Socialist Standard
August 2005
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The
Ruling Asses. By Stephen Robins. Prion Books.ISBN 1-85375-572-9.
£6.99.
The Ruling Assess will certainly make you laugh but, on the other hand,
the thoughtful reader might be disturbed by the identity of the people
who have provided the utterly absurd quotations that make up the book’s
216 pages.
The clue is in the sub-title: “A little book of political stupidity”
and the people who have unconsciously provided the stupidities are
prominent politicians; the very ‘they’ in that ubiquitous opinion that
‘they will [have to] do something about it.’
Beneath the amusing picture on the front page is a quote from the
redoubtable Mr John Prescott, The Minister for Transport and current
Labour Deputy Prime Minister. ‘I want to wrong that right’, says Mr
Prescott. The book’s editor, Stephen Robins, in giving Prescott pride
of place, so to speak, sees the obvious humour in this particular piece
of asininity but, on the other hand it could be a serious comment on
the vicious authoritarianism of the present Labour government.
There can be no doubt about the mental state of the man whose absolute
pearls of frightening ignorance wins him top spot in this collection:
George W Bush, the President of the most powerful nation on Earth and
the man with control of the nuclear button. George’s father, we learn
from his generous representation in this collection of absurdities, was
the equal of his son in the mouthing of verbal inanities. This reduces
the present great man to a sort of second generation idiot and perhaps
poses the question as to why the American establishment, which boasts a
‘smart’ bomb, should afflict itself with such stupid presidents.
The collection is well indexed and the fact that the index contains 8
pages of names at 2 columns to the page means that your favourite
politician is likely to be included – though, in fairness to the unique
stupidities of the Bushes, father and son, it should be pointed out
that they share some 124 listings in a work where, for example, the
home-based political nutter, Ian Paisley, can only achieve 7.
This is a very funny book and an easy read but it frighteningly exposes
the cash nexus in what passes for democracy in capitalist society where
the means of winning elections is a commodity.
Helen Macfarlane. A Feminist, Revolutionary
Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England. By David
Black, Lexington Books, 2004. £15.
Helen Macfarlane was radicalised in Austria by the revolutions of 1848
which swept through Europe. On her return to Britain she took up
revolutionary journalism under the pseudonym Howard Morton for the
Chartist George Julian Harney. It was in Harney's weekly newspaper Red
Republican in 1850 that Macfarlane produced the first English
translation of what became known as the Communist Manifesto. In the
German original it was called Manifesto of the Communist Party but in
the Red Republican its title was German Communism: Manifesto of the
German Communist Party. Black is critical of this name change because
the insertion of the word "German" into the title twice over
"de-emphasises its internationalist thrust." But this misses the point
of the change, a reason the Red Republican seems to have understood but
which is now widely misunderstood. That is, while the theoretical parts
of the Manifesto have universal application the practical proposals
(particularly at the end of Section 2) were put forward with Germany in
mind at that time. That is why Marx and Engels later said that some
parts of the Manifesto, particularly in Section 2, were obsolete (see
the Preface to the German edition of 1872).
In the Red Republican version of the Manifesto, some parts are missing
and others changed mainly to suit its English readership. In the 1888
English translation, supervised by Engels, the famous opening line
begins: "A spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of Communism." But
in Macfarlane's translation this becomes: "A frightful hobgoblin stalks
throughout Europe. We are haunted by a ghost. The ghost of Communism."
Black states that her use of "hobgoblin" rather than "spectre" is
unfortunate, but it is possible that her English readers at that time
more readily understood the hobgoblin metaphor.
Marx called Macfarlane "a rare bird" – "the only collaborator on his
[Harney's] spouting rag who had original ideas." She was the first
person to translate and explain in English the work of the German
philosopher Hegel. She wrote a few other articles for the Red
Republican in the 1850s but almost nothing is known of her in the years
before or after. What seems certain however is that Macfarlane could be
described as the first British Marxist, a generation before that term
came into use.
LEW
Marx And Other Four-Letter Words. Edited by
Georgina Blakeley and Valerie Bryson, Pluto Press, 2005.
Being a collection of essays by academics for their students, this
volume examines Marx’s key concepts: capitalism, class, the state,
oppression, revolution, equality and democracy, and more. There are
numerous books of this type and and most of the chapters do a
reasonable job of reconstructing Marx’s thought. However, Paul
Blackledge’s chapter on Revolution treats Marx and Lenin as though they
were complementary. This is the standard Leninist line put forward by
Blackledge:
“While Marx and Engels laid down some general guidelines for building a
workers’ party, they did not develop these into a fully worked out
theory: this task was taken up by later Marxists, notably Lenin ...”
Paraphrasing Lenin himself, the author claims that Lenin’s State and
Revolution (published in 1917) “returned to the works of Marx and
Engels” and explained their ideas on revolution. But this untrue. Marx
and Engels’ insistence on working class self-emancipation specifically
rules out what would become later known as Leninism, the idea that the
working class were incapable of self-emancipation and must be freed by
a Leninist vanguard party. This is in fact the exact opposite of Marx
and Engels’ position.
As the chapter on Working-Class Internationalism quotes Marx: “numbers
weigh only in the balance if united by combination and led by
knowledge.” And the chapter on Democracy, quoting another commentator
on Marx in the twentieth century, declares: “the terrible fate which
befell Marx was that he was Leninised.”
LEW
How Not to
Do It
Jeffrey Sachs: The End of Poverty: How We Can
Make It Happen in Our Lifetime. Penguin £7.99.
There are various things wrong with this book, the first being the
title. Sachs (described on the back cover as ‘probably the most
important economist in the world’) is not concerned with doing away
with sink estates where children do not get one square meal a day, let
alone three, or the culture of pawn shops and loan sharks (which would
be classified as relative poverty). Instead he is writing about
eliminating absolute or extreme poverty, where households cannot meet
basic needs: people are chronically hungry, have no access to health
care or safe water, and may lack rudimentary shelter. In 2001, around
1.1 billion of the earth’s population were in extreme poverty. Sachs
neatly places things in perspective:
“Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the
World Trade Center on September 11; ten thousand Africans die
needlessly and tragically every single day – and have died every single
day since September 11 – of AIDS, TB, and malaria.”
But even if his proposals were implemented and proved successful, there
would still be plenty of poverty in the world.
Ending extreme poverty would of course be very worthwhile, but can
capitalism achieve this? Sachs claims that the number of people living
in extreme poverty has fallen from 1.5 billion since 1981 (largely due
to developments in China). Surely, however, we are entitled to be a
little sceptical about such claims: they are based on World Bank
estimates, and ignore the extent of poverty still found in China,
especially in the countryside. He acknowledges, though, that the
extreme poor in Africa have more than doubled in the twenty years to
2001, now being over 300 million, which is a rise even in percentage
terms. Yet, he argues, extreme poverty can be got rid of by 2025: the
key is ‘to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the
ladder of development.’ The way to kick-start things is by
comparatively modest amounts of overseas aid, which will mean that
households can save more and so increase the amount of seeds and
agricultural equipment they have access to and will also allow
governments to build roads, sanitation systems and so on; this will
snowball and lead on to further development. The first few chapters of
the book imply that Sachs has some kind of economic magic wand that he
can wave over countries from Bolivia to India, delivering prosperity.
However, his proposals for ‘ending poverty’ are effectively put forward
in a vacuum, unencumbered by the existence of a world dominated by one
super-powerful nation, a small number of super-powerful companies, and
a tiny minority of super-rich capitalists. Sachs accepts that
exploitation of poor countries by the rich has happened in the past,
but believes that it no longer applies. He also accepts, though without
making it explicit of course, a division of the world into owners of
the means of production and non-owners. Doing away with this would mean
an immediate end to all kinds of poverty – extreme, moderate and
relative – without having to wait another twenty years and rely on yet
more empty promises.
PB
Noreena Hertz: I.O.U.: The Debt Threat and Why
We Must Defuse It. Harper Perennial £7.99.
Hertz is fairly well-known as a commentator on and critic of
globalisation. But unlike some, she does not even make the pretence of
being anti-capitalist. In her previous book The Silent Takeover, she
made it clear that she was advocating another form of capitalism in
contrast to a laissez-faire version that sidelined justice and
democracy.
The book under review focusses on developing-country debt and its
consequences, not just for the Third World but for ‘advanced’
capitalist countries too. For debt and possible defaults can lead to
desperation and terrorism, environmental damage and general economic
recession. During the ‘Cold War’, loans were often made for strategic
reasons, to keep countries friendly, whether US loans to Latin America
or Russian and Chinese lending to Africa. The collapse of Eastern
European state capitalism brought a sudden end to this, with loans
being called in and new lending being on much less favourable terms.
Hertz gives a good account of many of the mechanisms by which lending
occurs, such as the roles of the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank. Many Western countries have export credit agencies that
underwrite sales by domestic companies and step in to pay them if
anything goes wrong (so much for the risks of entrepreneurship). There
are even traders who buy and sell developing-country debt as if it were
pork or oil, usually making vast profits in the process.
In 2004, the world’s poorest countries owed $458 billion. The
consequences of this seem pretty devastating:
“Millions of children continue to die every single year because money
that could be spent on preserving their health is still being spent on
debt service. Millions of children are prevented from attending school
because money that could be spent on their education is still being
spent on repaying debt.”
Hence the demand to ‘Drop the Debt!’, and Hertz’s proposals for
deciding when debt is illegitimate and should be cancelled, plus
her suggestions of ‘new principles for borrowers and lenders’.
The problem is that all such proposals effectively accept the status
quo, i.e. global capitalism. They do not even begin to address the
question of why people are poor in the first place. The passage quoted
above assumes that money spent on repaying debts would otherwise be
used for health care and education, but there is no guarantee of this
at all: governments in developing countries, like all governments, run
affairs in the interests of the ruling class. In a world rooted in
ownership of resources by a tiny minority of the population, poverty,
famine, and lack of access to decent health care and education are
inevitable. Cancelling debt (which is anyway less costly to the lenders
than might at first appear) relates to just one aspect of the way in
which the basic inequality of capitalism reveals itself. It does not
affect underlying causes — which is why, whatever the sincerity of
those who support it, it will make no contribution to ending poverty.
PB
Fascism in
Britain
Martin Pugh: Hurrah for the Blackshirts!
Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the
Wars. Jonathan Cape.£20.00.
Nigel Copsey and David Renton, eds: British Fascism, the Labour
Movement and the State. Palgrave Macmillan. £50.00.
These two books are not recommended for the various views expressed by
the authors and contributors, but for the wealth of information, much
of it new, on British Fascism.
The first fascisti, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, was
founded in Italy in 1914; Britain’s first Fascist organisation emerged
in May, 1925, six months after Mussolini’s coup. It, too called itself
Fascisti, but the following year changed its name to the British
Fascists. Most of its leaders were aristocrats or men from military or
naval backgrounds. They were militantly anti-Jewish and, through
endorsement by such newspapers as the Times, Morning Post and the Daily
Mail, believed in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy as portrayed by the
infamous forgery, The Proctocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. The
British fascists soon, however, split into even more extreme sects such
as the National Fascisti and Arnold Leese’s Imperial Fascist League.
Martin Pugh demonstrates in considerable detail the close connections
between the Fascist groups and parties and rightwing, and even
“mainstream”, conservative politicians. The Fascists were often looked
upon as more decisive Tories who. wanted a more powerful, corporate
state which would, hopefully, keep the “lower orders” in control and
stop “alien” immigration. Many members of the Conservative Party would
also be members of one of the fascist groups at the same time. Both
could be depended upon to defend the Nation and the Empire. Indeed,
between the two world wars, not a few members of the Royal family,
including the then Prince of Wales, were sympathetic to Mussolini’s
Fascism and later Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill expressed
admiration for Mussolini, and the Prince of Wales had Nazi friends.
Of course the Fascists opposed the General Strike of 1926. In fact, as
Pugh notes, they were particularly enthusiastic anti-strike volunteers,
enrolling in the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, and as
Special Constables. Chief constables welcomed the Fascists, but only as
individuals and not as uniformed members of Fascist parties as these
had hoped.
In 1920, the Conservative Member of Parliament, Oswald Mosley, crossed
the floor to sit as an independent; in 1924, he joined the Labour
Party. His views were already interventionist, corporatist, almost
Fascist, but he was enthusiastically welcomed into the Labour Party. By
1929, Mosley was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but he
soon resigned, and in February 1931 he launched his New Party.Then in
1932, after visiting Rome, he founded the British Union of Fascists.
The BUF adopted the Corporate State, with the abolition of political
parties, as its official policy. At this stage, Mosley and the BUF
looked to Italy for their model, and it was not until 1936 that the BUF
became pro-Nazi. Pugh notes that Mosley regularly visited Italy, and
was rewarded with funding by Mussolini for several years. Mosley did
not meet Hitler until 1935. During this period, the British Union of
Fascists, which added the phrase “and National Socialists” to its
title, became increasingly anti-Jewish. The BUF was organised
militarily, complete with uniforms until these were banned in 1936. For
a number of years, the Daily Mail, owned by Lord Northcliffe, supported
the BUF and promoted Fascism.
Besides the BUF, there were still a number of small Fascist parties, as
well as various “front” groups such as the January Club and
Anglo-German Fellowship and, later, the Link. As in the 1920s, such
groups had many Tories, rightwing and mainstream, as members. Indeed,
most Conservatives, in Parliament and the country at large, were either
pro-Fascist Italy, pro-Nazi Germany or, like Neville Chamberlain,
appeasers, as Martin Pugh demonstrates in some detail. Many of them
continued to hold similar ideas even after Britain had declared war on
Germany, on 3 September, 1939. In 1940, Oswald Mosley, as well as about
800 Fascists and others considered to be pro-German, were arrested and
imprisoned. But by 1942, most had been released. Mosley was
conditionally released from prison in 1944. The BUF had been banned in
June, 1940.
British Fascism, the Labour Movement and the State is a collection of
fairly short and diverse essays by various authors. Richard Maguire
discusses the use of Fascists by the Conservative Government in defence
of what Stanley Baldwin called the “community” in defeating the miners,
and during the General Strike of 1926. And, as noted in Pugh’s book,
the authorities were more than prepared to use Fascists as
strike-breakers, their views being that the Fascists could be depended
upon as Special Constables and the like.
Richard Thurlow outlines the formation of the Security Service (MI5),
and its collaboration with Special Branch in surveillance of the
Communist Party, and Comintern agents in Britain, particularly during
the 1920s and 1930s. After about 1933, MI5 and Special Branch
began to interest themselves in the British Union of Fascists, which
hitherto they had not done. Interestingly, Thurlow points out that
Maxwell Knight of MI5 had himself been the British Union of Fascists’
Director of Intelligence in 1927. Graham Macklin discusses the attitude
of the police and magistrates towards the Fascists in their
confrontations with the Communists, and shows that in general they were
more sympathetic towards the Fascists than the Communists. Not
surprisingly, Oswald Mosley was particularly effusive in his support
for the police, many of whom were anti-Jewish. Philip Coupland outlines
what he calls “left-wing fascism”, in which the BUF use leftwing
terminology to attract workers and disillusioned Labourites and
Communists. In parts of the country this was quite successful.
David Renton discusses the so-called anti-Fascism, during the 1974-79
period, by such organisations as the Anti-Nazi League, the Trade Unions
and the SWP, all of which from a socialist viewpoint achieved nothing
in defeating fascist ideas and activities. Indeed, a party like the BNP
today probably has as much support as did the BUF in 1935. Possibly
more.
PEN
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