The Socialist Issue 174

BLAIR THINKS that the fuel crisis is over. But the political crisis for New Labour gets worse every day. Two opinion polls put them behind the Tories. Despite all the propaganda, 63% of people blame the government for the fuel crisis.

Blair has a personal rating of minus 34 - the lowest for a Labour Party leader since 1989. As Len, a porter at Whipps Cross Hospital, commented: "Blair has lost popularity because the fuel crisis dramatically brought out all the accumulated grievances on health, education etc. plus disappointment at the failure to address poverty and the widening wealth gap.

"There’s also the arrogance of Blair and his government. They’re now seen as totally divorced from the public. He’s consciously adopted this presidential style which effectively blocks out all dialogue with the unions and the public.

"And what does this ‘listening government’ do? Gordon Brown refuses to agree to fuel tax cuts. And New Labour proposes emergency legislation to make refusing to deliver fuel a criminal offence.

"These draconian powers could also be applied to other ‘key’ essential services. If New Labour go down this road it will outrage ordinary trade union members.

"It’s a desperate measure by a desperate government who want to legislate away opposition to their policies. It won’t work."

A nurse at the same hospital commented: "We knew when Blair first came into power that he wasn’t going to bring instant results. But I don’t honestly think he’s done anything for anybody in the last three and a bit years.

"I’ve never voted anything other than Labour. But unless Blair pulls something out of the hat in the next six months then for the first time in my entire voting life I couldn’t vote Labour. I think Blair’s arrogant and he’s not listening to the people he should be listening to."

Working-class people desperately need a political alternative to all three big business parties. The Socialist Party is campaigning for a new mass party which could unite together workers, young people, anti-capitalist protesters and all those who want to change the system.

Prague anti-capitalist protest

Fight For Socialism

ON 26 SEPTEMBER, capitalism's globetrotting circus stops in Prague, the Czech Republic's capital city. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are in town.

Wherever the representatives of the world economy meet, they meet resistance. A tradition is being established where every conference, summit and forum is besieged by tens of thousands of protesters mobilised around a multitude of issues: environmental campaigns, Third World debt, the rights of workers and indigenous peoples, to name but a few.

From last November's demonstrations in Seattle to Washington DC; from Davos in Switzerland to May Day in London; from Okinawa to Melbourne, Australia, the rich men (predominantly) at the top are forced to run the gauntlet of angry crowds.

The authorities are expecting serious confrontations. Officers from Scotland Yard have been briefing their Czech counterparts on British protesters expected to arrive. The FBI has helped with training and Interpol has provided further intelligence. At least 11,000 police will be on duty with 5,000 soldiers on standby.

As events outside the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Melbourne last week testify, the state forces will be ready and willing to employ brutal tactics to ensure the world's business leaders' meetings go ahead. (see page 7)

The decisions these capitalists will make made, behind closed doors, will in turn violate the rights, working and living conditions of billions of people across the globe, especially of those in the neo-colonial countries, sometimes referred to as the 'Third World'.

Those decisions will further destroy whole swathes of the planet's natural environment. The short-term pursuit of profit will continue to reign supreme.

Today, 1.2 billion people live on less than $1 a day, up by 20% since 1995 according to the UN. The three richest men own as much wealth as 600 million people in the poorest countries of the world. And the gap between the incomes of the richest and poorest countries is growing ever wider. According to the Unaited Nations global inequalities this century have increased "by orders of magnitude out of proportion to anything experienced before".

This obscene concentration of economic wealth and the political power that flows from it, is the main obstacle to freeing the world's workers and poor from exploitation, poverty, disease and wars.

Taking control of capitalism's accumulated wealth and democratically planning these resources to meet human needs, ie socialism, represents the only viable alternative to capitalist greed.

The fight for a socialist alternative must be an international fight linking the world's working class and poor people's against global capitalism. That is why the Socialist Party is part of a socialist international organisation - the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI).

Fact 1: The world's top 200 billionaires had a combined wealth of $1,135 billion in 1999. In contrast 1.2 billion people, a fifth of the world's population, exist on less than $1 (70p) a day.

Source: UN Human Development Report

Fact 2: Tanzania makes $2.2 billion a year, shared among 25 million people. Goldman Sachs bank makes $2.6 billion, shared between 161 people.

Source: The Guardian

Seven Days that Shook Blair

SOME MEDIA 'experts' dubbed the fuel protests 'poll tax revisited'. Seven days of protests shook Blair and New Labour to the core. People have had a glimpse of the power of collective struggle - France came to Britain.

Trades Union Congress (TUC) leader John Monks called it a "bosses' blockade", incredibly comparing the protesters to lorry owners who blockaded Chile in 1973. This one-sided picture deliberately misrepresents the significance of the protests.

True, many of the pickets were business owners. Some farmers were quite wealthy, owning large acres of land. Some hauliers ran big operations employing several drivers, many on low wages and working in poor conditions.

But most protesters were small business people; small farmers struggling to survive, hauliers running companies with just one or two workers, often just family concerns. Others were self-employed lorry drivers, some unionised, some former workers who had lost their jobs at Fords or as miners or steelworkers.

Some drivers undoubtedly crossed picket-lines during the 1984/85 miners' strike. But as one protester told a TV interviewer: "We were wrong. The miners were right". In these protests, many will have learnt similar lessons to the miners themselves about the role of the state, the media and the need for workers' solidarity.

In Chile the lorry owners were used by the forces of reaction to undermine a left-wing government and pave the way for General Pinochet's bloody dictatorship. The fuel protests in contrast, have been the catalyst for an outpouring of middle- and working-class people's accumulated discontent against a pro-big business New Labour government that's doing nothing to solve their problems.

This is why the fuel protests inspired widespread support across the country. In a BBC poll at the height of the protests, when the effects were starting to bite and Blair, through the media and Trust bosses, was trying to whip up hysteria over the situation in the NHS, 78% continued to support the protests.

Fuel prices triggered the movement but as one protester commented: "It's more than that now. I'm also here because of the health service, because of what this government is doing to the post offices. It's about time people like me voiced our discontent".

The word "betrayed" was constant on the picket-lines. Blair was seen as arrogant, remote and above all not listening to ordinary people's grievances. Protesters were joined by postal workers, lone parents, pensioners and the unemployed, some travelling long distances to show their support.

One supporter said: "I've never done anything like this before. It's the first thing I felt that I could do something about". The general feeling was that at last somebody was standing up to New Labour.

THE PROTESTS showed how rapidly events can develop. This spontaneous movement was inspired by the French struggles which forced concessions from the Jospin government.

Within days protests spread, as the French newspaper Le Figaro put it, "like an oil slick across Europe". In Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Greece, Hungary and Spain, drivers and others affected by high fuel prices took to the streets and the barricades. Struggle can quickly become 'Europeanised' and international in scope in today's global economy.

It has mostly been spontaneous direct action from below. In Britain the chairman of the Road Haulage Association said he was "against all forms of protestation". The National Farmers Union distanced itself from the demonstrations.

Many protesters were suspicious of the idea of 'leaders' or organisation. But as the movement developed, the need to get organised became clear. Protesters held meetings at the depot gates, discussing and democratically deciding what constituted emergency services and which tankers could leave with fuel. By the end of the protests, things were clearly more co-ordinated.

Comparisons have been made with the winter of discontent in 1978/79. The effects on the economy have been similar and both were against a Labour government.

But the winter of discontent involved millions of low-paid public-sector workers striking against attempts to hold down their wages. This movement has been mainly direct action by small business people, although with widespread sympathy amongst workers.

Crucially however, it was the tanker drivers who prevented oil from leaving the depots. This was a glimpse of the potential power which working-class people have to change society. It nails the myth that changes in the composition of the working class (away from manufacturing towards service industries and 'white-collar' jobs) has undermined its strength.

It also crushes the 'new economy' nonsense which argues that capitalism based on new technology is immune from 'old' crises such as an oil shock. "Just in time" delivery and low stocks make supermarkets and other businesses extremely susceptible to strike action by workers.

In most cases the word blockade was a misnomer. Tanker drivers weren't physically prevented from crossing picket-lines - they chose not to do so.

Much is made of the 'collusion' between the oil bosses and the protesters. Lower fuel taxes benefit the oil companies, making it easier for them to increase profit margins. Had tanker drivers been striking against the oil bosses themselves, their attitude would have been very different.

But interviews with drivers show that the main reason they didn't cross the picket lines was because they supported the protesters. At one depot, when bosses tried get drivers to take the tankers out, they walked out and joined protesters on the gates.

THE UNION leaders did Blair's dirty work, convincing drivers at Grangemouth in Scotland to break the picket. This, along with fear of losing public support, was why the protests were eventually called off.

The trade union bureaucracy plumbed new depths. TGWU leader Bill Morris called on protesters, some of them his own members, to be arrested.

Blair commented "If we were to give in, how long would it be before another grievance emerged, the same tactics used with another group of people?" The union leaders have exactly the same outlook as Blair.

They are completely enmeshed with New Labour and the state apparatus. They are terrified that workers will draw the lesson from these protests that collective struggle is needed to get results. That's why they condemned the protesters so vehemently.

But many workers will get the message that collective action is the only way forward. And many will realise, as workers at Peugeot already have, that they need to organise and reclaim the unions from the bankrupt leaders who are an obstacle to effective struggle. Others will go further and support breaking the links with New Labour and the idea of a new working-class party.

Workers also saw how, in future, the state could be used against working-class people to defend the bosses' system. The Queen was wheeled out to invoke emergency powers through the Privy Council. Blair was clearly contemplating sending in the Army to drive tankers if the protests hadn't ended.

But Blair seriously misjudged the mood. This was not a victory for Blair or New Labour. The protesters made it clear that they will renew action if they don't get confessions in the November budget.

The perception of Blair as arrogant and out of touch has been reinforced. New Labour have been seriously damaged - one poll puts them two points behind the Tories.

If Blair does make concessions, as seems likely, everyone will understand that it was because of the protests, just as everyone knows that the poll tax brought down Thatcher.

This has been the most important movement in Britain since Heseltine announced the closure of the mines in 1992. A significant change has taken place in the political situation. Working-class people have seen the potential power of collective action and have learned important lessons for future struggles.

In a future issue, The Socialist will analyse the protests' wider impact on political developments in Britain.

The destructive forces of global capitalism

THE WAVE of anger which swept through Seattle against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting last November, has continued on its course.

Seattle was a breakthrough. Dozens of diverse campaigns came together for the first time. The activists were beginning to draw the conclusion that 'the system' itself was at fault; that the struggle had to go beyond the single-issue level. Protesters denounced untrammelled global capitalism - "globalisation". Its agencies - the WTO, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), above all - were the target.

This represented a giant leap forward in the way people view the world. Common cause was identified between environmentalists, trade unionists, landless peasants and young people internationally.

THE CAPITALIST system, which has ruled the world largely unopposed since the Stalinist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe disintegrated a decade ago, has failed to raise the living standards of the majority of the world's peoples. On the contrary world inequalities between rich and poor have grown as the pressing needs of the world's poor have become even greater.

Although the Socialist Party did not support the brutal totalitarian dictatorships which existed in these Stalinist states of the Soviet world, we recognised that they represented a rival economic system to capitalism. The balance of power between the two superpowers - the US and Soviet Union - held the world in an uneasy stand-off. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, capitalism declared itself the undisputed champion of the world. The cold war had ended. The US was the only superpower left and it flexed its muscles in the Gulf war, with US President George Bush pronouncing the construction of a "New World Order".

The promise to the world was that capitalism would benefit everyone. The rich would, 'naturally', get richer, but there would be a 'trickle-down effect', meaning the poorest countries and peoples would also gain. On top of that, the end of the cold war would provide a 'peace dividend' enabling money previously earmarked for military expenditure to be spent on social programmes.

The experience of the vast majority of the world's six billion people, however, has shown up these statements as cynical lies. The world is an even more dangerous place than it ever has been before - with the Balkans continually on the brink of war, a nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan, insurgency in Latin America, and so on. The dominance of the US has further exacerbated the polarisation of wealth between countries and within countries themselves.

GLOBALISATION MEANS the opening up of the world economy to the multi-national corporations and finance institutions based in the rich capitalist countries of the northern hemisphere. This is far from being a mutually beneficial arrangement, despite the claims of the world's richest man, Bill Gates. Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Australia (see opposite), Gates said that "world trade is the mechanism that's allowing these poor countries to get enough wealth to start taking care of very basic human needs." (Guardian, 13 September) He denounced the protesters outside the conference hall.

Globalisation, however, resembles more a pack of bloodthirsty predators ripping the heart from its prey gorging themselves in some obscene feeding frenzy. The dominance of US imperialism has allowed its ruling class, along with its hunting partners from Japan and the European Union (EU), to stalk the world with impunity. The WTO, IMF and World Bank, as well as NATO and the United Nations, are used to impose their will.

Third World debt, for example, is used to enforce the domination of the rich countries. It has also been the catalyst for an upsurge in bitter opposition to the way the 'market' operates.

ON 8 SEPTEMBER, Horst Kšhler, managing director of the IMF, announced a 'new deal' to relieve the debts of the world's poorest countries at a meeting in London with 30 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charities along with Britain's finance minister, Gordon Brown.

Kšhler said 20 countries should qualify for debt relief by the end of the year. Yet even last year's Cologne summit of the G7 countries (US, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy, who between them account for 70% of world production) promised faster debt relief for 24 countries. Kšhler was clearly trying to defuse the debt issue in the run-up to the Prague summit.

The Cologne initiative was a con-trick from start to finish. The G7 promised to write-off $100 billion, yet more than half of that target figure was part of previous agreements and so far only $32 billion (£23bn) has been written off. (And much of that had previously been written off or had been deemed 'unrecoverable', in any case.)

Zambia is one of the countries expected to enter the debt relief programme in October this year. But IMF papers leaked to Oxfam show that Zambia's interest payments will actually rise from $136 million (£91m) in 1999 to $235 million in 2002, when payment on another IMF loan falls due. In fact, in 2002 Mali, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia will all be paying more in debt payments to western creditors than they spend on basic education. All these countries are part of the debt relief programme.

Over the last 20 years, and accelerating in the past decade, the rule of untrammelled capitalism has continued apace. The pursuit of neo-liberal policies has meant that state assets have been privatised and multi-national corporations have been given free rein to exploit the world's resources - human and natural. Social, employment and environmental protections have been undermined or scrapped.

Loans and aid granted by the West is tied to so-called Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes drawn up by the IMF.

The dismantling of tariff barriers which were used to protect national economies, the privatisation of state industries, and the cutting back of food subsidies and essential services, were all conditions of the loans. In other words, the economic management of the debtor countries has been handed over to a small group of Western financiers. They dictate what is produced and where. For example, African countries have been forced to grow cash crops in demand in the northern hemisphere, coffee for example, instead of food to feed their people.

Globalisation has also led to the increased polarisation of wealth within the advanced capitalist countries. An estimated 45 million people in the US live below the poverty line, and 32 million have a life expectancy of less than 60 years. In the EU, at least 50 million people live in poverty.

Worldwide there is a growing wave of anger at the brutal results of neo-liberalism. During the Seattle demonstrations even US president, Bill Clinton, felt compelled to wag his finger accusingly at the multi-national corporations. This attempt at populist posturing fooled no-one. But what it indicates is that 'free-market', globalised capitalism is widely perceived as an unjust, brutal and undesirable system.

CALLS HAVE been made to curb the rampant multi-national corporations in defence of people's health and safety, working conditions, in the fight for democratic rights and to save the natural environment. Some of these calls are for protective measures. These, however, mean the defence of national capitalist interests. Whether a country's economy is run by a powerful western-based multinational, or a home-grown boss, makes little practical difference to a worker or peasant struggling to eke out a living. Allowing a national ruling class the freedom to exploit 'their own' working class cannot be the answer.

In any case, countries in the neo-colonial world can never really be independent of the globalised neo-liberal world. The powerful West, backed up by their international agencies set the agenda for the world economy. National regimes which seriously threaten the control of the advanced capitalist countries are quickly pressured into line by the denial of aid or loans, or the refusal to trade with them in goods they may need to buy or sell.

That is not to say, however, that protectionism is a phenomenon of past history which will never be repeated. Changes in the current economic situation will provoke changes in policy. A significant economic downturn would see protectionist pressures increase. The tendency would be towards measures to safeguard the regional blocs which have been developed - centred around North America, the EU, and South-East Asia.

In this situation, the weaker and poorer countries will be further pushed to the margins of the world economy, their goods unable to penetrate the rich markets. There can be no doubt, however, that this would further fuel the anger and opposition to the effects of globalisation. As the Financial Times recognises: "If anti-market sentiment is so strong when economic growth is robust and globalisation remains far from complete, what might happen in a downturn as globalisation grinds on and unemployment figures rise?' (11 September)

Neo-liberal, free-trade policies reflect the logic of global capitalism. Many organisations and campaigns oppose the vicious effects of neo-liberalism - campaigns supported by socialists.

But socialists also recognise the need to oppose the capitalist system as a whole. Capitalism cannot provide for the needs of the world's peoples, whatever policy it is pursuing at any particular time. Against the profit-hungry domination of corporations and destructive anarchy of the market economy we counterpose the need for planned economies on a national and international basis.

This is not a call for the return of top-down, bureaucratic planning epitomised by the former Soviet Union. Planning can only work on the basis of the full democratic participation of working-class and poor and oppressed peoples.

Temporarily, the collapse of the Stalinist state reinforced the illusion that capitalism was triumphant globally. For the last decade, billions of people have experienced first hand what that really means. Opposition to the IMF, World Bank, WTO and WEF is an indication of a steadily strengthening movement against capitalism as a global system - a sign that there is a growing search for a radical, long-term solution. That sentiment can find its expression in rebuilding the forces of socialism internationally.

Socialist Alliance conference

Building a socialist election challenge

AT A time when New Labour are unpopular as never before, the need for the widest possible socialist challenge at the general election is clear.

On 30 September, the Network of Socialist Alliances will be coming together in Coventry at a conference to discuss a general election strategy. In addition to ourselves, the conference will involve several local socialist alliances, the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), and various small left-wing organisations.

As Dave Nellist (Socialist Party councillor and chair of the Socialist Alliance) explains in his report to the conference: "The general election represents an opportunity to mount a far wider socialist election campaign than we have yet achieved."

Unfortunately, the real possibility of a significant, united election campaign is being endangered by the attitude of the SWP and others.

The majority of Socialist Alliance Officers, including the SWP, have agreed a General Election protocol which will, if implemented, lead to the breakdown of the Socialist Alliance general election electoral challenge.

Again, as Dave Nellist explains: "The majority proposals represent an extreme centralisation of the alliance structures, they are designed for a party not for an alliance.

"Since our beginnings in the early 90s, the Socialist Alliances have seen our role as attempting to enable individual socialists, and different socialist, environmental and direct action organisations to work together towards common objectives.

"We have recognised that there were political differences between the constituent parts of the Alliance, but realised that these need not prevent us working together provided it was on a democratic federal basis.

"I believe that it would be a major error to change this approach now, without discussion, under the pressure of the impending election campaign."

Unfortunately, the majority protocol commits the "major error" that Dave Nellist describes. It proposes that the officers of the Socialist Alliance form a small eight-strong Election Committee. It then demands that:

"In proposing candidate(s), the local Socialist Alliance/ group/ campaign concerned will be asked to demonstrate the following requirements [to the Election Committee]:

On the basis of these criteria: "The Election Committee will thus formally endorse local candidates, agents and treasurers." (Majority Protocol Point 5)

This proposal is utterly unworkable. The Socialist Alliance is still a fairly small, relatively untested, organisation. It involves organisations from many different backgrounds, some of which are working together for the first time. It is totally unreasonable to expect them to allow their seats, candidates and agents to be decided by a small, national, and possibly unrepresentative Election Committee.

BY CONTRAST the Socialist Party are proposing a continuation of the federal, democratic approach that the Socialist Alliance has taken up until now.

The aim of the Socialist Alliance should be to encourage as many political organisations, groups of trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners as possible to take part in the Alliance election challenge. This means putting as few obstacles as possible in their path.

We should encourage all organisations to put the name "Socialist Alliance" on the ballot paper, but it should not be made a condition of taking part in the election campaign.

The Socialist Alliance should agree, on the basis of the widest possible consensus, a minimum Election Programme. Any organisation which agrees with this programme, and is prepared to make their support for the Socialist Alliance campaign clear on their election material, should be welcomed on board.

If we are to draw in new, fresh forces that are not currently involved in the Socialist Alliance, it is vital that we take this open inclusive, approach.

Even an election campaign involving only the existing forces in the Socialist Alliance will be endangered by the majority proposals. The Socialist Party is the most experienced of any organisation within the Alliance at running election campaigns.

Initial figures suggest that the constituent parts of the Socialist Alliance are currently thinking of standing in 45 seats, (hopefully this figure will increase). Of these seats 18 will be contested by the Socialist Party (this includes Dave Nellist, the most nationally high profile candidate in the Socialist Alliance, standing in Coventry).

By contrast the movers of the majority proposals (Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance) are intending to stand in one or two seats, and their primary backers, the SWP, are intending to stand in around four. Yet, if the majority proposals are adopted, these organisations will have effective control over our election campaigns. This is unacceptable.

THE SOCIALIST Party takes the Alliance project seriously. We are keen to take part in a united Socialist Alliance election challenge. We believe that such an election campaign could have a significant impact.

If it succeeded in inspiring a layer of workers and youth it could play an important role in speeding up the development of a new workers' party. Such a party will primarily be forged out of events and struggles, nonetheless, campaigning for it is a key task for socialists today.

If a new party is formed, involving tens of thousands of workers, the Socialist Party will throw ourselves wholeheartedly into building it. In the course of steps towards a new party we would discuss with others what further organisational forms would be necessary, as we were keen to do when the Socialist Labour Party was launched.

However, the Socialist Alliance is currently, although it includes a number of important local campaigning organisations and alliances, primarily made up of members of existing political organisations.

Therefore, we believe it is vital that the Socialist Alliance continues to organise on the principle of the united front. This means that we continue to unite the participating forces on the basis of a common socialist platform, while allowing organisations, groups, and individuals the right to uphold their own political positions.

This is the best way, at this stage, for achieving an effective election campaign of the existing socialist forces. We appeal to all members of the Socialist Alliance to take this position on 30 September.

New Labour in Crisis

A Turning Point in Britain