Emancipation & Liberation

I have come to Dublin to set our aspirations for Scotland’s future.
Alex Salmond, speaking at Trinity College, Dublin, 13.2.2008

There two official economic visions currently being offered to the electorates of these islands. The first has been promoted by Blair, Brown and New Labour. Their British imperial vision involves bowing and scraping before the rich and powerful, and subordination to the interests of big business, whilst flying the union jack.

The second vision initially had a more limited appeal – to the electorate of the 26 counties of the Irish Republic. Successive Fianna Fail governments have bowed and scraped before the rich and powerful, and have subordinated themselves to the interests of big business, whilst flying the Irish tricolour. This ‘alternative’ vision has been labelled the ‘Celtic Tiger’.

The night before St. Valentine’s Day, Alex Salmond declared his love for the ‘Celtic Tiger’, when he made a keynote speech to politicians, businessmen and union leaders, at Trinity College, Dublin. Only in Scotland’s case this vision is to be marketed as the ‘Celtic Lion’, and is to be labelled with a saltire. Salmond hopes to build a wider alliance, bringing in the new administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland, to promote a common front of ‘Celtic Tigers’, ‘Lions’ ‘Dragons’, and perhaps, ‘Red Hands’, against the beleaguered British New Labour vision, now clouding over after the collapse of Northern Rock.

So, what can we expect in Scotland, if we go down Salmond’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ road? Scotland’s right wing Policy Institute has highlighted what it sees as the key policies in Ireland’s economic success story. Ever since the launching of the 1987 National Economic Plan, Irish governments have pursued a policy of slashing corporate taxes, so that they now lie at 12%. It has very low inheritance tax. It has encouraged a huge speculative property boom, mightily helped by some of the loosest planning regulations to be found anywhere. New infrastructure projects are done under PFI schemes. In other words, Irish governments do whatever big business wants. A series of corruption charges, going to the very highest levels of the Irish government, have underlined this.

A key feature of this pattern of development has been the neglect of social investment in housing, education and health. The private sector has been given responsibility for dealing with this and, as usual, is highly selective in its approach. Increasing swathes of society are left trapped in poor quality peripheral housing schemes. The labour shortfall is made up by importing migrant labour, forced to live on low wages in sub-standard, overcrowded accommodation.

Poor shape

A decade ago, Ireland’s outdated physical infrastructure was in a very poor shape. Now, with business interests demanding change, new motorways are being rapidly built. This is being done with total disregard for Ireland’s historical heritage, particularly in the case of the new M3 near the ancient Celtic site of Tara. The Irish government now allows National Monuments to be destroyed, if they interfere with the plans of big business. Where people need new infrastructure, however, there is no such haste, as the scandal of Galway’s contaminated public water supply has highlighted.

However, perhaps the starkest example of the ‘Celtic Tiger’s subordination to big business, has been Shell’s development of the Corrib gasfield, located off the coast of north Mayo. Ray Burke, former Minister of Communication and Energy, now facing corruption charges, made the following deal, when in office. The Irish state undertook to pay Shell’s exploration and development costs. Shell would pay no royalties to the Irish government. Shell was given executive powers to undertake compulsory access and purchase orders for the land it wanted at Rossport to build a new refinery. Irish citizens became, in effect, Shell’s corporate subjects.

Mike Cunningham, former director of the Irish Statoil, said that, No country in the world gives as favourable terms to the oil companies as Ireland. The World Bank considered Ireland to be a softer touch than even Nigeria. It was here that Shell had brought about devastation to the Niger Delta lands occupied by the Ogoni people. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni’s best-known public advocate, was executed by the Nigerian military government in 1995.

In 2005, the Rossport Five were imprisoned for 94 days by the Irish government, at the behest of Shell. They had protested against Shell’s proposed seizure of their land in Mayo, and the construction of a dangerous high pressure gas pipeline, near to their homes and community. They were only released after massive protests. Nevertheless, Shell got their way and are proceeding to build an onshore refinery, against the wishes of the local community, who campaigned for one built offshore – ‘Shell to Sea’.

Policy Scotland and Scotsman writer, Bill Jamieson, made the following observation, when comparing Ireland and Scotland. The loose planning system… is in marked contrast to attitudes in Scotland. The planning regime is much stricter. Well, that is until the US property tycoon, Donald Trump, made his demands. Then, the SNP administration, and fawning local media, went into hyper drive to bulldoze local objections to Trump’s proposed development of the environmentally sensitive, Balmedie Beach, on the Aberdeenshire coast.

Trump wants to build 2 championship golf courses, a 5 star luxury hotel, 1000 holiday homes, and 36 luxury villas. He even has the nerve to invoke his one-time, croft dwelling, Lewis mother, as an inspiration for a development that will amount to a new ‘clearance’, as far as public access goes. ‘Mactrump Towers’ has all the hallmarks of yet another exclusive gated development for the very rich. Trump has also pushed for the cancellation of the proposed offshore wind farm, important for the development of renewable energy. It might offend his ‘guests’. And, just like Ireland’s National Monuments, so Scotland’s Special Sites of Scientific Interest, may well prove expendable too, if Trump gets the final go-ahead.

Of course, Jack McConnell, when he was Scottish First Minister, personally lobbied Donald Trump in New York. Under the new SNP administration, any ‘McTrump Towers’ reception centre may have to fly the saltire instead of the union jack. But whether its New Labour, SNP, or Fianna Fail, ‘It’s business as usual’.

by Neil Bennet

What do you want?

It’s a question that we, as revolutionary socialists (or communists) face more often than any other when talking about our politics. We are more than happy to tell people what we are against – war, exploitation, suffering, injustice…but more often than not, when it comes to telling people exactly what it is we stand for, our answers fall short.

We might point out, for example that we stand for real socialism, for a democratic socialism – and contrast this with what was called ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ in the Soviet Union, for the propaganda purposes of both sides of the Cold War.

But what does this really mean?

None of the phrases we might use goes into much detail about what an alternative to capitalism, a ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ economy, might look like. What do we imagine the structures of such an economy to be? And how will it function?

These are questions that the socialist movement, and even the broader global anti-capitalist movement cannot leave unanswered. Sure we can make powerful and legitimate demands – from shutting down the WTO and stopping climate change to scrapping the council tax and getting free school meals. But without an economic vision, our campaigning will lack structure and direction, and we will struggle to convince more people to join us in the fight if we cannot articulate more clearly what it is we are fighting for.

An economic vision

As a starting point for exploring the question of what socialism might look like, it is important to discuss what an economy is, and what features characterise the different possible forms one might take.

The primary functions of any economy are the production, allocation and consumption of goods and services. Historically the most important division for socialists has been concerning ownership – that is who owns the means of production. However other things can influence class relationships in an economy just as powerfully, and must be considered when proposing a good economy or socialist economic model. But first let’s look at the basic differences between economic systems.

The two defining features of capitalism are the private ownership of the means of production (utilised for profit) and a market allocation system – that is a system where buyers and sellers attempt to maximise their own advantage at the expense of the other. There are many other features which flow from these, such as massive hierarchies of wealth and power, wage slavery and remuneration (payment) according to output and bargaining power. However ownership and market allocation are the aspects that define an economy as ‘capitalist’ in the commonly understood sense, so let’s stick with those.

So what other models have existed in the past? The most obvious answer is the command economy that existed in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Block countries. What had changed in these places that differentiated them from capitalism? Well ownership has certainly changed – in place of private capitalists we have an authoritarian state. And market allocation no longer exists, having been replaced with central planning performed by the state bureaucracy. But which of the injustices of capitalism does this actually resolve? Jobs still exist in a hierarchy – with people at the top having greater access to wealth and power, compared to those at the bottom. Some people are still forced into demeaning work for little reward, while other use power to gain privilege, and privilege to gather yet more power. In fact by concentrating power in ever fewer hands, command economies create new horrors, distinct but comparable to those inherent in capitalism.

What about ‘market socialism’? In this model (such as could have said to have been attempted in Tito’s Yugoslavia) ownership is distinct from capitalism, the means of production either being owned by the state, or by workers collectively. However the market allocation remains, the profits ostensibly shared amongst the workforce. So the question arises – do markets themselves have a negative impact on the people in an economy, or are they only so destructive when combined with private ownership? I think the answer becomes obvious if we again look at the defining features of a market – that is selfishly motivated buyers and sellers, prices determined by competition, profit and surplus maximisation and remuneration according to output and bargaining power – again necessitating hierarchical corporate divisions of labour.

So we have reached a crossroads.

We understand that no current or historical economic model achieves what we want to achieve. So what model can? Well first we have to consider what it is exactly that we want from our economic system.

An economy of values

What do we want our economy to do? We know we want it to produce, allocate and consume things, and we know we want to avoid the destructive and unjust qualities of other systems. So what values should our economy promote? Advocates of Parecon (or participatory economics) suggest they should be the same values we hold as important: equity, diversity, solidarity, and participatory self management. The last of those values is of fundamental importance, and is reflective of what should be meant when we talk of democratic socialism – that is that decisions should be made democratically by people in proportion to how much they are affected by those decisions.

Parecon overview

What are the important questions we have to answer when proposing a new economic model? What areas merit our attention when deciding on the institutions our model needs? The points highlighted below should be of primary concern:

• how people should be remunerated (paid)
• how workplaces should be organised
• how decision-making should take place
• how we can settle on what is produced and consumed

Remuneration due to effort and sacrifice

How do we define a just form of economic remuneration? Marx wrote From each according to ability: to each according to need. But is that an accurate picture of a just economy? And is it a realistic one?

I would suggest that it is not – that it is utopian and fails to take into account a concept of just rewards – making it wholly unworkable. What then are the alternative norms of remuneration we could consider? The forms that exist currently are mixed, and dependent on many variables. Income can be determined by output (i.e. the productive output of you as an individual), by bargaining power, by some natural advantage (perhaps you a smarter or stronger than I am), or often simply by luck. Under capitalism greed and cunning are also useful attributes in maximising your income.

However none of these could be said to just. There is no moral reason why someone should have more money because they were born into a rich family, happened to have a particularly useful skill, or worse because they lacked compassion for their fellow human beings.

The only just way for workers to be remunerated in an economy is according to effort and sacrifice.

In other words it is not economic output that should be measured in a just socialist economy, but the amount of work someone puts in – that is how hard they work and for how many hours. Who can determine how much effort and sacrifice is expended? Peers in the same workplace would presumably be better able the mos to determine such a thing. What’s more, in an optimal economy, effort and sacrifice would tend towards an average – meaning most people would be remunerated to a similar degree, variation occurring mostly in number of hours worked. But more on this later.

But let’s go back to Marx’s catch-all phrase first. There is something I’ve neglected to account for above. There will of course in any economy be those unable to work – be they too old, in hospital, incapacitated etc. Here Marx’s phrase comes into some relevance, as there are those with need but without ability. According to Parecon, those unable to work (and those between jobs) should be remunerated according to social averages. That is they should be paid as if doing the ‘average’ amount of work in an economy – that way neither gaining significantly nor losing out significantly from being unable to work. Of course medical treatment etc should be considered a social cost and underwritten by all.

Balanced job complexes

Orthodox Marxist theory defines two social classes – the capitalist class (who own the means of production) and the working class (who sell their labour to the capitalists). In other words the class system is solely down to ownership of the means of production. Sure there are other sub-classes described, but that is the basic model as understood by most.

Advocates of Parecon see things differently. Ask any regular worker about their job, and what pisses them off about it, what do you think they will say? Will they name some remote venture capitalist, or board of investors?

Or will they tell you how their boss treats them like shit?

Pareconists define three broad economic classes. As well as the capitalists and the majority working class, there is a third class situated between the two know as the ‘coordinator’ class. These coordinators include managers, professionals, doctors, lawyers, academics. They have a large degree of empowerment in their workplace, are often in charge of others and usually receive far greater levels of income than the majority working class. They have their own class interest – acting (like the working class) for greater gains and concessions from the capitalists, but at the same time trying to maintain their position of privilege and power over the majority working class.

Economists estimate the coordinator class to compose around 20% of the working population in developed countries such as in Western Europe and the USA.

It is this class of people that – with the absence of the capitalists – came to power in the Soviet Union.

And while we continue to allow this class division to exist, we will never achieve true equality of circumstance. Workplace hierarchies are an anathema to equity and diversity, and so have no place in a socialist economy.

So what is the answer? If we are to rid ourselves of the capitalist divisions of labour, what are we to replace them with? Parecon’s answer is the ‘balanced job complex’.

Put simply our demand is that everyone should do their fair share empowering, interesting work, and their fair share rote, boring, or unpleasant tasks. As we have already decided on remuneration according to effort and sacrifice, if we were to maintain capitalist labour divisions, people doing crappy jobs would be paid more for their extra sacrifice. This would be just, but would undermine equity. Similarly those doing more empowering jobs would be more able to take part in decision making, meaning others would be overpowered and lose all relative influence. This would undermine self-management and democracy.

If however peoples work is balanced into a variety of empowering and rote tasks, so that everyone’s job is more or less equal (though all very different), we re-enforce all the values we seek to promote.

Of course certain workplaces will sometimes have more or less empowering tasks than the social average. In these circumstances individual workers will have to spend some of their working week (or month, or quarter etc) in another workplace, in order to balance their complex.

Workplace decision-making

At the moment in capitalist workplaces, with corporate hierarchies, decision making is concentrated in the hands of the few. At the top level the capitalists decide where to invest their money. Below that decision making powers are monopolised by high-level management – whose decisions are influenced less by the needs of the workers or consumers, but more by the need for company profit and their own power within the organisation.

In a parecon workplace – where as we have established all workers will be paid according to effort and sacrifice for doing more-or-less balanced job complexes – decisions will be made by the whole workforce. But not by some abstract mechanism of majority rule. Rather each individual worker will have a say relevant to how each decision affects him or her. So if we are deciding which colour to paint your office, only you have the power to influence that decision, as only you are affected by it to any large extent (presuming you don’t share the office, and you don’t choose extravagantly expensive paint!). If however a decision affects a whole team – such as hiring a new colleague – then that decision must be made by the team as a whole, using norms they themselves have agreed upon. This system of democratic decision-making would form part of a working day, and would be paid for as such.

Larger scale decisions – such as on workload, productive outputs etc – for whole workplaces or even whole industries would be conducted by democratic councils of workers, with each group or department sending a delegate. Delegates would of course be immediately recallable and all decision-making and background information available to all. This brings us neatly onto the process itself.

Participatory planning

Readers may be familiar with the participatory budgeting, as practised by some Workers Party controlled local authorities in Brazil, such as in Porto Alegre. In these projects the limited local budget is controlled directly by delegated popular assemblies – an example of a community taking control of public spending and deciding its own priorities. This could be described as a form of participatory planning, only limited to social consumption. In a parecon, we would apply a similar model to the whole of the economy, for both production and consumption.

Participatory planning is the form of allocation system we describe as an alternative to markets and the central planning of the command economies. The main process is that of council democracy – both of workers in a workplace or industry, and of consumers in a community. The reasons for this are quite simple – every worker is also a consumer – that is they have two specific relationships within the economy. If we want a democratic economy we have to democratise both these relationships.

So how does the participatory economy settle on what is to be produced and consumed in any given time?

At the start of each planning period (say a year) every individual makes a proposal of how much they want to work, and how much they want to consume. This is easier than it sounds – last years production and consumption information will be available, so any changes can be considered relative to this. These proposals are taken to workplace and community councils and combined into joint proposals. These proposals are delegated to higher level councils and federations of councils, until at the end of the first round of planning there are full production and consumption proposals for the whole economy.

Now after this first round, it is quite likely that consumption proposals and production proposals do not match. These initial proposals are submitted to what are known as Iteration Facilitation Boards (IFBs). These would process the submissions, generating indicative prices based on the value of social inputs needed to produce different products and services. Based on these values, as well as all available qualitative information, people reassess there proposals and come up with new ones. This is repeated several times (i.e. iteratively) until consumption and production proposals are reasonably close, and a workable plan is created.

It should be made clear that the IFBs hold no economic power – they will simply be making calculations based on various data and socially agreed algorithms. In fact most of the process could be automated. To the extent that work has to be done, the IFBs would be a workplace like any other and subject to the same conditions of remuneration and balanced job complexes. If there was still any concern over the possibility of IFBs employees gaining some undue economic influence, the positions could be rotated amongst many individuals. However this would be exceedingly cautious.

Socialism for the 21st century?

Described above are the basic attributes of the parecon model of a democratic socialist or communist economy. I hope from this introduction that I have at the very least convinced you of the need for economic vision. I hope too that you might consider that some of the arguments for participatory economics make sense, and that you might be interested enough to explore these ideas further.

If so, I suggest you visit the website, or read some of the many books and articles on the subject by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel – the principal proponents of Parecon. immediately recallable and all decision-making and background information available to all. This brings us neatly onto the process itself.

Allan Armstrong why workers should support an active boycott of the Euro referendum

The rise of the populist and fascist Right in Europe

The rise of the populist and fascist Right in the Netherlands, France and England has caused considerable debate amongst the Left throughout Europe. We cannot be complacent in Scotland, just because the far Right is a negligible force here at present. Racism, sectarianism and both British and Scottish nationalism have deep roots in Scottish society, providing combustible material for far Right parties if circumstances permit, or if the Left provides them with the opportunity.

One issue which unites all the Right populist and fascist parties in Europe is opposition to the euro currency. All moves towards greater European integration are anathema to parties whose prime purpose is to promote a single national culture backed by a strong national state. Much of the initial support for the far Right comes from traditional conservatives nostalgically looking back to the glories of their states imperialist past. However, whether it be in Rotterdam, Marseilles, the former Red Belt of Paris, or Burnley and Oldham, the far Right has managed to extend its support to working class areas which traditionally gave their vote to social democratic and Labour or even to Communist Parties.

One reason for this is that the far Right parties increasingly address the concerns of workers – the decline of traditional industries, the decay of public housing, the rundown of local schools and community facilities. These were once the concerns of social democratic and Labour parties too. However, both continental social democrats and, in particular New Labour, now openly declare that the only way that such issues can be dealt with is by bowing to the needs of the global corporations and handing public welfare over to private companies. Meeting genuine human needs is a very low priority for the fast-buck, profit seekers of turbo-capitalism. Therefore, not surprisingly, support for the Labour Party is evaporating in its former strongholds. This is where the far Right hopes to make its biggest gains.

The current worldwide anti globalisation movement still remains most strongly associated in the public’s mind with anarchists, left populists and socialists. However, we are now seeing the spectacle of the far Right opposing globalisation by defending traditional national state welfare measures once associated with the social democratic and official Communist Left. Once this common ground with the traditional Left has gained the far Right a working class audience, they then promote their own distinct theories and policies.

To the far Right, those promoting globalisation are seen as an alien and evil conspiratorial elite. Global conspirators seek to undermine traditional national culture through the promotion of large scale immigration designed to swamp and dilute traditional national cultures, in the process weakening traditional community defences. Thus the far Right makes an emotional appeal, heightening the feeling of insecurity by pointing to the threat from above represented by the anti national globalisers; and to the threat from below represented by all those from different ethnic cultures now living in our state.

The Right against the euro

It is not surprising therefore that opposition to the
euro represents a natural stamping ground for the far Right in the UK. Defence of the pound allows the fascists to pose as the opposition to the foreign globalisers and their anti national allies at home. The pound isn’t just seen as an economic symbol, but as a powerful political and cultural symbol too. It conjures up British imperialism’s mighty past, when the pound sterling was the international currency and when Britannia ruled the waves, (as well as waiving the rules lesser states had to abide by!). The monarch’s head also provides a symbol for all the authoritarian Crown powers the British state has at its disposal, putting the Great into Great Britain.

By making such links, the issue of the euro offers the fascists potential allies amongst the populist Right in the UK Independence Party and the Tory Eurosceptics. By joining together powerful City interests, middle-sized companies and many small businessmen, farm and fishing boat owners, the decidedly Right wing nature of the No to the euro campaign can be clearly seen.

Therefore the Left in the UK should take warning from Denmark. Here the SSP’s fraternal organisation, the Red-Green Alliance, decided to oppose the Euro-bosses and bureaucrats by joining the anti-euro campaign in 2000. They celebrated a No referendum victory by waving their red flags amongst crowds rather ominously displaying many more Danish national flags. When the Danish general and local elections were held the next year, the Red-Green Alliance lost one of its parliamentary and two of its council seats, However, the far Right Danish People’s Party, which had also campaigned vigorously against the euro, increased its parliamentary representation from 13 to 22!

In this country, unlike Denmark, there are major capitalist interests, represented by the Tories, who are also in the No camp. This makes the situation even more dangerous for the Left in the UK. If the Left tries to join this much wider Right on the Nos playing field, they are only going to be small bit players. Any criticisms of the game being played by our team mates are going to be brushed aside.

The day after a referendum, any victory for the ‘No’ camp would reaffirm the independent power of the Bank of England, of powerful City interests, along with those Tories competing with Tony Blair to be even keener advocates of a US/UK imperialist alliance. It would do little good for the Socialist Alliances and the SSP to wave their red flags, claiming we fought the campaign for better wages and conditions. Our voice would be drowned in a sea of union jacks, whilst those few remaining worker’s rights would come under an immediate and increased attack by an alliance of Right wing politicians and bosses, who would feel their day had arrived. No, the only other winners would be the fascist BNP, who would have waved their union jacks even more furiously and shouted their loyalty even more loudly than the Tories. The BNP can also look to their No camp allies in the European populist and fascist far Right, who, in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany and Spain have all made opposition to the euro a central issue. Le Pen travelled to Brussels to make an anti-euro speech days after he came second in the first round of the French Presidential elections.

Left nostalgia gives succour to the Right

However, it isn’t the populist Right and the fascists’ intentions to confine their appeal to traditional conservative supporters. They want to construct a Right-led popular front, which reaches deep into the working class, splitting us on ethnic lines and dividing the Left. And there can be nothing more corrupting of and demoralising for the Left than to be drawn on to the rocks of defending the national state and culture.

This is why the BNP is openly challenging the Left on its own declared territory by claiming to be the defendants of the post-1945 Labour welfare state and working class communities. When fascists link their defence of welfare provision to defence of the state, it has indeed found the Achilles heel of much of the Left today. This is why it is most disturbing to find powerful supporters for a No to the euro campaign amongst the ISM, SW and CWI Platforms (as well as supporters of Socialist Outlook) in the SSP, and outside their ranks in the SLP and Morning Star camps.

All these Left forces like to wear the cloak of old Labour in public, proudly displaying their post-1945 Labour welfare state golden days colours. Yet, it was always the case that Labour leaders’ commitment to welfare reforms was part of a social imperialist deal with the British ruling class. For thirty years, the British ruling class was prepared to accept the welfare state on condition that Labour promoted British imperialist interests in the world. From Greece, India, Malaya and Palestine, to Rhodesia and Ireland and now in the Gulf, Kosova, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, Labour leaders have faithfully kept to their side of the deal, long after the British ruling class has reneged on its part.

Today global corporations, British included, have largely escaped the one-time constraints imposed by national state governments. They are in the process of creating new transnational institutions to advance and defend their interests – the WTO, IMF and NATO and new regional power blocs such as the EU and FTAA. Therefore the old deal has collapsed. Guaranteed pay rises and improved conditions have given way to labour flexibility. Welfare has given way to austerity and permanent war.

Even in the heyday of old Labour’s social imperialism, welfare was very much the junior dependant. However, with an organised British national Labour Movement it was possible to extract real concessions from a British national ruling class. But Old Labour, whether in office or as her majesty’s loyal opposition, was completely unprepared to fundamentally challenge a British ruling class which offered it some small slices of the imperialist cake. Today New Labour has accepted that its bargaining power is limited to squabbling with other states over the crumbs that fall from the global corporations’ tables.

Indeed, having an organised Labour Movement is counter productive for New Labour. The new global corporations, unlike the old British bosses, can up and off if they feel they are being put upon. Therefore the former, very British deal between the representatives of British Labour and the British ruling class has been abandoned. Now we have New Labour’s give-aways and knock-down offers to the US, Japanese, German and, of course, British global corporations. This is done in a desperate attempt not to be left out in the worldwide Dutch auction of pay and conditions.

Just as workers can not conjure up the days when (a limited number of) Victorian local employers showed paternalist and philanthropist concern for their workers, neither can we just conjure up the days of old Labour’s national welfare state (which were also decidedly limited, particularly if you were a woman or black).

To construct a national welfare state behind a protectionist wall in today’s global capitalist environment means promoting national austerity when the cost of necessary imported goods goes through the roof. It means promoting heightened ethnic conflict as migrant workers are locked out and targeted minority cultures are scapegoated. It means large-scale repression of all internal opposition. It means moves to war to control access to needed raw materials and to impose strict military discipline on society. Fascists of course are prepared to do all of these things, even if they are coy at present in spelling out the logic of their politics in public. Whatever temptations there may be for today’s Left to nostalgically invoke the golden days of old Labour, it should be clear that the terrain on which we fight the global corporations can not be defence of the national state or its institutions, including whatever currency it sponsors. Today the Tories may loudly defend the pound in your pocket, yet at all other times they try their damnest to ensure it is only pennies in our purses!

Of course, the welfare reforms, securer employment, better working conditions and rising living standards won after the Second World War and in particular, during the late 60’s and early 70’s, should be widely celebrated by the Left. Yet, despite the many false claims, they weren’t really the gift of Labour politicians, but were largely won through hard fought class struggle. Indeed, it was always at the points when our class left it to Labour politicians to deliver reforms, that they were either diluted or snatched away. The UK state exists firstly to defend British ruling class interests, so our class’s needs are always going to be a low priority. Yet, it is precisely to this state that social democrats and later the official Communists, with their British (state) road to socialism always looked for their reforms.

This is why those in the SSP and Socialist Alliances, who wish to create a new, Old Labour Party, could lead our class to serious defeats. The populist and fascist Right are competing on the same national state grounds as this traditional Left. The former want to use the state to impose their counter-reforms, the latter to introduce its proposed reforms. Despite all those loudly ringing warning bells, whether from Denmark, Austria, France or closer to home, in Lancashire, it is nostalgia for old Labour and the British welfare state, which is still pushing many socialists into the camp of the Right in defence of the pound.

Some on the Left, of course, will insist on separate campaigns, refusing to join Right wing platforms. But on referendum day the only issue being voted on is for or against the euro or the pound. There will be no box to mark an X for better wages and conditions!

The false arguments of the No and Yes groups

Now, if willingness to adopt old Labour clothing goes a long way to explain how some on the Left end up giving succour to the Right, what possible arguments can they use to justify this?

The starting point for their reasoning is correct. Those promoting the euro, including Blair’s New Labour government, are acting on behalf of existing and would-be European global corporations. They seek a strengthened European Union to pursue their global interests, seeing the existing European national states as too small for effective competition on the world market. They also see the significance of the EU’s Maastricht Convergence Criteria which imposed a 3% of GDP limit on supporting governments’ deficit spending. This is meant to force governments to cutback on welfare spending. Labour costs are then lowered and new opportunities for further privatisation measures are provided.

However, despite the claims of some on the Left, Blair doesn’t want the UK to join the eurocurrency zone to enforce these measures over here. He doesn’t need to! This was achieved by the Tories and has been massively reaffirmed by Gordon Brown. Indeed Chancellor Brown went further, showing his commitment to meeting the City’s requirements for financial stability and spending discipline above all else, by ending government control of the Bank of England and handing it over to Eddie George.

Yet there is a division of opinion in the City over the pound versus the euro. The City has been able to make large profits out of growing European monetary integration by offering itself as an off-shore tax haven for euro-finance. From this point of view, the City benefits both from the growing strength of the euro-zone and by remaining outside it – a bit like the Isle of Man in relation to the UK! However, others in the City see that the Frankfurt, Paris and Milan finance centres are not going to accept this British offshore status for ever and may encourage EU bureaucrats to take retaliatory measures. Those in the City taking this view, realise that their interests may be better advanced by joining the euro and using the City’s considerable expertise to capture a greater share of the increased business inside an expanded eurozone.

There is obviously a similar division amongst British industrial and service companies. Some would have preferred Blair not to have signed up to the EU’s Social Chapter, so that British labour costs could have remained lower, the better to undercut German, French, Italian and other businesses on the mainland EU market. Others, also looking to the EU market, want to be on the inside, the better to deal with the challenge of US and Japanese corporations.

Blair’s appeal to British companies with sizeable European operations doesn’t lie in seeking their support to impose criteria which have already been met. He wants their support for a joint offensive, alongside his new Right wing allies, Italy’s Berlusconi and Spain’s Aznar, to undermine the Social Chapter and lower labour costs from within the eurozone.

Now there is a small group inside the SSP, including ex-Labour Lefts, Allan Green and Hugh Kerr, who appreciate that, in general, social provision in most EU member countries is considerably better than in the UK. A welfare gap has opened up between UK and French, Italian and German workers, after years of old and new Tory rule particularly since the crushing of the Miners’ Strike. Whilst Blair immediately signed up to the Social Chapter when New Labour gained office in 1997, this was a political ploy. Acceptance of the Social Chapter was mainly to gain access to the inner corridors of EU power. No inspectorate has been set up to ensure that superior European employment laws are implemented at work over here – they all still have to be fought for, workplace by workplace, industry byindustry. Blair wants to work from inside the EU to dismantle these.

What would a ‘Yes’ and ‘No campaign look like – choose your poison

The logic of the SSP’s pro-euro camp is to form an alliance with the small group of Left Europarliamentarians, to defend and extend the Social Chapter. The scope of such a campaign is likely to be fairly limited – a few public meetings with distinguished international parliamentarians and polite lobbies at Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels. The SSP’s pro-euro Left like to pretend the EU flag already has sixteen stars (one for Scotland) on a radical red background, rather than fifteen stars on a conservative blue background. Hugh Kerr goes along with this illusion, drawing some comfort from the Alex Neil’s shrinking social democratic wing of the SNP which entertains similar illusions. In the meantime, the free marketeers of the growing SNP Right, led by John Swinney, join with the European bosses’ pro euro advocates, dropping more and more old social market baggage as they go.

The logic of the SSP’s anti-euro camp is to seek unity and make an agreement with the Right over a division of labour in the campaign. This would be the best way to maximise the No vote and therefore to defeat Tony Blair. Back in 1975 when a then Labour Left and CPGB alliance led the Left opposition to Common Market membership, we saw the walls of trades councils adorned with union jacks behind a platform of trade union officials, Labour and Tory politicians. This unholy popular front extended from Tony Benn and Michael Foot to Enoch Powell and Teddy Taylor! It was but a short step from this unity behind the national flag to that disastrous pact in the national interest between the Labour government and trade union leaders – the Social Contract (soon to be termed the Social Contrick).

Indeed we don’t have to go so far back to see a trade union and labour movement campaign following the full logic of such nationalist thinking. When British Leyland’s Rover plant at Longbridge was threatened with closure; instead of strike action, occupation and the seeking of wider solidarity, the campaign decked itself out in full red, white and blue colours, looking for a patriotic employer to save the day. Despite a few face-saving red flags, any No campaign would be similarly swamped with union jacks and ultimately provide as little real comfort for workers.

An argument used by both the SSP’s pro and anti-euro groups is that we must take sides. However, the anti-euro camp claim that many more workers are instinctively against the euro, so that is why we should join the No camp. The weakness of these arguments should soon become apparent. It took a hard political battle to persuade many socialists that it wasn’t necessary to automatically side with Labour in general elections, even though many workers still instinctively voted for them. The SSP was built by standing against both Tory and New Labour (as well as the populist SNP). It is precisely these two parties which are leading the No and Yes campaigns and whoever wins, neither has the slightest intention of improving our pay and conditions.

Then our No and Yes camps fall back on their last ditch defence. So, you are arguing for an abstention campaign, they say. Who will be listening? Now, an abstention campaign would actually be better than a political campaign which helped to build the hard Right or Blair and the Eurocrats. However, what socialists should really be arguing is for an Active Boycott Campaign.

An Active Boycott Campaign – the recent European experience

Here, the recent developments in Europe are most instructive. When Le Pen won the first round of the recent French presidential election, the Left – not only the Socialist and Communist Parties, went into a panic. How was Le Pen to be stopped? The French ruling class, which currently does not want a Le Pen victory, pushed out all the stops to ensure a Chirac victory. The Socialist Party and CPF quickly obliged by offering their support against the fascist danger. Yet the slogan, Better a thief than a fascist proved to have considerable pulling power over the revolutionary Left too. As a result they gave out mixed messages in the run-up to the second round play-off.

The problem with recommending a Chirac vote is the reason Le Pen beat Jospin in the first round is that the revolutionary Left gained an unprecedented 11% of the vote, much of it from the Socialist Party. Yet the revolutionary Left were quite right to offer an alternative to all those voters disillusioned with the Jospin-led government. However, if you later accept that the main priority is to keep out the fascist, then the logic is that the revolutionary Left shouldn’t have stood in the first place – something that many French Socialist Party members are openly saying! Now the rise of the National Front vote in France is indeed disturbing, but there was no real threat of a fascist takeover – or even a Le Pen presidential victory. His National Front did not have control of the streets and was not ready to March on Paris. The only real political gain for Le Pen was to be seen as the only remaining opposition to the establishment when the second round election took place.

However, elections are just one form of political action, which actually demand relatively little from the voter. Street mobilisations are another more significant form, particularly when they put strict limits on the fascists’ room for manoeuvre.

And it was precisely this alternative which exploded with elemental force from the hour the Le Pen vote was announced on April 21st. It began with thousands in the streets on that night and culminated, on May Day, in a 400,000 demonstration in Paris (with hundreds of thousands elsewhere), which dwarfed the National Front march of 10,000. But there was clearly an alternative to voting for Chirac. What if the revolutionary Left had thrown its whole weight behind a refusal to vote for Chirac, increasing the abstentions significantly, and hence increasing Le Pen’s proportion of the vote, what would have been the real effect? First, hundreds of thousands of workers, students and others actively mobilised is a much more potent force than even millions of passive voters. Many of those most angry were young people with no vote. What was their opinion? The Sunday Herald reported that one 15 year old declared that, If Le Pen becomes president, it’ll be a civil war… and I think I’ll fight in that war (28.4.02). And given the relative strengths of the Left and the Rights’ mobilisations over this period, there can be little doubt that Le Pen would have been forced to retreat, particularly since the French ruling class don’t support his anti-EU policies.

However, the revolutionary Left could have gone further and suggested an alternative combination of direct action and voting tactics. Whilst continuing mass mobilisation on the second round election day itself, they could have encouraged people to spoil their ballot paper. They could have provided No to Le Pen, No to Chirac or No to Thieves and Fascists stickers for the ballot papers. Interestingly, even without such clear guidance, 1,738,609 voters (or 4.4%) spoiled their ballot papers. An organised Left campaign could have built on this, but more importantly it could have shown those people disillusioned with the establishment parties, that there was indeed a real alternative, helping to deprive Le Pen of being the sole claimant to this mantle.

This is what an Active Boycott Campaign would look like. But our SSP No and Yes campaigners may still object – the UK and even Scotland isn’t France. This only shows how little they have appreciated the significance of anti-globalisation/ anti-capitalist mobilisations, not least in Genoa and Barcelona.

Making the European Socialist Alliance a real force

Let us look to what we can all agree on in the SSP and Socialist Alliances – workers’ rights are under attack throughout Europe; the campaign for a 35 hour week first initiated in the late 70’s has floundered, particularly in the UK; racist sentiment designed to divide and weaken workers’ organisations is being whipped up against asylum seekers everywhere in the EU. It shouldn’t be difficult to draw up a common platform with our European allies. Indeed, the framework for this already exists in the RCN-initiated, CWI supported and SSP Conference voted resolution on a European Socialist Alliance. We should write to all our fraternal European socialist organisations proposing a meeting to organise a campaign, including international mobilisations to advance an agreed platform.

At present, the front line of the defence of employment rights lies in Italy. Here the Berlusconi government is trying to end laws which protect workers in small workplaces. On 23rd March a million demonstrators marched through Rome in protest. Our fraternal organisation, Rifondazione Communista was central to this.

The Left in Italy appreciate that Berlusconi has firm allies in Aznar and in Blair (and probably soon in Chirac too!). It should not be difficult to persuade them of the virtue of a series of international demonstrations, as part of their ongoing campaign to defend workers’ rights. If we could make solidarity with the Italian working class part of the European Socialist Alliance platform, then demonstrations in say, Madrid, London and Paris, would seem to fit the bill. When it came to the London demonstration, we could march from the Bank of England to the EU Commission Offices to show our opposition to both sets of bosses, and their New Labour and Tory backers.

In the run-up to any referendum, it would also be good to be able distinguish ourselves from the blatant, red, white and blue trimmed British chauvinist posters of the No campaign; and the liberal pacifistic, No more wars in Europe – lets all be nice Europeans or Shop easier on your European holiday paid hoardings of the Yes campaign. Our street posters could have their main slogans in several languages, whilst our demonstration platform speakers would be drawn from different countries, but all united before a forest of red flags. Lastly on the day itself, we could produce suitable stickers to register our protest in their false choice ballot. Such a campaign would raise the Left’s profile much higher and would certainly avoid the pitfalls of the other alternatives on offer – tailing either the Tory or New Labour No and Yes campaigns. An Active Boycott Campaign would involve us in a far more serious campaign than merely abstaining but the potential gains would be so much greater. We would also be building on firm internationalist principles.

Matthew Jones on an independent working class response to the bosses’ referendum

Neither the European ruling classes, which have created the Euro nor the British capitalist supporters of the pound sterling are friends of the working class. Both are our sworn enemies. The choice being offered to us in this referendum is – a yes vote in support of the Euro or a no vote in support of the pound – not as some would put it Yes in support of Blair and New Labour or No against them.

The nature of money

To understand the class forces at work and where the working class should stand on the Euro it is first necessary to look at the nature of money. Originally precious metals – particularly gold – served as money. Karl Marx pointed out that the high value of gold relative to other commodities was due to the large quantity of labour time taken to produce gold. Historically the value of gold in the modern world market has changed slowly, falling only with the development of new extraction techniques or the discovery of major new deposits with easier workings.

For a time capitalism was able to sustain gold-based currencies as a world currency, a universal equivalent. At this time the gold backed pound sterling and the actual gold sovereign, the currency of Britain, the dominant capitalist power was the international currency. Other, poorer countries such as the various German states had to make do with a paper currency and the demand to import stronger currencies similar to the use of the dollar in Russia today.

Surplus value

However, the basis of all paper currencies is the surplus value extracted from the working class. Surplus value being Marx’s term for the tribute taken from the working class by the capitalist class and bearing a number of labels including profit, interest, rent etc. History shows that the value of each currency depends on the success of each capitalist class in exploiting workers. Where workers are successful in winning concessions then the degree or even the absolut eamount of surplus value extracted by the capitalists will fall, as will the value of the currency. This is called inflation.

The rise of the workers’ movement internationally was heralded by the Paris Commune in 1871 and declared as a fully fledged alternative to capitalist rule by the Russian Revolution of 1917. It forced the gradual abandonment of the link between paper currency and gold – the gold standard- the last vestiges of which were swept away when the Bretton Woods currency system collapsed in 1971.

No accountability

Because money is so central to the operation of capitalism itself there is no way that the capitalist classes can or will concede any democratic control or accountability over their currencies. Only their trusted servants will be allowed anywhere near the system. Thus the notion that the operation of the European Central Bank controlling the Euro is somehow less accountable than the Bank of England controlling the pound is just untrue. Similarly the notion that controls over public spending currently being used in Euroland are significantly worse than the attacks perpetrated by Blair and Brown in the service of British capital is likewise false.

Exploitation of workers

Massive concessions to the working class were institutionalised after 1945 and produced a currency system where for the first time inflation was a permanent feature, for the ruling class and its assorted political servants the war against inflation became code for attacking the working class both nationally and internationally.

In class terms, the conflict between the supporters of the new Euro and those attempting to preserve the pound is a dispute between different factions of the ruling class on how best to maintain the exploitation of the workers. The Euro is a creation of the European Union which at its heart is a deal between the German and French capitalist classes. It is both a pact against the working class in Europe and an attempt to challenge the economic and political dominance of the US capitalist class.

In Britain, those forces supporting the Euro are led by those major manufacturers which remain in Britain plus that section of finance capital, which is either European owned or aligned to interests in the European Union. In some industries, such as cars and chemicals, there is a real fight over whether the Euro or the dollar will be the most significant currency. On the other side, the pound is supported by a large section of finance capital which is seeking to maintain the alliance between the British and US ruling classes plus a majority of small business. The advent of the Euro would undoubtedly mark another attack on sections of small business by large capital.

Anti working class

Both sides of this argument are united in one thing: their absolute determination to maintain the oppression of the working class and to press home further attacks upon it where possible. On one side we have the Tories with their base in small business and the more extreme elements of finance capital supporting the pound and on the other we have Blair with another throughly antiworking class programme.

It is difficult to see how the working class can fight for its own interests other than by calling for a boycott. Both sides of this argument represent the interests of different factions of the British ruling class.

Overthrow of capitalism

The success of the working class in winning concessions from the capitalist class, whether in the form of wage rises and better conditions or better services from the state, undermines money itself by reducing its value through inflation. Whenever the working class comes close to overthrowing capitalism, money automatically becomes worthless because the capitalist class(es) concerned are unable to exploit workers and extract surplus value.

This is not to say that we should not demand more money as part of demanding concessions from capital or the state. But in a future Euro referendum the question will be posed Are you in favour of this money or that money? In other words are you in favour of this set of capitalist interests or the other bunch of bloodsuckers? Our answer must be no – we will fight for a greater share for the working class and for the overthrow of capitalism and it is not in our interests to choose the kind of chains the capitalists want to put on us.

Boycott the Referendum! Fight for Workers’ Interests not those of Capitalists!