Immigration

Left liberals, along with many other reasonable people, abhor the anti-immigrant cacophony, the volume of which is being ratcheted up everywhere. This article in the Guardian, complaining about "the gutter debate" on immigration, typifies the kind of thing I mean. 

Essentially, the liberal argument runs like this - (a) most of the vitriol is either twaddle or lies, (b) why don't our politicians do something about it! ("our"?) and (c) why don't the newspapers tell the truth?

This is an understandable, but woefully inadequate response. It does not to take into account that the anti-immigration bile (and all the rest of the demonisation of minorities, the poor, youth, etc) has a definite, reactionary, political purpose! 

It doesn't just happen. It doesn't simply appear in the press for no reason. The Guardian article laments that, "Sadly, politicians think the easiest answer is to endlessly blame foreigners". 

Sadly?!!

It is much more than sad! The world is owned by the 1%, who have just tanked much of that world's economy. They expect the 99% to pay for it. And they are paying for it! - through public expenditure cuts, wage restraint, job cuts, privatisation, retirement at 70! etc, etc. This is the regime of austerity - although not for everyone...!

Consequently, there is, for the 1%, quite a substantial political imperative to make sure that attention is drawn away from what is happening. And that is made a little easier by virtue of the fact that, oh, they own the newspapers...

We are being pi**ed on from a great height. 

So yes, all reasonable people must take the time to dig out the facts about immigration and the "invasion of our shores", and the Guardian article usefully contributes to that. 

And yes we must challenge and counter the racist, xenophobic spittle-storm. But this is the least we can do!

There is much that can be done. We can take the time to find out what is driving this reactionary agenda. We can find out to our own satisfaction what social function it is that xenophobia performs. Is it, say, some kind of natural human phenomena? (no). Is it inevitable? (no). Why do we see more of it during economic crises? (ah!)

This is where socialism takes a different approach to that of the well meaning liberal. The liberal doesn't see a class society. They see only people, some wealthy, most poor. They tend to echo Thatcher's claim that there is "no society" - only people and families. (That shows you what a good education does for you - as my old mum used to say).

The socialist view stems from the understanding that there is indeed a society - and one riven by an unbreachable class divide. That between labour and capital.

Starting with that understanding, socialists can see how xenophobia - and related demonisations - help maintain the rule of capital (big capital, at any rate). 

Much better that labour is divided - that workers fight amongst themselves. This way their attention is diverted from fighting the true source of their collective troubles - the owners of big capital.
So they scapegoat various groups - such as foreigners (at least the poor ones!) - before they themselves get scapegoated!

And socialists follow this reasoning through. Something liberals do not do. To cut the ground from under the spittle-flinging reactionaries the 1% must be disempowered. They have done enough damage!

This blog will have more on immigration and ways of countering the spittle-flinging fat-cats and their cap-doffing camp followers!

People!

Have you noticed how, whenever you hear someone speaking about people in general, it is almost always in a negative sense?

For example someone might say, "people are so selfish!" or even "people are so stupid!", or such like.

Whenever I hear this, I have an urge to ask, "but aren't you a member of that general category called people?"

I suspect the answer might be, "yes, but I am not like them!" But if so, how come?

I wonder if it is not common for individuals to see in others, what they really see in themselves. I think in psychology it is called "projection".

What is education for?

Do you really think the Tory, Liberal and “Labour” parties give a flying fig about educating everybody to a high standard?

Since the discussion about mass education began seriously, say from the 19th century, the “capital gains” class has been very much against educating the general population. That class was also, and for similar reasons, vehemently opposed to enlarging the franchise. It was a widely held belief amongst the well-catered-for that the vote, combined with education, would lead more or less directly to communism!

For many people, education, or at least the "sharp-elbowed middle class” version of it, is something that will help push you (or your child) further up the social hierarchy.  In this view, education is little more than something to help you, “get ahead” and (as my old mum used to say) “do well for yourself”.

That’s one answer - and not an unreasonable one in this society. But it implies that education is little more than a kind of preparatory training for work. Schools as exam-passing production lines - at least for the majority.

But there’s no point in thinking about education in the abstract. Education takes place in this particular society, a society organised in a particular way. A capitalist society. Capitalism doesn’t need a highly educated workforce. It needs workers who can read and write; and often they will require very specialised skills and knowledge. But as to needing a broader education – one including history, art ...?

It is the “training for work” style of education that has led to different kinds of education - eg “vocational”, “classical” - and different kinds of schools - eg “public” schools, grammar schools, technical colleges, etc.
Their class nature is immediately apparent.

During 1918 (and many times since), when the government was considering an Education Bill, requiring compulsory education for children under 14, employers argued that industry couldn’t possibly bear the cost of the absence of those children - who would no longer be working “productively” in factories, but would be idling away their time in schools!

The then Federation of British Industries recommended to the government that they should be careful about over-educating children. They said in a memorandum that, “in selecting children for higher education, care should be taken to avoid creating, as was done in India, a large class of persons whose education is unsuitable for the employment which they eventually enter.”

Stripped of the cant and twaddle that education policy is usually draped, its purpose - to quote R H Tawney from a contemporaneous article - “is not to enable human beings to become themselves through the development of their personalities, nor to strengthen the spirit of social solidarity, nor to prepare men for the better service of their fellows, nor to raise the general level of society...”.

Its purpose is, he said, to prepare children and young people, as is appropriate to their social standing, for a suitable role in industry and commerce. In other words, a basic education for “factory fodder” workers; perhaps a “grammar school” type of education for future managers; and, needless to say, an elite learning environment for those  burdened with the “destiny” of leadership.

One last thing. Forget all the guff about educational standards, curricula, teacher motivation, etc etc. The single, most fundamental factor in determining educational results - is class size.  Do you suppose expensive, exclusive “public” schools have class sizes of 30 or more?

Motivation

I think I'm right in saying it was Charles Handy (once a top rated business guru, but now a woolly philosopher) who said that capitalism has not yet resolved it's most basic contradiction. The motivation of the employee.

They are forced by their circumstance to pose to their employer, the question, "why must I work harder, to make you richer?"

Until this is resolved, all management theory (such as it is) about employee incentives and motivation, is twaddle.

Hard workers

Just read that according to Bloomberg, the ten richest folk in the world have a collective personal wealth almost equivalent to the UK GDP - around $2 trillion. They must have saved their Pennies and worked very hard indeed!

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Looks like we will be leaving Afghanistan soon. In all likelihood, some deal will be done with the Taliban and various of the regional warlords. The “government” will be left to fare for itself – its bailiwick extends hardly beyond the capital; president Karzai is often referred to as “the mayor of Kabul”. The “fight against terrorism” is moving towards north Africa.

The first “Anglo-Afghan” war was that of 1839-1842. The excuse then was to shore up the region against possible interference from Tsarist Russia. It was felt that Russia may use Afghanistan as a passageway to India – a prized British “possession” at the time. So British and Indian forces invaded and occupied Kabul, installing a stooge Shah, only to be kicked out, ignominiously, and after very many deaths, a few years later.

No one likes to have their country occupied by foreign forces – even when it is said to be, “in their own interests”, or for some definition of a wider good cause.

A new book has been written about this war. There is a good review of it in the Economist here. Even though the Economist avowedly favours imperialist action by the “international community” the tenor of the review makes it clear that the author is drawing sharp lessons from the past.

“Neoliberals on Bikes”

This is a summary of the some of the main points in an excellent article on the German Green Party - by Olivier Cyran in Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2011. The full article can be accessed here.

During the 1980s, Germany’s Green Party was seen as a radical left party with a strong social reform agenda. Things have changed! Today, having over many years taken part in coalition governments at various levels in the German government system, the Greens are a fully fledged establishment party adorned with a comforting, left-sounding veneer. They are happy to share power with the CDU (the Tory-equivalent Christian Democratic Party of Angela Merkel) or the New Labour-style SPD.

They are “Neoliberals on bikes”, according to Jutta Ditfurth – a co-founder of the Greens who left them in 1991.

In March 2011, for the first time in German history, the Party took the presidency of a regional government – Baden-Wurttemberg, the richest and most populous of Germany’s 16 states. The Green president, Winfried Kretschmann, quickly sought to reassure “the market”, “We are going to follow the path we promised within a bourgeois society”.

As avowed bourgeois politicians, they pursue promises as other bourgeois politicians. They ignore them. Last February in Hamburg, for example, the Green/CDU coalition was turfed out in favour, unfortunately, of the SPD (with large abstentions in working class ditricts). This followed the abandonement of plans supported by the Greens, for scrapping coal-fired power stations, developing a tram system of public transport, and education reforms.

Earlier, in 2005, an SPD-Green coalition in Hamburg had set up, “the harshest unemployment benefit system in Europe”. When it was conceived the previous year, the right-wing newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, called it, “the most drastic cut in social security since 1949”. It was a merger of unemployment benefit and social security which led to rates so low in some circumstances that it was partially suspended by the Courts in Karlsruhe, in October 2010, because it was ruled that the families who received the benefit could not meet their children’s basic needs.

Hamburg’s Greens thought the level of benefit was a little low, “but we still think”, they said, “that it was a good idea to … encourage people back to work”. It was admitted by the Greens that this “reform” could only have been implemented by a Red-Green alliance because had the openly right-wing parties tried to do it (the CDU and FDP), “it would have caused a revolution”.

The new benefit system had been devised by Peter Hartz – at the time an HR director at Volkswagen and friend of SPD Chancellor Schroder. In January 2007, Hartz received a two-year suspended sentence and a fine of €576,000 for having offered bribes, travel perks and prostitutes to members of the Volkswagen works council.

Hamburg is often referred to as the tax evasion capital of Germany. Twenty six of Germany’s richest 300 people live there. Their combined wealth is around €44bn – half the city’s GDP. When a Die Linke (left party) member of the city council asked for extra tax inspectors to help tackle the problem, the Greens voted against it!