The revolutions of 1989 – bringing down the Wall

It is twenty years this month since the Berlin Wall and the Stalinist dictatorships of Eastern Europe fell. In the following articles Eastern European socialists, from the groups affiliated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST), recall what happened twenty years ago. The IST (of which Socialist Worker NZ is a member) upholds the view that the Stalinist countries were state capitalist, not socialist or communist in any way. These articles first appeared in the British newspaper Socialist Worker.




Gabi Engelhardt [right] was a leading member of the underground left in East Germany when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. She spoke to Yuri Prasad about her experiences, and the unfinished business of the revolution that she and her comrades helped to initiate.


The events of autumn 1989, and the end of the East German state, can be traced back to the spring and summer before the Wall came down – and even further back in history as well.

The revolutions of 1989 stood in the tradition of the revolts of East Germany in 1953, Poland in 1956 and 1968 in Czechoslovakia.

In East Germany people “voted with their feet”, by leaving for West Germany. The worldwide deterioration of the economic and political situation in 1989 – particularly in the Eastern Bloc – saw the trickle turn into a flood.

I was part of a group who decided that we didn’t want to leave, and give up our homes, families and lives – we wanted to make change at home.

Continue

Hugo Chavez: "Universal people's unity to give life to a new internationalism"

Statement by Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela

The International Meeting of Left Parties held last week has a great importance. For two days, November 20 and 21, 53 revolutionary organizations from five continent met in Caracas. I congratulate the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) because it fully performed its role as organizer.

The paths toward socialism have opened again: The left is obliged to deeply think over itself. The debate of ideas is decisive to avoid mistakes that distorted and weakened the socialist cause in the XX century. in the XXI century, socialism should be turned into, as Mariategui foresaw, a heroic and sovereign creation of each people and, of course, the universal people's unity to give life to a new internationalism.

I want to call the attention of my fellow countrymen and women to the unanimity of this meeting regarding the installation of U.S. military bases in Colombia. There is a state of common awareness of the terrible threat they represent to Venezuela, the South American region, and Our America.

This meeting was a reaffirmation: The Bolivarian Venezuela is not alone; we have more company than ever.

More neo-liberalism or an alternative?

The just released Treasury report aimed at influencing the National government advocates a new round of neo-liberalism: cuts to government spending, tax reform (including raising GST and lowering company tax), privatisations of state-owned enterprises, etc. Rather than "closing income gaps" it will of course increase them, and will most likely worsen the economy. A very different prescription from the CTU's Alternative Economic Strategy. Is there potential for two opposing ideological and political responses to the economic crisis to square off against each other, not just on paper, but in the real world?

Tax reform needed to jump-start economy

by Brian Fellow
from NZ Herald
23 November 2009

Far-reaching reform of the tax system and a much tougher approach to Government spending than the Budget foreshadowed will be necessary if New Zealand is to narrow the income gap with Australia and other developed countries, the Treasury says.

The economy is seriously under-performing, it says in a report to ministers titled "Getting Started on Closing the Income Gaps".

Both Government and private consumption has run well ahead of income, while business investment has been relatively modest.

Debt levels are high, and land and house prices probably unsustainable.

The Budget was underpinned by an expectation that the recession would trigger a process of rebalancing which would put the economy on a more sustainable path, but that is not panning out.

Instead of the expected 25 per cent fall in real house prices, they are heading back above their 2007 peaks, aided by strong net immigration.

The reorientation of the economy away from consumption towards production and exports is likely to be slower and weaker than had been hoped and that would mean overseas debt reaching even higher levels than those the Budget had forecast (over 100 per cent of GDP) and which the Treasury doubts are sustainable.

"At best our current medium-term economic prospects appear to be fragile, unbalanced growth. There is little in the current policy mix that would make a material difference in terms of closing the income gap."

What would, the Treasury argues, is a combination of ambitious tax reform and "front-loaded fiscal consolidation" - code for belt-tightening in Government spending that goes well beyond the $1.1 billion cap on new spending adopted in this year's Budget.

"You have the opportunity for once-in-a-generation reorientation of the tax system," it told ministers.

"If the opportunity is embraced, far-reaching tax reform could make a powerful contribution to jump-starting a process that, over a decade or two, could close the income gaps."

The less ambitious the approach to other taxes like GST, land tax and capital gains tax, the harder would be the required choices about where to concentrate income tax reductions.

Structural reform could not begin and end with tax, however. Also in the Treasury's sights are privatisation of state-owned enterprises, pricing not only carbon emissions but water, and a greater role for external capital in the dairy and meat processing sectors.

Since 2002, New Zealand has had the fifth-highest rate of increase in Government spending in the OECD.

The report is clearly talking about a significantly more demanding track than the Budget, which envisaged a decade of deficits even with a much lower cap on new spending.Significant and well-foreshadowed cuts in Government expenditure would limit the need for official cash rate increases by the Reserve Bank, it says, which in turn would mean less pressure, all else equal, on the exchange rate.

The Budget had relied on fiscal drag - the process whereby inflation pushes people into higher tax brackets - to reduce deficits over time. "Fiscal drag sounds innocuous. In fact it would mean that by 2022/23 the average wage earner would be paying the top marginal tax rate."

The Budget's priorities had been supporting the demand side of the economy through a recession, while averting a credit rating downgrade.

"Having dealt with that initial situation, some more significant adjustment is now warranted."

A combination of spending cuts and tax reform, the report says, could deliver an economic scenario which looked like this: Materially weaker consumption relative to income and lower house prices, materially stronger investment and employment in the export sector, a materially lower exchange rate for several years, interest rates and a cost of capital more in line with international norms and a materially stronger fiscal position with scope for tax cuts in the future.

Climate Camp Aotearoa: Dec 16–21, Wellington

Building a people’s movement to actively address the root causes of climate change. Join us for a week of free sustainability skill shares, climate justice workshops, direct action and DIY grassroots organising.

Climate change catastrophe took just months

Scientific researchers have discovered that, 12,800 years ago, Europe's temperature was flipped from warm and sunny into the last Ice Age over just a few months, rather than decades or even years. (See below the Sunday Times article by Science Editor, Jonathan Leake.

Just as apparent climate stability can suddenly flip, given the right combination of factors, so too, we should remember, can apparent social stability collapse at speed.

Climate change catastrophe took just months

by Jonathan Leake
from Sunday Times
15 November 2009

Six months is all it took to flip Europe’s climate from warm and sunny into the last ice age, researchers have found.

They have discovered that the northern hemisphere was plunged into a big freeze 12,800 years ago by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.

Previous research had suggested the change might have taken place over a longer period — perhaps about 10 years.

The new description, reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, emerged from one of the most painstaking studies of past climate changes yet attempted.

“It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time,” said William Patterson, a geological sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who carried out the research. “It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.”

His findings, published at a recent conference, reinforce a series of studies suggesting that the earth’s climate is highly unstable and can flip between warm and cold very rapidly with the right trigger.

Most such research is based on analysing cores drilled from ice or from the sediment found at the bottom of oceans or lakes. In such cores the ice or sediment is found in layers whose composition shows what the climate was like at the time they were laid down.

Ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice cap have already shown that the big freeze of 12,800 years ago — known as the Younger Dryas mini-ice age — happened fast but lacked the detail to pin it down precisely.

Patterson, however, obtained mud deposits from Lough Monreagh, a lake in western Ireland, a region he says has “the best mud in the world in scientific terms”.

Patterson used a precision robotic scalpel to scrape off layers of mud just 0.5mm thick.Each layer represented three months of sediment deposition, so variations between them could be used to measure changes in temperature over very short periods.

Patterson found that temperatures had plummeted, with the lake’s plants and animals rapidly dying over just a few months. The subsequent mini-ice age lasted for 1,300 years.

What caused such a dramatic event? The most likely trigger is the sudden emptying of Lake Agassiz, an inland sea that once covered a swathe of northern Canada.

It is thought to have burst its banks, pouring freezing freshwater into the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, disrupting the Gulf Stream, whose flows depend on variations in temperature and salinity.

A single year’s disruption in the Gulf Stream could have been enough, said Patterson, to let ice grow far to the south of where it usually formed. Once it had taken over, the Gulf Stream was unable to regain its normal route and the cold took hold for about 1,300 years.

Some scientists have suggested that if the Greenland ice cap melts it could have a similarly dramatic effect by disrupting the world’s ocean currents.

Other research has shown that rapid climate flips are normal. In its 4.5-billion-year history, the earth has experienced at least four main ice ages, of which the last, the Quaternary, is still continuing.

Within each ice age, however, there are periods when ice advances or retreats, and in the past 60,000 years alone the earth is thought to have warmed or cooled by up to 7C at least 20 times. The current interglacial period has lasted about 10,000 years.

“Human civilisation has grown up in a period of remarkable climatic stability,” said Tim Lenton, professor of earth system sciences at the University of East Anglia.

“In the period from 65,000 to 10,000 years ago there were periods of abrupt warming and cooling roughly every 1,500 years, when the temperature in Greenland might fall or rise by 10C in a decade.”

Patterson’s findings are supported by the research of Chris Stringer, professor of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London.

He believes the extinction of Neanderthals roughly 30,000 years ago was linked to a series of rapid climate fluctuations that began more than 40,000 years ago. He said: “Climate is basically unstable, so one of the mysteries is why it has stayed warm for the last 10,000 years.

“Some researchers have suggested this may be linked to the activities of early humans, who started growing crops and clearing forests 8,000 years ago.

“That may have put enough greenhouse gases into the air to stave off another ice age, but the problem now is that we have gone too far the other way.

“The amount of greenhouse gases in the air is greater than at any time in the last million years, so ironically, the threat now is from global warming.”

Patterson is still focusing his efforts on the past. He has built a new robot capable of shaving tiny slivers from the shells of fossilised clams, showing temperature almost day by day from millions of years ago.

Target Bad Banks and you target neo-liberalism starting to crack

by Vaughan Gunson

The Big Four Australian owned banks (ANZ National, BNZ, Westpac and ASB) are hated for their tax dodging, interest gouging, fee charging and profit taking. The Bad Banks campaign initiated by Socialist Worker-New Zealand aims to connect with this popular “bank hatred” and begin to expose one of the main drivers of late capitalism.

The leaflets that we’ve put out so far have mixed exposure of the banks, analysis of the global economic crisis, and pointed towards possible campaign demands. The reception to these leaflets by a cross-section of people has been largely positive. The following comments are representative of the feedback we’ve heard on the streets:

• “Yes, I know the banks are bad.”
• “The banks are ripping us off big time.”
• “The banks don’t care about people like us.”
• “The banks want to turn us all into debt slaves.”
• “The politicians should be on our side, but they’re not.”

We've been stressing that the Bad Banks campaign is not just about reforming the banks through regulations that curb their power (though we’ll certainly be agitating for this), it’s also about raising political ideas for a mass audience at a time when capitalism’s unsolvable contradictions are becoming increasingly apparent.

In connecting with people’s anger towards the banks we can begin to raise political solutions to the various crises that are impacting on people’s lives, from their own personal financial worries to the pressures coming on the NZ capitalist state following the Great Implosion of 2008.

One of the big issues facing the NZ government, which has right-wing Treasury officials all heat up, is the rapid decrease in government revenue from taxation as a result of economic recession. This is forcing the government to borrow huge amounts from overseas banks to maintain current levels of government spending. According to a recent statement by Finance Minister Bill English the government is borrowing $250 million a week.

This ballooning debt is placing increasing pressure on the government to cut spending, while at the same time increase taxes. A tax working group (which includes Treasury officials and corporate bosses) is recommending increasing GST, which is a flat tax on the price of all goods and services. Increasing GST would shift the tax burden further on to low and middle income earners.

The Bad Banks campaign can intervene in this site of political struggle. So we’re promoting a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) that targets the big banks and other “fat cat” financial speculators. And instead of raising GST, we support removing GST from food, a demand which has already proved very popular with people.

Because the banks are a dynamic and powerful force within late capitalism their hand is in everything. Banking interests are at the heart of neo-liberalism, the free market ideology that has driven government policy in NZ and around the world for three decades. For instance, their “invisible hand” is at work in the design of emissions trading schemes, or “pollution markets” as they should be called. The Bad Banks campaign has put out a leaflet that links the banking class with this neo-liberal “non-solution” to climate change.

So a campaign against the banks has the seeds within it of other struggles, which are about resisting the attempts of the ruling elite to force the cost of the economic meltdown onto the rest of us.

If we can lift the Bad Banks campaign to the level of mass consciousness in NZ, which will require sustained on-the-ground campaigning by broad forces and a media profile, then the more political influence the promoters of the campaign can have around a range of issues.

Given the seriousness of the crises besetting global capitalism, which Grant Morgan has referred to as capitalism’s quartet of contradictions (the profitability crisis, the resource crisis, the ecological crisis, and legitimacy crisis), the rulers of the world economy will be unable to stabilise the system for any length of time. The systemic contradictions of capitalism will continue to burst through.

It’s clear, however, that a powerful section of the ruling elite in NZ will continue with the neo-liberal agenda, which will be given weight by the global banking and financier class. Hence NZ governments will face immense pressure to slash public spending; shift the tax burden further off big business and onto low and middle income people; privatise public services; maintain deregulated financial markets; and so on. (See NZ Herald article on Treasury's proposed new round of neo-liberalism, Tax reform needed to jump-start economy.)

The National government has not yet moved decisively to launch a renewed neo-liberal offensive, which would be politically polarising. They’ve sustained their “honeymoon period” not because of John Key’s likeability but because of their willingness to dramatically increase government borrowing.

But the pressure is building and a number of neo-liberal policy settings around tax, ACC, government spending, public service cuts, wage levels, privatisation, trade and investment, are on the agenda. The logic for business, as it always is, will be to extract more wealth and toil from working class New Zealanders and other people of modest means. The National Party, being a party that represents corporate interests, will have to facilitate this, at the risk of their current popularity levels.

The contradiction inherent to neo-liberalism, is that it’s precisely the constant drive towards more wealth extraction from the grassroots (to make up for the general decline in capitalism’s profitability since the 1970s) that has produced a global economic meltdown of such magnitude in the first place. A renewed neo-liberal offensive, including attempts to pump up the economy through the further expansion of credit, will only lead to the intensification of the global crisis in the near future. Unable to restore capitalist profitability the last gasps of neo-liberalism will continue to polarise and impoverish, eroding further capitalism's legitimacy.

The certain scenario of unpopular government attacks on grassroots people combined with a floundering economy, of which one important measure will be high unemployment, will create political instability in NZ, as it will in other countries. A popular Bad Banks campaign, if we can achieve it, would enable leftists with a public voice and profile to give leadership that can move people towards an alternative political vision.

This can be done by advocating “common sense” demands like a Financial Transaction Tax, or other policy solutions which eco-leftists in NZ have collectively generated over many years, and will continue to do so. An exciting initiative in this regard, and one which has the potential to be popularised, is the New Zealand Council of Trade Union’s Alternative Economic Strategy. The CTU’s Alternative Economic Strategy has lots in common with The RAM Plan written in 2008. A broad political challenge to neo-liberalism, which these documents represent, is both desperately needed and possible.

The challenge is to achieve the campaigning profile that enables a community of eco-leftists to connect with masses of people. In recognising the public mood and targeting the Bad Banks we may be able to reach a position where we can seriously target neo-liberalism starting to crack. By waging a successful war on one front, against the banks, we can open up other fronts in the mass struggle for a humane, equitable and ecologically sustainable future. We start that collective political journey that we all know is so necessary.

The Bad Banks campaign was initiated by Socialist Worker-New Zealand. We invite contributions to campaign material produced by us, and we encourage others to generate their own material and strategies to target the banks. We’d love to hear people’s ideas about how the campaign can broaden its appeal and participation by individuals and organisations in NZ. Contact Vaughan Gunson svpl@xtra.co.nz or 021-0415 082.

Friday 27 November: day of action for low-paid public sector workers

A series of protest rallies will take place across the country on Friday 27 November to protest wage freezes in the public services, in particular the health, disability care and education sectors, and to build wider public support for the freeze to be thawed.

The action will primarily involve members of the SFWU, NZEI and PSA but all other affiliates are encouraged to participate and show their support for this cause. The rallies are timed to take place for one hour at lunchtime on the 27th between 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm.

Please circulate this notice widely and encourage your members to join the rallies where they can and ensure a significant public display of support for the messages to the Government about low-paid state and state-funded workers opposing the wage freeze.

In some locations transport will be arranged to help members attend. For further information contact the local SFWU organiser or call 0800 UNION1 (0800 864 661).

Fliers and branding for banners etc is in preparation to ensure unity and consistency of message across the country and will be forwarded soon. Please use the attached notice and list of venues to inform members.


Regards

Peter Conway


Secretary

New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi

P O Box 6645

Wellington

+64 4 8023816

mobile 0274 939 748
peterc@nzctu.org.nz

www.union.org.nz


Venues for 27 November Lift the Freeze rallies 12.30pm-1.30pm

Kaitaia: Cnr Redan/Commerce St

Whangarei: Main mall in the centre of the town – Cameron/
James St Cnr

Auckland: Methodist Church on Queen Street

Thames: Outside the Civic Centre on Mary Street

Hamilton: Garden Place, Victoria St

Taumarunui: Next to library on “One Way Street”

Rotorua: Cnr of Arawa St and Ranolf St

Taupo: State Highway One – near Council Buildings

Tauranga: Red Square at bottom of town – Devonport St/The Strand/Spring St Cnr

Whakatane: The Strand/Commerce St (near roundabout)

Gisborne: Cnr of Gladstone Rd/Reads Quay (near the bridge)

Hastings: St Johns Hall Southland Rd

New Plymouth: If sunny, meet between centre city and Devon St. If wet, St Josephs Church

Hawera: Salvation Army Hall Regent St, marching up High St to Chester Burrows office.

Whanganui: Majestic Square on Victoria Ave

Palmerston North: PSA House King Street and then march to Square

Levin: Adventure Park Pavilion, Main Highway and then march down main street

Wairarapa: Old Folks Hall Cole Street

Wellington: Parliament

Nelson: Top of Trafalgar Street

Westport: Outside Hospital

Greymouth: Outside Grey Base Hospital, High Street

Christchurch: Victoria Square (march from TUC)

Ashburton: Checkerboard Town Centre

Timaru: Town Square cnr Strathallan and Strafford Sts

Dunedin: Octagon (march from Hospital)

Invercargill: Cnr Tay and Dee Streets

Like hell it's a kiwi bank

by John Minto
from stuff.co.nz
12 November 2009

The other night when I went out to get an ice-cream at a local dairy I was gobsmacked to be confronted with a wall of huge yellow advertising posters with heavy black lettering – “We’ve been a KIWI BANK since 1847” with the ASB logo at the bottom. What a brazen lie – like hell it’s a kiwi bank.

Back in the 1980s when it was a respected trustee bank, owned by its New Zealand account holders and serving their interests, it could legitimately make the claim. But in 1989 it was privatised and like our other big three banks – ANZ National, BNZ and Westpac – it’s owned by Australians.

And with the shift to private shareholder ownership the ASB’s first priority has changed to delivering dividends to its shareholders rather than service to its customers. No wonder the big four banks score so lowly in customer satisfaction surveys. The only thing keeping them going is the huge hassle and extra expense involved in changing banks. Without customer inertia these banks would be run out of town.

It’s no surprise to find yesterda'ys release of the multi-party Parliamentary Banking Inquiry’s report confirms the big banks did not pass on the full effect of reductions in the Official Cash Rate to New Zealanders in recent times. More billions into the banker’s coffers.

They have all been guilty of various customer and taxpayer rorts and have acted more like a cartel than competing businesses.

It’s not just the exorbitant fees and unjustified charges for all sorts of normal customer services but they have actively targeted their customers to go further into debt and have put a lot of pressure on bank employees to sell more debt to indebted customers.

They openly mocked Finance Minister Michael Cullen’s attempts to reduce lending for investment properties and will continue to undermine any government initiative which gets in the way of increasing their profits.

In most years these banks have taken $2 billion in profit across the ditch and we wonder why our current account deficit is so high.

And then there are the tax evasion cases where the High Court has found the banks guilty of screwing taxpayers through structured financial transactions which have been described as a sham to avoid tax.

The ASB owes us $280 million while the others (Westpac $961 million, ANZ National $562 million, BNZ $661 million) are even worse. It’s an appalling abuse - together these banks owe $500 in unpaid tax for every person living in New Zealand.

With such well-deserved bad publicity the banks are going on a charm offensive. As well as the ASB bank’s attempt to resurrect a nostalgic kiwi connection from its arrogant abuse of customers and taxpayers, the misnamed BNZ announced last week it was “Closed – for good” If only.

Most of the bank staff were out doing work in the community for a day to show what a good corporate citizen the bank is. The BNZ PR machine was working well because our local suburban newspaper (and I’m sure this was repeated throughout the country) had a story showing bank staff working hard clearing land for a garden for the families of cancer sufferers here in Auckland.

“Banks just genuinely believe that we need to be part of the community” said BNZ head of external communications Diana Maxwell.

She says the BNZ accepts there has been a loss of customer trust in the big banks “and we need to work hard to rebuild that trust”. They could start by paying back the $661 million they owe and apologising for their bad behaviour.

The latest charm offensive is just company spin. Former BNZ boss and now chief executive of BNZ parent bank, the National Australia Bank says the current hostility towards the major Australian banks is not tenable for viable businesses.

That’s the reason for the charm offensive – nothing to do with any genuine belief about needing to be part of the community.

Our economy has lots of parasites feeding on the wealth created by others. The ASB and its Aussie mates are the biggest bludgers.

I’m pleased these banks are having a harder time and I hope their spending of millions to buy kiwi goodwill is a failure.

CTU Conference 2009: Can unions create an alternative?

by Grant Brookes

I recently read a review of the new album from radical art-rockers Manic Street Preachers. After producing a string of masterpieces in the early nineties, said the reviewer, the band became "rudderless after 1998". But you could tell they were returning to form by 2007, he observed astutely, by the re-appearance of the backward "Я's" on their album covers.

I was reminded of this when I picked up my registration pack at the 2009 CTU Biennial Conference in Wellington in October. From the pop art graphics of the Conference logo to the backward "Я" in the title – "UNIONS CREATING ALTEЯNATIVES" – something new was afoot.

A CTU conference held less than a year after the election of a National government, in the midst of rising unemployment and employer attacks, might have been a gloomy affair.

Under similar conditions during the National governments of the 1990s, unions pulled up the drawbridges. Competition for a shrinking pool of union members fuelled infighting and recriminations between union leaders. Sights were progressively lowered as radical visions gave way to narrow horizons. Self-confidence and self-activity were replaced by dependence on politicians.

By contrast, the lead-up to the 2009 CTU conference was marked by fighting talk from president Helen Kelly. At the conference itself, the thinking was outward-looking. Political party leaders came and went, without swaying the agenda.

The centre-pieces were two Conference Papers, on Union Change and on an Alternative Economic Strategy.

The Union Change paper, presented by Helen Kelly, started from the brute fact that nine years after the repeal of National's hated Employment Contracts Act (ECA), unions have not regained their relevance in the lives of most workers.

Although union membership is up – most dramatically in the NZ Nurses Organisation and Unite Union – growth has only just kept pace with the expanding workforce. So today, nearly four fifths of workers still aren't in any union. In the private sector, 90 percent are non-union.

Helen Kelly invited the conference to "consider the worker in a small shop in Kaitaia". What do unions mean for her? The answer is, very little. The Union Change agenda is about CTU leaders trying to make unions relevant to the huge numbers of workers outside the well-organised bastions, mainly in long-established, large workplaces in the cities.

It has two main elements. First, setting up "a new central all-comers" union organisation, with low fees, run by the CTU, to allow people outside the reach of conventional unions to participate in the union movement.

Second, to push for law changes to allow the conditions negotiated in large collective agreements to be extended to other firms across the industry, a bit like the old "awards system" that existed before the ECA.

Despite some hesitation, the majority of conference delegates saw these as innovative attempts to tackle real problems. Trying something new might fail. But on the other hand, carrying on with the same old methods that have failed so far is very likely to produce failure again.

Unfortunately, the National government won't be supporting law changes which extend gains in pay and conditions any time soon.

The real key to extending conditions from one or two flagship collectives across an entire industry was mentioned on the conference floor only once. Reporting back from the workshop she facilitated, NDU Retail Sector Secretary Maxine Gay said this would require workers taking action in support of others covered by a different collective agreement, or by none. In other words, a return to solidarity strikes – banned by the ECA and by Labour's Employment Relations Act – if necessary, in defiance of the law.

The Alternative Economic Strategy discussion, led by CTU economist Bill Rosenberg, started from the current crisis of "deregulated finance capitalism".

The "global financial crisis" of the last 18 months is working like global warming on Antarctic ice sheets. "Stimulus packages", introduced by governments worldwide, represent a trickle of change below the surface. But as the process continues, chunks can start falling off and the entire edifice of neoliberal, "more market" orthodoxy is vulnerable to collapse.

Even before the financial crisis, he said, "the economy did not work for everyone" and was "unsustainable". "At the rate we are going, we will need several planets".

The Powerpoint slide which made the biggest impression was one which showed how the economy "hasn't worked for everyone" for decades. Given all the government's current talk about the need for pay rises to be tied to productivity gains, the graph below showed how high wages would be if they really were tied to the large growth in productivity since 1980. It wasn't lost on delegates that National's productivity talk is really about restraining wages so profits can keep growing.

Specific policies contained in the Strategy (download link above) included nationalisation of telecommunications and power networks; encouraging worker-owned cooperatives; financial regulation and currency controls; a financial transactions tax (Tobin Tax) on cross-border capital flows; higher taxes for those on over $150,000; a "Green New Deal" and "just transitions" for workers affected; a minimum wage of $16.87; cheap home loans from the Reserve Bank; freeing up immigration controls in the spirit of "a new internationalism"; and elected worker representatives involved with management and workplace meetings for democratic input into local community issues.

The problem for the Strategy, addressed in a workshop led by Rosenberg himself, is how to popularise and win support for these policies, and thereby turn them from words on paper into real change.

Since its formation in 1987, the CTU has traditionally looked to the Labour Party to implement its macro-economic policy suggestions. But this time round, there was an acknowledgement in the Strategy paper that the neoliberal consensus being targeted – "established in this country from 1984-99 and remaining significantly intact" after nine years of Labour government – is Labour's as much as National's. As one workshop participant put it, we're unlikely to ever break Labour from its neoliberal shackles.

There was a groping acknowledgement that the way forward was through independent, grassroots campaigning. Making the policies more than words on paper will depend on how well they are woven into the campaigns of the unions affiliated to the CTU.

An example of this came three weeks later, when the Engineering, Printing & Manufacturing Union responded to the closure of Irwin Industrial Tools by calling for "a major overhaul of New Zealand's financial system", including reforming the Reserve Bank Act and introducing currency controls to regulate the value of the New Zealand dollar. Their media release was widely reported and forced a response from prime minister John Key.

Unionists from the left and right will agree, for different reasons, that top union leaders will never spearhead revolutionary change. Those of us in the small socialist wing of the union movement acknowledge that it would be impossible, at present, for those at the head of the CTU to cohere and unify the 350,000 affiliated union members around an explicitly anti-capitalist programme. Spearheading that break with capitalism is the task of a socialist political organisation.

Bill Rosenberg told the workshop that the Strategy was not about moving beyond capitalism. But it didn't seem quite so clear cut to me. If unions do change, rebuild and reconnect with working people, and if they do mobilise large numbers of members around an Alternative Economic Strategy like this one, it could end up feeding into more fundamental change.

CTU conferences give a snapshot of the thinking of union leaders. Much of the real horse-trading, of course, takes place behind closed doors before and after. The two Conference Papers will be subject to ongoing revision (gutting?) in other committees before they get the stamp of official approval (though the Alternative Economic Strategy is also open for discussion and feedback from union members, and other grassroots activists). Nonetheless, I found encouraging signs at the 2009 CTU Biennial Conference that unions can be part of creating an alternative to the National-Labour capitalist regime.

Copenhagen: illusions on the edge of a precipice

by David Spratt
from Green Left Weekly, Australia


Can we expect decent climate policy when most of the decision-making elite are ignorant of the real scientific imperatives, or believe they can negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry? The answer is bleak, judging by the lead-up talks to the climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

The conference is slated to sign a new global deal on greenhouse gas reductions, but key players expect failure.

British climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern and former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan are among luminaries now saying that no deal is better than a bad deal, while European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso warned: “If we don’t sort this out, it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.”

Continue

What is the socialist answer?

by Alan Maass
From Socialist Worker US.


“CAPITALISM IS evil, and you cannot regulate evil,” Michael Moore concludes in his new movie Capitalism: A Love Story. “You have to eliminate it and replace it with something else.”

The film is an incredible indictment of the current system. But what is the “something else” that should replace it.

We propose socialism.

Socialism is based on a simple idea – that the vast resources of society should be used to meet people’s needs. We should use the tremendous achievements of human beings in all the realms of life, not to make a few people rich and powerful, but to make sure every person in society has everything they need to lead rich and fulfilling lives.

Continue

Michael Moore talks about socialism

Saw this on Byron Clark’s blog at http://lossenelin.livejournal.com/132074.html

Lockout wave continues un-remarked

by Pat O’Dea

The wave of lockouts continues to go un-remarked by both the government and the opposition, with the media carrying only the barest mention.

Over the past few months there has hardly been a week, when one, two, or even three lockouts have been going on around the country.

This week has been no different. The lockout of miners at Rotowaro is now entering its third week, as state-owned coal miner Solid Energy try to force contracting out and casualisation into the mining industry.

Today employers at aluminium can maker Amcor, have joined the lockout wave, in an effort to bludgeon these workers into giving up smoko breaks.

Imagine the outcry if instead of a wave of lockouts by employers to cut wages and enforce layoffs and casualisation, there was a wave of strikes by workers for better wages and conditions, and permanent jobs.

The loud denunciations by MPs from the pulpit of parliament, would be carried in banner headlines right across the mainstream media.

Experts and commentators would be filling the radio airwaves and making guest appearances on TV Editorialists would be spilling copious amounts of ink in the press, bemoaning “greedy workers”, “wreaker unionists” and my all time favourite “lazy featherbedders”, accusing these “overpaid and under-worked”, “industrial militants” of “holding the country to ransom”.

Truly we live in a class society.

John Pilger: Breaking the great Australian silence

In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the “unique features” of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power “which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war – against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else’s country”.


Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from.

I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” – a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823.

Growing up in Sydney, I knew nothing about this. My mother’s eight siblings used the word “stock” a great deal. You either came from “good stock” or “bad stock”. It was unmentionable that we came from bad stock – that we had what was called “the stain”.

One Christmas Day, with all of her family assembled, my mother broached the subject of our criminal origins, and one of my aunts almost swallowed her teeth. “Leave them dead and buried, Elsie!” she said. And we did – until many years later and my own research in Dublin and London led to a television film that revealed the full horror of our “bad stock”. There was outrage. “Your son,” my aunt Vera wrote to Elsie, “is no better than a damn communist”. She promised never to speak to us again.

The Australian silence has unique features.

Growing up, I would make illicit trips to La Perouse and stand on the sandhills and look at people who were said to have died off. I would gape at the children of my age, who were said to be dirty, and feckless. At high school, I read a text book by the celebrated historian, Russel Ward, who wrote: “We are civilized today and they are not.” “They”, of course, were the Aboriginal people.

My real Australian education began at the end of the 1960s when Charlie Perkins and his mother, Hetti, took me to the Aboriginal compound at Jay Creek in the Northern Territory. We had to smash down the gate to get in.

The shock at what I saw is unforgettable. The poverty. The sickness. The despair. The quiet anger. I began to recognise and understand the Australian silence.

Continue

Capitalism, we’re through:

by Brian Jones
from Socialist Worker USA


IN FRANCE, you pay nothing to go to college. In Britain, the National Health Service is free. And in Sweden, any woman who gives birth receives two years of paid maternity leave.

Meanwhile, in the richest country on the planet, the United States, college graduates are buried in debt, medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy, and if you have children – well, you’re on your own.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the former countries have formidable labor unions and even independent labor parties. In the latter, we have no such labor party.

But we do have Michael Moore. His new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, is at turns, infuriating, hilarious, shocking and inspiring. He could have made a film just about the financial crisis, or just about the foreclosures, or just about Wall Street, but he didn’t. Moore made a film about the whole damn system.

His work is both an expression of a new consciousness and a catalyst for its development. Millions of people will find, in this film, confirmation of their own ideas, frustrations and aspirations.

Crucially, Moore reminds us of the high hopes that were invested in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Obama talked about “redistribution,” and for that, the right wing labeled him a “socialist,” which only made him more popular, and left young people curious about “the S word.”

But this isn’t a film about socialism. It’s a film about capitalism. And yes, it’s a love story.



IN MANY ways, Capitalism plays like a long-delayed sequel to Roger and Me, the film that put Moore on the map precisely 20 years ago. Like Roger, Capitalism makes clever use of vintage propaganda reels and home movies, and casts Moore as a barnstorming muckraker, pounding on the doors of power with cameras rolling.

The love story begins with Moore’s own home movies, through which we experience his nostalgia for the middle-class lifestyle his family enjoyed, based on the once-thriving automobile industry in Flint, Mich. In exchange for their loyal service, workers could count on jobs for life, family wages and a good pension.

But that social contract was shredded in the 1970s, and Moore runs down the numbers on-screen with graphs that explain our pain – workers’ growing productivity vs. their stagnating wages vs. the corporations’ skyrocketing profits.

Moore tours us around the “heartland” – foreclosures in Cleveland, evictions in Peoria, young people incarcerated for profit in Wilkes-Barre – and asks what all of these things have in common. The answer: each is an example of how the free market works against human needs.

We are shown a leaked Citigroup memo that boasts of the results of Wall Street’s unbridled profiteering. America has become a “plutonomy,” the memo gloats, where 1 percent of the population effectively owns and controls everything that goes on. The memo warns about a lingering danger--everyone else still has 99 percent of the vote – and asks: “Is there a backlash building?”

Enter Barack Obama.

On virtually every issue that matters, Obama has deeply disappointed his supporters. Capitalism, however, takes us back to a moment when the Obama campaign mobilized the very backlash Citigroup foresaw. Moore shows us the faces of people – particularly African Americans – living through a moment of extraordinary change: Election Night 2008. We see the tears of joy, the dancing in the streets, and we remember the feeling that things were changing for the better in this country.

Enter Goldman Sachs.

Moore shows how “Government Sachs” alums worked in the Bush administration and in the Obama administration to manipulate the financial crisis to their advantage – at our expense.

Anyone who’s seen the trailer in theaters or on television will know that Moore shows up on Wall Street with empty sacks to “get the money back for the American people.” It’s pure shtick, but the point still lands – these people wrecked the economy and were rewarded with trillions of our dollars.

While Moore is happy to skewer Democrats and Republicans alike for corruption and corporate cronyism, he leaves the question more open regarding Obama.

Viewers may be shocked to see and hear the footage of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt arguing that jobs, homes, education and, yes, health care should be guaranteed to all Americans under a new bill of rights. We should keep in mind that FDR was speaking in a context of a labor movement that was organizing near-insurrections in several American cities, and was on the brink of forming its own political party.

One gets the feeling that the intended audience for this film isn’t only those who are questioning capitalism, but also Barack Obama personally. Moore seems to be saying to the president: “You don’t have to be a corporate tool, you could be an FDR.”



BUT THERE’S another, more radical dimension of the film that mainstream reviewers have missed: Moore points to solutions beyond what Obama may or may not do. He points to what we could do to replace capitalism.

“There’s got to be a rebellion,” says a man in the process of being evicted from his home in Illinois, “between the people that have nothing and the people that have it all.”

But what would that rebellion look like? What is the alternative to the free market?

Here, Moore turns our attention to the arena that does the most to define our lives – the workplace. Most workplaces, he says, are “dictatorships,” with zero democracy.

But is democracy possible at work? Capitalism takes us inside the Republic Windows & Doors factory in Chicago, where workers staged an old-fashioned occupation of the plant when it faced closure without workers getting promised severance pay.

Inside the occupied factory, we see workers meeting, discussing and making decisions together. Moore shows us a worker-owned robotics plant, where employees make collective, democratic decisions about their work. Moore is introducing the audience to a fundamental idea of socialism – workers’ democracy.

There’s much more to the case for socialism than this film takes up. But Moore is expressing something basic about what’s wrong with the system we live under, and what could replace it. “Capitalism is evil,” he says, “and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something else...with democracy.”

For people without health care, who are losing their jobs and losing their homes, the love affair with the free market is already over. They may not know what the solution is, but many are ready to discuss the fact that capitalism itself is the problem.

In other words, being ready to break up isn’t the same thing as finding someone new. But millions of people are starting to look. If you’re reading these lines, chances are you’re already on your way. Go ahead and make the breakup official – get yourself to the nearest socialist meeting. And while you’re at it, bring three or four of your friends with you.

Angry people, meet America’s new socialist movement. Socialist movement, angry people. You’re meant for each other.

Dear Hone, ‘I would feel proud that such people disliked me’

Dear Hone,

We have never met, but I wish to write to offer you my support at this time. I was watching One News tonight when Jessica Mutch did her best to “Draw out the Maori MP’s saga.” (for as long as possible)

Meanwhile, we were forced to endure the disgusting Rodney Hide’s grovelling public apology. Apart from Rodney’s puerile tastes in travel destinations (Universal Studios - strange choice for a man over 50?) they lavished air time on this mouthpiece of the rich, no doubt keen to “rehabilitate” him in the public’s eyes, so he can get on with stealing public assets and attacking Maori and the poor.

I feel it is extremely unfair that you should be targeted for taking time out for a visit to Paris when such bought-and-paid-for mouthpieces of the rich as Rodney Hide, his boss Roger Douglas, and all the rest of them have been doing exactly the same thing for decades. To me it is hypocrisy. Every day plane loads of rich people take off on “business trips”; “sabbaticals”; “intern-ships” etc, all paid for by the taxpayer directly, or the public indirectly via the everyday price gouging that the monopoly corporations use to steal from the New Zealand people.

They label you a racist for calling the owners of the country “white mother-fuckers raping the country.” Sounds quite true, if you ask me. My only problem with this statement is it’s not quite technically correct, because these days there are a tiny number of yellow and brown mother-fuckers raping the country too. But you are quite right, most of these capitalist exploiters are white. As you know, these people’s forebears came here and stole the land, fair and square, and they are not about to give any of it back. Well, maybe a tiny bit.

I recall a conversation with a senior official of Internal Affairs in 1993 when I remarked about what a good thing the Treaty Settlement Process was for Maori. Mr Wallace responded: “Yes, but it’s our system and we will get ALL of that money back. The Maori will end up like the Canadian Indians, no claim, no money and no redress.” Spoken like a true land thief.

Of course where the colonial government couldn’t steal the land, they refused to develop it. The poor roading in the Far North and the Ureweras is legendary, the lack of investment in regional development is an unspoken rule.

And you can bet that the key reason the right wing and their mouthpieces in the media object so strongly to your presence in Parliament is that they have a lot more raping and pillaging of the country on their agenda. People like John Key are charged with maintaining a political environment that allows the constant flow of money and resources out of New Zealand to the multinational corporations who own everything. Predominant amongst these are the multinational banks. A Parliamentarian’s role is to act as a safety valve so that outrage at this rapine and pillage can be safely vented, whilst not forgetting to manage the populations expectations for quality of life, downwards.

The political landscape has been dominated forever by two neo-conservative parties. Both parties, Labour and National, are practically identical in their stands on about 99% of issues. You only have to look at Labour’s record during their last nine years of office to see this. For example:

• They passed the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
• Refused to restore the right to strike with the ERA.
• Refused to reverse National’s benefit cuts of 1991.
• Only a very partial reversal of Bill Birch’s attacks on the disabled from the 1992 and 1998 ACC acts - rights to rehabilitation not restored.
• Refused to restore universal access to free tertiary education, they sold those places to fee paying foreign students instead.
• Failed to restore standard apprenticeships for trade training resulting in national shortages in every skill category.
• Refused to repeal pro-market building regulations National introduced that allow greedy developers and untrained builders to construct leaky houses. Also failed to pass legislation to enable these crooks to be brought to justice or leaky homeowners to be compensated.
• Failed to enact legislation to reduce the effects of climate change.

What laws did Labour pass?

• Draconian Anti-Terror laws, which because of the lack of terrorism in New Zealand were used to racially target and oppress Maori.
• Free Trade Acts with various police states, such as market-Stalinist China and marshal-law Singapore.
• Ended the moratorium on GE food testing and production.
• Passed laws guaranteeing the profits of the big four Aussie banks in New Zealand with taxpayers funds. A truly frightening liability! They continue to allow this cabal to “loan money into existence” via the fractional reserve banking system, where money is only advanced as credit to be paid with usurious interest. This pyramid scheme requires continuous “growth” to avoid collapse, putting un-sustainable pressure on New Zealand’s people and environment and pricing young people out of the housing market.

On top of this is Labour’s support for the 2003 war in Iraq by allowing our Navy to patrol in locations that released US warships for aggressive actions, the activities of the SIS locally (e.g. the Zaoui affair, targeting of local Muslims) and NZ military intelligence personnel directly involved in operations on the ground in Iraq. Persistent rumours of SAS activities in Iraq also circulate amongst military family members. Afghanistan also involved the direct participation of the Army in the projection of lethal force against the peoples of the region.

This is only a very partial list, but the picture that emerges is of a pro-business, anti-democratic, racist, state-terrorist gang completely as one with the agendas of the most reactionary neo-conservative forces on the planet.

I would feel proud that such people disliked me, and I hope you do as well.

Regards,
Peter de Waal

Poison Free New Zealand Nationwide Protest Day: Sunday 15 November

There is public awareness like never before. The Graf's brothers are doing an amazing job showing their documentary Poisoning Paradise.

Brodifacoum has been a focus of media here in the Auckland area since the drops on Rangitoto and Motutapu. Both Taupo and Westland District Councils have banned 1080 use aerially.

There is a swell of activity like never before. And now is the time to act. We must stop poisoning our land, our people, our wildlife and our environment.

The appalling activity of aerial dropping of poisons throughout New Zealand has been going on for over thirty years, yet pest numbers have NOT decreased. People have been demanding change throughout this time but their cries have not been heard. This is our best opportunity to unite and fight this injustice.

Since Poison Free New Zealand was setup, we’ve made a lot of excellent progress. We’ve released a single written and performed by new and established kiwi artists, started a “viral” e-mail campaign distributing some fun animation, organised radio interviews and have the interest of TVNZ. The documentary (over 2 hours long) is currently screening 24/7 at www.ziln.co.nz until our protest rally on the 15th of November. A 20 minute version is currently in the hands of TV3’s 60 Minutes and should hopefully screen next week.

We are encouraging our supporters to send our animation to as many people as they can via e-mail which can be downloaded from here: www.enufisenuf.co.nz/animation.mov or viewed on our website.

We have managed to unite groups with different goals, ranging from anti-fluoride health organisations to animal rights activist and friends of the earth for one common cause: the banning of aerial drops.

On Sunday, New Zealanders will unite around the country at 16 different towns and cities (from Great Barrier Island to Te Anau) for a syncronised rally, where we will express our views peacefully, have speakers, media and music. Information on the rallies is updated daily on our website. (http://www.enufisenuf.co.nz/)

The newly released music single “Enuf is Enuf” is also available as a free download on our website (which was downloaded almost 200 times in the first 24 hours). The website has had more than 1000 unique visitors in the last week. Our next step with the music is to get more airtime on radio stations nationwide. Work is underway to make this happen including personally presenting radio stations with copies of the CD. So far, this has resulted in radio interviews in both Auckland (Base FM) and Wellington (Radio Active) prior to our rallies.

The song can be downloaded from here www.enufisenuf.co.nz/enuf_is_enuf.mp3 if you wish to save it to your computer and/or send it to your friends.

We have had an excellent response to our press release (sent to hundreds of media organisations throughout the country) and are following up on these. Further press releases will be sent tomorrow and Friday/Saturday.

TVNZ’s show Marae which screens on TV One on Sundays is following our moves and they will be at the Auckland Rally this coming Sunday. Their focus is on the harm the poisons do to traditional foods, medicines and water supplies.

The next few days before the rally are focused on spreading the word further and reaching as many people as possible. So we really need your help.

If you make just one person stand up for their rights, we’ve doubled our numbers.

We really hope you will join us for a united stand. As Bob Marley sang “Get Up, Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Rights”.

Spokesperson Paul Cohen: Phone: 09 372 3115 or 021 520 065 email: pc@enufisenuf.co.nz

Protest Rally Coordinator Thomas Greve: Phone: 09 372 7585 or 021 183 7987 or thomas@enufisenuf.co.nz

Obituary: Chris Harman 1942–2009

by Alex Callinicos
from www.socialistworker.co.uk

Chris Harman, editor of International Socialism and before that for many years editor of Socialist Worker, died suddenly of a heart attack in Cairo on the night of 6-7 November, on the eve of his 67th birthday.

Chris was the outstanding Marxist to emerge in Britain from the great political radicalisation of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He made fundamental intellectual contributions in an astonishing range of subjects.

But, true to the tradition of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Luxemburg and Gramsci, he was a professional revolutionary who devoted his life to building the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).

Born in 1942, Chris joined the Socialist Review Group – predecessor to the International Socialists (IS), which became the SWP – as a schoolboy in Watford. After studying at Leeds University in 1962-5, he went on to pursue doctoral research at the London School of Economics (LSE).

In the second half of the 1960s the LSE was the storm centre of the student movement in Britain. Chris became a leading LSE activist, and abandoned his academic career.

For the rest of his life, he worked full-time for IS, initially as editor of International Socialism and journalist on Socialist Worker. Chris edited Socialist Worker in 1975-77 and then again between 1982 and 2004. Finally he returned to edit International Socialism for a last, very productive stint.

Tens of thousands of young people made the same kind of choices as Chris did in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But far fewer stuck with them after the tide of revolt began to recede in the mid-1970s.

Chris not only stuck, but, from his early 20s onwards, his writings developed revolutionary Marxism as a guide through the complexities and obscurities of the final decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.

Tony Cliff, the founder of the IS tradition, provided Chris with his theoretical starting point. Cliff’s analysis of the Soviet Union and the other “socialist” countries as bureaucratic state capitalism made it possible to continue revolutionary Marxism as a living tradition.

Only on this basis, Cliff demonstrated, could Marx’s conception of socialism as the self-emancipation of the working class continue to have meaning.

Building on Cliff’s achievement, Chris greatly extended the range and depth of Marxist theory in many different areas. On all, he produced work of the highest quality, based on in-depth research and on rigorous and original analysis. What follows is the most inadequate summary.

In the first place, Chris developed Cliff’s analysis of Stalinism. His first book, Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe (1974, republished as Class Struggles in Eastern Europe), explored the unstable and conflict-ridden history of the state capitalist regimes after 1945.

Even before that Chris had exposed the dynamics through which attempts to reform the Stalinist regimes from above could open them up to revolutionary overthrow from below. It was this logic that eventually brought Stalinism down 20 years ago.

Chris foreshadowed this outcome in “Poland: Crisis of State Capitalism” (1976-77). Here he analysed how the so-called “socialist” countries were being integrated into the global capitalist rhythms of trade and debt.

He captured the fall itself as a “move sideways” from state to private capitalism in “The Storm Breaks” (1990).

Chris’s skills as a historian were first fully revealed in the compelling narratives of workers’ revolts in Bureaucracy and Revolution. He went on to study the German Revolution of 1918-23 (The Lost Revolution, 1982), and then the upturn of the late 1960s and early 1970s (The Fire Last Time, 1988).

Chris also wrote important essays on the Marxist theory of history. But his culminating achievement as a historian came in his magisterial People’s History of the World (1999), a great popular success especially after it was republished recently by Verso.

One of the book’s strengths lay in the understanding it showed of so-called “primitive” societies. Chris began his detailed studies of the anthropological research into these societies during the intense debates about women’s liberation in the late 1970s.

For him they demonstrated that men and women could live in equality once class exploitation was finally overthrown.

This typified Chris’s intellectual approach. He was interested in particular problems usually not for their own sake but in order to address political arguments.

Thus The Prophet and the Proletariat (1994) was a pioneering Marxist study of political Islam that helped to arm the SWP for the debates and struggles after 9/11.

Some of Chris’s most important writings were directly devoted to problems of revolutionary strategy and tactics. An outstanding early essay, “Party and Class” (1968), originated as an internal document seeking to persuade the radicalised students who had rallied to IS of the necessity of building a Leninist vanguard party.

In the mid-1970s, a moment of growing confusion on the European far left, Chris made several important interventions, notably during the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-5 and against the attempt to transform Antonio Gramsci into a theorist of reformism.

The same preoccupation with offering political direction informed one last – and central – area of Chris’s writings: the analysis of capitalism itself.

His deep and original understanding of Marxist political economy was already on display in a brilliant contribution to a debate in the late 1960s with Ernest Mandel, the leader of the Fourth International.

The articles collected together as Explaining the Crisis (1983) built on the earlier work of Mike Kidron. Kidron had shown how very high levels of arms expenditure had temporarily stabilised capitalism after the Second World War.

Chris now extended this analysis to explain the return of major crises to the system from the late 1960s onwards.

At a time when Marxist economics was in disarray in the academy, he demonstrated the continuing relevance of Marx’s attempt to understand the laws of motion of capitalism.

Chris continued to write about political economy in later decades, but it was in his last years that he returned to the subject in depth. In growing dialogue with other leading Marxist economists, he worked on Zombie Capitalism.

Published earlier this year, this superb study places the present crisis in the context of the history and dynamics of capitalism as a whole.

A fraction of this achievement would have made many an academic career. But Chris produced all this, and much more, not amid the easy comfort and prestige of the academy, but as an underpaid full-time worker for the SWP.

His biggest single party role was as editor of Socialist Worker after he took it over again in the early 1980s, a time of great disorientation for the left.

Chris steered the paper through the agonies of Thatcherism – above all, the great drama of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike – and the doldrums of the 1990s, to the renewed radicalisation offered by the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements in the past decade.

Chris concealed his immense abilities and achievements behind a shy exterior. He was completely without pretension of any kind.

But he remained a model of revolutionary integrity and dedication. He punctured the self-congratulatory nostalgia of a recent meeting to commemorate the LSE struggles of the 1960s by announcing that becoming a pensioner left him more time as an activist.

It is one of the cruelties of life that Chris has been robbed of the happy and productive old age he was entitled to expect. He will live on in his writings and in the political legacy he has left in the SWP and its sister organisations in the International Socialist Tendency.

But this doesn’t diminish the terrible loss his death represents – above all for his partner Talat and his children Seth and Sinead, but also for the much wider circle whom he touched.

Personally, I have lost my comrade, friend, and teacher of more than 35 years. This is a moment to mourn and to grieve, before – as Chris would expect – we resume the struggle.

Bad Banks leaflet #4: The Rich Have Stolen the Economy

Bad Banks leaflet #4 is out now. It's been produced to use at stalls outside cinemas showing Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, which has general release throughout the country.

The leaflet aims to connect with some of the issues raised in the film, in particular the massive government bailouts of the world's biggest banks, but it also points towards a more fundamental crisis of the system. On the back page of the leaflet is Grant Morgan's short-essay, 'Senior investment guru forecasts longrun damage to capitalism's profits'.

At the same time as we provide a "big picture" analysis of the global economic crisis and it's fallout, we need to be looking at what immediate demands the Bad Banks campaign can raise. This leaflet promotes a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to net the big banks and other financial speculators. A small percentage tax on financial transactions would easily make up for tax revenue lost as a result of removing GST tax off food, a demand made popular last year by RAM-Residents Action Movement (http://www.ram.org.nz/).

While the leaflet is intended to connect with people attending Michael Moore's new film, it can still be used on other Bad Banks stalls in combination with the leaflets already produced. If you would like bulk copies printed and sent to you, email Len office@sworker.pl.net.

Mobilising to challenge ‘feudal era’ management

by Matt McCarten
from NZ Herald
8 November 2009

Every thinking New Zealander should go and see Michael Moore’s film Capitalism: A Love Story that is now out in cinemas.

I’ve been a fan of Moore ever since his first film, Roger & Me, which had him chasing down Roger Smith – the then head of General Motors – after Moore’s father and thousands of other auto workers were laid off in Flint, Michigan.

His Oscar-winning documentary, Bowling for Columbine, and his last film Sicko, posed serious challenges to corporate capitalism. Moore’s latest film is the most politically potent of all.

It’s a full-frontal attack on his usual target of corporations and on the whole capitalist system. It has all the usual “corporate greed versus ordinary people” stories, which have parallels in New Zealand. But what particularly resonates is his defiant critique – that corporate capitalism is evil, immoral and undemocratic.

Read more

Chris Harman, SWP leader dies

by David Colyer

I’m very sad to hear that Chris Harman, one of the leaders of the British Socialist Workers Party has recently died.

Chris Harman has always been my favourite among the many fine authors in the SWP.

His writing, as editor of the British Socialist Worker newspaper until 2004 and as the author of many books and longer articles have had a profound impact on my own political thought, and I’m sure that is true of many other Socialist Worker members and our organisation as a whole.

For several years we reprinted and sold his How Marxism Works, a collection of short, accessible articles on the basics of Marxism. Economics of the Madhouse was a popular introduction to Marxist economics. We also turned his article ‘Anti-capitalism: theory and practice’, written in the wake of the 1999 Seattle protests, into a pamphlet which sold well.

Harman’s best work, in my view was his histories, which brought alive key moments in history by explaining how the struggles of ordinary people to liberate themselves from oppression and exploitation arise from and clash with the contradictory developments of capitalism.

The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918-23 (1997) showed just how close the German workers came to making a revolution that could have saved the USSR from isolation and Stalinist counter-revolution and stopped Hitler’s rise. The pamphlet Russia, how the revolution was lost (1969) offers a brief account of what went wrong in Russia. While Class Struggles in Eastern Europe, 1945-1983 (1988) detailed the struggle of workers against the Stalinist regimes.

Best of all are The Fire Last Time, 1968 and After (1988), an inspiring classic, and has the honour of being recommended by Rage Against the Machine in their Evil Empire album. And A People’s History of the World (1999).

Over the next month or so I’ll post links to some of Chris Harman’s work. An appropriate one to start with, given that he died on the 92nd anniversary of the October Revolution is ‘Russia: How the Revolution was Lost’.

What we need is a just transition to a low carbon economy

by Tane Feary
8 November 2009

Mining in national parks in New Zealand is one of the National Governments suggested "solutions" to the economic crises and New Zealand's place in the financial world. This is yet another example of short term profit and long term environmental destruction. Nick Smith, the New Zealand climate and environment minister talks about balancing economics and the environment, what he is really talking about is bank balances.

New Zealand plays on a brand and image of being a "clean and green" country, yet reality suggests otherwise. Dirty dairy from corporate agriculture companies, coal mining and energy, motorway expansion and a raft of industries are being given the go ahead as they are financially lucrative, and provide a fast buck, the long term cost is not factored in, neither is the environmental cost.

Creating pollution markets does not alter the unsustainable nature of an economy built to make economic growth and profit out of the destruction of ecosystems. Until economics has environmental and social considerations, big business will continue to profit from ecologically and socially destructive activities. A low carbon economy would provide what carbon pollution markets never can.

Dinner & Meeting with Venezuelan diplomat, Nelson Davila

Nelson Davila, Venezuela's Canberra-based senior diplomat for the Pacific region, is in Auckland for a short stay.

Nelson is a longtime revolutionary turned diplomat in the service of the people's cause. What he says is well worth hearing.

He is to address a local meeting on latest developments in the unfolding people's revolution in Venezuela, led by Hugo Chavez, who is advocating "socialism of the 21st century".

Before the meeting we are sharing a dinner with Nelson. (Please bring a few dollars for koha to fund the dinner.) Details:

DINNER: 6pm this Thursday, 12 November

MEETING: Starts at 7.30pm

VENUE (for both): Socialist Centre, 86 Princes St, Onehunga

All friends of the Venezuelan Revolution are welcome. Please inform your own networks so that Nelson gets a good crowd.

For further info, contact:

Grant Morgan
634 4432 (10am-10pm)
021 2544 515
grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz

Banks know there’s a bad mood rising

The Big Four Australian-owned banks know that the public mood is against them, because, well, they’re interest gouging, profit-taking, tax dodgers – there’s not much to like!

But they’re trying to do the impossible and suck up to us anyway. See the NZ Herald article below, ‘Banks: your new best friend’. In the article, the BNZ’s person in charge of media spin, Dianne Maxwell, says “Banks just genuinely believe that we need to be a part of the community”. That’s a hard sell when you’ve just been caught avoiding $661 million of tax.

This clumsy attempt at sucking up to us could seriously backfire. Most people will see it for what it is, and if we can highlight the banks’ deception, perhaps we can turn the mood even more sour against them. And in doing so we can seek to achieve a higher public profile for pro-grassroots policy demands like removing GST off food and introducing a Financial Transaction Tax instead, which would force the banks and other “fat cat” financial speculators to pay a greater share of the tax burden than they do now.

Banks: your new best friend

by Adam Bennett
from NZ Herald
7 November 2009

You may have noticed the big Australian-owned banks trying to cuddle up to you lately.

In one television commercial a big clumsy Westpac guy, prompted by wordless admonitions from a bunch of everyday Kiwis, eventually does the right thing by going to some inconvenience to retrieve his discarded icecream wrapper from the sea.

ASB Bank, on the other hand, is trying to convince people it is one of us, running adverts telling us it has been a “Kiwi bank” since 1847.

Read more