Socialist Voice Issue 101 May 2013

May 2013

Number 101

H

€1.50

101st issue

Irish austerity Change of words but not of policy

owards the end of April there was a flurry of media comment, not only in Ireland but throughout the European Union, that there was to be a major rethink or reappraisal of the “austerity” strategy being imposed by the EU and its national allies.

In a carefully choreographed series of interviews, the ruling elite were attempting to give the impression to the peoples of Europe that they had

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come to the conclusion that austerity had gone too far.

First off the blocks was the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, with his remark that austerity policy “has reached its limits.” This was quickly followed by the German minister of foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, who stated that “one cannot buy growth with new debt . . . continued overleaf

Governments today have no vision but endless economic growth. They are judged not by the number of people in employment—let alone by the number of people in satisfying, pleasurable jobs—and not by the happiness of the population or the protection of the natural world. Job-free, world-eating growth is fine, as long as it’s growth. There are no ends any more, just means.

George Monbiot, Guardian (London) 7 May 2013.

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Inside

Medical cards under savage attack Page 2 Reform or transform? Page 4 Croke Park 2 rejected Page 5 Capitalist crisis and workers rights Page 6 Can we larn from Cuba? Page 8 Venezuala coup attempt Page 10 Colombians call for solidarity Page 11 Progressive Film Club Page 12 Eoghan O’Neill’s Lost Generation Page 12

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Fiscal consolidation and growth are two sides of the same coin,” while the chief political representative of German big business showed what was really going on when she said she prefers the term “balancing the budget” to “austerity,” which sounds “like something truly evil.”

So the policy of austerity is not the problem but rather that they need to call it by another name in order to remove the negative connotations. Sure who could possibly be against balancing the books? Don’t families try to do that every day of the week to put food on the table and pay the electricity bill?

The strategy has not changed, nor will it change, with media reports that a number of senior politicians in Germany have voiced concerns over France’s lack of economic progress, with the leader of the CSU parliamentary group, Gerda Hasselfeld, arguing that “from my point of view, the necessary reforms are not being as courageously tackled as they ought to be.”

What they mean by “reforms” is stripping public services and privatising them. They wish to privatise as much of the public economy as possible as quickly as possible, such as An Bord Gáis, Coillte, the ESB, transport, ports, etc.

The ruling elements want to take maximum advantage of the crisis to reduce labour costs, to reduce (if not eliminate) workers’ rights, to extend the working week as well as the retirement age, and to do away with statutory entitlements.

Austerity is working, on many levels. It is the main vehicle for the transfer of wealth upwards from working people to the wealthy; it justifies the growing assault on workers’ rights and the wholesale privatisation of public assets; it is the stick for beating workers with.

Sometimes the truth will out, and the real strategy of the ruling elite temporally emerges from all the fog created by their media.

Maurice Cowling, a leading rightwing intellectual force in British Tory politics, put it honestly and clearly. “If there is a class war—and there is—it is important that it should be handled with subtlety and skill . . . It is not freedom that Conservatives want: what they want is the sort of freedom that will maintain existing inequalities, or restore lost ones.”

[EMC] page 2 SOCIALIST VOICE

Medical cards under

THE LATEST’“AUSTERITY’ measure is the attempt to remove medical cards from citizens. And money saved from robbing the ordinary person will be used to pay for the life-style of the local bourgeoisie, and pay their odious debt to their Troika masters.

The latest figures show that there are 1.8 million people covered by medical cards and another 130,301 by GP-visit cards. Medical cards are now to be removed from 40,000 people, and more drugs are to be removed from the medical-card scheme.

According to the government, cuts totalling €721 million are being made to the budget of the health service this year to meet the financial limits imposed on them by the Troika. At the same time, demographic pressures and the growing demand for medical cards and drugs will push existing costs up by €748 million.

The HSE says medical cards account for €100 million of this year’s budget excess. The HSE overspent by almost €400 million last year. A spokesperson, Tony O’Brien, says he expects the service to keep within its spending targets in 2013.

The new curbs will mean that some holders of medical cards may no longer qualify for a full medical card; and it will be more difficult for others to get the benefit.

These moves come as thousands of people are to be affected by a tightening up of eligibility for medical cards, beginning this month, which excludes them from claiming for certain outgoings. For instance, funds for hospitals are being increased by 3½ per cent to ease their financial pressures, but this means the brunt of cuts being directed to medical-card schemes and services for the disabled and older people.

With €721 million to be cut from the Department of Health this year, the medical and GP-only card scheme is now in line for cuts.

At first there were moves against pensioners over the age of seventy. Now all medical card holders find that they are liable for review, with the slightest error in their extended application forms being used to cancel their cards.

With the new landlord class feeling the pinch of the cut-backs, they queue up for services that used to be the preserve of the poor and working poor. Half the population have medical cards as the unemployed and other victims of austerity continue to swell the ranks of the working poor.

The cards will help compensate those who find the cost of private schemes, such as the VHI and Aviva, prohibitive.

By creating spare capacity among medical card holders it will be easier for the maintenance of the new elite, who will more easily maintain their economic dominance by screwing the poor. All these planned changes are estimated to save the taxpayer €60 million.

Some politicians have warned of a “secret clampdown” on “discretionary” medical cards, traditionally given to those with cancer or other serious illnesses. “There are huge numbers who are not getting cards but need them.”

20,000 pensioners to lose cards The HSE plans to meet its target through extra scrutiny of medical-card entitlements and by cutting back on the cover for high-tech drugs.

The additional measures will bring the total reduction in this area to €323 million next year and leave a budget of €2½ billion.

However, the HSE’s plan for 2013 says there are risks associated with its strategy, because its actual expenditure will be based on the number of medical cards available and the amount of drugs prescribed.

An additional 125,000 medical cards have been issued this year, bringing the total number to 1.8 million. Each card is estimated to cost the state an average of about €1,000 a year.

The Government’s decision to consider “reforming” the eligibility criteria is revealed in a draft of the latest review of Ireland by the European Commission under the bail-out scheme. It outlines how the Government has struggled to contain the overspending on the health service this year and has resorted to a number of one-off measures that “may need to be replaced with permanent structural measures” in the budget.

Water and woods to be flogged off

savage attack

EU report reveals Government policy A draft report by the European Commission circulated to TDs revealed that the Government had agreed to consider “reforming” eligibility for medical cards in the forthcoming budget. This means that the entitlements of existing card-holders will be assessed.

“The Troika raised the issue with regard to the costs associated with medical cards and the PCRS [Primary Care Reimbursement Service] area within Ireland,” a spokesperson said. This means there’s going to be a full review of these schemes, their cost-effectiveness, and their equity. “In the first instance, what has to happen is a review of the medical card scheme, which has to involve the medical card and GPonly card.”

With the pressure to cut costs, the HSE has confirmed that even medical card holders may find their free entitlements cancelled, despite having cards. An official stung by criticism (and who is opposed to many of the new measures) said: “In view of the long delays being experienced by people around the country in having their medical card renewals being processed, I felt it was very unfair for people on low incomes having to pay to see their doctor or to pay for medication that they are dependent on.”

The HSE said that eligibility for free health services under the medical card scheme was based on financial circumstances.

At a recent hearing of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, examples were given of people waiting nine months for a medical card, when three weeks was the supposed time limit.

There were also first-time and renewal applicants whose details repeatedly went missing.

These cut-backs in the service, coupled with increased charges and privatisation, are the result of a situation where we have a very speculative, parasitic ruling clique, wedded to the needs and interests of international capital.

Politically they are now typified by Blueshirt scoundrels like Enda Kenny and James ’Reilly.

Locally we are still in the days of Fine Gael influence in health, education, and social services, while the Labour Party, under pressure, occasionally genuflects in the direction of Connolly.

The Government, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund have all identified repayment of the debt as the most important priority. To achieve this they tell us we need to do a number of things: (1) cut government spending; (2) reduce the role of the state in the economy; (3) further deregulate the economy; (4) privatise state-sponsored companies—that is, hand them over to foreign capital, which sees its task as taking back what it was once forced to concede to health, education, and trade union rights.

As the unpaid and low-paid have borne the brunt of the Troika’s measures so far, the future promises more of the same, with attacks on water and woodlands and other areas of public ownership.

Though it has been announced that the introduction of water charges is being pushed back from 1 January 2014, according to Éamon Gilmore, there is little doubt that it will go ahead when metering is complete. This will be in October next year, say Brendan Howlin and Michael Noonan.

The water services will be provided by Irish Water, an independent state-owned company within the Bord Gáis Group.In part of the Americas, and even in some European countries, the privatisation of water has meant vast profits. People cannot live without water. Its extraction in India (by Coca-Cola) and in the Middle East has created great hardship. Once the tap of privatisation and exploitation is turned on, it is almost impossible to bring an end to it.

Meanwhile the plan to sell off the harvesting rights to Ireland’s publicly owned forests under the EU-IMF “Troika” programme will go ahead. This will mean the selling off of tens of millions of trees to financial speculators. These speculators and others, such as bankers, would most probably end up owning this invaluable economic and cultural asset. This move by the Government is yet another disgraceful betrayal of pre-election promises by the coalition. [MA] Ireland’s neutrality demonstrated

Unceasing attacks Despite resistance from the unemployed and the working poor, the attacks by the rich are unceasing. The next rounds are believed to be water taxes. A new broadcasting charge, costing in the region of €180 per annum—even if you have no television!—is being proposed.

It is the old “drip” medicine: the addition of small quantities of pain until qualitative change is reached.

The rich and their hangers-on see the attack on the poor as essential to their survival. I have heard budding fascists complaining about communists owning houses; for them, the side of the road in a tent is more than adequate. To have a “free” medical card (said with venom) is unthinkable.

For us the immediate struggle is against “austerity,” to oppose and repudiate the odious debt and to resist privatisation—the robbery of the people’s wealth.

It is up to communists and their allies to defy the colonial collaborators and their Troika masters in the fight for real control of our economy and politics in the people’s interests.

[MA]

Bathed in green light, Her Majesty’s ship Illustrious paid a visit to Dublin in May after a two-week role in a huge military exercise.

The helicopter carrier, based in Portsmouth, had been taking part in “Exercise Joint Warrior” off the coast of Scotland in April and May. It then moved south through the Irish Sea and berthed at the Alexandra Dock in Dublin for the weekend.

“Joint Warrior” was NATO’s largest exercise in recent years. It involved several British warships, including the Illustrious, Diamond, Richmond, Westminster, Hurworth, and Brocklesby.

The crew of the Illustrious brought along a number of green lamps and a projector to light up their ship. The ship’s engineer officer, Commander John Voyce, said: “We were delighted with the effect.”

As part of the visit the Irish music and dance troupe Ragús went aboard for an evening of traditional dancing, with the hangar transformed into a stage. Two of the ship’s crew were then presented with certificates to celebrate their “Irish heritage.”

SOCIALIST VOICE page 3

Opinion The confusion of growth economics Part 1

Reform or transform

ince the crisis of global capitalism burst violently onto the scene with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 we have seen various alternative economic strategies proposed by unions and various groups close to the trade union movement.

For example the ICTU’s “better, fairer way,” Dublin Trades Council’s “point for a manifesto,” TASC’s “stimulating recovery,” NERI’s “plan B,” Unite’s “seven reasons to march,” and most recently SIPTU’s “towards a new course”—not to mention the annual (sometimes bi-annual) pre-budget submissions.

Usually in the form of a numbered list, some longer than others, the documents have various points in common, and can be summarised as: l Put an end to pay cuts, tax increases on lowincome workers, increased charges for social services, and reductions in budgets for the provision of essential services. l Stimulate growth and the provision of jobs through large-scale infrastructural investment schemes. l Use money from pension schemes, pension savings and what remains of the national pension reserve to finance these. l Provide more jobs and protection of pay to boost local consumption and to protect jobs. l Sort out the banks in some way, through a renegotiation and separation of bank debt, coupled with their nationalisation, to provide a degree of planned investment. l Reform the tax system on a more progressive direct model, taxing the richest most heavily and ending various tax loopholes and state subsidies to private capital. l Introduce enhanced protection for the most vulnerable people in society to narrow the gap between the richest and the poorest.

While all these are essentially progressive demands that would be welcomed as a vast improvement to the present state of society, they still don’t tackle the root cause of the problem: the system itself.

Fundamental to all of them is a belief in “growth,” in a capitalist sense, and a refusal to deal with the system of capitalism itself. They generally see growth as possible, welcome, and the cure for the employment crisis, pay freezes and debt crisis that exist and present it as if it’s the magical cure to the problems the working class face.

So, if it is the panacea for all our problems, the question has to be asked, Why is it not implemented?

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Growth, in a capitalist sense, is the recreation of capital through commodity production realised in profits. This usually comes about through the production of goods or services or through inflation in asset prices, or other financial innovations.

Profit, and consequently growth, can be increased in a number of ways, most often through the increased exploitation of labour— getting more for less—or the increased use of technology to produce more quickly, capturing a momentary advantage over competitors that will realise more profit for that particular firm.

Under existing conditions, monopoly production, increased profits can also be achieved through the sale of products at a higher than normal market rate: price-fixing.

However, given the collapse of consumer demand, companies are mostly resorting to the increased exploitation of labour or increased introduction of technology, displacing labour, to secure profits and growth.

Growth is usually measured in gross domestic product (GDP) on a comparative annual basis, but in Ireland is often interpreted as gross national product (GNP), as this is seen as a more accurate reflection of actual wealth in the economy. But growth can come from various areas, not always positive, for example arms manufacture, gambling, pointless advertising, and environmental destruction.

Thankfully, most of the proposed plans mentioned above look at investment and stimuli in such things as broadband, child care, and other more positive areas. Fundamentally, however, if this includes private capital,

whether through state borrowing or direct private investment, it will mean that private capital will get more out of it than labour and consequently will exacerbate inequality in society and the relations of dependence between labour and capital that have been a pathetic hallmark of recent years.

Capital can re-create itself, grow, only through exploitation: that is, not all the value created by labour going to labour, and capital maintaining for itself some of the value labour creates. Seeking growth in the system is essentially saying we want to further increase the exploitation of labour by capital.

Even if this is acknowledged (and it isn’t, mind) by those drafting these ten-point plans, it still raises the question, Is growth in the system possible? Can capital continue to re-create itself, or are there limits to growth, structurally and environmentally?

To suggest that capitalist growth is realistic as a means of providing jobs and a decent standard of living for working people is to go against decades of evidence of declining growth and stagnation. As the graph shows, growth has been struggling since the 1960s. Once the postwar reconstruction boom ended, stagnation set in, and low growth was the norm for the 70s.

Then, despite all the privatisation and the wars, growth in the 80s and 90s was only between 0 and 4 per cent. Again, despite all the asset, equity and other bubbles during the 2000s, growth still was usually between 1 and 3 per cent.

The trend is clear. The norm is sluggish growth, based on financial speculation and

bubbles, increased expenditure on arms, wars over resources and market share, privatisation, and, growing expenditure on pointless advertising and media—all this while monopolies desperately increase their exploitation of labour by making the working week longer, introducing new technologies, replacing workers, and—most commonly— increasing the productivity of labour through a variety of stress-inducing management techniques.

The weakness of these proposed plans is that they do not challenge, in the light of obvious evidence, whether growth in fact is possible, or even desirable. As the excellent editors of Monthly Review put it in the mid-90s, All this talk about growth as good, and faster growth as better, leaves out the truly important questions: do we need growth? If so, what kind of growth? And how about at least beginning to talk about an economy/society that rejects permanent growth as the oxymoron it obviously is and focuses on the really important issues of human and planetary existence?

And the contradiction between capitalist growth and planetary existence is now a very serious reality. Some climatologists reckon that to avoid a catastrophic warming of global temperatures we need to avoid reaching 750 billion cumulative metric tons of carbon. Based on current rates we are likely to reach this in fifteen years’ time, in 2028. To avoid it we must begin to reduce the creation of carbon by an average of about 5 per cent per year; and to put this in perspective, we are still increasing it—by 6 per cent in 2010—and it has been estimated that even an annual reduction of 1 per cent would be catastrophic for the capitalist economy.

We must also keep in mind that carbon emission and climate change are only one part of a global environmental catastrophe. We must also acknowledge the realities of the acidification of the seas, destruction of the ozone layer, the extinction of species, the disruption of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, growing shortages of fresh water, changes in land cover, and chemical pollution.

Those who advocate growth as a solution are advocating the further destruction of the environmental system and threaten the existence of the human species, as well as going against all the evidence of stagnation that exists, which capital will desperately try to avoid through even more suicidal environmental tendencies. They are placing the re-creation of capital as a priority over the re-creation of humanity. It is that perverse. [NL] ■ Part 2 of this article will look at the difference between the reformist plans described above—which do not present an alternative to capitalist growth economics and reproduce exploitation and the crisisridden system that exists today—and what a transformative programme looks like, and why it challenges the system.

Croke Park 2 rejected

he results are in; Croke Park II has been rejected. From a left viewpoint this is a welcome result, but it does leave the trade union movement with challenges. It is a time for reflection, questions and, most importantly, a great deal of analysis writes Anne Casey Union members have spoken, and whatever the media might say about the many reasons for workers rejecting the deal, it is clear that members voted against austerity measures. These measures are having a detrimental effect on trade unionists, their families, and their communities.

This is having a catastrophic effect on how society is evolving. We are changing as a nation, without any dialogue taking place, at any level, about what kind of society we want to evolve into and what kind of society we want for the children of this great republic.

The consequences of the Government’s decisions, their actions and policies are causing economic and social havoc to communities. But the rich will continue to thrive; their lives will not be interfered with in any noticeable way, while once again trade union members and their families struggle.

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Whose class struggle?

A useful starting-point in any left analysis is recognising that class struggle is not just about actions taken by workers for their class interest but that class struggle is (very effectively) organised and directed by the ruling classes, representing their own interests, and that this is done by the Government, who have a keen interest in maintaining this class struggle.

The ruling classes have launched the most far-reaching assault on working people in recent history. They have reversed decades of wage and employment gains.

The entire panoply of neo-liberal policies, including so-called “austerity measures,”

mass firings of public and private employees, and massive transfers of wealth to creditors, are designed to enhance the power, wealth and primacy of diverse sectors of capital at the expense of labour.

As James Petras has said, paraphrasing Marx, class struggle from above is the motor force to reverse history—to seize and destroy the advances secured by workers from previous class struggles from below.

If the ruling class struggle continues to dominate, what kind of society will we be left with after their neo-liberal austerity measures? What will the long-term effect be on our services, hospitals, and schools?

Who is planning for the health and wellbeing of our ageing population? This is the political debate that nobody is having.

Now you might say these are broader questions. However, such questions must form part of our analysis. It is the left’s job to lead on the broader questions.

An interesting observation is that the ruling class’s insistence on austerity is beginning to crack. A section of the capitalist class and their ideologues worry that they will not be able to influence the conditions for profit and growth. This has allowed the most sceptical elements of Labour within the coalition to raise their heads above the parapet. This will provide a useful opportunity to open discussion over economic strategy.

But at present this split is only a quarrel among capitalists about how to protect and pursue their own interests. We cannot simply attach ourselves to one wing of that capitalist argument: we must develop an argument for a socialist solution to the huge range of problems facing working people.

We cannot simply attack deficiencies in others: we must develop our own path.

Firstly, we must reject, of course, the coming chorus of complaint that unions have put sectional needs before the needs of the country, and that unions themselves must now propose how to save €300 million this year. We know that the Croke Park II package proved divisive, and the unions—pro or anti—need to address those divisions. As for the €300 million, neither the savings nor the purpose of the savings are acceptable.

Secondly, we must recognise that in a crisis of this depth we cannot protect all workers from the whole gamut of hardship they face. Even were a left government to take power tomorrow such a thing would be beyond our resources. But we must concentrate our attention more urgently on working-class priorities for recovery: that is, we cannot be content to rebuild the old system and only then advance our class interests.

Anne Casey is the secretary of the Trade Union Left Forum Picture shows the chairperson of the ICTU Public Services Committee, Shay Cody, shows off the draft of Croke Park 2 SOCIALIST VOICE page 5

The capitalist crisis and the demolition of workers’ rights

This article presents a short overview firstly of the capitalist crisis as it relates to Ireland and then of the effect of the crisis on the Irish working class.

The capitalist crisis in Ireland In responding to the capitalist crisis, the chosen strategy of the ruling political class, assisted by the EU, ECB, and IMF, is “austerity”: lowering the cost of production to the point where profitability begins to increase, and re-establishing economic growth. This strategy manifests itself in the cutting of jobs, the freezing (or cutting) of wages, the closing of businesses, and the ending of investment to reduce the cost of capital. In this regard, the ruling political class are having some success.

A useful proxy for competitiveness is an economy’s current account—the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world.

After significant deficits in the early years of the recession, Ireland now has a currentaccount surplus of €2,851 million. It recorded a current-account surplus of 2.1 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2012.

While austerity has weakened household demand, it has turned around profitability, through weakening social-welfare payments, paring public-sector wages, raising the retirement age, adding additional tax burdens on labour, selling state assets, and so on.

A study published in November by Berenberg, a research group in Brussels, found that unit labour costs fell by 10.3 per cent in Ireland. In comparison, in the entire euro area they increased by 1½ per cent.

Again this has all helped to raise profitability in 2012.

Alongside Estonia, Ireland has seen one of the biggest recoveries in profitability. It has achieved this for two reasons.

Firstly, reducing unit labour costs in production has a much greater effect on page 6 SOCIALIST VOICE

growth and profits in an economy like Ireland’s in which annual exports are equal to 100 per cent of GDP. Secondly, unit labour costs were cut more easily because of emigration. Many Irish workers, particularly the young and the skilled, left for Britain, Canada, or Australia. Indeed there has been a significant turnaround from net immigration (with Irish people returning home to a fast-growing “Celtic tiger” economy before the crisis) to net emigration.

It should be noted that some of our comrades on the left believe that the continuing crisis is a result of the policies of austerity being pursued. In this context, alternative Keynesian policies of fiscal stimulus are preferred.

Communists, however, are of the view that neither of these is particularly favourable for Irish workers. Austerity means a loss of jobs and services and therefore of income; Keynesian policies would mean expanding the money supply, a loss of real income through higher prices, a falling currency (if the option of devaluation was possible), and eventually rising interest rates.

Demolition of workers’ rights The position of the Irish working class has undergone a fairly marked and progressive decline over the past thirty years. Unlike most European countries, there is no statutory right to trade union recognition, and, again unlike the Continent, there are no statutory works councils.

The absence of such institutional support in the first case is partly reflected in the significant decline in the level of union membership throughout the private-sector economy since the 1980s. Taken in conjunction with the tendency within the trade union movement from the late 1980s onwards to direct resources into national corporatist arrangements, local-level union organisation has been significantly eroded.

This has left many workers without a basic organisational capacity to resist the strategy of private-sector employers during the present recessionary period. Since the onset of the economic crisis in 2008, pay freezes have been the norm in the private sector.

A noteworthy feature of the present crisis is the encroachment on public-sector workers’ rights through the so-called Croke Park Agreements between the state, acting as employer, and the public-sector unions. These agreements have meant significant cuts in workers’ terms and conditions of employment in various streams of the public sector, in turn having a knock-on effect on the public services being provided to workers in the country as a whole.

The new agreement, if accepted, would facilitate the replacement, to start with, of secure, permanent jobs with outsourcing, short-term contracts and part-time work in the public sector. Precarious low-paid employment will become the norm for the Irish working class.

It is also desired to have a knock-on effect in the private sector, to facilitate further wage stagnation, increased hours, increased use of short-term contracts, and the maintenance of high unemployment.

The government’s aim is to make the country more attractive to monopoly capital, especially American capital, which can then use Ireland as a base for exports into the euro zone. They are attempting to make permanent full-time work a thing of the past, to be replaced by a precarious “flexible” work force, where the working week can be whatever the employers need it to be.

The CPI has characterised this agreement between the government and public-sector unions as a dead end, as handcuffs and legirons for public-sector workers. There is nothing in this agreement for workers other than longer working hours, pay cuts, and a worsening of their terms and conditions. [NC]

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Opinion

et me just state from the outset that this is a comradely reply to certain aspects of the article that I would have to question.

The opening paragraph for me is very ambiguous in what it is trying to convey and who exactly the writer is appealing to. Of course it is no secret that Cuba has had some harsh times, especially the self-titled “special period” following the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union. The Cuban people have had to endure its own implementation of austerity, rationing, and international isolation. Its people have stood firm, side by side with its leaders, to uphold and maintain the continued existence of its socialist revolution.

But it must be emphasised that Cuba is not a country that was given a free hand to set about the course of a planned economy along socialist lines: the US blockade on Cuba has made sure of that. That blockade, first introduced in 1962, is said to have cost the Cuban nation in the region of $100 billion. It is an unnecessary evil that has had a detrimental effect on its people on their road to development and socialism.

When we think of Cuba as an example of a socialist state and what lessons can be learnt we must always keep in mind, as a comrade recently declared, that Cuba is a socialist state under siege by imperialism! It is also isolated, in that a socialist bloc no longer exists; and so the reforms that were brought in recently must be considered in the context of the material conditions and the political landscape Cuba finds itself in.

Its people want to progress materially, socially, and politically, but it cannot do so with only its domestic resources and what little trade it does internationally. Who knows what might happen to Cuba if Venezuela, its main trading partner, especially for its heavy import on oil, was to take a right turn and undo the legacy built by the late great leader, Hugo Chávez?

Whether we “European socialists” perceive the changes in Cuba as progress or a step back from socialism has little bearing on how the people on the ground will feel the changes. It is the Cuban people who will decide what path it takes, and the Cubans are fully involved in that process.

If the Cubans need to implement reforms to first of all improve its productivity level and secondly to thaw some diplomatic relations so as to gain some trading partners, to improve the life of Cubans, then all we can do is hope they do it with a full awareness of the dangers and pitfalls such reforms bring with them. And I’m pretty sure this debate has circulated widely within the Cuban population.

The Cuban issue is one thing, but one of the most fundamental Marxist-Leninist principles is questioned in the article, the main reason for this response: the centrally planned economy.

The whole article is premised on the idea that central planning worked only in “poor, rural countries like Cuba, Bulgaria, or Romania,” and even then once a certain level of

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A response to the article in the April issue of Socialis

Can we le from Cub May Day in Havana 2013

industrialisation, education, housing and health was reached it could no longer provide its citizens with the necessary material conditions that they demanded. However, I would suggest that this is more to do with imperialist aggression than any fundamental flaw in central planning.

Let’s take a look at why the writer has come to this conclusion. The article states: “Citizens of socialist countries felt the scarcity, shoddiness and uniformity of their goods to be inconveniences, and violations of their basic socialist rights. To compensate for failures of the system to deliver, black economies developed, so that ever-increasing areas of economic activity spun out of social accountability.”

This assessment isn’t wrong; however, it is over-simplified, and more importantly what is missing is context: two world wars, the Cold War, the arms race, the space race, and the welfare race. Scarcity is not an in-built flaw of the planned system. There was certainly no scarcity of education up to and including university level; definitely no scarcity of work, with full employment being maintained in the socialist countries.

Workers’ rights, terms and conditions definitely weren’t scarce—so much so that the European and US governments had to engage in a welfare race, especially after the Second World War, to stem any spread of the “evil”

communist ideology. It was only in the light of the Gorbachev “reforms” that shop shelves became empty, as a direct result of the dismantling of the planned economy.

Leaving all that aside, one has to consider that the rise of fascism, which led to the Second World War, and the subsequent Cold War, made it essential to steer socialist production to the production of arms, leaving planners with a decision to either improve the material goods of its citizens and face abolition by a foreign aggressive imperialist enemy or put its best technicians, engineers, planners and everyone in between on a course to develop and produce items geared mainly for the military.

So the lack of consumer goods and the underdevelopment of goods was partly due to wars, whether cold or hot, redirecting planning away from consumer goods. The fact still remained, however, that even though the socialist bloc was subjected to a Cold War, the vast majority of citizens were living in peacetime; but certain luxury items were being demanded that the planning authorities could not deliver, thus giving rise to the black or second economy and all that came with it.

One may reasonably ask, Are market economies more efficient and better placed to meet the needs of their citizens—because of technological advancement and the incentive to innovate—than planned economies? Is this a valid and true argument? And if so, as the

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writer suggests, should we rethink our theory and strategy when it comes to economic central planning?

On the face of it, it is very hard to deny this—probably why so many have questioned the idea of the planned economy, and possibly why well-meaning people on the left might advocate some hybrid of the planned and market economy.

This is not an easy question to answer; but I would argue that the fact that Cuba, at this particular period in its existence, has had to change its economy to meet its particular needs is primarily because of the blockade. Therefore, Marxists should not be skewed by the unique conditions attributed to Cuba.

I would counter the writer’s argument and would put forward the case for central planning: that the law of the plan, rather than the law of value—the market—has been and can be just as efficient and innovative as any market system. On the contrary, any hybrid system (as discussed below) can help, and did help in the eastern European socialist bloc, to lead to the demise of socialism, by allowing the embryo of capitalism, commodity production, to gain precedence over planning in economic productive relations.

By today’s standards, the Soviet economy had good growth rates. (For some insight into how well it fared compared with the capitalist world see A Reassessment of the Soviet

Industrial Revolution by Prof. Robert Allen of the University of Oxford.¹) Some would argue that large-scale industrialisation and post-war rebuilding could account for most of this, especially up to and after the Second World War. But how can a system work so well for a number of decades in building a modern industrialised country and all of a sudden falter when it comes to meeting some of the needs of its citizens for material goods? Does a centrally planned economy stifle the production of goods? Are central planners too far removed to deal with the ever-changing demands of their citizens?

Taking inspiration from a paper by Joseph Ball,² I would argue not. The Soviet Union up to 1953 based the production of the means of production—i.e. the production of factories, raw materials, infrastructure, etc.—on the law of planning: it was not done on the basis of profitmaking but on the basis of allocation (not selling) by the central authorities to the various enterprises; and also they remained state property.

Only consumer goods were based on the law of value—were sold as commodities. “The reason for this distinction between consumer goods and means of production is that there were two basic forms of production in the Soviet Union. One form took place in the collective farm sector and the other in the state industrial enterprise sector.”² The difference was that the collective farms, once they reached their quota, could sell their surplus as commodities and distribute the proceeds among themselves, while the state industrial sector could not.

For an economy to continually grow but at a constant level (once it has reached its steady state) its industries need to be able to innovate and advance technologically. (You can only build so many factories before the costs outweigh the benefits.) In the Soviet case before 1953 a mechanism whereby enterprises had an incentive to innovate and advance came in the form of state subsidies, which, put simply, paid for the initial high start-up cost of research and development that would otherwise only come from the ability to make a profit in a market economy.

These subsidies were not industry-wide but were implemented in high-priority areas, such as heavy industries—in the Soviet case—by the central authority. The priority area for subsidising would depend on the relative development of an economy. This means that the law of the plan can be fully adhered to without the need to ensure that an industry is fully profitable but may be socially necessary.

Prices can be controlled, and in the case of lighter industries the costs can be reduced by controlling the price of energy, fuel, and transport. The primacy of planning can be maintained, and therefore the conscious productive activity of human beings to develop and advance socialist theory need not be distorted or revised.

What changed in the Soviet Union after 1953 was that reforms were implemented that did away with the state subsidies system (competition between firms obviously not factoring here). In effect, “when subsidies were ended, start-up costs became included in the cost of new products. New products became less profitable to produce than old products,” and so the incentive to innovate was removed.² What took its place was a system of “temporary prices.” Essentially, new products were supposed to be given an initial higher price once introduced and were then reduced.

In practice this failed to work, as the planning system was not designed to act like a market. So costs were lowered but prices remained high, leading to a “disincentive to innovation.”

Flowing from this, economic stagnation set in as the means of production now came to be influenced by the ability to make profit, restoring the law of value, and hence being sold as commodities. The black market and second economy began to flourish, while corruption began to filter through the state apparatus, giving rise to a new class of owners, who now had private interests at stake.

The primacy of planning had been overtaken by the primacy of profit—not overnight, it must be stressed, but culminating in the Gorbachev “reforms” in the late 1980s. The planning system was dismantled, leading to the eventual restoration of the capitalist system in the eastern European and Soviet socialist bloc.

The implications of allowing market forces and commodity production back to the forefront in a socialist economy can never be underestimated or go unnoticed. Just because a country might be able to socialise the means of production, if firms continue to be beholden to market forces, especially for finance, then we are left with ineffective central planning and inefficient competition. It is too early to tell if this will be the case in Cuba.

Once you remove the primacy of central planning of the conscious efforts of society to direct the economic trajectory and replace it with market forces, however socialised they may be, you may well end up losing the socialist character and restoring capitalism, as did happen in the socialist bloc.

To answer the writer’s question, “Can we learn from Cuba (or where to go from here)?”— yes, we have many lessons to learn from Cuba; but do we abandon our principles and welcome reforms with open arms that in the past have helped lead to the downfall of socialism? To this I would answer with a resounding No! Leave that to the opportunists, the revisionists, and the reformists, and tackle it wherever it presents itself. [EON] 1. Robert Allen, A Reassessment of the Soviet Industrial Revolution (2003); available on line at www.politicaleconomy.ie.

2. Joseph Ball, The Need for Planning: The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and the Decline of the Soviet Economy (2010); available on line at clogic.eserver.org/2010/Ball.pdf and www.politicaleconomy.ie.

SOCIALIST VOICE page 9

International

Venezuela: Electoral challenge a coup attempt

Anti Chavez demonstrators calling for intervention

A couple of important points are to be noted about the recent presidential election in Venezuela.

The first and most important, which is being ignored by practically all of the mainstream media is that it was also an attempted coup by right-wing forces, together with their allies in the United States.

Before this election and the previous one the opposition threatened not to accept the result—unless, of course, it showed that their candidate had won. They promised street violence and civil disturbances, with the expectation that people might get killed in the ensuing confrontations. This would provide an excuse for intervention by the United States—exactly the kind of scenario that led to the previous attempted coup in 2002.

The gap of a million votes between the right-wing candidate, Capriles, and the late President Chávez in the election of October page 10 SOCIALIST VOICE

2012 was too great for any doubt to be inferred by the losing side; but they felt emboldened by the narrower margin of victory in this month’s election, although that gap was still more than a quarter of a million votes.

The second point to be noted is that the opposition is not democratic. There are democrats among them; but essentially the bulk of them are democrats only when it suits them.

For instance, in their own election to choose their candidate for the presidential election they were quite happy to use the National Electoral Council (CNE), which they now attack. They then broke the rules by not carrying out an audit of the results, as required by the electoral laws. The back-up voting papers were then destroyed before this could be done. There is no way of proving that Capriles was even the chosen candidate.

This is the same opposition that now

accuses the CNE of dishonesty, demanded a 100 per cent audit, and laid siege to CNE offices and to the home of its director.

One of the major acts of the Chávez government was to add millions of people to the electoral register. Before he came to power half the Venezuelan population were not even registered in any national statistics, and as far as previous governments were concerned these people did not even exist. There was no demand from the opposition for the democratic right of this section of the population to be recognised.

Remember that when the same opposition grabbed power, briefly, during the failed coup in 2002, the first thing they did was to overthrow the constitution of the country and to sack democratically elected officials.

The third and last point is that the Venezuelan election system is one of the best and most secure in the world. The checks and safeguards against fraud are robust.

An article in the American business magazine Forbes even suggested that the United States could learn a lot about how to conduct elections from Venezuela. Near the beginning of President Chávez’s time in office the government decided that this had to be the case, as any perceived flaw would be quickly seized upon.

To vote, one must produce a cedula or national identity card, which every Venezuelan carries. This is checked against the national register of the electorate. The voter is then fingerprinted and the result is fed into a national computer system to check that the person has not voted already or does not try to vote again.

The voting is done at an electronic machine, which then prints a paper version of the vote, which the voter verifies. If they are satisfied, they place this in the ballot box. The voter is then required to to dip their finger in an indelible dye, a further security against repeat voting.

When voting is completed at a polling station, the paper votes are verified against the electronic tally, which means that a full paper trail is available.

The extreme and extraordinary demands of the opposition forces can be seen in a banner that one of their supporters held in a recent demonstration at the Venezuelan embassy in London. In the small crowd, which harassed the staff of the embassy and tried to prevent them entering or leaving the building, one of their banners asked for England to invade Venezuela and help to restore what is, to the opposition, the natural order.

This demand must have gone down a treat with other Latin American countries, especially Argentina. Well, now, if only Maggie was still around! [RCN]

Capitalism does not work for the people

Colombians call for solidarity

The talks going on now in Havana between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are an occasion for great hope that at last a political solution can be found to the social conflict and the armed struggle that have gone on for over sixty years.

This conflict has its origin in the peasants’ defence of their land and livelihood against the state and the private armies recruited by the landowners. The United States has used the conflict to promote its power in the South American continent, using “war on drugs” and “war on terror” as a justification. It has deliberately prolonged and intensified the conflict.

There has been a massive campaign in Colombia for a peaceful solution to the conflict: for peace with social justice, achieved by dealing with the issues that caused the problem in the first place. The Marcha Patriótica (Patriotic March), which brings together many social movements and political organisations, has built up a powerful campaign. Its latest demonstration in Bogotá brought out more than a million people.

The popular demand that it has mobilised, together with the fact that a military solution is unattainable, has contributed to the commencement of the peace talks.

This is by no means the first time that peace talks have taken place. Bitter experience has shown how difficult it is to maintain the momentum, and how powerful are those forces, in Colombia and abroad, that stand to benefit from the continuation of the conflict. The need for international solidarity with the Colombian people was never greater.

Colombian exiles in Europe meet in Dublin In this situation, representatives of Colombian exiles living in Europe met together in James Connolly House, Dublin, on 19, 20 and 21 April to study the possibility of giving support to the

social movements, advancing the current negotiations, and furthering a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Their conference received many messages of support, from political parties and solidarity organisations in Ireland and throughout Europe and from organisations engaged in popular struggle in Colombia, including one from the Irish Government and one from the Colombian Embassy.

The statement issued by the conference l stresses the need to give support from Europe to the talks in Havana; these talks should include the agenda put forward by the social movements; l seeks a bilateral ceasefire, so as to create the right atmosphere for a productive discussion; l urges the European Union to reverse its description of the FARC as a “terrorist organisation,” which it describes as an obstruction to political dialogue; l condemns the persistence, indeed the intensification, of the repression directed against human-rights defenders, political activists, and social movements, which bears down especially on the peasants demanding the return of their land; l draws attention to the grave humanitarian crisis in Colombian prisons, where thousands of political prisoners and prisoners of war are held in conditions which do not meet the minimum standards for a human being; l urges Colombian exiles and immigrants living in Europe to commit themselves to the search for solutions to the root causes of the social conflict and armed struggle and to actively mobilise to back the political process towards a negotiated settlement; l calls on European social organisations, peace and solidarity movements and internationalists in support of social struggles to involve themselves in solidarity with the Colombian popular movements striving for peace with social justice, and to urge their governments to give decisive backing to the talks so as to facilitate a peaceful agreement. [SE]

Responding to the survey on youth unemployment and emigration by the National Youth Council of Ireland, the Communist Party of Ireland stated that it is not just the policies of the current and past Governments that have led to the constant haemorrhage of mass emigration of our youth but the economic system itself, which is incapable of creating enough jobs and proper economic and social development to meet the needs of our people.

Paul Doran stated that until there is a fundamental change of direction in the economic and social policy of this failed state we will continue to rear our children to walk the streets of cities around the globe.

All economic and social development has been skewed in favour of transnational corporations and the Irish rich and powerful.

As the statistics show, this state has the highest net emigration since the late 1980s.

Over the last four years 308,000 people have left, 41 per cent of them (125,000) in the 15–24 age group.

In brief: — There is 31 per cent youth unemployment.

— One in three young men under the age of twenty-five are now out of work.

— Youth unemployment has trebled since 2008.

— We have the fifth-highest rate of child poverty in Europe, with a poverty rate of 20 per cent.

Unless we break this cycle of dependence and control by the European Union, the United States and the British state in the North we will see further generations of our youth leave, looking for a future.

Emigration, like unemployment, is used as a weapon against the people to keep them subdued and cowed.

Commemorating the 1913 Lock-out

A new site with history, personalities, analysis, and commemorative events: http://1913lockout.ie/?p=398

SOCIALIST VOICE page 11

Culture

Lost Generation Lyrics by Eoghan O’Neill

One would think that all we’ve come to witness Was the inevitability of an instability Within a system . . . a system, you say?

Shit, we’ve already mentioned the biggest cliché.

No, we need to be more specific, We need to move beyond the bogus tokens, the lefty slogans, And empty rhetoric—the social-democratic.

I wish that Away from I wish that Away from

The Progressive Film Club: an inspiration and an education Some four years ago this writer came across the Progressive Film Club, a group set up by volunteers interested in showing films about workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights and women’s rights and generally the struggles for people’s rights, which you won’t find in your local cinema or that little box in your living-room.

For me it has been an inspiration and an education. It’s uniqueness is that it is free—yes, they don’t charge you to watch these films.

On Saturday 13 April I went along to that wonderful hub of Irish culture in Dublin, the New Theatre in East Essex Street, and sat down with my kids to watch Tocar y Luchar (“to play and to struggle”), which tells a true story of how the Venezuelan state implemented “El Sistema.” This is a set of inspiring ideals that has led to an intensive after-school music programme that seeks to effect social change through the pursuit of musical excellence.

El Sistema focuses on children with the fewest resources and greatest need and is delivered at no cost to participants. Its core values are that l every human being has the right to a life of dignity and contribution; l Every child can learn to experience and express music and art deeply and receive its many benefits; l overcoming poverty and adversity is best done by first strengthening the spirit, creating, as Dr Abreu puts it, “an affluence of the spirit”; l effective education is based on love, approval, joy and experience within a high-functioning, aspiring, nurturing community; l every child has limitless possibilities and the ability to strive for excellence; “trust the young” informs every aspect of the work; l learning organisations never arrive but are always becoming— striving to include more students, greater musical excellence, better teaching.

Thus, flexibility, experimentation and risk-taking are inherent in and desirable aspects of every programme. The film was truly inspiring and exposes the lie that one often hears—and that this writer has been told in relation to his own children’s secondary school in Clondalkin—that because of the lack of “professional” parents attending the school the children won’t aspire to much.

I would urge everyone to watch this film and especially those on school boards of management and the many involved in the educational sector. Maybe even the present minister for education, Ruairí Quinn, could nip down to Essex Street for a special showing.

[PD] n www.progressivefilmclub.ie.

we’d all wake up one day this reality, no mass migration. we’d all wake up one day this insanity. We’re lost.

Jobs a-plenty, worries a-few.

Do you remember back in 2002 When all seemed well, and money rolled in?

We were the poster child hung up in Berlin.

The fall of the wall made workers abundant, Perfect for the policies of the bankers and builders Who fuelled the bubble, by selling a dream, And that’s all it was: a fucking dream!

Remember that dream that we just talked about?

Well, what I forgot to mention is that people are being torn apart.

But more than that they hanging on to memory Of times gone by, so they sleep so silently.

Regretfully they believe in their unconscious reality That one day, some day order will be restored, A lost generation returning to our shores, If we just batten down the hatches, and stay indoors.

So that brings us up to here, in this superstitious year.

And what lies in store I try not to think about.

No doubt more drought for the poor, the sick, the elderly, But what about the middle class, who’ve acted so shelteredly?

We’re told we all partied, must share the burden of the pain, But fuck those scumbags, cheerleaders of the state.

Do people deserve a slap in the face, Stripped of their humanity and put back in their place?

I wish that one day we’d wake from this reality.

I wish that one day we’d wake from this insanity.

A lost generation, migrated to a new land, Our tiny island nation on its hands and knees again.

I wish that we’d all wake up one day With class-conscious policies, no more mass migration.

I wish that we’d all take up one day.

The task of organising, our lot.

What can we do? What can we say?

What can be said for putting the head down and pray?

No, scrap that diktat, it ain’t no think tank.

It is no substitute for the people to take the power back For democracy, For sovereignty.

For our dignity.

SOCIALIST VOICE page 12