What the Other Political Parties Don't Know or Won't Tell You

A discussion on society's problems and how to solve them

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The Pathfinder column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil is the super-fuel. Nothing else does all the things oil does, from heating, fuel, plastics, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and clothing. It has the highest energy conversion rate of any fuel and it constitutes 40 percent of global traded energy and 90 percent of transport (Financial Times, 4 January, 2004). But aside from its contribution to global warming, it's also running out.

Or so we are told. Despite the record rise of oil recently, this is mainly speculator-driven and not due to any real shortage of oil. What is running out is cheap oil. In fact the world has only used 15 per cent of known reserves, with at least another 20 per cent recoverable by today's technology (BBC Online, 21 April 21, 2004). Though pundits talk about hitting peak oil, estimates for this turning point range from already to as far away as 2050. As supply diminishes and prices rise, more expensive options like the Canadian and Venezuelan tar sands, with capacities rivalling Saudi Arabia, will become profitable to extract. But the rise in costs will be mirrored by a rise in the price of everything dependent on oil, and for the world's poorest billion people, this could be a sentence of death by starvation, with a likely proliferation of food rioting, instability in liberal democracies and an upsurge in the ruling class's faithful stand-by, fascist repression. Meanwhile, as the stakes rise, so do the international tensions. Oil is already determining many countries' domestic and foreign policy, and few people doubt its role in recent wars. Governments are increasingly jumpy. Oil production plants, and bottleneck sea-lanes, are particularly susceptible to guerrilla attack, and with no in-house reserves Europe or America could be reduced to chaos in weeks (New Scientist, 28 June). Worse still, the ruling elites' increasing inability to keep their oil-starved military up to scratch may make wars more likely rather than less, as weakened capability could provoke opportunistic pre-emptive attacks by rivals.

Socialism faces a rather different problem. It is predicated on communal sharing and participation, which in turn rely on the fact of material sufficiency. Should anything threaten this sufficiency, the basis of socialism itself would be threatened. Today, for example, over 50 percent of world rural populations have no access to electricity (UNDP World Energy Assessment, 2000). Though not a problem to capitalism, which doesn't care about non-effective, i.e. non-paying demand (for more on this see page 19, this will be of the first importance in socialism. Even allowing for waste reduction in the west, that electricity must be found.

There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. Of the non-renewables, gas won't last much longer than oil, and coal, the chief source of electricity globally, though there is up to 250 years worth at present usage, is dirty stuff to burn. Carbon capture technology may mitigate this, but is at an early stage.

The main problem with renewables is that the oil-addicted capitalist economy has hitherto starved them of funds, because set-up costs are prohibitive and returns long-term. This is true of geothermal heating systems, but also of wind and tidal systems, ocean thermal electricity, biowaste to oil reconversion plants, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technology. Only nuclear fission, with its potential for weapons, has found success, though its waste problem remains intractable, and biofuels, though their impact on food crops and deforestation is well known. Nevertheless, so-called 2G biofuels that use waste feedstocks of lignin and cellulose are beginning to put in an appearance (New Scientist, 21 June), while algal fuels are also showing some promise, though expensive in land area (New Scientist, 16 August). The central problem of collection and conversion in solar energy is being addressed with 3G tech involving plastic panelling which can be printed cheaply on any surface and may offer up to a 60 percent conversion rate. Hydrogen, much vaunted in the press as a cheap fuel, is really an energy vector not an energy source, being only as clean as the energy used to create it, currently coal-fired electricity, and the problems of storage and distribution are enormous. Currently there are a small handful of hydrogen filling stations in the whole of Europe (EurActive.com, 4 September)

There is some hoopla about the renaissance of the electric car (New Scientist, 20 Sept ember) with its macho speed and mileage performances, but aside from the £100,000 price tag, there is something about the electric car that utterly misses the point.

Probably the biggest difference between socialism and capitalism as regards energy would not be how we produce it but how we consume it. Instead of developing electric cars that do 0 - 60 in 4 seconds, socialism would be developing ways of getting cars off the road altogether, because abolishing paid employment and the need to make a living would also abolish the commuter madness on the roads and motorways. Homeworking, or just doing something useful in one's immediate local area, would be a much more practical solution than hi-tech boy-racing.

Similarly, there's no need and no point having, as a norm, private kitchens all cooking the same food at the same time, when socialising the process in the form of volunteer-run restaurants could cut energy hugely and save on waste as well as time. Many people detest cooking anyway and eat pre-packaged and expensive rubbish as a result. There's no need either for each household to possess identical music or DVD collections, books, clothes, tools or any other item that could be shared via public library systems. The life-span of a domestic power-tool in use, from purchase to a 10,000 year career in landfill, is estimated at just 10 minutes (New Scientist, 6 January 2007). Waste is simply energy misused, and capitalism does a lot of that because privatised materialist consumption is how it makes its money.

Then there is what we literally consume. Socialism has to feed everybody and it is obvious it won't be able to do so on a western-style meat diet. Even now we are starting to be told to reduce our reliance on the meat industry not simply because of its clear link to obesity, or to rainforest clearance, or greenhouse gas emissions (18 percent - more than transport, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation - BBC News Online, 7 September) but also because of its global impact on water and oil usage. Aside from any ethical considerations, meat is simply too expensive a way of feeding people when for every kilo of meat protein you need approximately 8 kilos of grain protein (New Scientist, 14 June)

If capitalism really uses up the obtainable oil in its customary spendthrift way, then socialism is going to have to employ a suite of solutions, both in means of supply and modes of consumption. Whether this will involve a generation without coffee, or cricket fields under cloches, a communally-managed planet is going to be better placed to deal with these issues than the privately-owned one we have. Socialism will do whatever works, and whatever it takes. Capitalism just does whatever pays, and devil take the consequences. Only one of these systems has a future.

Book Review from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Crossing the 'river of fire' : the socialism of William Morris. By Hassan Mahamdallie. (Redwords 2008.)

This is an SWP take on William Morris. Reasonably accurate, it emphasises (as might be expected from the SWP, at least in its current period) Morris's anti-war and anti-imperialism stance. And Morris's statement in the January 1887 issue of Commonweal does bear repeating:

"Meantime if war really becomes imminent our duties as socialists are clear enough, and do not differ from those we have to act on ordinarily. To further the spread of international feeling between workers by all means possible; to point out to our own workmen that foreign competition and rivalry, or commercial war, culminating at last in open war, are necessities of the plundering classes, and that the race and commercial quarrels of these classes only concern us so far as we can use them as opportunities for fostering discontent and revolution;. that the interests of the workmen are the same in all countries and they can never really be the enemies of each other; that the men of our labouring classes, therefore, should turn a deaf ear to the recruiting sergeant, and refuse to allow themselves be dressed up in red and be taught to form a part of the modern killing machine for the honour and glory of a country in which they have only a dog's share of many kicks and a few halfpence, - all this we have to preach always, though in the event of imminent war we may have to preach it more emphatically."

For most of his active period as a socialist Morris was an "impossibilist" in that he favoured a policy of "making socialists" and "education for socialism" rather than seeking working class support on the basis of reform demands. Committed as they are to reformist agitation, the SWP find this an embarrassment just as much as E.P. Thompson did in both his CP and post-CP days. Mahamdallie argues that the correct tactic for Morris and the Socialist League would have been to do what the SWP does today: to get involved in the non-socialist, day-to-day struggles of workers with a view to directing them. He also claims that in 1890 Morris realised the "dreadful mistake" he had made in not doing this.

But did Morris admit this? His November 1890 resignation statement from the Socialist League (which had been taken over by bomb-throwing anarchists) "Where Are We Now? "does not say this. It says rather that he still thought he was right, but that as the working class seemed to have chosen a different path, so be it; that was their choice.

To be frank, Engels thought that Morris was wrong and preferred the reformist ILP to both the Socialist League and the SDF as a step towards the formation of genuine mass socialist party. But who was right? Morris or Engels? The ILP led to the Labour Party, which has been and gone, and we are still no nearer to socialism. The urgent need is still, as Morris insisted, campaigning for socialism not reforms.

Adam Buick

Further Reading:

From the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Conventions of the Democratic and Republican Parties have become forums for putting the finishing touches on the "cult of personality" of the candidates, culminating with the vacuous speeches of the candidates themselves.

A demagogue, H.L. Mencken once said, is someone "who will preach doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." This is a pretty good description of the US presidential candidates in action at their late-summer conventions. Although, to be fair to those who listened to the convention speeches, it was more a case of preaching idiotic ideas to people who wished those ideas were true.

The contrast between the gassy rhetoric of the politicians and the weighty problems facing workers was particularly striking at this year's conventions, highlighted further by the juxtaposition between jubilant delegates inside the convention hall and the pepper-sprayed protestors outside.

The candidates from both parties employed the same basic template for demagoguery in writing their convention speeches. We encounter the same sorts of rhetorical techniques and the logic of "public relations" shapes every line. The candidates are less interested in conveying ideas than manipulating them to fashion images to sell the product – in this case, the candidates themselves.

Family lies

The first chapter of Convention Speeches for Dummies, if such a book were ever to be written, would probably be entitled: "Making the Most of the Family." Each candidate, without exception, began with extravagant praise for the family – the candidate's own family, that is. The candidates informed the American people that they too have spouses who are loving and loyal, children and grandchildren they are proud of, and hardworking parents as wise as they are kind. (Perhaps this convinced the sceptics who thought that the candidates had been hatched in a secret laboratory in North Dakota.)

Behind my plastic exterior, each candidate seemed to be saying, is a real live human being, just like you. Just like us, but even better. Thanks to the "quintessentially American" values of hard work, perseverance and personal integrity that the candidates acquired as children from their saintly mothers.

In his speech, Joe Biden described his 90-year-old mother as a person "defined by her sense of honour" who "believes bravery lives in every heart" and that "it will be summoned." She taught little Joey the "dignity of work" and that "anyone can make it if they try" and emphasized that it is important to "live our faith and treasure our family." Biden said that his "mother's creed is the American creed: No one is better than you; you are everyone's equal; and everyone is equal to you." (And US Senators are more equal than most.)McCain mentioned his mother too, saying: "I wouldn't be here tonight but for the strength of her character." Thankfully he was not as long-winded as Biden – perhaps to secure adequate time for another thrilling episode of "John McCain: War Hero" – but he did mention that his mother taught him some patriotic claptrap about how "we're all meant to use our opportunities to make ourselves useful to our country."

Obama praised his mother "who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships." For good measure, Obama threw in his grandmother too, "who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management" and taught him "about hard work."

The mother featured in Palin's speech was Palin herself, who "was just your average hockey mom" whose political career began when she "signed up for the PTA" because she "wanted to make my kids' public education better." Palin had a small-town upbringing that encouraged "honesty, sincerity and dignity" and she thanked her parents for teaching her that, "this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity."

It wasn't just the parents who were mobilized for the cause: children and grandchildren served as useful props too. Palin's 4-month old son, who suffers from Down Syndrome, was brought to the raucous event and passed around on stage for the photo op. Obama made use of his two daughters, who told daddy how much they love him. And Biden said that when he looked at his grandchildren, and at Obama's daughters, he realized: "I'm here for their future." Many watching this strange spectacle must hope that the candidates' love for those little ones will be enough to keep their powerful fingers away from "the button."

But, lest we feel too safe, in the next breath these politicians are talking about their sons who are headed off to war, such as Beau Biden or Jimmy McCain. Palin also got some good mileage out of her son Track, who not only is headed to Iraq but will conveniently ship out on September 11 "in the service of his country" (by securing the Starbucks in the Green Zone).

It is rather sickening to see how willing the candidates are to squeeze out whatever political advantage can be had from their children. Even the pregnancy of Palin's teenage daughter – and shotgun wedding – is good election fodder, appealing to those families who have experienced that common side-effect of "abstinence education."

We feel your pain

Once the family motif had been fully exploited, right down to the last grandchild, the candidates shared some snapshots of "less fortunate" families and individuals in the US. Luckily for them, there are literally millions of hard-luck stories to choose from!

Obama, for instance, spoke of "a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement [who] finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work" and "a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news."

Notice how careful Obama was to choose examples from crucial "swing states" (and also throw in China as a convenient scapegoat). One can easily imagine political advisors sifting through such evidence of capitalist misery to get to the political gold, weighing each situation carefully.

Biden said in his speech that he looks out at people's homes during his evening train ride home from work and "can almost hear what they're talking about at the kitchen table after they put the kids to bed," imagining the following sorts of conversations:

"Winter's coming. How we gonna pay the heating bills? Another year and no raise? Did you hear the company may be cutting our health care? Now, we owe more on the house than it's worth. How are we going to send the kids to college? How are we gonna be able to retire?"

Biden's little story (punctuated with his "gonna's") is meant to highlight his compassion and solidarity for working folk – and he is so proud that he rides a train that he had Obama mention it too! – but the image of a powerful US Senator breezing through town, as he daydreams about stick-figure citizens in between sips of coffee, only underscores the distance separating him from those kitchen-table conversations.

McCain tried his hand at this compassion stuff too, recognizing that "these are tough times for many of you." Unfortunately there was no train window separating him from a heckler (and Iraq War veteran) who proceeded to berate the candidate for his poor record on veteran's rights. After the ungrateful citizen had been dragged out of the hall, and the chants of "U.S.A! U.S.A.!" to drown out his heckling had subsided, McCain continued reading from his teleprompter: "You're worried about keeping your job or finding a new one," the monotone voice intoned, "and you're struggling to put food on the table and stay in your home." And later, McCain threw in a few swing-state stories of his own, such as "Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market" so that now Bill has a temporary job and "Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills."

In recounting these stories, the candidates showed no hint that their own political parties bear any responsibility, nor did they recognize any connection between such problems and our current social system. The whole point was just to show off their own compassion, which Bush Sr. tried to do on campaign trail back in 1992 when he succinctly said, "Message: I care."

Policy promises

Only around the middle of their speeches did the candidates finally begin to sketch some of the policies they plan to implement if elected. But these promises are so vague as to almost defy analysis.

For the few ideas that they did discuss in any detail – regarding taxation, education and foreign policy – the similarities between the candidates far outweighed the differences. Both McCain and Obama pledged to lower taxes for the "middle class," improve education, and somehow win the war in Afghanistan (while keeping Iran and Russian in their place).

Obama kicked off his list of policy solutions with the vow to reform the tax code so as to "cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families." Even setting aside the question of whether sweeping tax cuts will be possible, while waging two wars in the midst of deep recession, it is telling that Obama and the Democrats focused so much of their attention on the issue of taxation, which is not a working-class issue to begin with (as taxes ultimately come out of the surplus-value created in production). Moreover, Obama is quietly stepping back from an earlier promise to rescind Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy in recent months.

After listing many of the grave problems facing the country earlier in his speech – and harping on the need for "change" throughout his campaign – ultimately the best that Obama can come up with is to steal a page from the Republican playbook and call for tax cuts as an economic cure-all. This is change that John McCain can believe in, who also promised to cut taxes in his speech.

And the two candidates are on the same page for other issues as well. Both call for something called "energy independence" and made the usual pledge to root out corruption and eliminate corporate loopholes as a means of securing the necessary government funds.

Both also promised to improve education, although there was a difference between Obama's promise to "recruit an army of new teachers and pay them higher salaries" and McCain's vow to "shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition [and] empower parents with choice." Still, Obama is reluctant to veer off too sharply from the current administration and in his speech he threw in a line about calling for "higher standards and more accountability," which indicated his agreement with aspects of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy.

Perhaps the biggest policy difference concerned health care. McCain ignored the issue, except to say that he opposes "government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor," while Obama emphasized the need for improvements. Yet Obama only calls for an expansion of access to medical insurance, not a reform that would drive out the private insurance companies.

The candidates seemed a little bored by such domestic issues, but warmed up when it came to demonstrating that they are reckless and bloodthirsty enough to be "Commander-in-Chief." Both promised, repeatedly, to keep America and its people safe. Neither expressed any hesitation in sending troops to war and pledged to strengthen the armed forces. Both vowed to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda and issued threats to Iran and Russia. It seems that Obama's days as the "anti-war candidate" are long gone.

This discussion of policy, which should have made the distinction between the two candidates clear, only underscored their similarities, while again revealing the enormous gap between the severity of the problems faced – whether economic, diplomatic or environmental – and the meagre "solutions" that both parties are offering.

Orchestrated response

No sooner had the candidate uttered the obligatory "God bless America" to end the convention speech than TV commentators were breathlessly informing viewers that it was a "homerun" that electrified the crowd and will energize the base of the party. It was as if the pundits were frightened that, if given a split-second for reflection, viewers might reach the alternative conclusion that the speech was rather pointless and insipid.

Both parties made every effort to generate the most favourable reaction to their candidate's speech. Even before it was delivered, there were newspaper articles revealing what the speech would discuss, with titles like: "Obama to Get Specific" or "McCain to Strike a Bipartisan Note." At first glance this custom of disclosing the content of the speech in advance seems rather bizarre, as it makes the speeches even less interesting to watch, but it gives the TV commentators an idea of how they should frame the discussion.

The entire process surrounding the convention speeches is hermetically sealed from the public and from reality itself. If the candidates manage to "hit one out of the park," as the cliché goes, it is only because US politics is a game played on a narrow field of little-league proportions.

Michael Schauerte

Cooking the Books column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

"We believe", John McCain declared in his acceptance speech at the Republican Party's convention in St. Pauls on 5 September, in "letting people keep the fruits of their labour".Now, that's an idea. The only problem is that he seems to think that we are still living in 18th century colonial Americas when people worked for themselves at some trade and exchanged the product of their labour, whether farm produce, furniture, shoes, pots, candles or whatever, for the products of other people's own labour. This was exchange for use, what Marx called "simple commodity production", and where, as Benjamin Franklin who lived at the time noted, the products tended to exchange according to the time the independent producers had taken to make them. In this way they did get more or less the full equivalent of their labour.

But that was then. The artisan's tools have now developed into the powerful machines of today owned by capitalist companies while the producers now sell their ability to work to one or other of these companies in return for a wage or a salary. They no longer own and control the products of their labour. These belong to the company, which sells them for more than they cost to produce, pocketing the difference as their profits.

When producers first became separated from the means and instruments of production, as was increasingly the case throughout the 19th century, it was not difficult for them to realise what was happening. They could see that what they produced sold for what it did when they had made them themselves as independent producers, but instead of them getting the full equivalent of their labour they only got a part of it as wages, the rest going to the capitalist who employed them. The source of the capitalists' profits was their unpaid labour.

So the demand for the full "fruits of our labour" went up among the more radical of the newly proletarianised producers. All sorts of schemes were devised by critics of capitalism such as Robert Owen in Britain, Proudhon in France and Lassalle in Germany to try to recreate the same result as in the old situation. But it was too late. They all failed as they had become irrelevant due to production no longer being individual but a collective effort.

In this new circumstance, if the demand for "the full fruits of labour" was to be met it could only be done collectively. The whole product of society would have to be commonly owned and used for the benefit of all. This of course is socialism and it is the only way that, today, people can get to keep the fruits of their (collective) labour.

McCain, however, is still thinking in individualistic terms. His rhetoric imagines that the wage worker is still an independent producer entitled to the full product of his or her individual labour. But he doesn't see this as not happening because of the profit extracted by the employer but because of the taxes levied by the government. In his eyes, it is the government not the capitalist that is the exploiter of people's labour. This is the cry not of the exploited producer but of the capitalist employer who does not want to share the profits of exploitation with the government.

But he needs to be careful. The rhetoric of the "fruits of labour" was originally an anti-capitalist, not a conservative, demand, and could – and should – become so again.

Dear Friends,

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""Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1891.

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Socialist Party of Great Britain

Editorial from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The downturn in the global economy appears to be broadening and deepening. The sub-prime slime has became the "Credit Crunch" in 2008, and last month heralded a further round of casualties on what some are starting to call "Manic Monday".

US house repossessions started it all off, followed by mortgage lenders and banks in Europe. But more recently the US government felt unable to allow their Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (public mortgage lenders) go under, but stopped short of baling out Lehman Brothers.

The contagious fear of vanishing profits extended beyond mortgages to insurance giant AIG and beyond, and the geographical spread has widened to China and Japan.

Workers could be excused feeling some sort of schadenfreude at the news of a bank running out of money or an insurance company failing to manage risk and hedge their bets. Who can fail to smile as another financial institution is found to have ignored its own advice ("The value of your investment can go down as well as up. You may not get back the amount of money you invested and should only invest sums of money you are prepared to lose").

So there may be fewer stories in the news of £100 burgers in the bistros or £30,000 drinks bills in the restaurants of the City of London, but of course the economic downturn impacts more on the poor than the rich.

World socialists are opposed to capitalism – boom or bust. Recession just helps throw into sharp relief the logic of the market system. It does however also provide a good opportunity to highlight some important differences between capitalism, and socialism – where money and wages would not exist and production of wealth would be based on meeting real human needs.

Firstly of course inside socialism there will be no work at all for the whole financial sector that is under such pressure at present. Pensions advisors, insurance salespersons, "independent" financial advisers, mortgage brokers, fund managers: all of these jobs are essential to the smooth operation of capitalism, but are socially-useless and would have no place in a socialist society.

Over 1 million people in the UK – 4 percent of the workforce – are engaged in such activities which are wholly useless. When you factor in related jobs such as accountancy, real estate, and ancillary financial services the numbers mount up. Socialism will really make these positions redundant, but with the pay-off that people will be free to engage in work that is genuinely productive and socially useful.

The market system is an incredibly wasteful mechanism for organising the production of wealth. It prevents people's power over production. Interest rates rise in the US, and a hospital gets mothballed in the UK? The oil price rises and thousands of holidaymakers get stranded in a foreign country? The need for constant minute-by-minute re-evaluations of cashflow projections or return on investment expectations, for every project, every industry, every product results in a colossal waste of the planet's resources and humanity's energy and ingenuity.

From the Marx and Coca Cola blog

A long time ago Milton Friedman asked Richard Nixon why he never took his economic advice to which Tricky Dick replied "We are all Keynesians now". Less than ten years later Ronald Reagan would declare "Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.", and we were all Reaganomists now. At least until last week.

What makes this economic downturn different from the other recessions post-1980 is not so much the size, but the reaction of the powers that be. While Treasury Secretary Lex Luther wanted a 700 billion dollar blank check that "may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." (a plan referred to as an economic PATRIOT ACT), the usually spineless Democrats have actually said no. They have plans of their own. The most likely of these to pass is Chris Dodd's (D-CT) which would cap CEO pay, include foreclosure relief, and give the government a share in the profits the bailed out firms. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is floating an idea to put a tax on stock transactions. Getting a lot of ink on the Internet is Debbsian socialist Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) four point plan which includes a wealth surtax, increased regulation, increased social spending, and busting up the big financial firms. None of this is really socialism, but everything's been laissez-faire so long it looks like the Paris Commune in comparison. While this kind of faux-populism is to be expected during an election year crisis other less than expected critics are questioning the status quo.

From a Yahoo article entitled Many economists skeptical of bailout comes this quote from University of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales:

"For somebody like me who believes strongly in the free market system, the most serious risk of the current situation is that the interest of a few financiers will undermine the fundamental workings of the capitalist system. The time has come to save capitalism from the capitalists."

A capitalism without capitalists if you will. Eric D. Hovde, the CEO of Hovde Capital and Hovde Acquisitions, writing in an op-ed praises government regulation, and decries Wall Street's influence on government. Actually most of the op-ed is a concise and well written history of this mess that blames everyone who deserves it. For example:

"In an attempt to protect his legacy after the Internet-bubble collapse, [former Fed chairmen Alan] Greenspan provided unprecedented stimulus to re-inflate the economy and maintain his popularity with Wall Street. (Remember the "Greenspan put"?) But in doing so, he spawned the largest debt and asset bubble in U.S. history."

In case you couldn't tell Greenspan was a close personal friend of Ayn Rand. In putting the blame where it's due Hovde also gives what I think is the definition of capitalism:

And in my view, there's no need to look beyond Wall Street -- and the halls of power in Washington. The former has created the nightmare by chasing obscene profits, and the latter have allowed it to spread by not practicing the oversight that is the federal government's responsibility.

What was the great fraud of Reaganomics was the belief that the government and the free market are two totally different and opposing forces. The government was either well intentioned (or evil) but incompetent, and only interfered with the perfect, all wise free market. The events of the last week have shown that's to be bullshit. There is no such thing as a "free" market. During the good times the state is there to put a veneer of respectability on fraud and extortion. During the bad times it's the knife that cuts off a finger to save the hand, but it is always capitalism's co-conspirator. This current down turn will lead to the state taking a greater role in the economy, and we might even get some increase in social spending (a la the New Deal). Capitalism will be saved from itself, and inevitably when the economy gets better and we've all forgotten (remember the Glass-Steagall Act? Me neither) these reforms will be repealed; we'll be right back here. The bad times is also when we should push for a real change that scraps capitalism and it's good buddy: the state, not just make them nicer.

From the Socialist Courier blog

Up to 150,000 council staff in Scotland staged the second 24-hour strike over pay in two months.

Schools, ferry services and rubbish collections are being disrupted as members of the Unite, Unison and GMB unions take part in the action.

It comes after the rejection of an amended offer from local authority umbrella group Cosla to change the 2.5% pay offer from three years to one year.

The unions are calling for a 5% increase in line with inflation.

Matt Smith, Unison's Scottish secretary, said he was impressed by the turnout for the strike and threatened more industrial action if the dispute continued.

Members of the Socialist Party participated in this walk out, just as ordinary workers who are union members.We reject any notions of wage increases 'ever' being the cause of inflation.Wages always play 'catch-up' with inflation.

There is over a century of socialist writing on this subject which can be accessed on the SPGB website, as this search will show.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 65th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1352 friends!

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Quote for the week:

"Well you got me workin' boss man

Workin' round the clock

I wanna little drink of water

But you won't let big Al stop

Big boss man now can't you hear me when I call? All right

I said you ain't so big, you know you're just tall that's all"

As sang by Elvis Presley, 1967.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain