe people do vote for indepen-dence? We share the fear of ourfellow members and socialists,that after a yes vote the SNp willconsolidate its hold on power, andelements of the organised right

Opportunties for the left would open up in an independent Scotland, argues CaileanGallagher, but Labour’s ears are firmly blocked to the prospect

Labour supporters hold keyto Scottish vote

and centre-right (especially thehundreds of small business own-ers grouping in the sinister‘business for Scotland’ group, andthose writing the new libertarianwebsite Wealthy Nation) will layclaim to the SNp. Salmond’sparty will continue its strategy ofwide-net consensualism with effi-cient social administration, con-cealing their neo-liberal economicprogramme for Scotland. Therisks are manifold, but the mostsignificant is that a strong SNpadministration could easily usethe new economic powers to easeopen those elements of regulationthat remain on our labour mar-ket, and lower corporation tax toallow quick global capital to flowinto the country. This wouldplunge more working people intolower wages and harsher con-tracts, while leaving high-levelmonetary and regulatory powersto Westminster, the City ofLondon, and the bank ofEngland.

of course, these are not thepolicies of a Labour party thathas malfunctioned into parlia-mentary opportunism, such asWestminster Labour has becomeand such as Scottish Labour couldrisk becoming. They are the poli-cies of a revitalized Labour party,which might emerge from people’sdesire to use the full powers ofeconomic independence.

So Labour voters’ decisivepower this September is only thefirst chapter of the story thatbegins with a yes vote. If workingclass votes will determine the ref-erendum, they can also influenceLabour’s leftwards direction aftera yes vote, in order to outflankthe capitalist SNp, win the firstelections in an independentScotland, and use the powers of anew nation-state for a moresocialist purpose.

resisting this agenda requiresa strategy that uses the economicpowers and levers that wouldcome to Scotland with a yes vote.It emphasises that the mostimportant powers relate to wagesand the labour market, as well aspowers of job creation, publicinvestment, nationalization andregulation of the economy in thesocial interest.

In the interest of workers

Thus, from resistance to centre-right consolidation, the party candevelop a programme for proac-tive economic governance in theinterest of workers. This includesthe pursuit of full employment,facility for non-capitalist invest-ment in untapped resources liketourism, invention and renewableenergy, and provision of the kindof world-class universal educationthat has inspired the labourmovement and our radical prede-cessors for countless generations.

Cailean Gallagheris a member ofGlasgow KelvinCLP and aresearcher forYes Scotland

Letting go: how close are Scotland to going it alone?

OUR HISTORY 53Zelda Kahan - Principles of Socialism (1908)

Zelda kahan was one of the leaders of the interna-tionalist faction within the Social Democraticfederation. Working with colleagues such as her fel-

low russian exile, Theodore rothstein, Joe fineberg andE C fairchild, she opposed Hyndman’s imperialist andpro-war position. Together with her husband, W pCoates, she published a series of books on russia and theAnglo-russian relationship, including ArmedIntervention in russia 1918-22 (1935), from Tsardom tothe Soviet Constitution (1938) and A History of Anglo-Soviet relations (1944) for which Lloyd George con-tributed a forward, as well as studies of the first andSecond five year plans, two books on Soviet relation-ships with finland and the baltic and a volume onSoviets in Central Asia.

Zelda kahan, who was Jewish, was born in Lithuania,coming to England at the age of ten. Her brother, boriswas secretary of the Hackney SDf. Zelda represented theHackney branch on the executive of the british Socialistparty (as the SDf had become) in 1912 and marriedWilliam Coates in 1912. Coates was the bSp nationalorganiser, who became secretary of the Hands off russiacommittee. Zelda and her husband later joined theCommunist party. Theodore rothstein, the leadingLondon based bolshevik, and anti-colonialist historian,was brother in law to the kahans. In 1909, at the time ofthe scare over increasing German naval power, kahanattacked Hyndman for allying himself with the ‘jingonaval scaremongers’.

In 1911, kahan proposed a resolution at the SDfannual conference opposing armaments. The resolutionwas defeated but split the SDf into two, with the oldguard of Hyndman and Harry Quelch retaining control.

Lenin commented that ‘ Zelda kahan was right when shesaid that never had English social democracy so disgraceditself as now – even men like Quelch desert to the side ofthe chauvinists.’ In 1912, the internationalists led bykahan, won a narrow majority on the bSp executive todeclare that ‘so far as workers are concerned there is noth-ing to choose between German and british Imperialismand aggression.’ This was then rescinded in february 1913,which led to kahan’s resignation.

“We have seen what private enterprise and competitionhave led to. Quite against the will of its supporters, compe-tition is well-nigh a thing of the past. We are fast approach-ing a state of pure collectivism so far as production is con-cerned, but unfortunately the manner of distribution of thewealth is anything but collectivist. Here private ownershipsteps in, and a small minority appropriates what the major-ity produce. you see the question is no longer for or againstcompetition. It is firstly shall we perfect the collectivemethod of production already largely established? Secondly,shall we collectively own what we collectively produce?Common sense and common justice can give but one reply.but here comes the all important question, how are we todo it. Well, if you have made up your mind to do it, therewill not be much difficulty… What is to prevent aparliament composed of representatives of your own classfrom passing a law by which the profits from the concernsshould go into the national coffers instead of into privatehands ?... The workpeople would now be the employees ofthe State, and if only you and they used their votes aright,the profits would now be used for raising the quality of thethings produced, raising the wages of the people employed,and for initiating some very pressing social reforms. ”

OUR HISTORY

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 1514 CHARTIST March/April 2014

Detroit – From Mo-town toGhost-townThe trumpeting of a US ‘recovery’ obscures what is really happening in the USA,particularly at state and city level, writes Frank Lee

US DEBT

‘What’s Goin’ On?’ – Marvin Gaye

Those of us old enough toremember the greatTamla Mo-town soundcan only wonder atwhat’s happened to

Motor City, as it was fondly andappropriately named. for Detroit,Michigan, one time hub of the USautomobile industry, home ofGeneral Motors (GM), ford andChrysler, with one time popula-tion of 2 million has become awasteland. A population nowreduced to 700,000, where an esti-mated 50,000 feral dogs roam thestreets since there are nodog-catchers any more. Crime isrampant of course since policenumbers and budgets have beenpared back, and street lighting isof a third world order. Moreover,other types of social servicesinvolving health and educationhave also come under the swinge-ing austerity programmes takingplace in Detroit and at City andstate levels across the Union.

The city has debts of $18bn andhas been officially declaredbankrupt. There has been no helpfor the city from the federalGovernment; hardly surprisingsince Washington is on the hookfor $17.4tn itself and that’s justpublic debt. Add in private debtand other unfunded liabilities –Medicaid, Medicare and SocialSecurity - and America’s citiesand state debts. The total is nowthought to be estimated at a cool$75 trillion. Interesting to notethat during Detroit’s travails theUS government apparently found$50bn to bail-out the bankruptGeneral Motors. This perhapsspeaks volumes about the obamagovernment’s priorities.

bankruptcy will mean the citywill now have to make even moredraconian cuts in public expendi-ture in order to balance the books.public sector health provision andpensions have become the num-ber 1 target for cuts. Detroit’sliabilities include $5.7bn formunicipal workers health care

costs, and $4.5 billion for theirpensions.

on 3 December 2013 a federaljudge ruled that bankrupt Detroitmay cut retirement benefits forits workforce. This of course setsa very dangerous precedent andcan only make matters worse. Ashas been the case in Europe andthe Uk, austerity is akin toapplying leeches to an anaemicpatient.

In addition, other cash-strapped cities and states acrossthe Union may now be embold-ened to take the same action. Thepractice has now spread to thestate of Illinois where the legisla-ture has voted for a $160bnrestructuring programme (readcuts).

Curbing worker power

These decisions, coming afterefforts to curb public employeepower in states such Wisconsin,Indiana and Michigan (whereworkers have lost even their bar-gaining rights), will undoubtedlyencourage other municipalities toact likewise and leave workersmore vulnerable. retirees arealready seeing reduced benefits incities such as Central falls,rhode Island, where a judge lastyear approved cutting pensions tohelp it emerge from insolvency. InCalifornia – where Stockton, acity of nearly 300,000 peoplerecently became bankrupt – SanJose Mayor, Chuck reed, is lead-ing the push for an initiative thatwould let cities cut benefitsalready promised to employees.Thus the policy and its ramifica-tions stretch much further acrossthe US.

The policy of downgrading payand conditions of the workingpeople presupposed the elimina-tion of the US labour movement.This has been pretty well accom-plished. The percentage ofunionised workers, private andpublic stood at 11% in 2012, downfrom 20% in 1983. of this 11%most are in the public sector that,

however heroic, seem to beperforming a re-enactment ofCuster’s last stand. political andindustrial cleansing has effective-ly taken place in the privatesector and now is being repeatedin the public sector.

This is all taking place againsta back-drop of increasing levels ofmunicipal debt across the US.The municipal debt level amongcities and states has now reached$3 trillion dollars.

Death warrant

Detroit has been part of thistrend, but has had additionalproblems to contend with: namelythe decline and hollowing out ofthe US automobile industry. In1950 US automobile productionwas more than 50% of the worldfigure; today that figure hasshrunken to less than 10%. Thishas been due in the main to thedevelopment of manufacturers in,Japan, China and South koreaand Germany (which collectivelynow account for 45% of worldautomobile output). These late-comers have successfullyincreased their share of the worldas well as the domestic US mar-ket. These developments in theglobal automobile industry werereally the death warrant forDetroit. Thanks to the bail-outGM motors survived, but nowmost of its production operationsare based abroad in lower costvenues - a process generallyreferred to as globalization.

Naturally the centre-left seemsto have missed out on what isgoing on at grass roots level inthe United States, and seemsinfatuated with the ‘recovery’ nar-rative coming from US officialsources and the media.

The only ‘recovery’ taking placein the US, however, is in stockprices, corporate profits, andrecapitalised banks’ trading fig-ures. figures on unemployment,inflation and growth are system-atically manipulated. That issueis for another article.

Painful birth of a nationSouth Sudan has endured further conflict. Dan Thea explains the background to Africa’syoungest state’s internecine war

Africa’s youngest coun-try, the landlockedrepublic of SouthSudan, unexpectedlyfound itself in the grip

of a civil war on Sunday 15December, 2013, with presidentSalva kiir declaring a state ofemergency. His sacked Vicepresident, riek Machar, was atthe head of an attempted coup bya splinter group of the rulingparty, the Sudan people’sLiberation Movement, (SpLM).The country’s proud motto of:‘peace, Liberty, prosperity’ lay inruins.

South Sudan gained indepen-dence on 9th July 2011, after ahalf century of on-and-off armedstruggle under the leadership ofthe legendary Dr. John Garang toseparate from Sudan, and becamethe 54th member Sate of the con-tinent-wide African Union. Thislong struggle saw an estimated1.5 million people dead and fourmillion displaced, overwhelminglyin the South.

Historically, Sudan had beenplagued by racial/ethnic/religiousantagonisms. The South beingblack African, including a widerange of religious beliefs. TheNorth was Arab/African in ethnic-ity and Muslim.

Liberation struggle

both protagonists in the cur-rent fighting command sizeablemilitary forces. Machar claimedhis forces had taken control ofthree states, Unity, Upper Nileand Jonglei. The governmenttightened its grip on the capital,Juba, quickly received Ugandanmilitary assistance and beforelong largely took back the loststates.

It would appear that with theliberation struggle over, factionalstruggle developed within SpLM,based on rivalry for jobs in gov-ernment and associated entities,which gave access to the meansfor rapidly accumulating personalwealth through high salaries,privileges, and corruption.Tragically, the ethnic card dulyemerged as a factor in this strug-gle for self-enrichment among the

ruling petit bourgeoisie. The regional Eastern African

countries, Djibouti, Eritrea,Ethiopia, kenya, Somalia, Sudanand Uganda, through their organ-isation the IntergovernmentalAuthority on Development(IGAD) promptly responded to thecrisis by sending the kenyanpresident Uhuru kenyatta andthe Ethiopian prime MinisterHailemariam Desalegn to Juba toseek cessation of hostilities andnegotiations. The UN followed byannouncing the strengthening ofits forces, the United NationsMission in South Sudan,(UNMISS).

bitter disputes between thetwo Sudans continued after theirdivorce, particularly over territo-ry and transportation. SouthSudan sees its future transporta-tion to the outside world throughkenya, via the planned massiveLamu port-South Sudan-Ethiopiaproject (LApSSEp) transport cor-ridor consisting of oil pipelinesand a road system to a deep-water port at Lamu in kenyannorthern coast.

According to some estimatesSouth Sudan has the third high-est proven oil potential in Africa,after Angola and Nigeria, givingit huge development potential.However, currently it is one of theleast developed countries in theleast developed continent, Africa.The relevant key indices include50% of the 11 million people liv-ing below the poverty line; 47%suffering malnutrition; a 75%illiteracy rate, which is even high-er among women; 75% withoutaccess to toilet; extremely highmaternal mortality; and very poorinfrastructure. for the averagefamily, agriculture, including live-stock, remains the mainstay,while the country is highly depen-dent on food imports, amongother necessities.

South Sudan’s developmentlevel is much lower than that ofits immediate neighbours Sudan,kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia,although two other immediateneighbours, the Central Africanrepublic and the Democraticrepublic of Congo, with similartroubled histories, share low

developmental indices.Nevertheless, South Sudan has

good development potential,based on oil, which accounts for60% of the GDp and 98% of thegovernment’s revenue; agricul-ture and hydropower based on alargely tropical climate, the riverNile and its tributaries; and manyminerals. However, the relianceon government spending and thewoeful shortage of skills are hugeconstraints.

In pursuit of development thecountry has turned to the EastAfrican Community, composed ofkenya, Uganda, Tanzania,rwanda and burundi, which hasa market of 150 million people.The LApSSEp scheme also offersfurther prospects.

It was in these circumstancesthat the war broke out, followedby a ceasefire five weeks later, on23 January 2014. Under pressurefrom the African Union, theGovernment handed to kenyancustody seven of the elevenalleged rebel leaders. The AfricanUnion further called for a negoti-ated settlement.

Urgent tasks

following this proposed negoti-ated settlement, with about10,000 people killed and aboutone million displaced, togetherwith huge physical destruction,the country’s likely priorities willbe as follows:

1. feeding the 3.7 million people,i.e. a third of the population, theUN estimates as in acute need offood.2. resettlement of the, 645,000internally and 125,000 externally,displaced people 3. reconciliation and strengthen-ing national unity4. The establishment of a compe-tent public administration and are-unified national army5. Addressing the issues of a 50%poverty rate, food security, educa-tion and health6. The provision of an infrastruc-ture supportive of the develop-ment of a diversified economy,less dependent on oil.

SOUTH SUDAN

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 1716 CHARTIST March/April 2014

ANC returned but with a reducedmajority’ seems a pretty safe predic-tion of the results of South Africa’snational and nine provincial elections(proportional representation, on a sin-

gle ballot paper) on 7th May. The president iselected by the National Assembly, which in prac-tice means the president of the ANC, Jacob Zumathis time. Increased unrest, whatever the electionresults, seems a pretty safe prediction too. Highlevels of unemployment; continued poverty andincreased inequality, strikes and protests at thelack of service deliveries (water, electricity, hous-ing, jobs); violence, including killings by policeand sometimes protesters; crime, includingendemic corruption by political leaders.

Most of the list ‘reads’ rather like the SA of the1980s, when fears of civil war made local andinternational capital look for ways of achievingstability and the ruling National party was forcedto accept that apartheid must at least be modi-fied. The result was the settlement reached in1994 after five years of negotiations: universalsuffrage, a massive ANC majority and famouslyNelson Mandela as president.

fear of civil is war is not on the agenda today,but fears of worsening conditions, increasinglyviolent confrontations and political instability are,and it seems unlikely that the elections, whateverthe result, will lay these fears to rest. Here wefocus on the growing political instability.

Stable government?

Since 1994 SA has been ruled by a tripartitealliance of ANC, the SACp (Communist party,)and CoSATU (Congress of SA Trade Unions).formed in 1985 by 32 unions, supported theUnited Democratic front (UDf) which led theanti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s, and theANC when it became legal in 1990 (along with theSACp, pAC – pan-Africanist Congress - and bCM- black Consciousness Movement). Dual member-ship of the ANC and SACp is allowed, and notuncommon. Leaders of CoSATU sit on the nation-al executive of the ANC. This alliance seemed toguarantee stable government, with the ANC incommand. However, twenty years later the cracksare showing and some observers are suggestingthat the alliance is crumbling, with profoundresults.

Last December the secretariat of CoSATU’slargest affiliate, NUMSA (the National Union ofMetalworkers), formed in 1989 and with 333,000members today, told a special congress that thealliance has become only ”a voting machine forthe ANC”. They will continue to support the ANCas a mass movement, but the leadership is rivenby factionalism and it is not democratic. forexample after an ANC Conference in 2012 votedoverwhelmingly in favour of nationalisation of the‘commanding heights’, the leadership producedinstead the National Development plan (NDp):more of the neo-liberal policies which have turned

SOUTH AFRICA

Can elections change anything? In the wake of Mandela’s death and with South Africa facing elections in May, Dot Lewis surveys the conflicts and declining support for the African National Congress

SA into ‘colonial-ism of a specialtype’ ... ‘the mostunequal place onEarth today’.Similarly, theyaccuse the SACpof immediatelyand uncriticallysupporting theNDp. The SACphas lost its role asa ‘vanguard party’as so many of itsleaders now occu-py key governmentposts; and it failsto carry out politi-cal educationamongst the peo-ple. NUMSA urgesits members tojoin the SACp, totransform it.. TheSACp accuses theNUMSA leaders ofbeing a clique of ‘workerists’.

As for CoSATU, it is the workers’ ‘beacon ofhope’ which, says NUMSA, the ANC and SACpare trying to ‘turn into a labour desk and toy tele-phone’, while some CoSATU leaders have joinedthe neo-liberal camp. The federation is ‘in crisis’,‘walking away from its campaigning and revolu-tionary character’. As we go to press, NUMSA isholding a week-long school to decide on imple-menting decisions made in December: that theunion leaves Cosatu and forms a ‘united front’modelled on the UDf; and that it does not pro-vide funds to the ANC for the elections, or cam-paign for it. This could be a re-run – in 1993NUMSA decided not tosupport the ANC - but didin the 1994 election.Whatever they decide, theissues and the divisions areunlikely to diminish.

Meanwhile, NUMSA hasled nine unions affiliated toCosatu in giving the feder-ation to the end of March toconvene a special confer-ence, challenging Cosatu’s ‘s support of the NDp.In addition, ‘extraordinary measures’ are threat-ened, including court action, if CoSATU’s suspen-sion of a popular general secretary is not with-drawn. With the election looming, it’s quite possi-ble that the conference will not take place, andthat all three in the alliance, and NUMSA, will‘pull together’ for the ANC. but the truce will notlast long.

And the next-biggest CoSATU union is up forgrabs....

Up till late 2012 the National Union of Miners(NUM) was SA’s largest union, dominant in min-

ing, affiliated toCosatu and sup-plying all threesecretary-generalsof the ANC since1994 (includingtoday’s Cyrilramaphosa, amulti-millionairewho achieved dubi-ous fame as amember of theboard of Lonmin).Today the NUMcompetes withA M C U(Association ofMineworkers andC o n s t r u c t i o nUnion) which hasreplaced the NUMin the Lonminmine in Marikana(the third largestplatinum producerin the world)

where police shot dead 34 striking miners inAugust 2012. AMCU is trying to replace theNUM not only in the two other platinum compa-nies but also in gold and coal mining. It has notjoined CoSATU. Turf wars between the unionshave been going on for at least three years, andhave included violence – including killing. In thebattle of words, both sides have accused the otherof corruption: AMCU says the NUM lost the sup-port of workers because it was remote, not pursu-ing members’ needs. The NUM says AMCU wasset up in order to destroy the NUM and so weak-en the ANC. Some commentators blame weak-nesses in the law on trade union recognition for

the turf wars, but the fun-damental problem is thepersistence of the condi-tions of apartheid. Stillrecruited from desperatelypoor rural areas and livingand working in appallingconditions, miners haveseen their wages and safe-ty provisions improve, butsurely they hoped for more

than has been delivered? Mass redundancies arethreatened.

The ANC and SACp are not homogenousblocks, and people disagreeing with the dominantline are not always kicked out. In September,2012, Z pallo Jordan, a Minister in Mandela’s gov-ernment, told a meeting of the Eastern Capeprovincial Council that 1994: “opened the path toproperty acquisition and capital accumulation to asmall minority of Africans who have since becomeengaged in mining, agriculture, secondary indus-try, finance management and banking. but it hasleft unchanged the large pockets of poverty that

compel thousands of other Africans to descend tothe bowels of the earth to extract the mineralsthat go to enrich the few”. He is still on the exec-utive of the ANC.

Secrecy and authoritarianism

ronnie kasrils, formerly a member of Mk(Umkhonto we Sizwe) the armed wing of theANC, member of the SACp and Minister forIntelligence in the 2004-8 government adds hisvoice. Noting the gains since 1994 – houses,schools, roads, water and electricity, educationand health, social grants - he also notes that thebottom 50% receive only 7.8% of total income..”Little wonder that the country has seen such anenormous rise in civil protest.” He adds policeviolence (the Marikana massacre was ‘just’ anexample), threats to press freedom, “a tendency tosecrecy and authoritarianism in government”,corruption to the list. Like a growing number ofcommentators kasrils traces today’s problemsback to the tripartite alliance falling into thearms of wooing capitalists.

The tripartite alliance, focused on defeatingapartheid, papered over, ignored economicquestions and class issues. It is not surprisingthat an alliance formed with a single aim runsinto difficulties when faced with new (to them)issues and conflicting interests.

outside the tripartite alliance, the party needto keep an eye on the Economic freedom fighters,formed by Julius Malema in 2013 after he waskicked out of the ANC’s youth League for singing“kill the boer”. Anti-imperialist rhetoric byCommander-in-Chief (sic) Malema sits with raciststereotyping. He is a director of several companiesand his family have been found to have ‘benefittedimproperly from the unlawful, fraudulent and cor-rupt conduct of on-point...’, (an engineering com-pany 50% owned by the family). This is unlikelyto deem him unfit (millions will still vote for theANC, while knowing about corruption in veryhigh places). The threat of the Eff is not throughthe ballot box though. Its support seems to comemainly from black youth in rural and semi-ruralareas: unemployed and maybe lumpen. The strik-ers in Marikana sported the yellow jerseys andred berets of the Eff... Malema is meeting withChief buthelezi’s Inkhata freedom party.Inkatha colluded with the SA police force in mur-derous attacks on UDf campaigners in the run upto the 1994 elections. Maybe the Eff will just fiz-zle away, but the ground is ripe for a populistmovement on the right.

So no predictions of the direction South Africawill take. The need for re-thinking, for developinggrass-roots organisations, to change direction arebecoming frequent in commentaries on SouthAfrica. That makes the country just like us.

Zuma - for how much longer

Dot Lewis is amember ofHackney NorthLabour Party andRefugee andMigrant SupportGroup

Fear of civil is war is not on the agenda today,but fears of worsening conditions,increasingly violent confrontations andpolitical instability are, and it seems unlikelythat the elections, whatever the result, willlay these fears to rest

18 CHARTIST March/April 2014 March/April 2014 CHARTIST 19

‘It is fair to say that the peacemovement in the 1980s contribut-ed more to building the idea ofEurope as a community than allthe European institutions withtheir Treaties in over half acentury.’

That's the assessment ofLuciana Castellina, theinspirational Italianpolitician. She was aMember of the

European parliament whenEuropean Nuclear Disarmamentwas taking off in the early 1980s,and readily arranged access tothe parliament's interpretationequipment in brussels, withvolunteer interpreters, so that theEND Liaison Committee couldprepare the first ENDConvention, which met in thecity's palais des Congrès in July1982.

Socialists, Communists andGreens attended the Conventionin numbers, alongside tradeunionists, church representatives,and women from the camp atGreenham Common, whereMichael Heseltine insisted USnuclear armed cruise missileswere to be installed. Judith Hartcame on behalf of the Labourparty national executive, whileTony benn debated with rudolfbahro, recently exiled from EastGermany.

We got the political architec-ture of those early ENDConventions about right, was theassessment of ken Coates, whohad drafted the END Appeal for anuclear-weapons-free Europe 'from poland to portugal', togetherwith E p Thompson and ralphMiliband. 'We must commence toact as if a united, neutral andpacific Europe already exists. Wemust learn to be loyal, not to‘East’ and ‘West’, but to eachother ... ’ read the Appeal, whichattracted signatories throughoutEurope. Subsequently, after enor-mous and continuing protests inmany countries, 'theatre' nuclearweapons were removed under theintermediate nuclear forcestreaty. Mikhail Gorbachev,president of the Soviet Union,was the catalyst for this impor-tant change. Some years earlier,in 1983, the Soviet peaceCommittee, had tried unsuccess-

fully to block the second ENDConvention in berlin, wherereunification of divided Germanywas under discussion.

More than thirty years later,NATo's nuclear arsenal remainsin place in several westernEuropean countries, controlled bythe United States, whilst the Uksquanders billions of poundssubsidising a planned upgrade ofthe US sea-borne Trident missiledesigned to destroy russian citiesand other targets. The US,notwithstanding its 'pivot' toAsia, installs so-called 'missiledefence' systems in poland,romania and bulgaria, equippedwith missiles which, russia fears,might facilitate a first strikeagainst its territory. In response,russia pumps up spending on itsown military. NATo expansioncontinues, now hoovering up

Cyprus into its nursery, whichhas the orwellian title of'partnership for peace'. NeutralIreland is already in pfp. but thefrontline for further NATo expan-sion runs through Ukraine andGeorgia, hard up against russia'sborders. kiev is currently grippedby a public revolt which looksmore deep-rooted than the USsubsidised ‘orange revolution’ of2004.

In 1989, ken Coates was elect-ed to the European parliamenttogether with a generation ofEND colleagues from many coun-tries. He quickly proposed thatthe parliament should meet withthe Supreme Soviet. As he put it,‘ ... the two largest emergingdemocracies of East and Westshould arrange a suitable meet-ing. Separately, they were doingsimilar things. The Europeanparliament was seeking to pre-pare a democratic foundation forpolitical union, at the same timethat the Supreme Soviet consid-ered how to lay out the ground-work for political pluralism andthe rule of law.’

This audacious proposal foundsome support in the Europeanparliament, and presidentGorbachev responded positively toan initiative to build ‘our common

European home’. preparatory vis-its were made, but the initiativebit the dust with Gorbachev’s falland the rise of yeltsin, inDecember 1991. ken had seen theproposal for a joint meeting as adevelopment of END. It neverhappened, but a constructive andmutually supportive relationshipbetween the European Union andthe russian federation remainsdesirable if not readily achiev-able.

In June, the ‘Sarajevo peaceEvent 2014’ takes place, a hun-dred years after Gavrilo principassassinated franz ferdinand,triggering in a matter of weeks,and to widespread surprise, thestart of the first World War onSunday 2 August 1914. bertrandrussell was astonished to learn ofthe outbreak of war from JMkeynes, who was busily searchingfor a motorbike in order to get toLondon to advise the britishGovernment on the financialimplications. Later, in the 1930s,russell was to go back to 1814and the Congress of Vienna totrace the origins of the War.russia’s defeat of Napolean in1812 echoed down the century.

Sarajevo’s peace Event promis-es much excitement from 6th to9th June in the mountains ofbosnia-Herzegovina. There willbe a youth camp and rich culturalprogramme, as befits the city as itrecovers. An international co-ordi-nating committee is preparing theprogramme, including some oldEND hands. Europe still has needof its peace movement.

Tony Simpson explains why the European peace movement still has a vital role

PEACE

European bridge building

The year was 2010 andon a dark Sunday nightin November people inIreland gatheredaround TV sets to

watch the then Irish primeMinister brian Cowen make aspecial announcement regardingthe country’s dire financial situa-tion.

We were informed ratherashamedly that the country wasentering into a bailout pro-gramme with the InternationalMonetary fund.

Three years later and again itwas on a Sunday night inNovember when the now Irishprime Minister Enda kenny hadan announcement to makeregarding the economy.

This time the prime Ministerannounced that Ireland was suc-cessfully exiting the IMf bailout.

It wasn’t a dark night but someshame still lingered. During thethree years when the IMf alongwith the EU took control ofIreland’s economic affairs thecountry has seen a change in gov-ernment, a surge in emigration, aspike in suicide rates and savagecuts to public services. The tunewas recessionary blues and it wasbeing played heavy over the coun-try while austerity measuresimposed by the IMf bailout droverecession at a furious speed.

During the Celtic Tiger boomyears Ireland had jumped headfirst into the modern age butunderneath all that prosperityand progress there was a reces-sion bubbling up. The optimismdisplayed by the Celtic Tiger cubssoon turned to pessimism whenthe world’s economy started tocrumble during 2008 and Irelandwas beginning to feel its bleakeconomic past creep back again.

Emigration was part and par-cel of Irish life for centuries butwhen financial success came thattrend was stalled as people founda better life by staying at homeand getting jobs in the manymultinational companies thatflooded into Ireland. In the threeyears of IMf austerity measuresemigration is again a social trendwith destinations such asAustralia and Canada receiving

in their droves the bright youngthings of the Celtic Tiger age.

‘Work abroad’ expo’s attractedthousands of Irish people of allages eager to find a route out ofthe recession riddled country.

one such work expo in Dublinwhich advertised jobs acrossAustralia attracted over 10,000jobseekers were quite literallyqueuing up to leave Ireland.

While this organised evacua-tion of Ireland was happeningsociety crumbled under austerity.Without doubt the Ireland of theboom years is dead and gone.Now we have a country shaped byextreme austerity, a country thathas had to accept a type of pover-ty that it thought it would neversee again.

In just three years Ireland hasbeen reshaped by harsh measuresdished out by the EU and IMf.State assists have had to beauctioned off to the highestbidder while NAMA, the NationalAsset Management Agency, wasset up to take control of largescale loans that banks wereunable to control.

Closures

Irish banks have been down-sized and reorganised so recklesslending will not happen againand toxic institutions such asAnglo Irish bank were completelyshut down. During the last threeyears businesses big and smallclosing their doors became almostan everyday occurrence. A com-mon trend was the speed of busi-ness closures with staff dismissedwithout warning and sometimeswithout pay. Some workersstaged sit ins which became thepopular form of protest duringthe bailout years. Workers at theVita Cortex factory in Corkstaged a sit-in which lastedthrough the winter of 2011 andended successfully in May 2012,161 days later.

When the video game companyGame closed 277 stores acrossIreland in 2012 it resulted in 104full time jobs being lost.Disaffected staff who were leftwith no redundancy pay stagedsuccessful store sit ins. Many

other workers including those atTarget Express and at clothingstore La Senza also staged sit-ins.

ordinary workers bore thebrunt of the sudden and drasticaction taken by employers duringthe years of IMf imposed austeri-ty. While many workers eventual-ly gained their rights to severancepay and pensions, countlessothers in various other sectors didnot.

Whilst emigration and unem-ployment rose over the last threeyears so too did suicides. Suicidein Ireland straddles the classdivide, it reaches into all sectorsof society and takes grip on unsta-ble minds rocked by recession.The highest number of deathsfrom suicide come from thoseunder the age of 30, also the high-est number to emigrate.

Emigration over the last threeyears has played a key role inkeeping unemployment figuresbelow the 20% mark, a fact notlost on the Irish government.While the government like tohark on about numbers on thewelfare line declining this is notdue to the creation of jobs, but thefact that thousands of people areemigrating.

offloading many youth toAustralia is helping the govern-ment create an image of dwin-dling unemployment figures butthis brain drain will hinder notencourage future economicgrowth. Ireland’s exit from thebailout programme does not meanwe have achieved an economicclean bill of health and the coun-try is still reeling from the eco-nomic crash.

on 15th December whenIreland left the bailout pro-gramme the Irish finance minis-ter bluntly stated that we willnever go back to those mad daysof economic recklessness seenduring the Celtic Tiger age.

History has a knack of repeat-ing itself and although the nationdidn’t break out in celebrationwhen we exited the bailout pro-gramme, any whiff of wild pros-perity in the near future couldbring us all back to 2010 andsinging those recessionary bluesagain.

Tony Simpson isEditor, TheSpokesman,Journal of theBertrand RussellPeaceFoundation

www.spokesmanbooks.com

www.p2014.eu

Europe still has need of its peacemovement

Lily Murphy on the price of Ireland’s fragile recovery

The end of Ireland’s recessionaryblues?

IRELAND

Lily Murphy isfrom Cork city,Ireland.

Email:lilymurphycork@gmail.com

Flower power

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 21

‘Once upon time somewhere in thehilly Balkans there was a stoiccountry that endured the worst ofthe worse blows’

These are the openinglines of the school textbook World War II epicpoem that all secondaryschool pupils wanted to

learn by heart in celebration ofTito’s birthday in the 1980s. Titodied in 1980, but a majority ofyugoslavs mourned the belovedleader, who left the legacy ofyugoslavia . yugoslavia was acountry created by people for peo-ple, with a strong sense of empa-thy, conviviality and solidarity.Today bosnia, a key part ofyugoslavia, is again at the epicen-tre of crisis - with workers of allfaiths and cultures united in mas-sive protests against corruption,job losses, cuts and unbearableliving conditions. How did thedreams of a better future come tothis end?

The Socialist federal republicof yugoslavia was a multiculturalfederation comprising sixrepublics and two autonomousprovinces. In the republic ofbosnia and Herzegovina and theprovince of kosovo, Muslimsmade up the majority of the popu-lation, accounting for about fourmillion of the approximately 23.5million yugoslavs. To manage thedifferent nations and nationali-ties, as well as to compete in theglobal post-war economy theyugoslav state apparatus reliedon three main policy pillars: eco-nomic self-management embed-ded in a specific type of socialistmarket economy, political non-alignment and societal norms of‘brotherhood and unity.’ Whatwas the impact of each of theseparadigms?

on the last bosnia andHerzegovina held a specificsymbolic position, and bosnianMuslims a special role, in the pro-motion of a policy of ‘brotherhoodand unity’. The reason is twofold.first, in the early years ofyugoslav formation following theend of the WWII, the country wasstill repelled by the consequencesof the onslaught, when manydifferent warring factions hadturned to exterminating each

other. The WWII in yugoslaviawas not only a war against theNazis, but also a civil war and asocialist revolution. During thewar, quislings – mainly Serb andCroat nationalists - supported theNazis, whilst others fought withthe partisans against them.partisans promoted a unitedyugoslav ideal based onCommunist ideology. There weresituations in which close familymembers were on opposing sides.Thus, the war left scars so deepthat at times they threatened toundermine the legitimacy of theunified post-WWII yugoslavstate. To address this problem,the state apparatus constructed acommon history of a national lib-eration struggle by means of ideo-logically inspired tales of partisanhardship and communist tri-umph. WWII novels were manda-tory reading in schools and ideo-logically inspired movies featur-ing the joint struggle foryugoslav liberation and commu-nist victory were frequentlybroadcast. As almost all of themajor battles during the nationalliberation struggle took place inbosnia and Herzegovina, therepublic’s place in generating thissentiment of ‘brotherhood andunity’ was most significant.

The exception

yugoslavia’s federal principlesorganised the republics aroundthe most dominant nation,awarding the largest ethnicgroup a considerable measure ofself-governance within its ownrepublic. bosnia andHerzegovina, however, was theexception to this rule. Eventhough bosnians formed thelargest ethnic group in bosniaand Herzegovina, there was noabsolute majority as in otherrepublics such as Serbia orCroatia. This was mainly due tothe emigration of bosnians fromthe balkans in the nineteenthcentury following the ottomanwithdrawal from Europe, as wellas anti-Muslim campaigns acrossthe region. More importantly,bosnians were unable to exercise‘ownership’ over the bosnianrepublic because they were notrecognised as one of its ‘con-

stituent nations’. The persistentline of argument was thatbosnians were Islamised Serbsand/or Croats who had reneged onthe Christian faith of their ances-tors, and needed a nationaliststructural environment if theywere to comprehend their historicmistake and return to their per-ceived primordial origins. In theevent, they refused. They contin-ued to describe themselves asadherents to Islam, a religion con-sidered not only nationally unac-ceptable to both Serbs andCroats, but also portrayed as a‘late-comer’ to the region, render-ing its adherents vulnerable tobeing ‘exported back’ when thetime was ripe. Material evidence,however, does not support suchclaims, confirming instead thatthe arrival of Islam in thebalkans occurred no later thanthat of Christianity. Muslimswere not seen as a part of the pro-ject for national enlightenment.

Until 1968, the prerogative of‘constituent nationhood’ withinbosnia and Herzegovina belongedexclusively to Serbs and Croats,while bosnians were left to eitherclassify themselves as nationallyundeclared Muslims, then unde-clared yugoslavs, or to expressallegiance to the Serb or Croatnations by declaring that theywere one or other nationality.Although this view ran counter to

20 CHARTIST March/April 2014

the yugoslav Communist partyplatform, which since 1937 hadconsidered ‘bosnian’ a separateethnic entity it was not until the1971 census that bosnianMuslims gained national recogni-tion. However, the communistcadres did not allow them toresume their historic name of‘bosnian’; instead, they bestowedon them a new term, ‘Muslim’,which was supposed to symboliseethnic and cultural belonging butwithout religious connotations. Itwas written with a capital M forethnic Muslims as opposed to‘muslims’, a term that denouncedan adherent of Islam. This pro-duced confusion and a disturbingterm such as a Muslim muslim.Moreover, it did not solve theproblem. by classifying bosniansas Muslims rather than allowingthem to re-embrace their historicname of bošnjaci (bosniaks), thecommunist leadership left roomfor disputes to arise over thelegitimacy of the bosnians’nationhood and claims of owner-ship over the republic of bosniaand Herzegovina. All of these arecauses for the carnage producedduring the yugoslav break-upthat continues to this day.

The adoption of yugoslav‘brotherhood and unity’ policiescontinued until the end of theCold War and the declaration of aNew World order in 1991, whenthe process of yugoslav disinte-gration and the formation of newstates began. At the time,yugoslavia was one of the lastremaining multicultural federa-tions in the region. More impor-tantly, it was the only regionaleconomy run by self-managedguilds of workers, which ownedtheir companies’ assets, ratherthan privately operated multina-tional conglomerates. The work-ers chose their leaders and hadelected representatives on themanagement board. The workers’rights were protected and therewere separate courts that dealtwith allegations brought by theworkers against management offi-cials. The law was on the side ofthe worker. The enterprises werecompetitive, self-sufficient, effi-ciently managed and greatexporters.

The companies owned assets,properties, and apartments. flatswere bought on behalf of theworkers and distributed free onthe basis of the priority rating onthe waiting list. The monitoringsystem was tight and qualityassurance in place so that thelists were hard to manipulate.Moreover, it would have been a

great public embarrassment ifworkers had been suspected ofany wrong-doing or corruption bytheir comrades. Empathy wasalso encouraged and considera-tion for needs of others, especiallythose less fortunate, was a com-mon way of thinking. for exam-ple, if an underprivileged studentwas unable to join the schoolexcursion, the teachers wouldmake an appeal for solidarity andwould urge parents of each stu-dent to make a contribution forthe less fortunate one. The self-managed guilds owned holidayhotels and homes at attractivewinter and summer destinations.The company holidays werebooked on a rota basis ensuringcarefully that each worker wasgiven their due share of a mini-mum ten days. These were paidfor by the workers at discountedprices as the enterprises heavilysubsidised workers’ holiday visits.Health and schooling was topquality and free to all.

The Non-Aligned Movement

Tito attempted to promote thismodel of a socialist self-managedeconomy world-wide through theNon-Aligned Movement, whichwas established on his initiativeat a conference convened inbelgrade in September 1961. Themovement wanted to remainindependent of the Soviet blocand its state-run society, but itdid not want to unite with theimperialist West, as it was verycritical of Western colonialism.The movement’s administrationwas, and still remains, non-hier-archical, rotational and inclusive,providing all member states,regardless of size and importance,with an opportunity to participatein global decision-making andworld politics. The movement wasespecially popular during the1970s and 1980s, but with theend of the Cold War and with theprevailing capitalist hegemony, itlost its voice, and its memberstates were taken over by neolib-eral structural adjustmentprogrammes.

following the collapse of theSoviet state-run economy in1990s, the New World order wasfounded according to capitalistparameters that later metamor-phosed into neo-liberal austerityprogrammes. As such, it did nottolerate economic deviations inany shape or form. yugoslaviawas no exception. The principlesof equality, solidarity and empa-thy became distant and quaint inyugoslavia. It was not until the

war began in the former yugoslavrepublic of bosnia andHerzegovina in 1992, that theinternational community paidspecial attention to the conflict. Itissued explicit instructions to itscountries’ respective intelligenceoperatives to follow the rapidlydeveloping events closely, and tophysically move from their vari-ous stations clustered aroundEastern Europe to the bosniancapital, Sarajevo. The yugoslavwar was internationalised fromthe outset, and internationalinvolvement proved a decisive ele-ment in its outcome. rather thanhaving assisted in overcoming thedisputes, Western response to theemerging conflict in yugoslaviaaccelerated the yugoslav break-up into mutually hostile andeconomically unviable statelets.The reason? Western capitalisticelites appeared weary of the self-managed socialistic economy ofthe former yugoslavia and theefforts towards just income distri-bution of the Non-Aligned states.As the conflict was taking its tolland the war appeared imminent,the corporate cadre was makingits appearance, by which time agreat part of local policy makershad already secured their sharesin financial portfolios.Encouraged by the Westerncapitalistic trends, the yugoslavleaders abandoned self-managedeconomic principles andembarked on the road to a transi-tion economy at the end of thewar.

Unprecedented economic debt

following the end of the war,the yugoslav republics plungedinto unprecedented economicdebt. Each of the six formeryugoslav republics are tied handand foot into debt and structuraladjustment programmes to repaydisadvantageous loans. Theseinclude job cuts, fierce privatisa-tion, large reductions in publicspending, selling naturalresources and public enterprises(usually to foreign investors),huge income and social inequali-ties. Spiralling indebtedness atindividual, commercial,governmental levels, elitism andinstitutionalised religiosity arethe main current features of allsix former yugoslav republics.The new post-yugoslav ‘democrat-ic’ governments are carrying outthis dowry following the indepen-dence bonanza without challenge,in tune with the global Neo-Liberal agenda .

Yugoslavia – the rise and fallAlmost 25 years after the break up and violent conflicts Sheila Osmanovic looks back atthe model of Yugoslav socialism that many saw as a democratic alternative to the Soviets

YUGOSLAVIA

SheilaOsmanovic is aconsultant andfounder of adisability charity.She is also onChartist EB

Balkan youth are growing impatient

22 CHARTIST March/April 2014 March/April 2014 CHARTIST 23

been taken in Libya in 2011 andbosnia in 1995. but unless thereis a cogent political strategy andpeace plan, sending a few tanksand missiles into a chaotic andunpredictable situation is naïve.ordinary Syrians have hadenough. I asked a former studentof mine, a brilliant young woman,now a refugee in Lebanon tryingdesperately to get her family outof Syria, what she would like tosay to people in the Uk.“primarily they should realisethat it is the long, long, long timeof conflict that has brought all ofthe armed and extremist groupsinto Syria, which most Syrianswho support the opposition do notsupport. please point out that thebest help Syrians now aspire to ishelp in putting an end to the mas-sive bloodshed.”

The tragedy in Syria is beingmisrepresented. The average per-son could be forgiven for believingit is ‘six of one …’, another case of‘they just can’t live together’; oranother showdown between AlQaeda and its enemies. So Assadmoves down the list of ‘baddies’,vindicating him – so it wouldseem – in the conspiracy theorieshe propagated at the start of theuprising. The winners of this arethose fuelling the conflict; thelosers are ordinary people inSyria and the surrounding region.obama is no bush, but the spuri-ous ‘war on terror’ has rooteditself insidiously over a decadeinto our transatlantic languageand belief systems. by extension,the word ‘terrorist’ is a blanketterm for enemies whosegrievances you are not willing tocountenance. It is especially con-venient for dictators and despots.

It is striking that politiciansand even seasoned journalistscommonly refer to a ‘war’ that hasbeen raging for almost threeyears. It did not start as a war.The situation evolved into con-flict, crisis and civil war owing tofailure on the part of the interna-tional community to act. politicalself-interest and enduring ColdWar reflexes ensured the violencewas stoked. Syrians soon realisedthere were no honest brokers.Labels such as ‘rebels’, ‘moder-ates’, ‘extremists’ and ‘militants’obscure the origins of the blood-shed.

What happened to the words‘revolution’, which means theoverthrow of a social order infavour of another one as much asof a particular regime? And to‘uprising’, which in the case of the‘Arab Spring’ countries, includingSyria, meant ordinary people hav-

ing the courage to demand eco-nomic justice, political freedomand the right to live in dignity?

These aspirations have notgone away. ordinary Syrianshave become eclipsed behind thestories that make headlines. Theyare still there, striving with unbe-lievable determination to holdtogether their families and com-munities. Many have left thecountry only to find themselvesunwanted and destitute, to theextent that increasing numbershave returned to the hell of home.

There are no easy solutions.but what we can do incrementallyis ‘the next right thing’ and for

the right reason. The benchmarksfor concerted action should bebased on international law andcommon humanity. It is a no-brainer we should accept Syrianrefugees, and more than the pal-try 500 or so currently proposed.public opinion supports this. It isnot an alternative to providinghumanitarian aid.

Stopping the killing

All energy should be focused onstopping the killing. The Ukshould take a leading role inadvocating for the full array ofpolitical, economic and diplomatictools to press allies and foes aliketo cease the shameful exploitation

of the conflict to further their ownself-interests. The political spacecreated by cooperation betweenthe US and russia should be builton, as should the rapprochementwith Iran. A process of interna-tionally mediated talks is crucialin persuading parties to the fight-ing to renounce their maximalistpositions.

An ugly betrayal

once again I wish to bring itback to ordinary Syrian people.Those involved in the originalpeaceful protests never held ‘max-imalist’ positions. They were noteven calling for the overthrow ofthe regime, but economic andpolitical reforms. Many Syrianstrusted Assad would lead themdown a different path from hisfellow miscreants in the region.The path he chose was an uglybetrayal of his people. The atroci-ties beamed into our homes lastAugust have not gone away withthe spotlight. The same townsand villages targeted then, andmany more around the country,are still under siege and peopleare starving to death. Anotheryoung Syrian friend and formercolleague trapped in one of thesetowns joked with me on facebook:‘We have internet but no food.’

A political solution and peaceplan are needed to solve this con-flict. but the people of Syria –those still alive and striving forjustice and those who died fordaring to do the right thing –should not have to wait a momentlonger for the bloodshed to bestopped. This, too, is the rightthing, for the right reason.

If the barbarous mess that isSyria were easy to solve, itwould have been solved bynow. The struggle to imple-ment even a short-term

truce to enable humanitarianaccess in the old City of Homs,the only result of the UN-bro-kered peace talks in Geneva atthe end of January, and now fur-ther deadlock in the februarytalks, illustrates how hard it is.The deadlock lies not just in theenmity between the regime andits opponents, but among thefighters on the ground and in thedisconnect between the fracturedinternal opposition groups andthe splintered political oppositiontrying to represent them exter-nally.

Arming the ‘rebels’ amidst suchchaos is too little too late, andrisks entrenching the fightingfurther. To do nothing is not analternative. It is essential, but notenough, to initiate and sustain aprocess to map a way out of a sit-uation that has cost more than130,000 lives, maimed many moreand displaced around 40% of the22 million population inside andoutside Syria. providing humani-tarian aid, accepting refugees andhelping Syria’s neighbours(Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey andIraq) to deal with the influx ofpeople fleeing the violence is amoral obligation. However, whatis most urgent is an end to thebloodshed.

Chemical weapons

one thing the chemicalweapons attack in the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus on21th August 2013 proved wasthat political will can be generat-ed among the international com-munity to act with real intent. Itseemed the West would finallyresolve to support military actionin the form of US air strikesagainst the Syrian regimebelieved to have carried out theattacks. Amidst the diplomaticdisarray following the Ukparliament’s rejection on 29August of a government motion tosupport intervention, and daysbefore the US Congress was to

hold a similar vote, Vladimirputin executed his championchess move. He averted retalia-tion against the Assad govern-ment by persuading it to relin-quish its chemical weapons arse-nal, thus letting barack obamaoff the hook of defending his ‘redline’.

Despite the efforts of journal-ists, human rights organisationsand others to publicise the car-nage, many images of mutilatedcorpses had been withheld in thetwo years before the chemicalattack: detainees tortured todeath, families slaughtered intheir homes, attacks on hospitalsand medical workers who daredto treat anyone involved (evenpeacefully) in supporting theuprising, summary executionsand gang rapes. In the new era ofcitizen journalism there was noshortage of footage. So why nowthe ‘no holds barred’ about thechemical weapons?

Apparently it is so much lessacceptable to be murdered by achemical weapon than by a con-ventional one, no matter what thedegree of barbarity involved. Theconventional means listed abovehad not been sufficient to gal-vanise the international commu-nity into action early on. The firstred lines were crossed in Dera’ain March 2011 with the brutaltreatment of schoolchildren bysecurity forces for spraying ‘ArabSpring’ slogans on walls; with thefirst sniper bullets fired fromrooftops at peaceful protesters;and the detention and torture ofinnocent men, women and chil-dren. Even now, despite therhetoric, the proposed limitedstrikes were detached from anywider political strategy to topplethe regime.

Air strikes

before putin’s manoeuvre, I satin the tension of beirut on thelast day of August, communicat-ing with friends in Syria. Mostwere against air strikes, on thebasis they would only harm themand not the regime. Argumentsraged on social media sitesbetween those who wanted the

What happened to the Syrianrevolution?Julia Wickham makes a case for political and humanitarian intervention

same outcome – to see the end ofthe regime and the killing – buttaking a different route. My ownanger was a response to thehypocrisy of trying to hide thegeopolitical muscle-flexing, theprotection of a weapons norm andsaving an American president’sface behind a sudden concern toprotect Syrian civilians. A youngSyrian neighbour in Damascuswho supports the revolution, asmart entrepreneur sick of thecorruption, had written to me in2012 when opposition forces weregaining ground but the ‘Assadmust go’ rhetoric from outsidewas still not translating into tan-gible support. ‘God damn politicsand politicians’ expressed hissense of abandonment shared byordinary Syrians who had riskedtheir lives to call for the samefreedoms people were demandingin Tunisia, Egypt, yemen, Libyaand bahrain. How were they toknow that Homs would not equalbenghazi in the eyes of the ‘inter-national community’ and its pur-ported resolve to protect citizensfrom being savaged by the state?

The next right thing

I might appear to be makingthe case for military interventionin Syria. I am not; at least not ofthe ‘arming the rebels’ kind. In2012, while I was still living inDamascus, I wanted intervention.The newly formed free SyrianArmy needed support. The terrorunleashed on a defenceless civil-ian population warranted thesame collective action that had

SYRIA

Julia Wickham isa Middle Eastaffairs specialist,teacher, writerand peace-builder. She wasformerly Directorof Labour MiddleEast Council andrecently lived inSyria andLebanon.

The deadlock lies not just in the enmitybetween the regime and its opponents,but among the fighters on the groundand in the disconnect between thefractured internal opposition groupsand the splintered political opposition

24 CHARTIST March/April 2014 March/April 2014 CHARTIST 25

Republican socialism and Left UnitySteve Freeman, in rebutting Pete Rowlands in Chartist 266, travels from Chartism to thefounding Left Unity Party conference

republican socialism isan idea and a pro-gramme which needs aparty. Like theChartists in the 19th

century, republican socialistsplace a high priority on the strug-gle for democracy. We need newdemocratic institutions and newconstitutional laws and an exten-sion of democracy into many ofthe dark corners of politics andthe economy.

A new democracy will makepossible and practical the policyof extending and democratisingthe public sector and social rights.but without a party this will bepie in the sky. Such a party wouldmobilise the politically activeworkers to fight for democracy.This would make possible thesupport of the broader mass ofworking class people. How can webuild a republican socialist party?

one answer is to take over theLabour party and transform itinto a republican and socialistparty. This has not been tried.The Labour left has restricteditself to trying to shift the partyto the left. It has not fought tochange the political system whichconcentrates so much power inthe hands of the Crown, itsMinisters and security apparatuswhich so ably serves the City ofLondon

The alternative is to set up arepublican socialist party fromscratch. This hasn’t been triedeither. Instead there has beenwhat pete rowlands calls failedattempts to set up a new party ofthe left (NLp) beginning with theSocialist Labour party throughrespect to the Trade Union andSocialist Coalition. All attemptsto build a socialist Labour partyinside or outside the Labourparty have failed.

rowlands identifies one majorfactor in this. The Labour leftmust break with the liberalreformist monarchist and pro-cap-italist right wing of the party.Such a break would requireproportional representation. peterowlands says pr ‘would have amajor effect, and would allow forthe emergence of a proper left

wing party with substantial elec-toral support and representation’.

Here is the problem. To get a‘proper left wing party’ we needradical democratic change. but toget radical democratic change weneed a party to fight for it. Howcan we square this circle? Wehave to go back to the Chartistparty in the 1840s. This was not a‘normal’ party but a ‘peculiar’kind of party because it mobilisedthe working class for constitution-al change mainly by extra parlia-mentary means.

Although Chartism was defeat-ed it changed the political direc-tion and within twenty yearssuffrage was extended. This madepossible a Labour party in parlia-ment. The struggle of theChartists broke down the consti-

tutional barriers to working classsocial progress. We need this kindof party today which makes thestruggle for democracy a priorityand thus makes possible in thefuture a ‘proper left wing party’.

In 1997 constitutional changewith the Scottish parliamentmade possible a ‘proper left wingparty’ called the Scottish Socialistparty. otherwise socialists arelocked in the cycle of failurewhether inside or outside theLabour party.

Too dismissive

However pete rowlands is toodismissive of the new Left Unityparty. He says that ‘those attract-ed to Left Unity would be bestadvised to rejoin Labour’. He askshimself whether it is the ‘properleft wing party’ which aided byproportional representation canwin significant seats in 2015. Theanswer is obviously no.

Is it a party like the Chartists

which can wage an extra parlia-mentary struggle for democraticconstitutional change? Theanswer again is no. yet the jury isto still out and has not returned afinal verdict. The game plan is setup a more left wing Labour typeparty with references back to1945. This plan, under the nameof the Left party platform, wonthe conference with about threequarters of the votes. Left Unitynow identifies itself as a ‘radicalsocialist party’ not a republicansocialist party. The majority wanta ‘proper left wing party’ but havenot recognised the preconditionsfor success.

However, this is not the end ofthe story. The founding confer-ence was a representative sampleof the politics of the socialist leftin England – both its past and itsfuture. There were four strategicplatforms as the Left party(1945), republican Socialist(1649), Socialist (1918) andCommunist (1920). behind thesewere three trends - reformist,republican and ultra-left. The lat-ter were rejected. Consequentlythe next stage of Left Unity willbecome a struggle between thereformists and republicans or ifyou prefer between those whowant another Labour party andthose who see the necessity for anew Chartist party.

Steve Freeman supports theRepublican Socialist Alliance

LEFT UNITYTURKEY

Turkish pains Amina Patak on shoe boxes and corruption

Since 17th December2013, political corruptionscandals have been onTurkey’s news agenda.At the epicentre was the

Justice and Development party(Akp), the leading Islamist party,led by prime Minister, recepTayyip Erdoğan. resulting insta-bility has led to devaluation of theTurkish Lira and speculationabout 2014 election results.

Turkey has seen some demo-cratic improvement in recentyears in the resolution of the'kurdish problem', more rights toveiled women and, most impor-tantly, avoiding military coups bychanging the constitution. Sincethe social unrest last year, theTurkish government has stoppeddemocratic reforms. Attentionhas shifted to finding scapegoatsfor civil protests, which MrErdoğan called a ‘coup against hisgovernment and democracy’. Gezipark demonstrators have beendetained facing terrorismcharges. News of corruptioncharges forced events to take awholly different course.

In the early morning of 17December, Turkish police arrest-ed government officials, simulta-neously in Istanbul and theTurkish capital, Ankara. The 24arrests included the sons of threeMinisters, Interior, Economicsand Environment and Cityplanning. other arrests includedthe mayor of the fatih municipal-ity of Istanbul, a murky Iranianbusinessman, rezza Zarrab, theconstruction tycoon Ali Ağaoğluand the director general of theprominent Turkish bank,Halkbank, Süleyman Aslan. Thealleged connection is the Iranianbusinessmen’s ghost companies,illicit money laundering andbribes directed at the bank direc-tor general and the Ministers’sons, irregularities in various con-struction projects and moneyexchanged for planning permits.

During the operations, $US 4.5million were found in shoe boxesat the home of the Halkbankdirector general. Shoe boxes havebecome the symbol for corruption

in Turkey. Mr Erdoğan said thiswas ‘a dirty game directed at hisgovernment’. but he supportedthe investigations. What actuallyhappened was to reverse thecourse of investigations. Thechiefs of police were replaced. Atotal of 4000 police and investiga-tors were reshuffled. It took eightdays for the ministers to resign.The son of prime Minister, bilalErdoğan, was due to meet investi-gators but allegations againsthim went quiet. A few days laterhe appeared in public with hisfather.

prime Minister Erdoğanblames his one-time fellow-com-rade, fetullah Gülen, well knownfor establishing missionaryschools around the world. Gulenis the leader of the Hizmet(Service) movements which havegreat influence among Muslimsand non-Muslims across theUnited States, Europe and theMiddle East. The relationshipbetween the Akp and Gülen waspublic knowledge. politicalexperts claim that the corruptioncharges resulted from a break-down in this relationship. butwhy has this marriage come to abitter end?

After the police reshuffle adraft Law was introduced by AkpMps to limit the Supreme Councilof Judges and public prosecutorsand give more power to theMinister of Justice. It was alsoproposed that safeguards oninternet privacy were removedand the need to have a 24 hourcourt order abolished. The gov-ernment would have the right tosee all the content browsed on theinternet by any user. This causedchaos in the Grand NationalAssembly including physical coer-cion from the Ministers. bothmeasures await presidentAbdullah Gül’s approval.

The Turkish saga shows nosigns of abating. Quite the con-trary, it gains more prominenceas the war in neighbouring Syriacontinues. Whether local andpresidential elections this yearwill change the situation is anunanswered question.

Turkey’s loss, Cypriot gain

The Communique agreed by the twoCypriot leaders, NicosAnastasiades and Dervish Eroglu,on 11th february will allow inten-sive negotiations for a Cyprus set-

tlement, including triangular visits by thetwo Negotiators, Andreas Mavroyiannis toAnkara, and kudret ozersay, with Turkey’sbacking, to Athens.

Turkey’s foreign Minister AhmetDavutoglu has been active in achieving sign-off, five hours with Eroglu in December, andcontacts with US Secretary of State Johnkerry and William Hague. The USA hasdecided there will be a Cyprus settlement ina turbulent region, where the Turkish modeland its own democracy have been seen to beflawed. Exploiting hydrocarbons will provedifficult with Turkey’s counter claims toExclusive Economic Zones.

This is the chance for Cyprus civil societyto help their leaders succeed where succes-sive attempts have failed. perhaps a Cypriotcivic forum could build on the intercommu-nal cooperation in the Nicosia Master plan,famagusta Ecocity project, bicommunalfamagusta Initiative, kondea village,Cyprus friendship programme, Maltabusiness Group collaborating withChambers of Commerce (and Industry),Trade Unions, faith groups, football associa-tions, Cyprus friendship programme,Cultural Heritage and Missing personsCommittees, Home 4 Cooperation andCyprus Community Media Centre.

50 years of the UN peacekeeping forceCyrpus (UNfICyp), 40 years since the 1974coup and invasion, 11 years since the GreenLine opened, with cooperation between thenon nationalist left and right, surely it istime for optimism of the will.

The 2014 New Year Report of the Friends ofCyprus giving the background is available frommarysouthcott@hotmail.com.

Mary Southcott on a possiblesettlement

The struggle of the Chartists brokedown the constitutional barriers toworking class social progress. Weneed this kind of party today whichmakes the struggle for democracy apriority

BOOK REVIEWS

26 CHARTIST March/April 2014 March/April 2014 CHARTIST 27

MITTERRAND: A STUDY IN AMBIGUITYPhilip Short (The Bodley Head, £30)

françois Hollande’s electoralcampaign in 2012 presentedhim as ‘Mitterrand’s heir.’

perhaps british readers will cometo philip Short’s biography moreinterested in the parallelsbetween the former french Headof State’s ‘second family’ withAnne pingeot, and Hollande’saffair with Julie Gayet. butMitterrand invites more signifi-cant comparisons with the legacyof france’s first, and longest serv-ing, french Socialist president.

Mitterrand, marked by ‘ambi-guities’ was known as ‘theSphinx’. His life is littered withriddles. Catherine Nay countedseven ‘Mitterrands’, from a left-wing Léon blum to the father ofthe Nation, in his first term ofoffice alone (Les Sept Mitterrand.1988). philip Short has the moredaunting task of covering a lifeand career from 1916 to 1996.

As a student in the 1930sMitterrand was involved with thefar-right Croix de feu. As anescaped prisoner of war he servedthe Vichy regime and was award-ed the francisque emblem for hiswork. Engaged in the resistancefrom 1943, he ended the war inparliament and served, as a cen-tre-left republican, in a variety ofposts under the fourth republic.Short, more generously thanmany, finds excuses for theseearly years. He was no anti-Semite. As a Minister of the oneof numerous Coalitions duringthe Algerian War of Liberation heopposed independence.

Mitterrand furiously opposedDe Gaulle’s 1958 ‘coup d’état’ andthe 1962 referendum on the directelection of the president. but hisfailure to speak out against tor-ture and his ambiguity overdecolonisation isolated him fromthe burgeoning New Left thatregrouped during those years inthe parti Socialiste Unifié (pSU).yet, Short argues, his distancefrom the ‘squabbling over politicaltheory’ of these factions allowedMitterrand to rise to leadfrance’s left. A stunning 37.78%of the vote for his presidentialcandidacy (backed by the entireleft, including the Communistparty) in 1965 brought him backcentre-stage. A Study in Ambiguity recounts

how Mitterrand, from creation ofthe parti Socialiste in Épinay

(1971) to his electoral triumph in1981 made himself the undisput-ed chief of the french left.Mitterrand, Short argues, wasable ‘to forge unity not around aprogramme but around his ownperson.’

The Socialist General Secretaryrapidly came into conflict withthe one french party with a col-lective leadership, theCommunists (pCf). right upuntil his 1981 election Mitterrandclashed with the pCf. fromunity, over the ProgrammeCommun in 1972, to the break upin 1977, relations were stormy.Short repeats the allegation thatthe Communists (still hoveringaround 20% of the vote during thedecade) were prepared to secretlysupport conservative politiciansin an attempt to stop him comingto power.

Force tranquille

The victory of the ‘force tran-quille’ (a phrase of Victor Hugo)in 1981 put Mitterrand on thestage of history. The newpresident’s supporters sweptthrough paris. The right was‘panic stricken’. Elected on a pro-gramme promising a ‘rupture’with capitalism, the new govern-ment included four members ofthe declining Communist party.There were nationalisations (36banks, five large industrialgroups, and many more), a 10%rise in the minimum wage, thelowering of the retirement age to60, an increase in holidays to fiveweeks a year, and new rights foremployees at work. The deathpenalty was abolished. The firstmoves towards decentralisationwere taken.

for a while it looked as if some-thing resembling the britishAlternative Economic Strategywas being put into practice.Nevertheless the core policy, rais-ing incomes to spark a consumerboom, failed. There was immensepressure on the franc. Thefrench economy did not prosper.Unemployment and inflation rose.

Short asserts that confrontedwith these economic realitiesretreat was inevitable. by sum-mer 1982 there was devaluation,and a ‘four month price and wagefreeze’. over the next years,‘socialist france had joined therest of the industrialised world ina forced deflationary spiral to getits economy back into balance.’

for some on the french left, suchas Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leftgovernment ran up against the‘bankers ramp’. Was this realism?To Short, Mitterrand and his sup-porters became zealots for ‘mod-ernisation’ and talked upentrepreneurial ‘winners’ andmarket flexibility.

This was not just a ‘disavowalof everything Mitterrand hadstood for’. It was, for many on theleft at the time, the replacementof the radical, and ill-defined,socialism of the 1970s by theexploitative ‘free market norms’ offrance’s partners. Instead ofchanging, for example, to a newpan-European left strategy, theGovernment had taken over theEuropean right’s policies.

Mitterrand won a secondseven-year term, in 1988, withthe slogan, ‘neither nationalisa-tions nor privatisations’. While hepromised to restore the wealthtax – abolished during his ‘cohabi-tation’ with right-wing pMJacques Chirac (1986-88) thisfocused ‘almost entirely on win-ning over the political centre.’ Itwas a success.

Was Mitterrand ever interestedin more than winning and keep-ing power? Short argues he was.Mitterrand ‘began a slow andpainful accommodation to the eco-nomic and political realities of theworld outside.’ His valuesendured, ‘the construction ofEurope and the quest for socialjustice, the two great causeswhich had sprung fromMitterrand’s experience as a pris-oner of war, and modernisation,which had imposed itself as anecessity during his time of office,are legacy enough.’

yet Short also describes anoth-er legacy. Mitterrand, from themid-1980s onwards brought thefar-right front National into theelectoral arena. In contrast tothose who consider this amanoeuvre to split the right, hestates it was designed to ‘neu-tralise its venom’.

recently the front Nationalhas occupied a leading place inthe opinion polls, while thestreets of paris have been full oftens of thousands of far-rightdemonstrators. The sight of reli-gious hysteria against gays andthe sound of anti-Semitic chants,is perhaps not the kind ofachievements the, excellent,Mitterrand: A Study in Ambiguitywould wish to celebrate.

Facing both waysAndrewCoates ona mixedlegacy

COLIN WARD: LIFE, TIMES ANDTHOUGHT Ed Levy (Lawrence and Wishart,£12.99)

He was one of the mostimportant radical thinkersof the 20th century, writ-

ing on architecture, town plan-ning, education, housing, trans-port, community developmentand lots more. Colin Ward waspart of the british anarchist tra-dition, living proof of the continu-ing relevance of libertarian ideaswithin and beyond the left. Hewas a very gentle, peaceful manwho died three years ago. It’sironic that since his death hisideas are becoming more widelyknown. An excellent collection ofessays has just been published(Colin Ward – Life, Times andThought) which offer a contempo-rary view on Ward’s contributionacross so many fields and disci-plines.

Carl Levy provides a helpfulintroduction to Ward’s life andsome of his publications. His poli-tics challenged the post-warsocial-democratic consensus thatthe state will provide for every-thing. As Levy points out, Wardargued that ‘it ingrained inequali-ties and undermined the self-organised institutions of theworking class welfare.’

A central concept in Ward’sthinking is mutuality, inspired by(prince) peter kropotkin’s trans-formative work of 19th centuryradicalism, Mutual Aid.kropotkin was part of that decen-tralist, anti-authoritarian strandwithin anarchism which waspeaceful, gradualist and practical.He found living examples of‘mutual aid’ everywhere: allot-ments; volunteer life boats,friendly societies, co-operatives.In many ways, Ward was a 20thcentury kropotkin, without thearistocratic background whichprobably saved the russianprince from prison, exile or worse.

This principle of ‘mutual aid’ –supporting each other to improveyour community, rather thanwaiting for ‘the state’ to comealong and do it for you, is funda-mental to this approach. railwaypreservation societies rescuingdisused branch lines fromdestruction, community transportservices for rural and inner citycommunities are perfect illustra-tions of ‘mutual aid’ in a 21st cen-tury setting. Ward was ahead ofhis time in so many fields, not

least his environmental politics.As peter Marshall in his contribu-tion to the book says ‘He wasinterested in the nuts and bolts ofenvironmentalism, not just in thepoetry of trees, in the city as wellas the country.’ And that is one ofthe key things about Ward thatmakes him so attractive as apolitical thinker. His anarchismwasn’t just an ideal for some faroff epoch (‘tarmac on the roadmap of history’ as one contributorcalls it!), but a very practical formof radical politics that could beput into action here and now.Housing projects, allotments,community transport, squattingand free schools are just part ofhis ‘real living anarchism’ whichhave made a great contribution tothe vitality of local communities.

Carissa Honeywell goes intoWard’s critique of the welfarestate in some depth and showsthat Ward’s alternative may haveserved us better. for housing,Honeywell quotes Ward sayingthat ‘there was nothing necessari-ly socialist about state-ownedsocial or council housing, nor any-thing necessarily capitalist aboutowner occupation’.

Alongside mutuality, Ward,like kropotkin, stresses theimportance of decentralisation.This isn’t an absolute and bothwould recognise that some ser-vices for the community as awhole should be delivered collec-tively, with some centralised con-trol. railways are a good examplewhere you need that, and yetthere is still room for some degreeof decentralisation. In his bookFreedom to Go: after the motorcar age (published in 1991) heuses the example of Swiss rail-ways – one of the world’s mostefficient, integrated and reliable

systems. And yet that network isa patchwork of over 50 separaterailway companies, many ofwhich are community-owned, bythe cantons.

I would have liked to have seenmore contributions in the bookabout his practical radicalism, inareas such as transport, townplanning and housing with a bitless on internal debates withinanarchism. for all that, I hopethe book helps to build a momen-tum of interest in Ward’s work,with re-publication of more of hiswritings (see below).

reading Colin Ward is alwaysan inspiration, whether it’s hisadvocacy of allotments, sustain-able transport, town planning,housing or education. He doesn’toffer a detailed blueprint for anyof these, but would stress theirinter-connectedness and theimportance of grassroots control.Don’t be put off by labels, ColinWard’s ideas cross politicalboundaries and challenge all ofour prejudices. While the central-ist and authoritarian tenets ofclassic Marxism are less and lessrelevant to modern-day radicalpolitics, the sort of political prac-tice that Colin Ward espoused –call it anarchism, libertariansocialism or whatever you like –is more and more in tune with ourtimes.

Colin Ward: Life, Times and Thought,edited Carl Levy; published byLawrence and Wishart, 2013.Autonomy, Solidarity, Possibility: TheColin Ward Reader was edited by DFWhite and C Wilbert and waspublished in 2011. Five LeavesPublishing in Nottingham brought outa good selection of his essays onenvironmental politics last year:Talking Green

Colin Ward: a thinker for our timesPaulSalvesonsurveysdifferenttakes onthe life agreatlibertariansocialist

*Subscription £25 per year - details at www.labourbriefing.org*

to its will. The second is the suc-cessful de-linking of wages andremaining productivity, seeingnot only a compression of medianwage levels but increasing wageinequality.

A candle being burnt at bothends

The implications of this forlong-run patterns of rising publicdebt present a picture of a candlebeing burnt at both ends. As prof-its have become harder to tax thetaxation burden has shifted dis-proportionately and unsustain-ably onto the incomes of workingpopulations, despite these them-selves dwindling. Streeck and Conot only neatly illustrate the pin-cer movement state-sanctionedexpenditure has been subjectedto, but also importantly map thedemocracy concerns of legitimacypresented by rising incomeinequality also created in the pro-cess. In particular the decline ofelectoral participation appears tomirror the decline in medianwage levels.

The thesis of the book doesimplicitly accept the core premisethat public debt is in fact a prob-lem, something that many on thepolitical left currently firmlyreject. There is one crucial aspectof the argument that should bereached for. The shifting of culpa-bility for the crisis on the cost ofwelfare states and public serviceprovision onto the interests of

28 CHARTIST March/April 2014

BOOK REVIEWS

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 29

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITYArmin Schäfer and Wolfgang Streeck(Eds) (Polity Press, £16)

This review starts with ahealth warning: althoughthis book’s core argument is

important for current austeritydiscourse it is a firmly and aca-demically-set book. This appliesmore to some of its edited chap-ters than others, with thoseauthored or co-authored by thebooks’ co-editor Wolfgang Streeck,fritz Scharpf and Colin Crouchbeing the best picks. Althoughsome if its language and theoreti-cal references might limit thebooks’ potential audience, theconcern for evidence-based argu-ment that runs through most ofthe book should not turn off thenon-academic reader.

The books’ central purpose is toexamine the long-run relationshipbetween democracy and capital-ism, contending there exists aninherent conflict between the twothat has led oECD countries tothe public finance disaster theyhave encountered since 2008.More pointedly, Streeck, in thethree chapters he co-authors,makes the central claim thatrecent finance problems faced byall oECD countries are the resultof a number of deep set and long-run dynamics, rather than merelyto poor policy choices and states‘living beyond their means’ asclaimed by most right of centrecommentators and politicians.

Streeck and Co do concede thatwelfare states in this period havebecome more expensive as they’vematured but reject this as the pri-mary cause of public debt. Theyimportantly cite a steady butclear decline in post-1960s eco-nomic production, thus reducingthe fruits of production sourced tofund state services. They arguethat this development has beenexacerbated, despite this dwin-dling size of our economic prod-uct, by the interests of capitalpulling off an impressive doubleheist: The first has been to ensurethe profit of their operations havebeen taxed less, either throughshifting production and/or its pro-ceeds overseas and/or bendingpolicy of successive governments

capital that has systematicallydestroyed the state’s ability tosustain fair societies over time.

This oECD-wide picture obvi-ously has its variations across dif-ferent countries. Colin Crouch’schapter offers a characteristicallyinteresting take on britain’s prob-lems in neatly bringing togetherdevelopments from the phonehacking scandal with concerns ofdominant ‘new public manage-ment’ practices that have been socorrosive to public sector struc-tures and ethos in britain. Thischapter joins those of Streeck(with associates) and fritzScharpf in providing most inter-est to the lay reader, without sac-rificing the strengths of theirclearly academically-inclined con-tributions.

for about three decades Mssrs.Streeck, Scharpf and Crouch havebeen of real intellectual impor-tance to the political left. Theyare now joined by some newresearchers like Armin Schäfer tocontinue this sort of work. It isunfortunate perhaps thatvolumes like this confirm thatausterity is here to stay. but atleast they provide a goodevidence-based attempt to under-stand it.

The roots of capitalism’scollapse

AndyMorton ona book thattargets thereal rootsof thecrisis

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VISIONARY RELIGION AND RADICALISMIN EARLY INDUSTRIAL ENGLANDPhilip Lockley (Oxford UniversityPress, £65)

Abook published in a seriesof oxford TheologicalMonographs would not nor-

mally be my bedtime reading.This study is of interest in that itexamines the relationshipbetween religious and politicalradicalism in the early 19th cen-tury. Lockley picks up the studyof the followers of JoannaSouthcott, the ‘woman clothedwith the sun’ from J f CHarrison’s classic 1979 study ofpopular millenarianism – TheSecond Coming. Lockley startswith a detailed study of theSouthcottians in Ashton underLyme under the leadership ofJohn Wroe and their attempt tocreate a New Jerusalem in thepennines. He then follows thesplintering of the Southcottians,with the movement of John ‘Zion’Ward to London, his preaching atthe rotunda in blackfriars roadand involvement in London radi-calism with atheistic radicalssuch as richard Carlile and AnnaWheeler. The study then focuseson the political and religiouscareer of James ‘Shepherd’ Smithwho moved from Southcottianismto the owenite movement tobecome editor of robert owen’strade union journal The Crisis,only later to separate from owento establish his own journal –TheShepherd.

The study is based on researchinto Southcottian and oweniterecords which is best described asheroic. What is surprising is howmuch of the records, from churchrecords and correspondence toSouthcottian writings have sur-vived. Smith has been subject tostudy before - by John Saville in a1971 essay in pollard and Salt’scollected essays on owen, andalso by James Gregory ofplymouth University who hasfocused on Smith’s post owenite

career. The book is a reminder of the

millenarian features of owenism

and of much of owen’s own laterwritings – for example in the NewMoral World. owen’s millenarian-ism attracted religious millenari-ans, despite owen’s professedatheism. Individuals movedbetween political and religiousmovements – Smith was at onetime a proponent of Saint Simonand fourierism, both translatingSaint Simon’s NouveauChristianisme into English butalso editing the London fourieristLondon phalanx. To Smith andmany of his colleagues, building aNew Jerusalem was both politicaland religious – the millenniumcould not however be achieved bybiblical exegesis alone and politi-cal action was necessary, a viewwhich was shared by laterChristian communists such asGoodwyn and Catherine barmbyand by the sacred socialist Jamespierrepoint Greaves.

.

From Southcott toSocialism

DuncanBowie onmillenariansocialists

The coreargumentprovided infocused terms inthe first twochapters can beviewed in apublicly availableacademic paper(link below),although thesame provisoregarding theacademic natureof its writing isagain attached.

http://goo.gl/tmXOjN

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE Daniel Stedman Jones (Princeton University Press, £24.95)

This is a very importantbook. The term ’neo-liberal-ism’ has become part of our

political discourse – often used asa catch all term for all we hateabout the contemporary economi-cal and political paradigm.Stedman Jones, (incidentally sonof those two great socialist histo-rians Gareth SJ and SallyAlexander) is a political historianwhose phD now published in bookform presents a detailed study ofthe development of neo-liberalistthought and its impact on britishand American politics. A formerresearcher at Demos and the Newopportunities fund now turnedbarrister, he has undertaken ananalytical and thoroughlyresearched study of the work ofHayek, friedman and colleagues,the interaction between them andtheir fellow thinkers, and theorganisation of the Mont pelerinSociety and related neo-liberalnetworks which disseminatedtheir views and had such influ-ence on the politics of both coun-tries. Those familiar withHarvey’s Short History ofNeoliberalism, which presents astandard Marxist critique, andwhat is best described as the con-spiracy theory of neo-liberalismfound on various websites whichsees the Mont pelerin Society as asecret cult plotting to take overthe world, will welcome StedmanJones as presenting a much morenuanced and intelligent study. Astudy which demonstrates that‘neo-liberalist’ thinkers varied intheir approach, with differentthinkers focusing on differentaspects – deregulation, mone-tarism and privatisation.Stedman Jones points to the ori-

DuncanBowie on ahistory ofneo-liberalism

gins of neo-liberalism in opposingboth communist and Nazi totali-tarianism - the Austrian ‘ortho-liberals; – Hayek, popper and vonMises, were after all refugeesfrom Nazism.

Stedman Jones draws attentionto the fact that it was theCallaghan and Carter adminis-trations which first adopted neo-liberal concepts – with Carterintroducing deregulation andCallaghan abandoning keynesianeconomics in favour of monetarycontrol. He draws attention to therole of Financial Timeseconomist, peter Jay, son ofDouglas Jay (who had beenAttlee’s keynesian economic sec-retary to the treasury andWilson’s first trade Minister) andson in law of Callaghan, in pro-moting the neo-liberalist creed inLabour circles. He also traces thepromotion of neo-liberalism with-in the Conservative party, focus-ing on the roles of Enoch powell,Geoffrey Howe and keith Joseph,as well as the think tankers suchas ralph Harris of the Institute ofEconomic Affairs, Alfred Shermanof the Centre for policy Studies,Madsen pirie of the Adam Smith

30 CHARTIST March/April 2014

BOOK REVIEWS

March/April 2014 CHARTIST 31

The road from Mont PelerinInstitute and John Hoskyns whobecame Thatcher’s policy chief.

Stedman Jones also undertakestwo studies of neo-liberalism inpractice in the USA and britain .He first focuses on the impact oneconomic policy following the IMfcrisis in britain and the role ofpaul Volker’s federal reserveunder Carter in the US. Hissecond case study is of urban andhousing policy. In the Uk contexthe focuses on housing privatiza-tion, which he sees as predatingThatcher’s 1980 Housing Act see-ing Labour as favouring right tobuy prior to this legislation. Healso sees the introduction underCallaghan’s government of theHousing Investment programmesystem as a monetarist way ofcontrolling local authority hous-ing expenditure - as someonewho wrote about both these sub-jects in the mid and late 1970s, Ithink he is wrong on the formerbut has a point on the latter.While interesting, his housingchapter lacks the depth of muchof the rest of the study. overallthe book is essential reading, bothto know the history of neo-liberal-ism and to understand how itimpacted on both Labour andDemocrat administrations as wellas those of the reaganite andThatcherite right.

I would also recommend read-ers to watch Stedman Jones’ LSElecture on the book, whichincludes responses from Markpennington and robert Skidelsky:http://goo.gl/XZoBGF and toread the review of the book in theWall Street Journal by kennethMinogue of the Mont pelerinSociety: http://goo.gl/nVJKiR

The Mont Pelerin Society’s ownwebsite is also worth a visit:http://goo.gl/ifjsovKnow thine enemy.

MikeDavis on atoweringlife

The spectre of MarxKARL MARX: A NINETEENTH CENTURYLIFEJonathan Sperber(Liveright/WW Norton, £25 (hardback))

While the brits voted forChurchill as britain’smost famous person on a

bbC Today programme poll a fewyears ago Germans voted karlMarx on to their No1 plinth.Marx stands alone as the mostinfluential theoretician of socialchange of the last two centuries.

Although he may not havemoved masses during his own19th Century lifetime, his ideasand theories could certainly besaid to have changed the course ofthe 20th Century.

Alongside Engels his name isinvoked as the father of the 1917russian revolution, that broughtthe bolsheviks to power, and theChinese revolution of 1948.Castro and Guevara drew inspira-tion from his work in the Cubanrevolution of 1959. Virtuallyevery 20th Century revolutionfrom the Latin Americas, Africathrough to India and south eastAsia has been influenced by hisideas.

Even social democratic parties,particularly German and french,and the british Labour party,until the latter part of the 20thCentury owed a debt to Marx. In1948, the 100th Anniversary of itspublication, the Labour partypublished Communist ManifestoSocialist Landmark a new appre-ciation by Harold Laski with aforeword by the Labour party.This was the middle year of thepost-war Attlee government.Moreover, there has been a veri-table library of biographies andstudies of his work written sinceMarx’s death in 1883 at the age of65. So why another study? Whatnew insights can Sperber, anAmerican of professor Europeanhistory , bring to our understand-ing of Marx and Marxism?

primarily in this readableaccount, Sperber relocates Marxfirmly in his 19th Centurycontext. The bearded olympiancritic of capitalism is humanisedand placed in a world of journal-ism—between 1848 and 1860 hewrote over 500 articles, amount-ing to a greater word count thanDas Capital, his masterwork,political activism, family relation-ships and scholarly research.

Drawing on the recently pub-lished MEGA (the Marx-Engels

Gesamtausgabe, the total editionof Marx’s and Engels’s writing)Sperber paints a rich portrait ofthe man, his central ideas andhow they evolved.

The biography is divided intothree substantial sections:Shaping, Struggle and Legacy.Each weaves Marx’s writings intothe fabric of his life at the time, sowe can easily trace the gestationof his ideas.

born and growing up in therheinland city of Trier we see theyoung Marx influenced by hisfather, Heinrich, for whom the‘french revolution and its after-math offered an opportunity toescape the narrowly circum-scribed social and political posi-tion of Jews in society.’ forHeinrich, many contemporaries,and certainly karl, this meantrenouncing Judaism. for theyoung Marx it meant embracingthe ideas of the Enlightenmentand an unshakeable belief inhuman equality and emancipa-tion.

following several years inprussian young Hegelian circlesMarx moved from philosophisingthe world to ‘standing Hegel onhis head’, developing a material-ist conception of history—socialrelations in the material worldbeing the context for the develop-ment of ideas— & a critical analy-sis of the dominant mode ofproduction, namely capitalism. Intandem he was also working on atheory of agency, which undercapitalism was to be the workingclass. The Communist Manifesto,written with Engels and otherworks of political activism likeThe German Ideology were writ-ten well before Das Capital andTheories of Surplus Value werebegun.

Throughout the period from theearly political journalism inberlin, brussels and paristhrough to his longer Londonyears of devoted marriage toJenny von Westphalen (despitean illegitimate child, freddyDemuth, with the maid), familylife, constant money problems,only surmounted with constantfinancial subsidy from Engels,and writing Das Capital in thebritish Museum reading room,Marx was also politically active.The League of the Just, theCommunist League, theInternational Working Men’sAssociation (IWMA) firstInternational) were the major

organisations he and Engels led.He was also engaged with thesocial upheavals of the times par-ticularly the 1848 revolutions incentral Europe which got himfinally exiled from prussia.

Sperber rejects the sometimesrigid distinction made betweenthe young and older Marx, theMarx of The Holy Family, ThePoverty of Philosophy and espe-cially the later published ParisManuscripts and Das Capital. Heargues convincingly that the‘humanist’ Marx of alienation ofthe worker from the product ofhis/her labour, and from ourspecies essence was also con-cerned with economics and com-munist transformation.

Marx’s basic concepts of eco-nomics, such as use value,exchange value, and modes of pro-duction are all to be found in theearly writings.

However, Sperber alsoreminds us that many of theinterventionist works failed to bepublished at the time of writingand reach intended audiences.besides this practical problemSperber identifies a recurringfault-line in Marx’s politicalactivism, namely Marx’s difficultyin ‘formulating consistentaccounts of his ideas and a ‘pen-chant for launching vehementpolemics, witty and cutting, butalso lengthy and obsessed, thatwould become an end in itself.’This was to appear and reappearin many personal and politicalconflicts.

beginning with his rejection ofearly associates like Arnold ruge,Moses Hess, Wilhelm Weitlingand karl Grun in the CommunistCommittee of Correspondencethis presages later fall-outs withanarchist Michael bakunin andothers in the IWMA. Along theway there were personal spatswith Engels, always reconciled.Sperber takes a sympathetic viewof these breaks seeing them lessas Marx’s dictatorial tendenciesbut more as attempts towardsgreater theoretical clarity andunity of action, plus a desire tocarve out a position for himselfamongst the competitive andlargely impoverished émigréGerman radical population.

Marx did not live to see hisideas realised. This book enablesus to understand more completelyhow his spectre came to dominatethe 20th century. of the 21st thatremains to be seen.

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shift toward a no frills society. Why is a subtle shift toward a

ryanair-esque culture of hiddensurcharges permeating beyondmere Tory ranks? How can asqueezed middle be expected totop up their taxes by now havingto pay add-ons for entitlementsenshrined within our proud wel-fare state?

A recent Social Marketfoundation report, headed by theMaster of £32,000 a yearWellington College, claimed thatparents earning over £80,000 ayear should be forced to payschool fees for any childrenattending the best state schools.His logic? Unconvincing – yet itdoes hinge upon the not entirelyfalse notion that the best schoolsare monopolised by the sons anddaughters of the affluent. Thefees, he believes, would force suchparents to consider either send-ing their children into the inde-pendent sector (freeing up placesin good state schools), or ‘payingnothing at middle- and lesser-ranking state schools’ (implicitlyarguing that this might drive upoverall standards).

Aside from a litany of flaws –one being his thinly veiledassumption that parachuting inmiddle class kids to inner citycomprehensive schools might ben-efit the intellectual developmentof their hard up classmates, theprecedent is thoroughly un-british. The idea of the economicelite subsidising the education ofthe comparatively poor is surelypopulist, and to an extent, justifi-able. In isolation, such a movetoward school fees for the wealthymight well appeal to certain

Don’t renege on myentitlements please.Tax is not a transac-tion, but a commit-ment from both sides.

for far too long the narrative onwelfare has been negative – fun-damental Attlee era entitlementsvilified, with the most prominentscrutinisers inevitably the afflu-ent. benefits claimants havebecome both the source of popu-lar judgement and ridicule – theinfamous benefits Street surelythe nadir of a media tide decry-ing an alleged ‘benefits Culture’.but with institutions such asChannel four appearing to sidewith crude, condescending por-trayal, there lies scant hope foran informed debate on welfarewith a General Election looming

bigoted extremists such askatie Hopkins, or rather thegrowing airtime she accumulatesacross the daytime TV schedule,surely heralds in a new era ofaggressive scepticism. Whilst herovert snobbery may even inflictthe ire of the portion of aloof soci-ety she claims to represent, heroutbursts on welfare claimantsare not alone, and the responsefrom the Left is often woefullypoor. Clichéd responses are notenough to tackle popular disillu-sionment with what welfare real-ly is -a lifeline for many. perhapsa less patronising prime timechronicling of what life on bene-fits really is like, could help edu-cate the employed as to the reali-ties of life on the ‘dole’.

yet a curious divergence frommere scorn for the welfare enti-tlements of the less well-off isoccurring. A growing lobby, fromthe top of the socio-economic foodchain has begun to bring intoquestion their own entitlements,as highlighted last year with thecampaign to strip well off pen-sioners of perks including thefree bus pass. Iain DuncanSmith’s recent avowal that no

pensioner benefits areringfenced could on one

level, highlight how underDavid Cameron, we

really are ‘all in thistogether’…

More likely itcould consti-

tute ana l a r m i n g

Universalism must rulegroupings on the Left.

yet why stop at school fees?Why not push for the wealthiestpatients to be made to pay fortheir use of currently free NHScore services? Shouldn’t thoserequiring expensive, yet vital,operations be made to pay towardthe cost of their treatment?

No. In britain, we’re blessedwith one of the most comprehen-sive provisions of healthcare andeducation in the world. That thequality of care or of teaching isnot uniform is starkly apparent,yet it remains a noble goal toaspire too. Nonetheless, suchworld leading services are notGod given, or as the Tories wouldhave you believe – ‘something fornothing’. rather, it forms the cen-trepiece of a british social con-tract where taxpayer contributionis reciprocated by the state; a con-sensus for collectivism unparal-leled.

The precedent of introducing atier based system for vital ser-vices provision, or with expensiveadd-ons for certain members ofsociety, is toxic. our welfare sys-tem, founded upon values of uni-versal access to health and educa-tion, is as important as the slid-ing scale of tax contribution,depending upon income bracket,which finances it. When LloydGeorge first envisaged the frame-work for his then radical Liberalreform package over a centuryago, he included universal freeSchool Meals. Sentiments ofuniversality within education andhealth provision should remainsacrosanct – it’s our challenge tokeep it so.

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YOUTH VIEW

DermotNeligan onchallengesto welfarecollectivism

The memory of Attlee is going up in smoke