the dilemma of capitalism

Tinkering with the system won’t solve the fundamental contradictions

If anyone is in debt, they need to be helped to climb out of it. And the best way of doing this is to provide them with the means of earning sufficient income and ensuring repayment stages are realistic and feasible. Seems common sense, doesn’t it? But the IMF and the European Bank are doing exactly the opposite in their treatment of the chief debtor nations of the Euro-zone. This can only make a bad situation worse.

The main reason these countries are in big economic trouble and why most of the developing countries are too is the result of lax banking regulation. Priority number one should be for governments worldwide to impose proper regulation on banks’ lending and investment policies. Once that has been done, you’d think the next priority would be to redirect investment to public infrastructure projects. This would create employment, increase tax revenues and be a second step on the road to paying off the enormous debts. It would also ensure social cohesion. These are the sort of policies Roosevelt pursued in the thirties and what the Labour government did after the end of the war. These aren’t socialist solutions, they’re a means, if there are any left, of saving capitalism. But the dogma of neo-liberalism has penetrated so deeply into government psyches and economic thinking that such suggestions are viewed as the worst form of apostasy. Their view is that it would tantamount to admitting that ‘free market capitalism’ has not worked.

It is one of the central contradictions of capitalism that profits are most easily increased by reducing wage bills and cutting jobs through ‘efficiency’ savings, but the corollary of this is that workers have less income to spend, or little at all if they are unemployed. Thus there is less money in circulation to buy manufactured goods, so company profits are reduced yet further and the vicious circle continues. This is exactly what is happening in Europe and in the wider world now.

Taking the examples of Spain, Greece and Portugal, the austerity measures demanded by the bankers have meant drastic wage reductions, rises in unemployment to unheard of levels, while at the same time cut-backs in public spending are imposed. Young people are queuing up to leave these countries simply to find work. There is social breakdown, mass poverty and anger. There is no chance in hell of these countries being able to emerge out of the present mess through such policies. Where can the impetus come from? Who will invest in such unstable and volatile countries? Why can’t even the wise capitalists see this? The main reason is that the ruling elites are locked into a neo-liberal way of thinking, and also because, despite the chaos brought about by the financial institutions, and the flak they have taken for this, they are still calling the shots. The global financiers can only see Pound, Euro and Dollar signs in front of their eyes and can’t relate to real production, manufacturing and society. They want to squeeze interest out of the indebted countries come what may.

The increased financialisation of the whole capitalist system over recent decades has also meant that investors have sought more rapid returns on their money and bigger and bigger profits than can easily be obtained by investing in manufacturing or sustainable agriculture. This has accelerated the take-over frenzy, asset-stripping and closures. It is short-termism gone insane. It has meant companies are no longer able to undertake long-term planning as investments are now made on the basis of short-term profitability potentials. The insatiable greed of the big banking institutions means that they are demanding big returns now, and don’t care what happens a few years down the line. This attitude has been behind hedge fund casino economics, the derivative markets and price movement speculation in raw materials, shoddy building projects and internet bubbles.

These are the central contradictions and unless the leadership of the Labour Party is prepared to address them, no amount of tinkering at the edges, as Ed Balls appears to be suggesting, will help.

END

Fascism and police collusion

Fascism and police collusion

It has just been revealed that the Greek police have been advising citizens who are victims of crime to seek help from the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party. This party won 21 parliamentary seats the first time it contested national elections in 2012, and now has 18. Like our own home-grown neo-fascist parties, Golden Dawn recruits its supporters among the poorest sections of the population – those hit hardest by the recession. Those most desperate will always be more susceptible to simplisitic explanations for their situation and will be avid for easy solutions. Whether Jews, foreign immigrants or ‘leftist intellectuals’, there will always be a ready target. Human rights Watch reports that immigrants interviewed in Greece recently said they no longer go out at night for fear of assault and attack by ‘often black-clad groups of Greeks intent on violence.’

Fascist parties are always lurking in the wings, ready to take advantage of social breakdown. And, history shows us clearly that in times of economic crisis such as we are experienced at present, there is an increased danger from such parties. In stable times they are little more than irritants, even though one should never underestimate their role in promoting incidents of racist violence.

What is most disconcerting is the readiness of police forces in so many countries to give tacit or overt support to such organisations. We’ve even seen it here in Britain. In the thirties police gave protection to Oswald Mosleys blackshirts when they attempted to march through the East End, and in the heyday of the National Front, during the seventies, they did the same. In 1979 a policeman killed Blair Peach in Southall while he was demonstrating against the National Front. I have yet to hear of a fascist being hurt, let alone killed by the police.

In 2008 Merseyside Police investigated whether a serving constable was a member of the British National Party (BNP).  The name of PC Steve Bettley, a serving officer with the force, was one of thousands on a leaked BNP membership list, posted online.

Detective Chief Superintendent Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator of the police’s domestic extremist units, claimed police had to walk a ‘tightrope’ when targeting small groups which they believe are bent on violence. However, he claims that the neo-fascist English Defence League (EDL) is not his problem; it is ‘not a far right group’, he asserted. He clearly sees environmentalists and students as much more of a threat.
Last year it was reported that a suspected member of the EDL had been collecting names and of serving Muslim police officers. An investigation found addresses and surveillance videos of Muslim officers on his computer, along with fireworks and other explosive devices. However no charges were pressed. Concerned Muslim officers were told the man was a ‘lone wolf and not linked to any organisations,’ but a few minutes of Googling soon revealed his links with the EDL and details of his attending EDL rallies and meetings. All this demonstrates how institutionally right-wing our police are.

In 2003, on the tenth anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the then head of the Metropolitan police's anti-racism unit, Commander Cressida Dick said she believed the Met was still ‘institutionally racist’. Although, under concerted political pressure, police forces in the UK have attempted to tackle racism in their ranks, there remains much to be done. Our police forces do have a written policy stating that no serving police officer should be a member of a far-right or fascist party, but this is easily circumvented, and it doesn’t prevent police sympathising with right wing organisations.

The police, as the imposers of law and order in society, are almost by definition willing tools of the ruling classes. Clearly the recruiting and training policies favour those with a rightwing and militaristic mentality. We only need to see with what relish the police mete out gratuitous violence to those on progressive demonstrations in comparison with the kid-glopve handling of those organised by the rightwing.

This pattern can be seen in other countries too.  In Germany it has long been known that the Verfassungschutz (BfV) – the equivalent of our MI5 – had infiltrated right wing and neo-nazi organisations, but it became increasingly unclear how far the police were actually promoting and supporting the right wing or whtehr they were investigating it. This year it was disclosed that the Italian security police gave detailed information to its German counterparts of cross-border pan-European neo-nazi collaboration, but the Germans did nothing about it.

In a recent series of neo nazi murders of immigrants, the German security police again came under fire for doing nothing despite having infiltrated the organisation. It also come in for severe criticism after destroying official documentation concerning this case.

As in Hitler’s Germany, fascist parties only gain political traction when capitalism is seriously under threat and the ruling class lends them support to prevent the left gaining ascendancy. Invariably police forces play a key role in how far fascist parties are tolerated or, indeed, are given support. There is no doubt that democratic forces will have to maintain continuous monitoring of police behaviour and pressure on them to root out right-wing mentality, but it will be an uphill struggle.

END

Love and Information at Royal Court

Love and Information
Royal Court
6 Sept-13 Oct 2012

This isn’t a play in the usual sense, but over 50 mini-vignettes, played inside a small cube of white, tiled walls, reminiscent of a laboratory or institution. As the title suggests, it is about how we communicate and use or misuse information and how information can inform or undermine our love for each other. Churchill is clearly using this form to imitate, and simultaneously as a critique of, the sound bite world we live in; how information comes to us randomly in fragments. The actors play out their scenes, sometimes only seconds long or at most a few minutes, with verve, wit and intensity. We are taken on a rapid-fire kaleidoscope of snapshots from daily life, from a geriatric ward to a cocktail bar, from a mental health hospital to a beach, bedroom or gym. Each vignette focusing on an aspect of communication or understanding, as well their lack. There are strong resonances of Pinter and Becket; you’re continually confronted with existential questions.

What is disappointing is that the many parts don’t really add up to anything more substantial. While Churchill raises questions about genetics, mental health, how the brain works and the use of language, each of her miniscule scenes gives the audience little chance to reflect on the issues raised, before the next scene begins. She also fails to provide any deeper understanding or discussion of the issues she raises. Churchill is a socialist and an intelligent commentator on social and political issues, yet here she appears to have difficulty grappling with the big issues. We are living through the deepest economic crisis any of us can remember, we face environmental catastrophe, and are living through a technological revolution that is transforming the way we relate, yet she treats these fundamental issues with timidity.

While her writing has true wit, and the production does her proud by milking it for all its worth, one is left dissatisfied.  It feels more like titillation, a rehearsal rather than the real thing.

Caryl Churchill is one of Britain’s most innovative as well as progressive playwrights. Drawing strongly on Brecht’s ‘gestus’ idea, she again here uses non-naturalistic techniques and places ideas at the centre. Her intention is to provoke her audience to think, but she has to offer a greater stimulus than this.
James Macdonald has done a great job directing this difficult piece and the actors demonstrate an admirable versatility and flexibility in a situation where they only have seconds to develop any character or personality.
The audience on the opening night gave the production ample applause, but I would have liked fewer nibbles and more meat.
END

Yours for the Asking at Orange Tree

Yours for the Asking
Orange Tree, Richmond London
5 Sept-6 Oct 2012
The Orange Tree has again pulled off a coup with the UK premiere of this play by Argentinean-born Spanish playwright Ana Diosdado, one of Spain’s leading writers. This play was completed in 1973 only two years before the dictator Franco’s death. It dramatises the insidious effect of mass media advertising and news manipulation on the lives of ordinary people. Although these concepts are no longer new, the play has retained its relevance. With the Murdoch hacking scandals, the rebranding of mass-murdering company Union Carbide as Dow Chemicals, sponsor of the Olympics, and the ubiquitous use of sex for advertising, its message is still powerful today.
Juan, a stressed and jaded hack is sent by his celebrity gossip magazine to interview Susi, a young model, who’s been transformed into the image for a new perfume – a ruse by the chemical company to mask its culpability for the deaths of several children, after using one of its a drug products. The ruse is exposed and Susi, an icon of beauty and purity, overnight becomes a vilified outcast. Juan and Susi fall in love, but she is already at the end of her tether and contemplating suicide. But in a clever twist at the end, she fails to go through with it, but he does. I was strongly reminded of the Arthur Miller/Marylyn Monroe relationship. As Juan says: ‘It is the system we live in’ that is to blame for so many messed up lives.
Once again, director Sam Walters presents us with a tightly woven drama, teasing out its deep humanity and dramatic possibilities to the limit, and designer Katy Mills manages, with only a table and a couple of chairs, to transport us into a newsroom, a bedroom, a lift and a living room. A tremendous cast led by Mia Austen as the innocently vulnerable model and Steven Elder as the journalist, are ably supported by Rebecca Pownall as Juan’s wife Celia, David Antrobus and James Joyce.
Perhaps a little too earnest (Dario Fo’s ‘Death of an Anarchist’ with less humour) and at times didactic, but certainly gets under the skin.
END

Support Julian Assange

Not since the height of the Cold War with its synchronous anti-Soviet rhetoric has there been such an overwhelming consensus of the media around a single issue. Julian Assange is the new bête noir, the man to be vilified, smeared and slandered. In all the media hysteria about the rape allegations made in Sweden against Assange by two women he slept with, the real issue is being conveniently buried. Last week with Assange’s short speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy and an unrelated off-the-cuff remark by George Galloway in his defence, Assange’s alleged rape again became front page news in all the papers and was at the top of broadcast media news bulletins. Even papers of the liberal left like the Guardian and the New Statesman were fervently part of the bandwagon to demonise Assange as a sexual predator and eccentric misfit. Only the Morning Star, among the dailies, remained rational and focussed. Seumas Milne in a Guardian feature did courageously challenge his paymaster’s editorial line and encouraged readers to look behind the headlines, but he was the only one on the paper of a whole number of other hacks who willing toed the Guardianista party line. George Galloway, normally ignored by the media unless he has just won or lost an election found himself pilloried as a misogynist ‘loud mouth’ (Guardian editorial) and an ignorant clown. Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador which has generously given Assange asylum was likewise portrayed as a ‘banana republic dictator’, only seeking publicity for himself and his ‘tin-pot republic’. Here I don’t want to get enmeshed in the furore around Assange’s alleged sexual misdemeanours or definitions of rape. Anyone who is progressive and aware of what it means to a woman would be loath to offer a fig leaf to anyone who engaged in sexual violence. And Galloway is right in emphasising that rape is too serious an issue to be trivialised in the way the media are now doing around the Assange case. It is, though, not a question of whether Assange is guilty of a sexual crime in Sweden, whether he is a paragon of virtue or a despicable philanderer that is at issue here. He gained fame/notoriety and is now being persecuted because he and his website WikiLeaks made public classified cables sent by US diplomats. The Guardian, New York Times and German magazine Der Spiegel willingly and lucratively collaborated with Assange in publishing a selection of his WikiLeaks documents. Bradley Manning, a British-born US army soldier who allegedly provided WikiLeaks with copies of the classified documents has been languishing in a US military jail without being charged and under conditions described by Juan Méndez, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, as such ‘harsh treatment that may amount to torture’. His plight is being ignored by the media which prefer sordid stories about Assange’s alleged rape. Manning’s treatment is certainly inhumane and shames a state that calls itself ‘democratic’ and ‘just’. It amounts to persecution of the most vengeful sort. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks with their release of these documents pulled off a journalistic coup and performed an incredible public service by revealing the often criminal behaviour of the US government and its agencies throughout the world and the arrogant and supremacist attitudes of its diplomats. Assange and WikiLeaks appear to have few supporters at present, even though a number, like Daniel Ellsberg (whistleblower who released the Pentagon Papers detailing US mendacity on Vietnam), John Pilger, Jemima Kahn, Bianca Jagger and George Galloway are several of some big-name supporters. It is essential that he also receives unqualified support of the left for what he has done in the name of freedom of information, not for anything he might have done or not done in his personal life. If he is extradited to the USA it will be a victory for the very powerful over the least powerful and his case will be used, as it is already being used, to intimidate and discourage any one else who dares to challenge the powers of imperialism. Make no mistake, the rape allegations in Sweden, true or untrue, as well as the threat of extradition are being used solely to undermine his credibility as a journalist and whistleblower and to ensure he faces trial in the USA to be given a draconian sentence; a fair trial there would be impossible. END

Vultures’ Picnic A Tale of High Finance and Investigative Reporting Author: Greg Palast Pubs Constable & Robinson (London) Pbck. £9.99 Greg Palast needs little introduction to Star readers. His uncompromising investigative journalism and his unmasking of corporate sleaze and corruption are second to none. Here we are provided with a selection of his recent writings on the issue of international corporate criminality in the oil industry. What he reveals is a horror story of corporate criminality and political connivance at the highest levels. Unfortunately the collection has been put together with the hurried carelessness of a thief leaving the scene of his crime, with the result that it confusingly hops about from country to country and story to story. However, Palast is witty, fast-paced and sharp. His writing here is often reminiscent of a Dashiel Hammett gumshoe novel, in which he, with his curvaceous assistant Miss Badpenny, is Sam Spade. For my taste, Palast’s writing overdoes the fictional style at the cost of his factual investigations, and this tends to undermine the serious meat of the story beneath. He is clearly a man on a mission, but his adventurous anecdotes about himself as well as his rather cavalier attitude to sources can provoke sceptical questioning of some of his ‘facts’. Certainly he stays on the trail of our corporate and government gangsters with the tenacity of a leech and what he uncovers must make their trigger fingers very itchy. His revelations of BP’s was involvement in paying big bungs to Azerbaijani officials to obtain control of its rich oil resources is an eye-opener. The money, apparently carried in the plane that took Margaret Thatcher to Azerbaijan on an official visit, accompanied by then-BP boss Lord Browne. He also relates how Hilary Clinton became a legal adviser for a big US oil company keen to exploit oil reserves in Arkansas while hubby Bill was governor. Palast goes to great lengths to help untangle the complex web of the political-industrial complex of global oil. Some of his revelations may sound far-fetched, but if they are, why aren’t the accused suing him through the courts? A revelatory read. END

Communism – has its time come? It wasn’t too long ago that Francis Fukuyama was declaiming ‘The End of History’. Communism and Marxism had been conclusively defeated. How history can so easily upset the applecart of complacent thinking is now clearly emerging. Only a few years since that iconic statement was pronounced, global capitalism is in deep crisis, there are mass demonstrations on the streets, corporate bosses are reeling on the back foot As Al Jazeera recently reported, Marxism and the discussion of a communist society are back in fashion and Marxism is again at the centre of intellectual discussion. New editions of Marx's texts have returned to our bookstores accompanied by new introductions, biographies, and interpretations of his thinking. In our universities, too, we are experiencing a sea-change. Not long ago, few academics who valued their status and their funding would be willing to admit to being Marxists, now they seem to be queuing up to do so. A whole number of renowned philosophers (among them Judith Balso, Bruno Bosteels, Susan Buck-Mors, Jodi Dean, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Slavoj Zizek), have began to envision how society could be constructed to avoid the pitfalls and injustices of capitalism and are looking at it in communist terms. Here in Britain too, there are a number of Marxist thinkers who are openly challenging the ethical and philosophical basis of capitalism. Not only celebrated academics like Terry Eagleton, but from the mainstream too, like professors Swyngedouw, Ben Fine, Sean Sayers, Terrel Carver and sociologists like Danny Dorling, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett are all challenging capitalist ideology. Recently, Turner short listed artist Phil Collins’s showed his video compilation ‘Marxism Today’ at London’s South bank on the teaching of Marxist economics in the GDR. It received enthusiastic reviews and avid public interest. There are new websites like ‘Marx and Philosophy’ and ‘Historical Materialism’. Recent conferences in London, Berlin, Paris and New York have been attended by thousands of academics, students, and activists around the ideas of Marxism and communism. There is a plethora of best-selling books such as Negri and Hardt's Empire, Badiou's The Communist Hypothesis and Vattimo's Ecce Comu, as well as new biographies of Engels, essays by the Peruvian Marxist Mariategui, and new publications on Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg and so on. What is happening? Although not all these thinkers consider themselves communist, the fact that communist thought is now back at the centre of economic, political, sociological and philosophic research is highly significant and encouraging. Why is all this happening now? It is not simply a reaction to the global financial crisis, but has been brewing for some time. Facing the seemingly incapability of capitalism to address the problems of environmental catastrophe, climate change, over-population and social breakdown, more and more thinkers are looking to alternatives. And Marxism still offers the most useful pointers and potential solutions to these seemingly intractable problems Clearly, at these conferences and in these books, communism is not being proposed as a programme for political parties to repeat previous historical attempts to build communist societies, but more an existential response to the current neo-liberal global condition. Politics, economic planning and government policies should be based ideally on the goal of bettering the human condition, rather than, as at present, simple subservience to the chaotic meanderings of rampant and feral capitalism. To achieve this, we sorely need the input of academic research and innovative ideas. The Al Jazeera report, mentioned above, says: ‘But today, things are not that different if we consider the latest effects of neo-liberalism - apart from our current financial crisis, where differentials in material well-being have never been so explicit - slum populations are growing by an shocking 25 million people a year, and the devastation of our planet's natural resources is causing dire ecological consequences throughout the world, and in many cases it is too late to correct.’ Even the ruling class is recognising the ‘danger’ of a resurgence of Marxism. A recent UK Ministry of Defence report predicts not only a resurgence of, ‘anti-capitalist ideologies, possibly linked to religious, anarchist or nihilist movements, but also to populism and the revival of Marxism’. Of course the word ‘communist’ is loaded with different meanings, but in the minds of most people in the west it is associated with Eastern European attempts to build new societies. It is not only considered a remnant of the past but seen as a political system where everything is controlled by an all-powerful state. In this context, Zizek comments in his inimitable dialectical style: ‘If state communism didn't work, it's primarily because of the failure of anti-statist politics, of the endeavour to break out of the constraints of State, to replace statal forms of organisation with “direct” non-representative forms of self-organisation.’ Communism, as an anti-statist concept has today become the best idea, hypothesis, and guide for non-governmental and international political movements, such as those that arose from the protests in Seattle (1999), Cochabamba (2000), and Barcelona (2011), as well as in the World Social Forum movement, and in experimental new forms of governing as seen in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Kerala, India and in Latin America. Although each of these movements fought for different specific causes (against injurious economic globalisation, the privatisation of water supplies, and harmful financial policies) their enemy was the same: Western democracy's unjust system of property distribution under capitalism. As the increasing poverty and slum populations in the world demonstrate, this model has left behind all those who do not succeed within capitalism’s parameters, and this is generating new communists. What is still missing is a sufficiently strong mass movement of working people to force through the changes that are now becoming increasingly possible; however this situation can change very quickly. END