Category: General Blogs

General Blogs

Salvador Allende, Revolutionary Democrat – author q@a

Monday, 14 October 2013

Salvador Allende, Revolutionary Democrat – author q@a

Salvador Allende, Revolutionary Democrat 
Pluto Press (£11.50) 
Author Q&A: Victor Figueroa Clark
This eloquent biography of socialist Salvador Allende offers an insight into the man – as a reformer and Marxist – who was president of Chile until he was ousted by General Pinochet in a US-backed coup in 1973. Figueroa Clark also provokes wider discussion on his legacy and global politics.
Why did you write this book?
I’d like Allende to be better known for his life and his Popular Unity (PU) government rather than for the manner of his death. I think his ideas may contain the seeds of how we can strive to achieve a transformation of our own society.
Was there anything in Allende’s formative years that made him a socialist?
Coming from a relatively privileged background, Allende saw the poverty of the mass of the population and was exposed to revolutionary ideas early on. He also had a family tradition of political radicalism and it was a time of revolutions worldwide. He became a medical student and an assistant in a psychiatric hospital, witnessing the brutal effects of inequality and exploitation.
Why did Allende favour the electoral road to socialism over guerilla warfare?
Allende believed Chile had the political structures and culture to enable an unarmed road to political power.
But he was not a pacifist and died defending his government with an AK in hand. His reforms were aimed at transforming society, the economy and the state away from dependent capitalism and towards socialism, not just providing material improvements to the poor.
What measures did Allende’s 1970-73 government introduce to improve the position of the poor and working classes?
The PU legally recognised the trade unions by bringing them into government and the management of nationalised industries. He provided half a litre of milk
to every child per day, vital in reducing malnutrition. A large-scale public housing programme was instituted and public services were extended to the vast shantytowns. His government nationalised the copper industry which continues to provide the bulk of Chile’s income.
Why did Allende commit suicide in 1973?
Allende confronted a violent, illegal military rebellion that was largely stoked and planned in the US. He fought out his last hours in an indefensible position understanding the powerful symbolism of defending the presidential palace and Chilean democracy.
What lessons might his life have for today?
The world remains plagued by poverty, injustice and exploitation. The richest countries still invade and subjugate the poorest. Inequality is growing. Allende said that since governments across the world had failed to deal with these issues, they must be caused by capitalism. Allende and his generation proposed to move away from capitalism. This is something I feel we ought to return to today if we want to overcome the immense challenges facing the world.
General Blogs

Who owns the world? Kevin Cahill Q & A (2007)

Monday, 25 November 2013

Who owns the world? Kevin Cahill q@a in 2007

WHO OWNS THE WORLD – THE HIDDEN FACTS BEHIND LAND OWNERSHIP 
Published in 2007 by Mainstream Publishing and written by Kevin Cahill.
Kevin Cahill is a former army officer who has worked at both Westminster and European parliaments as an adviser and researcher. This expanded upon 2001’s opus, Who Owns Britain, and is the first compilation of landowners and landownership structures in every single one of the world’s 197 states and 66 territories. This is a tome of huge political, economic and social importance.
How was the current pattern of land ownership across the world established?
By force and theft. If you look at the largest landowners now they are all monarchs, the descendants of despots and some of them still despots.
Who are some of the largest landowners in the world and how much land do they own?
The largest individual legal landowners on earth are: Queen Elizabeth II (6.6 billion acres); King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (580 million acres); the Pope (about 177 million acres held in his name); King Bhumibol of Thailand (126 million acres); and King Mohamed V1 of Morocco (110 million acres, excluding the illegally occupied Western Sahara). The Queen owns one- sixth of the planet’s surface.
On what basis do you claim that the Queen is the sole owner of land in the UK?
I do not make a “claim” that the Queen is the sole owner of land in the UK. I merely repeat what the government states in the notes on the Parliamentary website relating to the Registration of Land Act 2002: “The Crown is the only absolute owner of land in England and Wales; all others hold an estate in land, in fee simple.” This is also the case in Australia, Canada and many other places. Freeholders do not own “their land” – fee simple is a medieval term for the sum paid to represent the fact that freehold was actually a tenancy.
Why do you describe the European Union in the book as an “outdoor relief organisation for Europe’s redundant aristocracy”?
Most of the agricultural land of Europe is still owned by European aristocracy and their cousins. Each year they get the bulk of the EU agricultural subsidy. For example, 77,000 landowners: 0.7 per cent of the farm landowners and 0.022 per cent of the European population own about 25 per cent of the farmland – about 112 million acres. They get $12,000 million in subsidy, a quarter of the subsidy.
How has so few people owning land in Europe affected the farmers in undeveloped nations?
There isn’t a direct connection but it works like this. If you are a poor farmer in Bangladesh, trying to grow, say, grain on five unsubsidised acres, you will find your- self trying to sell against someone who gets 113 Euros subsidy an acre in Europe. When issues of scale are thrown in, you have no hope.
Can you explain your claim that the current Chinese rulers are one of the most pragmatic regimes ever to rule one of the world’s great peoples?
The current regime knows that between 210BC and AD1900 Chinese peasant farmers revolted on 2,106 occasions to overthrow the regime on 48 occasions. The 49th in 1949 saw Chiang Kai-shek replaced with Mao when the peasantry lost their lands altogether under the new regime’s farm collectivisation. The current regime is moving to head off a peasant revolt by doling out land.
Now it is rare to find a ruling elite any- where in history which is so busily sowing the seeds of its own elimination but at the same time willing to put prosperity before both its own survival and the good of its people. Socialism as tried in China did not work. So now there is state communist- controlled market capitalism. But the end of that road is multiparty democracy and the rulers of China know this.
Why should people read this book?
To give them a better idea of where we came from, why we are where we are, and how we can get to a better place. This book tells the story of history in terms of the bulk of the world’s people, 97 per cent of whose ancestors never owned anything and 90 per cent of whom currently own nothing and are thus as poor as 97 per cent of humanity has been for the whole 10,000 years of recorded history.
General Blogs

Black Star – Britain’s Asian Youth Movements

Monday, 25 November 2013

BLACK STAR BRITAIN’S ASIAN YOUTH MOVEMENTS book review

BLACK STAR
BRITAIN’S ASIAN YOUTH MOVEMENTS
(Pluto Press, £17.50)
This is a vibrant, compelling history of the anti-racist campaigns of the British Asian youth movements (AYMs) of the 1970s and 1980s,
in which “black” identity was a political colour inspiring unity amongst all those struggling against racism.
Why did you write this book?
After 9/11, South Asians were framed within a traditional cultural-faith discourse. I wanted to represent a history which would present us as communities where politics was central to our identity. The AYMs were secular but the most important aspect was they were anti-racist and anti-imperialist and this understanding is crucial to young South Asians whatever their religious beliefs. AYMs also demonstrated when people stand together against injustice they will win and this is an important lesson for Muslims today faced with resisting anti-terror legislation.
What lay behind the slogan ‘black people must unite, here to stay, here to fight!”
It demonstrated these young south Asians were not trying to exclude themselves from society. But they wanted a Britain in which they were respected and treated equally and in which all individuals had the right to work on a living wage. The slogan highlighted unity amongst all black people which meant Africans and Asians, and even Chileans if they wished, because it was about a unity against racism.
Why did Asian youth find it necessary to organise independently?
Because racism was central to their experience, both as young people suffering street racial violence as well as discrimination by the state who framed them as “problems”. The left and trade unions meanwhile failed to address their own racism. Nevertheless, the youth were clear that the only real force in British society capable of fighting the growth of organised racism and fascism is the unity of the workers movement. They did not want to separate themselves from the left but to work with them as equals.
How did asserting “self-defence is no offence” help the Bradford 12 overcome charges of conspiracy to cause explosives and endanger lives following the police discovery of homemade Molotov cocktails in 1981?
The Bradford 12 was the first time the self-defence law had been used in the context of a community. Many of the key defendants had been involved in the anti-racist struggle. The cocktails were made because of genuine fears that racist skinheads were coming to Bradford to terrorise the Asian community and because the attitudes and previous history of the police in ignoring racist attacks showed they could not be depended upon to offer support. No cocktails were employed and defendants argued they had only produced them for self-defence, “should the need arise”. The case was won because there was a campaign and it was not simply a courtroom drama.
How important was state (local and national) funding in breaking up these once powerful grass roots organisations?
If you are struggling for a mother separated from her children and the law says all your appeal avenues are over then your independence means you can continue to pursue the case for justice as happened in the Anwar Ditta case. If you are struggling against police racism and corruption then you can name the police officers and their violence – as was done in the campaign to protect Gary Pemberton. It is also possible when appropriate to use direct action as a means of protest.  You can’t do this in state funded organisations.
General Blogs

The Assassin’s Mark – David Ebsworth

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Book review – the Assassin’s Mark

The Assassin’s Mark – David Ebsworth

£9.99 SilverWood Books

Dave Ebsworth – who in real-life is former TGWU regional secretary Dave McCall – has written a highly enjoyable and very descriptive novel set in the final year of the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. With the elected Republican government in disarray a confident General Franco has opened up the bloody battlefields along the country’s north coast to invite tourist’s to celebrate his successes and turn a blind eye to the atrocities he – and his Italian and German Allies – has committed.

Peace-loving, naïve left-wing reporter, Jack Telford, is asked by his employer to spend two weeks travelling by bus with a group of visitors that on the surface he has politically little in common with. It’s a journey of great heartbreak but also great beauty and Ebsworth brings both skilfully alive. The author provides vivid descriptions, especially of the architecture and social atmosphere, which helps transport the reader back 75 years.

Finding himself drawn to a right-wing female journalist, Telford can’t help but grow fond of many of his fellow tourists. Especially when the group is captured by Republican guerrillas and rescued by Franco’s forces in the days before a planned meeting with the general when Telford faces being betrayed.

David Ebsworth is the author of The Jacobites’ Apprentice, which was critically reviewed by the Historical Novel Society, who deemed it “worthy of a place on every historical fiction bookshelf”. For more information on Dave’s work visit www.davidebsworth.com

General Blogs

The State in Capitalist Society by Ralph Miliband

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

Book review – The State in Capitalist Society by Ralph Miliband

The Daily Mail last year criticised Ralph Miliband, the father of Labour leader Ed, calling him, because of his Marxist beliefs, “the man who hated Britain.”
The Belgium-born Polish Jew fled with his father to Britain in 1940 after Nazi Germany invaded Belgium. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and gained British citizenship in 1948. He became involved in left-wing politics and made a personal commitment to socialism at the grave of Karl Marx.
Miliband published a number of books during his lifetime. His first in 1961, Parliamentary Socialism, found the Labour Party lacking radicalism and obsessed with retaining the confidence of business and financial interests. This led to an intolerance towards extra-parliamentary actions and failing to offer an alternative to capitalism.
In 1969, Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society was published. It is generally considered his finest piece of work. It is based on how we all live in the shadow of the state and increasingly  depend on its sanction and support.
Miliband’s book challenged the prevailing political orthodoxy that power in Western societies was competitive, fragmented and diffused. As such the state – consisting of the government, the administration, the military and the police, the judiciary, sub-central government (such as regional assemblies) and parliamentary assemblies – could not fail to respond to the demands of competing interests during the decision making process. The notion of a ‘ruling class elite’ was seen as absurd. Consequently capitalism had been radically – and democratically – transformed since its inception during the industrial revolution.
Miliband demonstrated the reverse, highlighting how the increasing concentration of private economic power had already transformed all states into instruments of the giant corporation’s bidding, bringing in its wake massive and growing inequalities. A tiny number of children from working class backgrounds may make it to the very top of society, but the overall structure remains intact as this does not pose a serious challenge to capitalism.
The state, argued Miliband, is partisan when industrial disputes occur and governments – of all political persuasions – will seek to place inhibitions upon organised labour and leave wage-earners in a weaker position compared to employers. ‘Democracy’ also requires ensuring left-wing dissent plays as weak a role as possible. Trade unions are only ‘good’ when they don’t raise excessive wage claims or seek to radically alter society on behalf of working people. Miliband feared that even in advanced capitalist societies such demands would increasingly be met by conservative authoritarianism and the state surveillance and harassment that accompanies it.
Miliband was frustrated because he recognised that productive and technological advances had revealed a material capacity for human liberation but ‘advanced capitalist societies cannot achieve this within the confines of an economic system which remains primarily geared to the private purposes of those who own and control its materials resources……
He sought instead ‘societies with a spirit of sociality and cooperation from their members, a sense of genuine involvement and participation’ and in which ‘the state will be converted from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinated to it.’
Written 44 years ago, the State in Capitalist Society, remains, in the wake of the current neoliberal austerity project, valuable reading today.
General Blogs

NHS SOS – how the NHS was betrayed

Sunday, 18 August 2013

NHS SOS – how the NHS was betrayed book review

The book NHS SOS: how the NHS was betrayed and how we can save it is a painful story that needs reading, and acting upon.

It is the most cherished institution in the country and yet England no longer has a NHS. Getting it back is going to require effective campaigning to ensure that a future Labour Government keeps to their public promises to reverse the legislation adopted under the current Coalition Government.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 has ended 65 years of universal health care in the form of equal access to comprehensive care irrespective of personal income.  The Health Secretary has now only to promote rather than provide health care by allocating resources. Market forces and unaccountable organisations are going to be left to take over. Amongst those who hope to make a profit from the changes are 70 Mps and 142 peers who have connections with private health care firms.

Treatment on the basis of need and not the ability to pay was why the NHS was created on 5 July 1948. Before World War Two only 43% of the population were covered by the National Insurance Scheme and over twenty-one million people, mainly women, children and the sick, were not covered at all. When Churchill’s government brought all hospitals under public control, the population got a taste of universal health care that ensured it remained once hostilities ended.

In NHS SOS, a group of doctors, analysts and health campaigners uncover the lies, self-interest, democratic weaknesses and media failings that have led to the betrayal of the NHS.

Cameron and his party went to great lengths before the 2010 election to promise the electorate that the NHS was safe in his hands. Nick Clegg reaffirmed this commitment, when he joined hands with the Tories.

Within days, Andrew Lansley was unveiling his plans for radical change, none of which had been placed before the electorate, who were informed it was about putting doctors in charge. When the latter demonstrated they were bitterly opposed the public was again let down, this time by the press and TV. These institutions failed to explain this was because GP’s knew the plans involved turning the NHS into a full-blooded, competitive market open to ‘any qualified provider’ and allowing up to 49% of NHS hospitals to be used for private patients.

The BBC, which provides 70% of news consumption on TV, is slammed in the book for failing to provide an ongoing narrative of an emerging national disaster. That might have been avoided if the leadership of British Medical Association and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges had reacted to their member’s anger by utilising it in an effective campaign.

Labour too failed to offer effective opposition in Parliament, the party that set up the NHS having helped pave the way for its destruction by favouring external competition over internal competition during the Blair and Brown years. Worse still was the paying of capital development projects through the woefully inefficient and horrendously expensive Private Finance Initiative. Unite the union wants to see more working class people elected as Labour MPs and this books shows just why.

What you can do to the save the NHS is the title of last chapter of the book. Union members can join established campaigning organisations such as Keep Our NHS Public. If there isn’t a local campaign then consider setting one up. Help mobilise public opinion with events, petitions, marches and other protests. Unite is also seeking reports of cuts and closures. In the lead up to the next election pressurise prospective candidates on their views about repealing the 2012 Act.

NHS SOS: How the NHS was betrayed – and how we can save it is published by ONEWORLD and costs £8.99

General Blogs

BEYOND PULDITCH GATES

Monday, 22 July 2013

BEYOND PULDITCH GATES book review

Published in 2001 by Wolfhound Press

Henry Hudson

There are too few novels on work that are written by working class people. Henry Hudson was from 1969 to 1999 a worker in Dublin’s power industry. The Transport and General Workers Union member used his experiences to good effect in an amusing, occasionally hilarious, book that is based around three decades of construction worker Timmy Talbot’s life from the late 50s onwards.

Pulditch Gates power station is a bleak place made bearable by the comaraderie amongst those who work there. Each day is a constant battle of wits between the men and management. Amongst the latter is the husband of the daughter of one of Ireland’s richest men and who in addition to having unsuccessfully tried to force himself on Talbot’s wife, Patsy, has also left her former friend pregnant and imprisoned in a convent for ‘wayward women.’

When a mix-up ensures Talbot and his mates end up getting permanent jobs they use their good fortune to collectively organise for better pay and conditions. But, as Ireland’s economy hits rock bottom they find themselves chucked in jail for threatening electricity supplies. The court rooms scenes in which they are sent down, their imprisonment and their release under a shoddy, compromise deal are amongst the best bits in the book and are highly amusing.

Other scenes will also hit a chord with Irish workers who can recall the 60s and 70s when management’s ‘right to manage’ and a lack of abortion rights were challenged. Hudson’s novel thus celebrates the lives of those men and women who challenged poverty, ignorance and fear.

General Blogs

The Candidate – Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power

Alex Nunns the Candidate – Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path to Power

(OR Books, £15 – reviewed in 2016)

A  book that skilfully analyses the political motives and organisational forces behind the election as Labour leader in September 2015 of Jeremy Corbyn, who – as Alex Nunns points out on page 294 – “was in no sense ready for it” and “was thrust into a nearly impossible situation”. 

The jury is still, of course, still out on Corbyn as a Labour leader.

But what this book does clearly show is that those who stood against him – and their supporters – had nothing to recommend them as none could envisage an economic alternative to the Tories austerity package that has cut the standard of living for many, whilst also failing to reduce Britain’s economic debt.  

Corbyn has been an MP since 1983. He held no government post during the period when Labour was in office between 1997 and 2010. The Islington MP had, though, built a reservoir of personal support amongst radical campaigning organisations (many not directly connected to Labour) by backing their causes in and out of Parliament. These causes included his steadfast opposition to the disastrous Iraq War. 

Meanwhile, having seen the selection of Labour Parliamentary candidates become dominated by Tony Blair’s New Labour, unions – particularly UNITE and the GMB – began to get organised at the start of the current decade to try and get pro-union candidates, preferably working class ones, into Labour seats. 

In 2010, the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government chose to use the 2008 financial crash to impose severe public sector cuts particularly on the poorest in society such as the unemployed, disabled and sick. Privatising the NHS was expanded. When opposition to such moves was led by the trade unions and community groups, New Labour MPs preferred to look the other way whilst Corbyn and his closest ally, John McDonnell MP, rallied to the fightback against austerity. 

Nevertheless, the chances of Corbyn ending up as Labour leader were remote to say the very least. However, New Labour in 2014 had over extended itself. In its drive to maintain the power of the Parliamentary Labour Party – and weaken the trade union influence – New Labour backed Miliband’s decision to implement the Collins Review recommendations, whereby the next Labour leader would be elected on a one-member-one-vote system. John Rentoul, a Blairite journalist proclaimed: “it means that the next Labour leader will be a Blairite”. 

Rentoul’s contention was to be tested when Miliband quit as leader following Labour’s poor showing at the 2015 General Election. At the start it seemed highly unlikely that Corbyn would even get on the ballot paper as he required a minimum of 35 nominations from MPs. It helped that despite his political differences with most of his Parliamentary colleagues he had never resorted to personal attacks on them. There was also a feeling that all sectors of the Party should be represented. Although he had less than 20 MPs who intended actually voting for him it proved possible to gather in sufficient nominations for Corbyn to be able to stand against Liz Kendall, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Burnham was the bookies favourite, Corbyn was 200-1.

Initially the aim of those backing Corbyn was for him to enjoy a respectable showing and move the debate to the left. But it soon became apparent that there was a groundswell of support for Corbyn amongst all sections of the Labour Party. These included many who had been in it for years, those who had joined as a result of Ed Miliband’s opposition – timid as it was on too many occasions – to austerity and those, many from the campaigns and organisations he had worked with for decades, who were being persuaded to join Labour in order to elect Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Throw in the work undertaken by the trade unions to recover the party for the working class then all told this was a powerful combination. 

It was, though, one that needed organising and co-ordinating. The book is extremely good in charting the achievements of such as Alex Halligan of Unite in organising events at which Corbyn could speak directly to potential supporters and also help him reach out to a larger audience using social media.

Corbyn, of course, won by a landslide and captured every section – the older, relatively new and the brand new – of the Labour Party. He beat all his opponents by obtaining a majority at the first ballot. 

Since then Jeremy Corbyn has had to face down a series of revolts amongst his Parliamentary colleagues. There has also been an unprecedented level of media hostility – much of it very personal – even though as the Labour leader admits in this book his economic programme would not be seen as particularly remarkable in Germany. 

Whether, of course, the move to the left in Labour that Jeremy Corbyn has helped inspire can be maintained and built upon to secure a more equal society for everyone is still up for grabs. That’s up to all of us and not just Jeremy Corbyn!