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By Julie Hyland 9 February 2017

This is the first part of a two-part series on the British pseudo-lefts support for immigration controls.

Britains pseudo-left groups have all condemned US President Donald Trump for his anti-Muslim travel ban, denouncing the assault as reactionary, discriminatory, divisive and racist. Yet, when it comes to the issue of the free movement of labour, there is little to distinguish between the far-right oligarch in the White House and the supposedly liberal or socialist left in Britain.

From the Labour Party and the trade unions to the Socialist Party, the Stalinist Morning Star and others, all are united in their demand to reinforce border controls in the UK. Support for restricting immigration exists irrespective of these organisations standpoint on Britain exiting the European Union.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who campaigned for a Remain vote in the referendum last June and who supports continued access to the European Single Market, has accepted restrictions on free movement, supposedly out of respect for the Leave vote. Labour is not wedded to freedom of movement for EU citizens as a point of principle, he has said.

His stance was welcomed by leading Remain campaigner Paul Mason. Free movement is not a principle of socialism, he argued in the Guardian. It has undermined social justice and must be modified, he added, calling for a temporary suspension of free movement within the EU for 10 years.

Labour must recognise that what drives opposition to free movement among progressive, left-minded people is that, in addition to suppressing wage growth at the low end, it says to people with strong cultural traditions, a strong sense of place and community (sometimes all they have left from the industrial era) that your past does not matter.

Mason elaborated on the theme that immigration restrictions are necessary to foster respect for culture, community and traditions. This is an argument that could have come straight out of Trumps mouth, proving that fake-left opportunists who denounce the US president for their own ends today will not have to travel far to align themselves with an overtly right-wing programme tomorrow.

As for the pro-Brexit pseudo-left, in the referendum they sought to provide socialist window dressing for a Leave campaign spearheaded by neo-Thatcherites from the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party (UKIP). The Socialist Equality Party warned at the time that behind their efforts to give nationalism a left twist, [T]hey are subordinating the working class to an initiative aimed at shifting political life even further along a nationalist trajectory, thereby strengthening and emboldening the far right in the UK and across Europe while weakening the political defences of the working class. Having helped release the genie of British nationalism, they are politically responsible for its consequences.

Their unpardonable toying with left populism as a supposed antidote to the right has now hardened into outright support for anti-migrant restrictions.

Former Labour MP George Galloway notoriously joined platforms with Nigel Farage in the Brexit referendum. He praised the then-UKIP leader as his ally and authored the slogan Left, Right, Left, Right, forward march to victory

Farage is now the favourite Briton of Trump, who describes his own America First agenda as Brexit plus, plus, plus.

Nowadays, Galloway spends his time attacking the idea that, in a capitalist society, its some kind of principle that we should allow as many workers to join the queue for a declining number of jobs, or baiting the pro-Remain Scottish National Party for believing we have more in common with Bulgaria and Romania than with Britain.

The Stalinist Communist Party of Britain provides the political hymn sheet from which the left nationalists attempt a pose of theoretical legitimacy. The Morning Star has run a series of articles on free movement, mostly berating the left and young people, in particular, for defending it.

Typical was an article by columnist Julian Jones, who wrote, By being so positive towards EU free movement, sectors of the left are naively, or willingly, falling into a trap of their own making

Defence of free movement is not, and should not be, the position of the organised left, he continued, complaining of the young, in particular who have been duped into thinking that free movement of people is a near-socialist principle.

Jones cynically uses the fact that many young migrants working in the UK have effectively been forced out of their countries by EU austerity to claim that border controls are in their own best interests, as well as that of low-skilled workers in the UK.

The Unite unions general secretary, Len McCluskey, in an op-ed on December 16 made a feint of opposing impractical demands to pull up the drawbridge on migrants. But his bottom line was that we are well past the point where the issue of free movement can be ignored.

Lets have no doubt: the free movement of labour is a class question, McCluskey wrote.

He continued: Karl Marx identified that fact a long time ago. A study of the struggle waged by the British working class, he wrote in 1867, reveals that in order to oppose their workers, the employers either bring in workers from abroad or else transfer manufacture to countries where there is a cheap labour force.

McCluskeys article is typical of the rank dishonesty that characterises the pseudo-lefts attack on free movement. His citation of Marx is taken from an 1867 statement of the International Workingmans Association, under the heading On the Lausanne Congress.

McCluskey omits what comes immediately after his citation, where Marx states, Given this state of affairs, if the working class wishes to continue its struggle with some chance of success, the national organisations must become international.

The distortion of Marxs position is not accidental. McCluskey writes that of course, all socialists must ultimately look forward to a day when people can move freely across the world and live or work where they will. He goes on: But that is a utopia removed from the world of today, and would require international economic planning and public ownership to make a reality.

McCluskey is an opponent of the working class as well as the class struggle and socialism. He has no intention of attaining a world where people can live or work where they will. His sole concern is to justify the existing capitalist reality, which means recognising the exigencies of labour supply and demand.

What is required, he argues, is a straightforward trade union response to the issue of immigration such as Unite has proposed, whereby any employer wishing to recruit labour abroad can only do so if they are either covered by a proper trade union agreement, or by sectoral collective bargaining.

The same line is taken by the Socialist Party, formerly Militant. Welcoming the Leave vote as a working class revolt, their Socialism Today argued: The socialist and trade union movement from its earliest days has never supported the free movement of goods, services and capital-- or labour--as a point of principle, but instead has always striven for the greatest possible degree of workers control, the highest form of which, of course, would be a democratic socialist society with a planned economy.

Taking trade union cretinism to extremes, they compare support for immigration controls to the trade unions previous support for the closed shop, whereby only union members can be employed in a particular workplace, a very concrete form of border control not supported by the capitalists.

Like McCluskey, the SPs reference to a future socialism is window dressing for their accommodation to the requirements of capital in the here and now. They insist that it is impermissible to defend the right to free movement because it would alienate the vast majority of the working class, including many more long-standing immigrants, who would see it as a threat to jobs, wages and living conditions. It was on this basis that they notoriously backed protests at the Lindsey oil refinery in 2009 demanding British jobs for British workers.

These efforts to transform Marx and the socialist movement into border guards--trade union members, of course--cannot be allowed to stand.

These organisations have nothing in common with the founder of scientific socialism. Their support for immigration controls is the outcome of their perspective of national economic regulation under capitalism, which is diametrically opposed to the perspective of revolutionary socialist internationalism.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels explained the revolutionary character of capitalist production which, in its drive to constantly expand the market for its products, chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. Through the creation and exploitation of a world market, they explained, the bourgeoisie has given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.

In words that could have been directed against McCluskey et al, the great revolutionaries continued: To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature

The truly revolutionising character of capitalist production was expressed in its creation of the international working class--the gravedigger of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

The working class has nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.

The watchword of the socialist workers movement for Marx and Engels was, Workers of all Lands, Unite! This perspective flowed from the scientific analysis of capitalism that was developed by Marx on the basis of historical materialism.

The pseudo-left cite Marxs analysis of the industrial reserve army or relative surplus population to justify their support for border controls. But once again, they distort this analysis beyond all recognition.

For Marx, this phenomenon was not a temporary aberration, but intrinsic to capitalist accumulation. This is because capitalist industry consists of two parts--machinery and workers--the ratio between which is called the organic composition of capital. The number of workers in employment is variable. It is dependent on whether or not it is profitable for the capitalist to employ workers to run the machinery, the constant capital. And this, in turn, is affected by the growth of technology, which requires a smaller number of workers to produce greater quantities of goods, as well as the state of competition within an industry. [For detailed analysis, see Capital Volume 1, Chapter 25].

Marx wrote, The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production.

For Marx, Every labourer belonged to the surplus/reserve army of labour during the time when he is only partially employed or wholly unemployed.

In a devastating critique of modern-day calls for immigration controls, Marx insisted that this problem was not to be solved by the folly now patent of the economic wisdom that preaches to the labourers the accommodation of their number to the requirements of capital.

In fact, The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, all the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army.

The solution, Marx insisted, was cooperation between workers to protect their common class interests in combination against the bourgeoisie. In the inaugural address of the International Working Mens Association (the First International) in 1864, Marx concluded, Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incites them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts.

Praising the struggle by the Lancashire cotton textile works who, against their own bosses and the British Empire, and on pain of starvation, agitated in support of the North in the American Civil War and for the abolition of slavery, he continued, If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfil that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the peoples blood and treasure?

It was the duty of the working classes to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws or morals and justice which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.

The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

To be continued

See the article here:
Socialism and defence of the free movement of labour: Part one - World Socialist Web Site

I wish to apologize for taking time to respond to you. I was immersed in a lot of commitments and struggled to find time to develop a befitting response. You will also pardon me as I fail to address you properly, your pen name, as well as the picture attached to your News24 account makes it impossible for me to determine your gender.

Your reply to myself, which was published online by News24 on 3 January 2017, is interesting for me. Following your confession that you have read a few of my articles has shown me that your critique extended beyond the article in question. I will therefore respond with that in mind. Here under please receive my points in reaction to your arguments;

In Paragraph 3, you make interesting observations about the inextricable relationship between states (you narrowly refer to governments) and owners of production, which in this case is a few individuals. But you immediately distort this observation by blaming governments (or states), for the problems of the world.

This observation is problematic in that it assumes that all governments, or states, operate in isolation from external players. The observation is also weakened by the contradiction contained in the statement; The problems of the world are caused by weak governments that are caught up in capitalism.

Looking at your post, it is unclear if you apportion the problems of the world to capitalism, due to weak governments being involved or being affected by capitalism, or whether the problems of the world are caused by weaknesses within governments themselves. But later on, you argue that I must not blame capitalism. The contradiction is loud here.

In your reply, you have been unable to counter my argument that capitalism has failed to solve the problems of the world. This is because there can be no scientific, credible argument to counter my claim. It is impossible to prove how capitalism has improved the lives of the people.

The capitalist project has been characterized by crises since time immemorial. Prabhat Patnaik, Professor Emeritus at the Center for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, wrote the following in 2016; The thirty-year crisis of capitalism, which encompassed two world wars and the Great Depression, was followed by a period that some economists call the Golden Age of capitalism. Today, however, capitalism is once again enmeshed in a crisis that portends far-reaching consequences. I am not referring here to the mere phenomenon of the generally slower average growth that has marked the system since the mid-1970s. Rather, I am talking specifically of the crisis that started with the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble in 2007-8 and which, far from abating, is only becoming more pronounced.

The current economic crisis, which started in the US, is not accidental, but is a by-product of the fundamental nature of capitalism. The system of capitalism promises all and sundry that all problems will be solved by some invisible hand. That invisible hand was literally invisible when the housing bubble exploded in US in 2007-08. Instead of the market correcting itself, the US government spent millions of dollars to rescue private firms that were affected by the crisis. The US government, in so doing, was involved in a process of nationalization of debt.

Capitalism has failed to solve the problems of inequality, poverty and unemployment. South Africa is a clear case study. Many amongst us are fed the lie that we need a certain level of economic growth in order for the economy to create jobs. That is a lie. Capitalism does not care about alleviating poverty, or creating jobs, or reducing inequality. In all the three cases, capitalism vies for the opposite.

Ina sheer display of the monstrosity of capitalism, in 2015/16 financial year, Shoprite CEO Whitey Basson earned an annual basic salary of R49.7 million, plus a performance bonus of R50 million, leaving him with an annual pay of R100 million. This when ordinary employees of Shoprite take home about R500 per week. We dont care that Basson has worked in that company for 45 years, but this pay is an insult to the many employees, who serve the company as slaves, only for one greedy person to enjoy the fruits of their sweat. This is capitalism.

In UK, it is reported that the FTSE 100 average CEO is paid 129 times more than an average employee. The US, as the ultimate model of capitalism, is the worst. This is where capitalism and its failures can be studies without fail.

Even the educated people you are reffering to, who you state choose capitalism, are slaves of the capitalist project. The all sell their labour to their masters, and receive meagre wages. You can be an investment Broker, Engineer, etc., as long as you sell your labour, you are a slave of the capitalists. Through your labour, companies like PHG make trillions of dollars every day. The cars, houses, expensive watches they flash are nothing but tools of enslaving them further.

You enquired why socialism has not worked. This assertion is flawed and exposes your gross misinformation. Cuba is a socialist country and the system is working, not only for Cubans but for the world. Given its highly advanced education system, Cuba teaches medicine to some Americans who offer medical support in poor communities, thanks to state subsidies. Cuba has doctors, engineers and other professionals working all over the world, including in South Africa. In Cuba, there are no street people, like is the case in America, UK, South Africa and elsewhere.

Another example is China, where communism is practiced. The state, through legislation, policy and intervention, is in charge of the economy. There is no claim of an invisible hand in China as the hand is directly from the Communist Party of China. China is about to surpass US as the worlds largest economy.

The fall of the Soviet Union was not because the system had failed. It was mainly because of the weakening of the party and its infiltration by external elements.

I still maintain, Capitalism has never, and shall never, solve the problems of the world. Socialism is a worthy alternative. Socialism shall replace the greedy, selfish and exploitative character of capitalism

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

Here is the original post:
A reply to No Ohno: On Socialism and Capitalism - News24

Hillary Clinton, who had a national approval rating of 58% as recently as 2014, was not able to defeat the historically unpopular Donald Trumpeven with a 2.8 million popular vote advantage. That speaks to Clinton and her partys deficiencies far more than it does Trumps message or agenda. Dealing with this colossal defeat should be the paramount duty of the Democratic Party. And they have a golden opportunity in the ghost of the Sanders campaignan opportunity in socialism.

Yet because the entire party infrastructure has revolved around the Clinton machine for the past two decades, acknowledging that fact is impossible for the Democratic establishment. It may mean accepting inter-establishment change, an unacceptable proposition to Democratic elites in the party and their surrogates in the media.

A two decade feedback loop of money, influence, and star power has made it so that, when faced with a colossal defeat like the one on November 8, the partys internal defense mechanisms must begin to whirr and clatter as the establishments collective intelligence works to ensure that it wont be taken apart. They are entrenched and resistant to change, introspection, or challenge. So theyve chosen to focus news reporting on conspiracy theories and Russophobic hyperbole.

The Rachel Maddow Show spent the first twenty minutes of its show on Monday obsessing over a conflict between Russia and Belarus and working to tie that conflict to the White House. Its hardly the first time as Norman Solomon wrote in Countepunch last month, the liberal soul of MSNBC has left reporting aside for agenda-driven conjecture and illogic.

The entire Democratic media establishment has spent the past three months ballooning criticisms of Donald Trumpinto ever-more preposterous conspiracy theories that would be more at home on, say, The Alex Jones Show (pre-election) than the mainstream media.

Joy Reid leads off an article for The Daily Beast by naming Trump Moscow Don because it avoids addressing the fact that the Clinton campaign stopped union activists from traveling to Michigan to get out the vote before the election. Clinton surrogates like Neera Tanden, Brian Fallon, and John Podesta can appear on Sunday shows to pontificate about how Trump is a Putin plant just as long as they dont have to address the campaigns inability to produce a message that resonated with the America that has been subject to neoliberal economic policies for three decades.

Russia influencing US election to put Trump in power is bigger than Watergate, David Corn of the misnomered Mother Jones magazine tweeted on December 9, conveniently ignoring the inability of the Clinton campaign to visit Wisconsin and Michigan in October.

The party is so entrenched in its behaviors that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi shot down a charismatic young man at a CNN town hall for suggesting the party adopt more socialistic policies.

First of all, were capitalist, Pelosi said, and thats just the way it is.

What a wasted opportunity on the stage of a major media outlet. Millennials dont care about Russia. The youth of America doesnt see capitalism as a generally good thing. Socialism is more popular than its been in a generation.

Almost a decade of attacks on Obama as being a socialist led to a candidate for president in one of the two major parties present himself as such and gain a large amount of support. Part of this is due to the fact that Bernie Sanders campaign spoke to a lot of Americans. But part of it also has to do with the relentless hammering of a young, popular president as socialist. Thats how poll after poll for almost a decade shows the political ideology growing in popularity among the younger generations.

Poll after poll indicates growing support for socialism especially among young people. Socialist Alternative is working toward forming a new socialist party, based on Marxist politics. The movement we are building will need a clear anti-capitalist, socialist force within it that argues for a working-class-centered struggle against Trump and the entire system, which has totally outlived its usefulness.

If the Democratic Party wants to grow, it will have to accept a changing conversation around economic justice. Obsessing over Russia and conspiracy theories is not the way to build an alternative to Trumpin fact, its a recipe for future defeat. That may not matter for career politicians and media personalities in the Clintonite Democratic establishment whose only function and purpose is to hold onto power during a rocky political moment, but it should matter to the rest of us.

You can reach Eoin Higgins on Facebook and Twitter.

More here:
Russian Conspiracy? Yes. Socialism? No. - Paste Magazine

The rose is the most widely used symbol among socialists. Courtesy of DSA

In trend with the Democratic Socialists of Americas (DSA) rise in national popularity, UTSA will have a DSA chapter in its city.

San Antonio joins a list of cities with a newly recognized DSA by becoming Texas tenth chapter.

Riley Metacalfe, UTSA graduate student, organized the chapter and established recognition from the DSAs national office.

I wanted to be part of a chapter here but the nearest one was in Austin, Metacalfe said, after Trump got elected I decided to start ours in San Antonio.

You could literally see the moment Trump was declared winner, DSA National Director Maria Svarv said in a message to new sign-ups.

Metacalfe organized thirteen invested members, many UTSA students or alumni, and now wants to extend the opportunity of membership to the San Antonio community.

The DSA reported a rise from 6,500 members in May to over 15,000 today. The rise in membership was found in Texas as well; Austins DSA reported over 400 new members in the month of Jan.

The associations visibility has Senator Bernie Sanders and his presidential campaign much to thank.

Across the country, Senator Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign ignited a spark within the millennial generation,

Drew Galloway, executive director at MOVE San Antonio, said, Young people heard about issues that matter most to us: student debt relief, criminal justice reform, access to higher education, environmental justice and economic equity just to name a few.

When you think of the stigmatization against socialism, Bernie Sanders removed that, Metacalfe added.

The socialism stigmatization had subsided since the Cold War. In Nov. 2012, the Gallup survey found 39 percent of Americans had a positive reaction to socialism, including 53 percent of Democrats.

The San Antonio chapters first public meeting will be held on Sunday, Feb. 19 at Geekdom downtown.

The first step is organizing. Recruiting people and seeing what kind of numbers we have and what kind of outreach we can do. Metacalfe said, The DSA is the biggest socialist organization in the country, it unites the left-democrats, communists, anarchists Its about recognizing that in this country we need to start uniting those with a shared anti-capitalist ideology.

What appeals to me about the DSA is their big tent and the San Antonio members willingness to help lead social activism in San Antonio, Kristine Robb, Texas State graduate student, said, I want to channel my frustration into positive outcomes in the San Antonio community. The DSA is a good place to converse and organize people with the same goals.

Recruiting is an uphill challenge for new organizations, but Metacalfe intends to use the opposition to the Trump presidency as an opportunity for the chapter.

People in the middle will see that the (DSA) are the real opposition to Trump in the next four years. Weve already seen that the Democrats have done poorly in resisting him and I think the people who lean middle-left are sick of it, Metacalfe said.

To find out more about the San Antonio DSA chapter, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/sanantoniodsa/?fref=ts

See the rest here:
Democratic socialism debuts on campus - UTSA The Paisano

posted at 11:25 pm on February 7, 2017 by John Sexton

This debate had a strange premise: Two Senators arguing over a health care lawthat neither one of them believes in.

Bernie Sanders is supportive of Obamacare in thesame way someone who wants to climb to the roof is supportive of a step ladder. It wont get you there but its moving the direction you want to go. Frequently during this debate when Obamacare was thrown under the bus by Cruz or by an audience member asking a question, Sanders simply sidestepped it and refused to defend the law.

For instance, should all plans, including those for older women beyond child-bearing age, mandate maternity care? Sanders agreed that was something to look at and consider changing. Is it fair to charge people a fee for not buying insurance? Sanders refused to defend the mandate directly. Are plans with a $13,000 deductible really offering anything to the people who are forced to buy them? Sanders says its ridiculous (Im paraphrasing but the gist was to throw up his hands and agree it was terrible).

Sanders came not to defend Obamacare but to argue for his Medicare-for-all plan. He focused on income inequality, high CEO salaries and the need to tax the wealthy much more. His most repeated line may have been the one about healthcare being a right, i.e. something you are automatically granted by the state.

Meanwhile,Ted Cruz wants Obamacare repealed and replaced in favor of something with more flexibility and competition. He talked about the failure of socialist medicine abroad, stifling regulation and moving away from theconcept of government control of health care.

No doubt partisans on each side will feel their guy won but, despite the fight night style billing, this wasnt the type of debate with knock-out punches being thrown. There was some direct confrontation by both Sanders and Cruz but they kept it relatively respectful throughout.

What I think we saw tonight was evidence that the debate over Obamacare is really just partof a broaderdebate about capitalism versus socialism. Those are the two poles toward which our politics seem to be moving, as evidenced by Sanders and Cruz doing so well in the primaries. Frankly, Democrats didnt want to have that debate in 2009 because they knew it was deadly to their goals, but its the debate we should have been having all along.

Theres some extraneous material at the beginningso just skip forward about 8 minutes.

Go here to read the rest:
Obamacare debate between Sanders and Cruz often boils down to socialism vs. capitalism - Hot Air