The Libertarian Communist No. 24 Autumn-Winter 2013

7/27/2019 The Libertarian Communist No. 24 Autumn-Winter 2013

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The Libertarian

Communist----------------------------------------------------------

A Discussion Bulletin:

In Opposition to the Rule of Capital in all its forms and

for Anti State, Non Market Communism

Issue 24: Autumn/Winter 2013

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What A Fracking Mess

Also articles on: Reply to Laurens Otter: Cars and Socialism: Presenting Manifesto Against Labour:Pamphlet Review, Anti-Semitism and National Socialism: Agriculture and Capitalism: and Capital

and History


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2 The Libertarian Communist Autumn/Winter 2013

ThepurposeofTheLibertarianCommunististopromotediscussionamongsttheAntiState,NonMarketsectorirrespectiveofwhetherindividualsorgroupsconsiderthemselvesasAnarchist,CommunistorSocialistasallsuchtitlesareinneedoffurtherqualification.Ifyouhavedisagreementswithanarticleinthisoranyotherissue,wishtooffercommentorwanttocontributesomethingelsetothediscussionthenpleasegetintouch.Ifanyarticlefocusesonaparticulargroupthenthatgrouphas,asamatterofcourse,therighttoreply.Sopleasegetintouchwithyourarticle,lettersandcomments.Youcandothisbycontacting [email protected],Flat1,99PrincessRoad,Branksome,Poole,Dorset,England,BH121BQ==================================================================================ContentsPage:2A Reply to Laurens Otter and Some Further Notes. Dedicated to Tony Turner: Lyla Byrne.Thisrelatesbacktoissue22andsomecommentsLaurensmadetoLylasarticleTheInherentUnhealthinessofHierarchicalSysemsinissue21Page:5Fracking About with the Planet:: Ricardo Monde. ThedebateonfrackinghittheheadlinesinBritaininAugustwithprotestsinWestSussex.ThisarticletakesacriticallookatfrackingandexaminesthedebtewhicherruptedintheSPGBfollowingaseeminglyprofrackingstanceinthePathfindercolumnintheSocialistStandard

lastJanuary.Page:11Cars and Socialism: Stephen Shenfield (Stefan). Thisarticleexaminestheproblemscausedbycarsincapitalismandwhethertheycouldhaveanyfutureinasustainablesocialistsociety.Page:14Presenting the Krisis Groups Manifesto Against Labor: Norbert Trenkle. Thisarticleappearedpreviouslyonlibcom.orgitseekstoexplaintheideascontainedinthatmanifestoandgivesabriefintroductiontothedevelopmentoftheKrisisgroup.Page:19Pamphlet Review: HereweprovideabriefreviewofashortworkbyMoishe Postone entitledAnti-Semitism and National Socialism. Thispamphletexaminestherootsofanti-SemitismanditsrelationshiptotheideasofNationalSocialism.Page:22:How Agri-Food Corporations Make the World Hungry: Basicallthisarticlefromafewyearsagoexplorestherelationshipbetweentheruleofcapitalandthehungerthatstillexistsinsomanypartsoftheworld.Page:23:Capital and History: Robert Kurz. WearepleasedtopresentthisbriefarticlebythelateRobertKurz.Writtenin2009thiscritiquesthepostiontakenbymostwhichonlyconcernswhenandhowcapitalismwillcomeoutofitspresentcrisisandfailstoofferapespectivebeyondthecapitalsystem.Pages:23/4:Anti State, Non Market Group Directory

A reply to Laurens Otter and some further notes. Dedicated to Tony Turner. Lyla

Byrne

I seem to elicit erroneous representations of what I have said (and sometimes of what I am orhave done), with associated criticisms. Especially in this type of society, many find themselves insimilar situations Im sure. I entreat those who are interested to be wary of this, to check the

original and think about things for themselves. According to Laurens Otter I said that its wrong tosay capitalists are self-interested. Firstly, my comment was couched in I think, which means it isnot a statement as of fact, but speculation. Secondly I was speculating about ruling minorities ingeneral, and thirdly I didnt say its wrong! An apology is in order, actually.

The thought in Libcom 21, is that to describe a ruling minority as functioning according to selfinterest is an oversimplification that can be misleading. And it has a context which I will come to

later. Over simplification has a more than subtle difference in meaning to wrong. To suggest thatthe meaning of over simplification is equivalent to the meaning of wrong is a bigoversimplification. Over simplification does not imply that something is entirely or perhaps evenlargely wrong, but that it doesnt say enough. I am sure that capitalists are self interested - as we

are all self interested in various ways. I did not deny this. I went on to suggest that it is more


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accurate to say that capitalists tend to have,or perhaps necessarily have a too limited selfinterest, or an unhealthy self interest for

reasons that I go into in the article that areexplicitly both social and ecological (L.O alsosuggests that I am only making an ecologicalargument).

Something that comes out of this for me ismore clarity about the importance ofspecifying what type of self interestwe arereferring to, i.e. what the interest is in or for.For example:Profit making is in the interestsof capitalists for control, and control is in

their interests for profit making. Weespecially need to distinguish not onlybetween the conflicting interests of capitalists

and workers to do with finance, or possessionin itself; but also between conflicting interests

that that affect us all as human beings,namely:

a) Our self interest in capitalist terms.Or: interests according to the profit principle,financial value and individualistic

morality/ethics.

b) Our self interest in terms of healthy,

enjoyable life. Or: interests according tohealth principles a health basedmorality/ethic. By this I mean: directly

valuing individual/social/ecological wellbeing;having humanitarian and ecologicallysustainable principles.

b) Is our evolutionary and cultural legacy associal animals of empathy, care andappreciation for each other and our lifesupporting ecology, and of studying health in

a more objective way. [There is moreevidence about this in A life worth choosingwhich is in libcom 22, and which I hope tomake available in a fuller version at

stephenshenfield.net together with morereferences.]

There is plenty of information now about howthe forces that comprise capitalism financialownership, the pursuit of profit, competitioninstead of cooperation, class division and so

on, cause unnecessary loss of health, andprevent healthy developments. Capitalismself perpetuates by causing dysfunction, and

thus as it goes on, the health situation hasbeen getting worse in fundamental ways that

are completely socially and ecologicallyinterrelated such that now the veryexistence the whole biosphere is threatened.It is time for everyone to accept that

capitalism is an unhealthy system for humanbeings.

All of us, including capitalists, are part ofsociety, and part of the ecology. Althoughthere are still healthy things going on atpresent, being part of an unhealthy social

system is by definition an unhealthy conditionfor any human being, in two interconnectedways: 1) In terms of having a healthy societyand ecology to be part of to live in. 2) Interms of developing their personal humanpotential for healthy consciousness andcreativity. A layer of concerns about finance

and status; about controlling others andindeed resources in general to make moneyout of them, is interposed in many

social/ecological relationships; and this hasaffects in various ways on other relationships

also, distracting from them and introducingfears and suspicions and habitual controllingattitudes for example.

Capitalism is in the interests of capitalists formaintaining themselves as capitalists, but it

is clearly not in their interests as wholehuman beings. I think that this would now beaccepted by most in the S.P.G.B; and that

Tony Turners stand on the matter wasimportant in moving things on to be moresensible. It is not an expelling issue now.

In comparison to b), a) is a very limited formof self interest indeed,and far too limited tobe healthy. In the short term it limits the

quality of interactions with others and therest of environment; and in the long term,the associated lack of awareness, care andresponsibility about the changes that are

being produced is a road to ruin. Notably, tomake sense, L.O. qualifies what he means bycapitalist self interest as being short terminterests which expresses that they are

limited in this sense. However it is very oddthat L. O. says that I neglect the possibilitythat the capitalist class are so caught up withtheir short-term interests, that they cannotsee that they too would go down when [if]the ecology collapses as this is one of themain points that I am making by saying that

their self interest is too limited...........

As indicated by a), workers self interest incapitalist terms is also very limited. One ofthe ways that capitalism perpetuates itself is

by promoting interests that produce generalpsychological/social/ecological ignorance,such that the majority largely condone andcollude with the multiple


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psychological/social/ecological abuses of thecapitalist class. It is mainly the working classthat carry out these abuses by doing what

they are told to do for money often formore money than they need for wellbeing asthings are, by buying stuff that causes harmto produce and/or to use and by not doing;

by not self organizing to make a healthierworld.

Perhaps some capitalists consciously promotepolicies which cause ignorance and

dysfunction, so as to keep peopleunnecessarily carrying out and buying intoabusive practices/blaming each other insteadof the system/fighting for their masters

profits in wars/generally controllable.However this sort of thing is mainlymaintained by the inherent structures,pressures and stresses in the system, withoutconscious manipulation.

One result is that the ruled majority alsocannot see that they will go down if thesociety/ecology collapses. They also, as a

whole, have remained in denial aboutincreasing social and ecological problems,have thought little about the disastrousconsequences, and have taken little action to

solve or avert them - so far. Although this isof course to do with lack of access toresources now and the playing down offactual information in the mass media, it is

also due to the dehumanization that hasoccurred because of the impositions ofcapitalist forces, including the removal of

access to resources in the past, and thepropagation of its ideology.

The forces of the system instil a too limitedself interestby the structures that are set up.Large scale loss of community autonomy in

particular is central to large scale disruption,

perversion and displacement of our interest inhealthy enjoyable life, because we lose a lotof practice. The system in general causes

alienation from each other, our work and ourecology; the valuing of money and over realwellbeing; fear of not having enough; the

taking of too much - and promotes anindividualistic morality/ethic. We daily see theperpetration of crimes against humanity andthe ecology rewarded with money and status.

Looking at all this it seems highly likely thatthe system can only be short term.......But

this is not all that is going on.

Which brings us to another note: to justdescribe a ruling minority or workers - as

functioning according to self interest (in thesense of individualistic self interest) is oversimplistic in another way also: despite the

forces just listed, the principle of health stillsurvives in society in a sufficientlyundisrupted and unperverted form to haveinfluence in the actions of capitalists andworkers.

What we have to take into account here isthat human beings are very complex. Selfinterestedness can differ in form and quality.

It may also vary over time. The interests ofan individual are usually varied and can becontradictory (in fact that may be the norm inthe present set up). Although a person may

be indoctrinated into and/or conforming withthe system in some ways, in other ways theymay be wanting and working for somethingelse.

Whether people qualify as workers orcapitalists, they are perhaps not oftencompletely taken over by (do not functiononly according to) capitalist principles. In

particular, people are perhaps not oftencompletely taken in by the erroneous

justification that limited self concern isactually is the best way to contribute to

society as a whole. Nor the notion thatbenefit to society only happens by supportingcapitalists in making a profit, so that they canreinvest in making more profit.

We are not usually dealing with single andunchanging states of being, which is why Ialso talk oftendencies - which can of coursebe very strong tendencies. The individualistic

self interest of capitalism involves aninsufficient concept of the self aninsufficient development of the self - for trulyhealthy life, which causes a lot of suffering

and over time threatens survival. It is

testament to the power of the capitalistsystem that this scenario is presently alreadybeginning to play out. But very few indeed of

those who still support capitalism areconsciously supportive of continuing with adisaster; and many are already consciously

opposed to the capitalist system for healthreasons - social and wider ecological - andinvolved in alternative projects of manytypes.

Neither capitalists nor workers are all

completely heartless about the plight ofothers and environmental problems, as isevidenced in numerous ways in society. Manywho financially qualify as being capitalists


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have concerns about others/communities/theecology, and dont always just do what wouldbe most efficacious for making profit or for

keeping the system going. Perhaps mostcapitalists are not entirely capitalistideologically, and some are not ideologicallycapitalist at all. Some such have joined the

S.P.G.B. Famous socialists from the rulingclass include Engels and William Morris; andthere is also Prince Kropotkin the anarchist.

Whether increasing consciousness of thehealth principle, and commitment to healthas a value system will contribute to making

enough of us conscious enough of thedamage done by economic hierarchies toovercome those systems on a global scale

remains to be seen. If so, this will be done byever more of us learning from the experience,

and managing evermore of our resources,including our human potentials, directly forpeace and wellbeing.

A social situation of minority rule by means offinancial ownership necessarily involves overt

and covert coercion and ruthless competitionfor financial profits with all the sufferingand waste that this entails. This is not helpful

for anyones development as a human being capitalist or worker, even in the short term. Except in the sense that anyone capitalist

or worker, can learn from the experience todo things in a different and healthy way.

The presence of health as a core principle is

fundamental to being human to being aconscious social animal. In capitalism,capitalist thinktends to dominate but eventhen domination implies that there is

something there being dominated. Nor is thedomination complete or constant. By existing,the health principle has effects in ourbehaviour, and comes to the forefront more

often than we might think, because it is sointegral to us that it tends to be taken forgranted. Its presence is evident not only inactions directly forindividual/community/environmentalwellbeing, but as the reason why there has tobe so much deception (including self

deception) in capitalism about its unhealthyeffects.

I am looking at society as part of the ecology.

The effects of a system/the practices of a

society on human beings and the ecology asa whole, indicate the healthiness or otherwise(and in that sense the desirability orotherwise) of that system/those practices.

Healthy survival (which necessarily requiressufficient wellbeing in the whole society andecology), is an essential basic value by which

long term interests can be judged. But weneed to judge our short term interests by thisalso, for the sake of the quality of life in thepresent.

Awareness that health is a core principle inhumanity is bound to help in the process ofdeveloping that principle, so that it becomesa more powerful force in the world. [I would

confirm that I am referring to awareness andprinciples as physical states part of thematerial, with causes and effects.] I seecommon ownership and democracy in a

mutually productive relationship with thehealth principle. As the health principledevelops, common ownership and democracybecomes more clearly seen and enacted as

the system that we need to facilitate actionfor wellbeing and so on.

Individualism is an illusion. We have toescape capitalisms fundamentally corrupt

value system, and unrealistic belief system;and understand that our individual wellbeingis generated by, and helps to generate,community and environmental wellbeing as a

whole. At any rate, we will not have muchchance of a healthy future without holistichealth as a conscious core principle.

Fracking about with the planet?

In recent years the environment has become amajor political issue, and rightly so because a

serious environmental problem really doesexist. Since the publication of our Ecologyand Socialism pamphlet in 1990environmental problems facing the planet

have got much worse Voices claiming that theproper use of market forces will solve the problemcan still be heard, but as time goes on theemerging facts of what is happening serve only to

contradict those voices.

The above quote comes from the introductionto the SPGB pamphletAn InconvenientQuestion? Socialism and theEnvironmentpublished in 2008. In the fiveyears since its publication the ecologicalproblems we are facing have magnified as the

article Global Heating and Socialism byStefan in LC 23 illustrated with devastatingeffect. This article concerns the debate onenergy supplies which, quite obviously,


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cannot be divorced from the issue of globalheating. Fracking, a major issue in areas ofthe U.S for some time, hit the headlines in

Britain in August following protests inBalcombe, West Sussex against the possibilityof a fracking site being established there.However there has also been some

controversy over the issue within the partywho produced the pamphlet quoted above,notably in the Pathfinders column of theSocialist Standard in January of this year. Webelieve this is an issue of importance to thewhole ASNM sector and therefore worthy ofdiscussion in a journal related to that sector.

About Fracking

Hydraulic fracturing is the fracturing of rockby a pressurized liquid. Induced hydraulic

fracturing or hydro-fracturing, commonlyknown as fracking, is where water is mixedwith sand and chemicals, and the mixture isinjected at high pressure into a wellbore tocreate small fractures along which fluids suchas gas, petroleum, uranium-bearing solution

may migrate to the well. [Hydraulicfracturing Wikipedia] Fracking in various forms hasbeen around for a long time but horizontal oil

or gas wells were rare until the late 1980swhen, in Texas, thousands of oil wells werecompleted by drilling horizontally in the

Austin Chalk. Horizontal wells proved moreefficient in getting oil from the tight chalk.The beginning of this century witnessedadvances in drilling and completion

technology resulting in horizontal wellboresbecoming increasingly economically viable.From 2010 it has been reported that up to60% of all new oil and gas wells worldwide

were being hydraulically fractured and from2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturingoperations were performed on oil and gaswells worldwide, over one million of them in

the United States [Ibid].

Supporters of fracking point to its economicbenefits because of the amount ofhydrocarbons that the process can extractwhich were not previously accessible. It isalso argued that fracking will bring economic

benefits in the form of jobs, energy securityand cheaper energy bills. However as we willsee later many of these claims are

debateable.

The Socialist Standard and thefracking debate

Protesters in Balcombe, one UK fracking site,insist that it is a very, very short term choice. Weshould really be putting money into renewables,Caroline Lucas of the Greens complains of the

governments irrational obsession with hard toreach shale and with keeping the UK addicted tofossil fuels[Pathfinders column Socialist Standard,January 2013]

The column continues by arguing that theGreens are up a tree is they believe that this

or any future government are going to turnrenewables, (currently merely 3.8 per cent ofthe National Grid) into a major source ofenergy in a period of depression. It is thensuggested that fracking could be a practicaland immediate solution to existing energyproblems. Whilst not clean, the writer

suggests, it is 50 per cent less carbonomitting than coal. After then suggesting thatit is not for socialists to take either a pro oranti position on fracking as it is not a class

issue it then goes on to take a pro stance byadding that with proper regulation whichcould be a problem in some countries theredoes not seem to be much of a case against itand later it is suggested that it looks like agood bridging solution. [ibid] In a morerecent issue of the Socialist Standard (June

2013) a writer reviewing the film PromisedLand which deals with hydraulic frackingcommented that:

Socialists argue that fracking is a miningtechnology, and if it can be made safe, and if weneed it, we may use it in socialism.

So, one could ask, is the SPGB advocatingfracking would or could be used in a socialistsociety, despite the ecological problems sucha society would face? The Pathfinders

column, especially, provoked a good deal ofheated debate on the SPGB forum. The toneof the column, it was suggested belittled theconcerns of local residents and protesters and

anyone who opposed fracking. As one person

put it;

I find the dismissal of concerns of residents, whoare not rich and powerful, in favour of the spin of

energy companies and their political lackies aworrying development in a socialist journal.

Another critical comment suggested that;

the main target appears not to be capitalismand how it distorts our energy needs, but thosewho attempt to contest capitalist interests, who


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are attacked on grounds of realism and commonsense. What emerges is capitalist apologetics.Little different from much coverage in mainstreammedia, which posing as scientific objective andimpartial, conceals subservience to the current

economic system.

In an editorial committee reply it wassuggested that the reasoning behind such

criticism was that anything that is supportedby Tories or business must be wrong whilstany opposition from local residents and

protestors must be right. The reply then,somewhat surprisingly in view of thecriticisms already received, made thefollowing statement;

a report from accountancy firmPricewaterhouse Coopers (BBC Business, 14thFebruary) which estimates that shale gas reserves

could push down oil prices by 40 per cent andboost the world economy by $2.7tn, developments

surely in the interests of many workers. (1)

Supposed Benefits of fracking andcounter arguments

Firstly there is little doubt that by reading thePathfinders column you might well be drawnto the conclusion that the SPGB had decidedto take a pro position on fracking which is

rather surprising because fracking, if it has

not already, will become a hotly contestedissue. To argue that something that seems tohave more negative than positive points and

is clearly not an answer to global heatingmight be used in a socialist society is liketaking a look in a very cloudy crystal ball.Lets examine some of the positivepoints offracking as presented in the Pathfinderscolumn. Firstly it states;

Its notclean, but its 50 percent less belching thancoal[Socialist Standard: op.cit]

Firstly because of the dire consequences forus all if action is not taken to tackle global

heating, the case for anti state, non-marketcommunism cannot be divorced from anecological perspective. Yes members of

organisations such as the Green Party can becriticised as they fail to see the connectionbetween global heating and capitalism butnot for a perspective that seeks to lower thereliance on the burning of fossil fuels. It hasbeen reported that a few years ago somesections of the environmental movement heldthe view that shale gas could play animportant role as a transition fuel. Howeverthey have now come to the conclusion thatinvesting in renewable energy rather than

putting resources into the extraction of fossilfuel from the ground is the only answer toavoiding dangerous levels of climate change

[The Guardian, Fracks and Figures, August 2013].

Whilst since shale gas has been exploited inthe U.S emissions have been reduced this is

due to the fact that it replaced coal. Howeverthere is the same argument presented earlierthat even if emissions are reduced continuingwith the extraction and burning of gas for theforeseeable future will do nothing to helpstabilise the temperature of the planet

[Ecology and Socialism, 2010. p.95] There is also

a growing debate as to if shale gas is thatmuch less carbon belching than coal due tothe release of methane gas during the

fracking process, as methane is a majorcontributor to global heating [The Guardian;op.cit]. Whilst it is true that in April of thisyear the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) in the U.S lowered its estimate of thelevel of methane gas that is released into theatmosphere during fracking by 20 per cent ithas previously been noted that there is adeep suspicion that companies have beennegligent and have issued false statements tothe EPA with regard to preventing diesel from

getting into the water supply [Ecology and

Socialism, p.96, op.cit]It is also the case thatbecause hydraulic fracturing requires such

high volumes of water as this transportationwill carried out by road transport this will lead

to high volumes of air emissions [Wikipedia,].

A study by Robert Howarth at CornellUniversity in 2010 questioned if hydrofrackingis less carbon emitting than coal due to theenergy and water intensive method involved

in the extraction process [Ecology and

Socialism, p.95, op.cit] So even with the case

that fracking leads to lower carbon emissionsthan burning coal we can say that the jury

has not yet returned with a definite verdict.

The Pathfinders column suggested that:

The much publicised fire faucets and poisonedwater were almost certainly preventable accidentsand cowboy carelessness at the well-head.

Lets delve into some analysis regardingwater contamination. Reports suggest that upto August 2011 there were a minimum of 36cases of suspected groundwater

contamination relating to hydraulic fracturing

in the United States. More recently at acongressional testimony in April 2013 Dr.

Robin Ikeda, Deputy Director of Non-communicable Diseases, Injury and


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Environmental Health at the CDC indicatedthat there were several sites where the EPAhad documented contamination and in

several of these cases the EPA has linkedhydraulic fracturing as the likely the source ofthe contamination.[Wikipedia: op.cit]There isalso concern because chemicals which are

added to the water used for fracking, anecessary aid to the process, couldcontaminate groundwater reservoirs.Although geologists believe this is unlikely asgroundwater reservoirs usually lay well abovethe rocks that are fracked, in well-managedoperations; they add that there has been

little extensive research into the subject [NewScientist: Aug 2013] Supporters of fracking,including Viscount Ridley, former chairman of

Northern Rock, claim that there has not beena single proven case of groundwater

contamination in the tens of thousand ofwells that have been drilled in the U.S. As hasbeen suggested the word to highlight in thatstatement is provenand as we have notedabove many studies have indicated asuspected link with groundwater

contamination. The mixing of water withchemicals and the process of pumping itunderground releases not only gases such as

methane but also salts and metals. There isalso the point that much of the contaminatedwater used resurfaces and is classed as

hazardous waste which needs treatment andthis is another potential pollutant risk.Actually proving that water contamination isdue to the fracking process is almost

impossible as there are always naturalpollutants but water contamination caused byfracking is a distinct possibility [The Guardian,

Op.Cit] In addition to the contamination of

water supplies there is the effect on the watersupply as each fracking well uses millions oflitres of water which is injected underground.

They are therefore competing with many

other consumers of water and whilst in thecase of Britain it is unlikely to effect supplieson a national basis in could affect areas

where it is scarce such as the South andSouth-East of England [ibid]

In the editorial reply to critical comments onthe forum it was argued that shale gasreserves could reduce the price of oilsignificantly and radically boost the worldeconomy which was in the interests of manyworkers. The first thing to say about this is it

sounds extremely reformist in as much as itis favouring developments that will aid thecapitalist economic system, rather strange fora party and journal that considers itself

revolutionary. A second point is that theeconomic benefits of fracking are debatable.A number of studies considering the

relationship between fracking and economicgrowth have suggested a beneficial outcome.However the funding source of the studies issomewhat controversial as most studies are

funded by mining companies or byenvironmental groups, which can lead tounreliability Some research studies haveconcluded that mining has not produced anupturn in the population or in employment[Wikipedia, op.cit] As regards job creation thefracking industry have come up with a figure

of between 70 to 150,000 new jobs shouldthe industrys figure of 1,000 wells in Britainbe realised. This would amount to between

70 to 150 jobs for each well, which is a ratherhigh figure as the wells will be mostly

automated. It is concluded that there will bejobs created in such areas as construction,transport and mining [The Guardian, op.cit] Sonot only is it not clear if fracking will bringeconomic benefits, if that is what we arelooking for, but if it does lead to some job

creation they will not be in areas beneficial tobringing global heating under control.

Another debatable point is whether or notfracking would bring about energy security.

Some estimates have made the claim that

there are around 1,300 trillion cubic feet ofshale gas underneath this country. Theproblem is that what is unknown is how muchof this is actually accessible, exactly what theecological cost will be to extract it and howlong a period the supplies will last. A properanalysis of many of the formations believed

to contain the gas has yet to be carried out.In addition to this the oil and gas industry iswell known for overstating its case for both

financial and political objectives [Ibid] On thataccount it shares a common cause with

capitalist interests in general, so why believewhat they say?

One concern for many, perhaps not to all,would be what fracking would do to the

countryside if conducted on the mass scalesome envisage. The fracking industry itselfhas estimated that as many as 1,000 sites inBritain could be in operation by 2020. Each

site will be about the size of four or fivefootball pitches [The Guardian, op.cit] Whilstthe jury is still out on the impact on wildlife if

it leads an increase in climate changeemissions it may well effect the whole naturalworld. In the case of Britain the RSPB fearsthat fracking will take place in many areas


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that are close to important bird migratoryroutes [ibid]. Prime Minister: David Cameronstated

I would never sanction something that might ruinour landscapes and scenery. Shale gas pads arerelatively small about the size of a cricket pitch

The huge benefits of shale gas outweigh any veryminor changes to the landscape.

It has been argued that this is putting a verythick gloss on things. If shale gas is to

provide a meaningful share ofourenergythousands of these rigs will have to beestablished. Replacing current North Sea gasproduction may well require something like

10 or 20,000 wells [What is behind this fracking mania?Unbridled machismo, The Guardian, August 20th 2013] Whatwould that do to the landscape and scenery?

How the Fracking industry deals withopposition to it.

The opposition to fracking in the U.S and theresponse of the industry to it might give us aforetaste of what might take place in Britain iffracking activities take off on a large scaleand the opposition movement to it grows.Fracking companies in the U.S have adopted

various public relations exercises tocounteract opposition, some of which has

been aggressive and imaginative which showshow important some regard this issue. In a

discussion on the adoption of public relationsmeasures to counter hydraulic fracturingprotesters the following comments, from asenior executive at Anadarko Petroleum wererecorded:

"Download the US Army / Marine CorpsCounterinsurgency Manual, because we are

dealing with an insurgency.

A spokesperson for Range Resources

suggested that, when confronting and dealingwith local people in Pennsylvania, Range had

employed psychological warfare and thatthese experiences gained from Middle Eastoperations had been invaluable. [Wikipedia,

op.cit]. If some of the opposition to frackinghas been aggressive, the industry itself isopen to a charge of secrecy and makingresearch into fracking operations difficult. It

has been reported that researchers, themedia and other organizations have outlineddifficulties in both the conducting and

reporting the results of studies into frackingas a result of industry and governmentpressure. There is also the case of thepossible censoring of environmental reports.

Researchers claim that there should be fulldisclosure of all fracturing fluids, the testingof animals raised close to fracturing sites and

that there should be better inspection of allenvironmental samples. Once court cases inthe U.S regarding contamination fromhydraulic fracturing have been settled the

related documents are sealed. Notsurprisingly the American Petroleum Institutedisputes that this has had the result ofconcealing problems with drilling for gas

[ibid].

Learning lessons from the past

In a further article in The Guardian, Dr RobinRussell Jones suggests that to understand the

arguments about fracking we need to studythe history of lead. This dates back, heargues 250 years ago and concerned lead

lined cider presses in Devon and the fact thatsome cider manufacturers were adding sugarof lead to their cider. In 1767 Sir GeorgeBaker, future president of the Royal Collegeof Physicians published experiments thatproved the presence of lead in DevonshireCider. Despite absolute denial by the Cidermanufacturers and the vilification of Baker

himself, he was proved right. Fast forward tothe 20th century and we have the longrunning battle of lead in petrol, by the early

1970s oil companies were adding 400,000tons a year to petrol worldwide. Once againdespite the industrys denial that there wasany link to leaded petrol and ill health,especially in Children, the link was finallyproved beyond doubt. In 2011 the UNannounced that it succeeded in phasing out

leaded petrol almost world wide and this hadresulted in, amongst other annual benefits,1.2 million fewer premature deaths. Dr RobinRussell-Jones argues that the lesson to be

learned from the experience of campaigns

against lead are that new technology is all toooften adopted without thoroughly examiningconsequences; that industry cannot be relied

upon to act in the best interests of thegeneral public, even in a situation when theiractivities are threatening the whole planet

with pollution; that todays politicians can beno more trusted to act in the interest ofpublic health than was the case in the 18thcentury; that remedial action is only likely

when individuals state and raise their voicesabove those of vested interests and, as we

have already argued, that disinformation is awell known and standard tactic wheneverindustry and company profits are under


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attack [We should learn our lessons form lead,The Guardian August 20th 2013] (3)

Government dismissal ofrenewables

In The Guardian George Monbiot looks athow those capitalist vested interests respond,(he would not put it in those terms) to the

case for renewable energy in comparison tosomething like shale gas. First there is Biogaswhich is produced by the breakdown oforganic matter in the absence of oxygen, it is

a renewable energy source, comparable tosolar and wind energy using regionallyproduced raw materials and recycled wasteand is ecologically friendly. Monbiot notesthat the vast majority of this is untapped,capturing it is unproblematic but it needschanges to the way waste is presently

handled. To this point the government hasnot been interested in developing biogas; butat the same time it has gone head over heelsto support the fracking industry, by setting

up a special office, establishing a tax systemwhich the chancellor boasts;

is the most generous for shale in the world.

At the same time biogas is pushed to oneside and forgotten [What is behind this fracking

mania: Unbridled machismo, The Guardian, August20th 2013]

Meanwhile the government is almostestablishing its own campaign against wind

power. It is setting up a veto so that localpeople are enfranchised and able to preventthe building of wind turbines. Thegovernments case is explained in terms of

people power, local people, it suggests haveto be taken into account regardingwindfarms. However when it comes tofracking people power cannot be traced.Where fracking applications are concernedthe planners overseeing them are prohibitedfrom looking into alternatives to oil and gas,

there exists no regulations regardingdistancing fracking rigs from houses andpriority is supposed to be given to the

positive implications of mineral extraction,especially economic ones. Wind turbines doseem to be less than welcome by manypeople but they are far less of an interferencein everyday life than fracking drilling set ups.In contrast to fracking operations wind

turbines are constructed on high ground,distanced from most houses and as noted no

such rules are in place in respect to howfracking operations are set up [ibid].

This main aim of this article has been toexamine the controversy surrounding frackingin general although it has been based onmany of the issues raised by the Pathfinderscolumn in the Socialist Standard early this

year. It is fairly clear that the stance takentoward fracking in that column was a pro oneand this is the reason why much space hasbeen taken up dealing with it. As statedearlier whilst the ecology movement can be

criticised for failing to make a real connectionbetween capitalism and global heating theirarguments in opposition to the burning of

fossil fuels and to fracking must be seen to becorrect as that would do nothing to arrest thethreat of global heating.

Fracking is, at the very least a controversialissue and to give any endorsement to it isclearly unwise. To suggest that it couldpossibly be used in a socialist society seems

to be foolhardy as we have no idea whatsituation we may be faced with. As far backas 1990 in theirpamphlet Ecology andSocialism the SPGB took a far more realistic

stance when examining the situationregarding nuclear power; it stated:

Future generations will rightly regard the decisionto utilise nuclear power on a widening scale for

electricity generation, let alone for militarypurposes, as an act of folly, especially as rightfrom the start it was known that there was nosatisfactory solution to the problem of disposing ofthe radioactive waste. [p.24]

Any socialist comment on the energy

problem, which is so bound up with the globalheating issue, must begin with the basicissues of energy conservation and the casefor renewables rather than joining with the

governments dismissal of them. In theeditorial reply to criticisms of the Pathfinders

column it was suggested that the reasoningbehind much of the opposition to frackingwas that it was supported by the Tories andbusiness and therefore it must be wrong.Whilst it is true that support from that

direction does not by itself make it wrong, itis likely that it is far from a neutral point ofview and is likely to be promoting some selfvested interest. As for the suggestion that

many are opposed to fracking because it ispart of capitalism and therefore it must bebad for the environment, it can hardly be

argued that the profit system has putecological interests at the top of its prioritylist. Many who responded to the originalcolumn argued that it was little more than


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capitalist apologeticsand this applies evenmore to the editorial reply. In additionseveral respondents raised the fact that the

column failed to address the key point,namely that both the energy problems andfragile state of the planet needs to be placedfirmly on the doorstep of the capital system.

Finally a related and negative outcome of thecolumn was that it potentially increases thegulf between anti state, non-marketcommunism and the ecology movementwhich is already too wide. The opinion of this

journal is that we have to at least try andrelate to the ecology movement with the aimof creating within that movement recognitionof the inevitable link between a system ofcapital accumulation and global heating. This

would be more to the point than retreating

into the false realm of patching up thecapitalist system via benefits to the economyand job creation schemes. Like it or not the

ecological issue is the most important issuefacing us and failure to act on that fact willmean that any alternative to capitalism isconsigned to dust.

Footnotes

1) For a full discussion of the topic on the SPGB forumseehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/com

ments/pathfinders-fracking

2) Ibid

3) Dr Robin Russell-Jones was the

medical and scientific advisor to

Clear: the Campaign for Lead Free Air

from 1981-83 and its chair from 1984-

89]

References

John Vidal Fracks and figures, The Guardian, August20th 2013

Dr Robin Russell-Jones We should Learn our lessonsfrom lead, The Guardian, August 20th 2013

George Monbiot What is behind this fracking mania?Unbridled Machismo, The Guardian, August 20th 2013

Socialist Standard, January 2013 Pathfinders Fracking a bridge too far

Socialist Standard, June 2013 Film Review: PromisedLand.

SPGB Pamphlet Ecology and Socialism, 1990

SPGB Pamphlet An inconvenient question: socialismand the environment, 2008

Chris Williams Socialism and Ecology, HaymarketBooks, 2010

Wikipedia Hydraulic Fracturing

Wikipedia Biogas

The following article appeared in theSocialist Standard in two parts inFebruary and March this year. The firstpart was entitled RoadKill and the secondCars and Socialism. As this is thecomplete article it is being included underthe latter title. It can also be found onthe authors website atstephenshenfield.net which is also in ourdirectory.

Cars and socialism: Stephen Shenfield(Stefan)

A massacre of 28 children and teachers at aschool in Connecticut on December 15 hasreceived weeks of intensive media coverage.And yet very little attention is paid to theroughly 100 people killed in the U.S. everyday by motor vehicles. The carnage at the

scene of a serious road accident is just ashorrific as a battlefield, but only those directlyinvolved the victims and the workers whose

job is to clean up the mess are fully aware

of it as an everyday reality. Millions ofanimals deer, badgers, frogs, birds, etc. also die on the roads. They are called

roadkill. That seems an apt term for thehuman casualties too. Worldwide humanroadkill is estimated at 1.3 million a year. Theinjured number in the tens of millions.Average annual human roadkill in the U.S. inrecent years has been about 40,000.(Another couple of million are hurt; 250,000

of them have sufficiently bad injuries andsufficiently good health insurance to behospitalised.) There has been a modestdecline since the 1970s, when the yearly

average was about 50,000.

Various reasons have been suggested for thedecline, including a crackdown on drunk

driving and the adoption of certain safetyfeatures, especially seat belts and eventually(in the 1990s) air bags. We owe these

improvements to persistent efforts bycampaigners for safer car design, RalphNader being the best known.

Feeling safe

This example demonstrates that campaignsfor reform can sometimes achieve worthwhileresults. Worthwhile, but limited andtemporary. Because there has been no
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/pathfinders-frackinghttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/pathfinders-frackinghttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/pathfinders-frackinghttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/pathfinders-frackinghttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/comments/pathfinders-fracking


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decisive reorientation of car design towardsafety, as opposed to style, power andcomfort. Thus, as Catherine Lutz and Anne

Lutz Fernandez point out, car manufacturersprefer to make the driver feel safe ratherthan help him drive safely. By swaddlingdriver and passengers in a warm, quiet and

smoothly moving cocoon, insulated from thenoise and bumps of the road, they preventdrivers from sensing how fast they are goingor how dangerous the road conditions are(Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobileand its Effect on our Lives, PalgraveMacmillan 2010, p. 179).

However, the biggest setback to the cause ofsafe design has been the rise of the monsters

known as Sport Utility Vehicles. SUVs aremuch more prone to roll over than ordinary

cars and much more lethal when they collidewith other road users (Keith Bradsher, High

and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV,Public Affairs 2002).

The decline in human roadkill is partly the

result of people minimising their exposure totraffic as pedestrians, though at a high cost inthe form of isolation and loss of community.

In the old days, when motor vehicles werefew and far between, children were free toroam around on their own and play with

friends in the streets. Now they are coopedup at home. There they can prepare for theirfuture role as drivers by playing video gameslike Carmageddon, where the goal is to

smash up as many other cars and run downas many pedestrians as possible.

Pollutants

Besides direct roadkill, cars harm and killpeople through the pollutants that they emitinto the air we breathe. Here too campaigns

for reform have had some successes. Inparticular, exhaust filters are now in wideruse and petrol no longer contains leadadditives. Here too, however, the fewsuccesses are overshadowed by a dauntinglist of failures. And here too SUVs are the

worst culprits. Motor vehicles still emitenormous quantities of tiny particles andpoisonous compounds, including nitrousoxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic

compounds that react in sunlight to formozone. Most of these gases and particles do

most harm to the respiratory system, causingsuch diseases as asthma, bronchitis,emphysema and lung cancer. Anotherpollutant, benzene, damages the bone

marrow and immune system and causesleukaemia and other blood cancers.A car emits poisons into the air both inside

and outside, making it hard to tell whether itis less unhealthy to ride with the windowsclosed or open.

Burdens on society

These are not the only burdens that the car

imposes on society. It devours enormousmaterial and labour resources and generatesa vast stream of material waste, much of it

hazardous and/or non-recyclable. The car andthe hydrocarbon fuels that power it make abig contribution to the atmosphericconcentration of greenhouse gases and

thereby to climate change. Cars have a hugeimpact on land use. Land is used tomanufacture cars, sell cars (showrooms),service and repair cars (garages, fillingstations), wash cars, drive cars (roads,driveways) and no small item! park cars(roadsides, car parks, home garages). An

expanding area of arable land is being usedto cultivate biofuels for cars. These burdensgrow heavier as the numbers of cars (andespecially SUVs) increase. The total number

of motor vehicles in the world passed theone-billion mark in 2010. It can be expectedto continue rising rapidly as cheaper models

open up new consumer markets in countriessuch as India and China.

Cars and socialism

Thus, society pays a terrible price for themotor car in pollution and disease, ugliness

and noise, social atomization, injury anddeath. Does it follow that a socialistcommunity is likely to decide to stopproducing cars? How compatible would such adecision be with the idea of socialism as a

world of material abundance and free access?

First point. Socialism will make a lot of cartravel unnecessary. This applies especially tocommuting. Many jobs to which people nowcommute will disappear with the abolition of

money). Over time geographical patterns ofhabitation and production can be changed toenable most people to live close enough totheir work not to need a car to get there.We can expect new forms of public transportand the restoration of environment-friendly

old forms such as trams and canal barges (fornon-perishable supplies). Sizeable urbanareas can be made safe as pedestrian


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precincts. Some towns in Germany arealready car-free and accessible only by rail.

Second point. Replacing petrol-guzzlingmotor cars by electric cars should reducepollution from cars and their contribution toglobal heating, provided that the electricity

comes from low-carbon sources (not fromcoal, as it often does at present).

Sharing systems

Third point. Free access to car transport as a

service can be achieved without permanentlyassigning a car to each family or individual.In social terms, the current arrangement,with most cars sitting unused most of thetime, is extremely wasteful. The total numberof cars required can be minimised by relyingon a pool of cars available through a network

of depots.

When people want to go on a trip that cannotconveniently be made by public transport,

they will borrow a car from the nearest depot.When they no longer need the car, they willreturn it to the network (not necessarily tothe same depot). The depot staff willrecharge, repair and maintain the vehiclesand monitor their use. Such arrangementsalready exist, though not for cars. The public

lending library provides free access to booksand cassettes. A free-access sharing systemfor bicycles was pioneered in Amsterdam by

the Provos in the 1960s, and now exists inParis, Hangzhou and many other cities. Insocialism sharing systems will expand tocover specialised tools and other things that

people need to use occasionally.

In a free-access society people will develop adifferent psychology. They will view the goodsbeing held for their use in public stores and

depots as already belonging to them. As theywill have free access to those things

whenever needed, they will feel no urge totransfer stuff to their homes in order to makeit theirs. Such pointless behaviour willappear pathological. People will feel a need

for exclusive and permanent possession onlyof those things which have a special personalmeaning for them.

Electric cars still a problem

So it may be possible to provide free accessto electric cars at a social cost lower than thatnow paid for motor cars. Much lower,perhaps, but still considerable. Switching to

electric cars will not stop the carnage on theroads. Electric cars also pose environmentalproblems of their own. There are two types of

electric car: one runs on a battery, the otheris powered by a stack of hydrogen fuel cells.However, the manufacture of both devicesdepends on the availability of rare earth

metals (REMs). These substances occur invery low-concentration ores from which theyhave to be separated out by means of acidbaths and other processes, generating vastquantities of highly toxic waste. The REMsmelting plants in Inner Mongolia dump thewaste into a large pool. From there the

radioactive sludge seeps into the soil andgroundwater, destroying local agriculture andthe health of local residents. A socialist

society could not tolerate such poisoning ofthe environment, even in a single locality. No

local community would voluntarily sacrificeitself to provide the world with certain rawmaterials. And the world administration wouldlack the coercive power to sacrifice a localcommunity against its will.

So the waste would have to be reprocessed,stored in sealed vessels and buried in stablegeological structures deep underground. This

is not done under capitalism because it wouldcost too much. But even in socialism it willsurely be impracticable to store more than a

certain quantity of waste in this way,especially as it will be in addition to hundredsof thousands of tons of accumulated nuclearwaste in urgent need of similar treatment.

That constraint will limit the amount of REMsextracted. And as REMs will be needed formany other uses (including energy-efficientfluorescent lamps and magnets for wind

turbines) it will be necessary to set prioritiesfor their allocation.

Free access to everything?

Thus, we cannot be sure whether socialistsociety will be able or willing to provide freeaccess to car transport. The social costassociated with maintaining an adequate poolof electric cars may still be judged

unacceptably high. It is doubtful that therecould ever be free access to everything tospace travel, for instance. The world socialistcommunity will have to decide, through its

democratic institutions and procedures, whatfree access will and will not cover, and how to

distribute things to which free access cannotbe provided.


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The following article was featured onlibcom.org. It features Norbert Trenkle's2001 discussion of the Krisis Group'sManifesto against Labor, summarizing itsmain points and providing a brief accountof the history and origins of the Krisis

Group.

Presenting the Krisis Groups

Manifesto against LaborNorbertTrenkle

I would first like to say a few words about theKrisis Group and its journal, Krisis. I will notspeak at length about them, but will onlyoffer a definition of what they are.

First, Krisis is a German language theoreticaljournal of social critique which appeared after1986 and arose within the context of theleftist movement of 1968. A group of peoplewho had passed through various communistand Marxist groups reached the point wherethey understood that the critique developed

by Marxism, the critique of capitalist society,had reached its limits and that they had to gobeyond it, that is, Marxism must also besubjected to criticism. Not from the point of

view, however, which is fashionable today,i.e., saying that Marxism was completely

mistaken and that capitalist society is thebest possible society, but from the point ofview that Marxism itself was not sufficientlyradical in its critique.

From that perspective, which the group had

acquired during the mid-1980s, they began tore-read the works of Marx and thetheoreticians of what is known as westernMarxism, such as Lukacs, the FrankfortSchool, and others. From that basis, webegan to develop a critique founded primarilyupon the critique of the commodity and of

value, or, more precisely, on the critique ofcommodity and value fetishism, which weconsider to be an essential aspect of Marxswork. Whence a whole series of radical

critiques of modern society were developed,including the critique of politics, the critiqueof democracy, the critique of patriarchaldomination and, most essentially, even acritique of labor.

We began to undertake this critique of laboralready at the end of the 1980s, in a very

different social context from the one we livein today. At that time, at least in certainsegments of society, there were variousforms of a critique of labor, critiques which

were not perhaps very coherent and weresomewhat inconsistent, but which constitutedpoints of reference. During those years,

however, the value of labor began to beincreasingly emphasized in official discourseits ethical, moral and political valueprecisely in the very midst of a situation

where increasingly larger numbers of peoplewere unemployed or else under-employed inmore or less acceptable conditions. And itwas in that context that we decided topublish the Manifesto against Laboras aprovocation. As a provocation it causedpowerful repercussions not only in Germany,

but also in other countries, having appearedin a Brazilian edition, for example. Later, ourfriends from Fortaleza and Sao Paulo will

speak a little about the Manifestos impact intheir country, as well as that ofother texts.

I shall attempt to present a brief introductionto our critique of labor, without taking too

much time, because I want to leave sometime for discussion. To begin my shortsummary, I shall refer to the headline of aGerman newspaper, the Bild-Zeitung, which

has 5 million readers, a very populist muck-raking type of newspaper. In an interviewwith thisnewspaper given on April 6th of thisyear,(2001: ed )Chancellor GerhardSchrder said: There is no right to be lazy,implicitly referring to Paul Lafargues book,The Right to be Lazy. The ordinary reader of

this newspaper, of course, does not knowwho Paul Lafargue is, he has never heard ofhim. He does, however, have some

understanding of this insinuation. What wasSchrders message? That the cause ofmassive unemployment is not the dynamic ofthe capitalist economy, but is the fault ofthose people who do not want to work andwho prefer to take advantage ofthe socialstate, of the community, and the rest ofthat sermon. What surprised us a little was

that this polemic had a very positive impacton almost all sectors of society. Yes, yes, itis true, there are many people who do not

want to work, who cannot be, etc. And, ofcourse, as a consequence, the restrictions onthe unemployed increase. The rates are cut,more pressure is exerted to make them

accept any kind of work, in dreadfulconditions and with low pay, saying: If youdo not accept this, you will not receive any

more money, and things of that kind. Butwhy does such a large part of the population

identify with this polemic? Why is it believedthat the unemployed are responsible for a

situation which is obviously the result of theenormous productivity developed by


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capitalism, which is no longer capable oforganizing labor on a generalized level?

It is truly paradoxical. Productivity isconstantly increasing, there is more and morepotential to produce social wealth, but undercapitalist conditions this potential cannot be

mobilized so that the whole world participatesin this wealthmaterial wealth and thewealth of disposable time. To the contrary: aschism is produced on a global level. A

minority labors in the smaller sector of veryhigh technological productivity, while themajority of the worlds population, from acapitalist point of view, is superfluous; which

means that it is expelled from the more orless regulated sector of labor and must gainits livelihood under dreadful conditions, with

very low pay and no job security. In both

sectors, the pressure to waste yet more ofones time of life increases and competition isalso outlandishly exacerbated, simultaneously

regulating the division of an extremelyunequal material wealth. In the capitalistcore, and especially in Europe, this process ofschism is still restrained, or, more precisely,

retarded, by the existence of what remains ofthe social state. But the latter is beingcontinually reduced, which leads to acontinuous expansion of the precarious sectorhere as well.

Since it is obvious enough that the cause ofmassive unemployment and the lack of job

security is the capitalist structural dynamic,why, then, does this polemic which blamesthe unemployed, those people who

supposedly do not want to work, have suchan impact? The basic reason for this is thatlabor is and continues to be the basis ofmodern capitalist society. It continues to be

its basis, not only materiallyI shall explainthis shortlybut in the sense that it is also itspsycho-social basis, drilled into the peoples

minds and consciousness, people who areor, actually, we areconstitutedcapitalistically. The whole world today issocialized in this society as it exists and isimpregnated by it. Capitalism is not anexternal thing, but exists within the peoplethemselves. And labor is one of the basicmoments of this psycho-social constitution.

What is going on here? One of the mainfoundations of society, labor, is breakingapart. The whole world knows this, knowsthat unemployment is always growing and

that working conditions are getting worse.This is pointed out in the newspapers, insociological studies and is also, of course, an

everyday experience. For some 25 or 30

years this knowledge has been present insocial consciousness. But, at the same time,identification with work as the centre of life

itself is almost total. A contradictory situationis consequently produced. Precisely becausethe foundations of society are breaking up,there is a very strong tendency to want to re-

establish them, to fundamentally reaffirmlabor. A quite generalized fundamentalism oflabor is thus established. This is a veryimportant psychological reason why a polemicsuch as that of the German ChancellorTonyBlair and others, especially the socialdemocrats, do the same thinghas such

widespread resonance.

What do I mean by saying that labor is thebasis, the material foundation of capitalist

society? It has traditionally been asserted

that labor is the foundation of all societies.This was especially true of Marxism: it repliesthat labor is the foundation of all societies,

from the beginnings of culture tocommunism. I deny this. Of course, allsocieties have always needed to producegoods in one way or another. There has

always been the need to produce food, buildhouses, make clothing and other things ofthat kind. Every society must have some wayof producing. But this production of themeans of existence, of means of life in thebroadest sense, never constituted the centreof society in non-capitalistsocieties; it did notconstitute society itself, nor was it societysdriving force. This role was not played bywork or production, but by other factors and

other moments,such as kinship,consanguinity and religious relationships,which constituted the social context andwhich, within this social context, in one formor another, produced goods to sustainsociety. In capitalist society, meanwhile, theopposite is true. Here it is labor which has thefunction of constituting society, it is what

forms society itself. And within this socialcontext formed and constituted by labor, ofcourse, other relations and other spheres

exist that are not directly defined by the logicof labor and the economy: the privatesphere, sexual relations, the political andcultural spheres, etc. This form of social

constitution is specific to capitalist society. Ithink it is very important to emphasize this,but it is necessary to approach it more closely

in order to understand it better. If I said that,in capitalist society, labor constitutes society,

this function is not fulfilled merely by beingan activity producing concrete useful goods,

but because labor is an activity of abstractproduction. This does not mean that it does


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not produce concrete goods, but that the goalof production is not concrete use, but anabstract end. Goods are produced so as to

become representatives of value. And value isnothing but past labor, dead labor.

These goods which are produced as

representatives of dead labor arecommodities. But these commodities are notproduced for simple exchange, in the sensethat I make a loaf of bread, you produce a

dozen eggs, I give you the bread, you giveme the eggs, and the business is finished.No. Commodities are not produced for directexchange, but for a presupposed end. And

this presupposed end is the production ofvalue for the valorization of capital. It is whatone could calland Marx did call it thisan

end in itself. Why is it an end in itself?

Because the reason for production is toincrease a certain quantity of value asrepresented by money. In simple terms:

capital valorization is ultimately nothing butinvesting a certain sum of money to producecommodities, to sell them and to obtain atthe end of this process a larger sum of

money. At the beginning and at the end ofthe process we find the same abstract thing:value represented by money. Money issomething totally abstract; abstract, becauseit abstracts from the concrete content of whatis produced and what is bought or sold bymeans of it. It does not matter whether

bread, houses or hospitals are produced, orweapons, or automobiles for a totallydestructive and irrational transportation

system. It does not at all matter to whatconcrete uses the products are put, or theconsequences of their production processes,or even the consequences of theirconsumptionsuch as, for example, theecological consequences of the system ofprivate automobiles. Of course, concreteobjects are always produced, but these

concrete objects are always related andsubordinated to the abstract goal ofproduction.

To say that labor constitutes society alwaysimplies this self-referential process which isits own end. Labor constitutes society insofaras society is constituted by commodity

production and capital valorization. These arethree aspects of the same system. Only inthis way does labor constitute society, and

only this kind of society can be called a

commodity society. Many non-capitalistsocieties have also produced commodities inanother contextalways for direct exchange.

But only capitalist society is the total

commodity society, a society where allrelations are subordinated to the logic of thecommodity.

Describing modern society in this way alsomeans changing the perspective concerningthe relation between capital and labor, or

between capital and the working class. Notonly does capital represent that end-in-itself,which is defined by the moneycommodityproductionmore money circuit; labor also

represents this circuit. Of course, the personwho sells his labor power does not do so inorder to work, but to survive; he sells hislabor power so he can buy the commodities

he needs to live. From this immediate pointof view, labor is not an end in itself, but anend for something else: the purchase of

means of subsistence. This is, however, only

a particular moment and a particular point ofview within the presupposed self-referentialprocess of valorization. In the material sense,

all labor power constitutes an integral part ofthe great self-referential machinery ofproduction for the sake of production, whichdoes not cease to produce even if it destroys

the social and natural foundations of society.It does not stop producing because it cannotdo so without breaking with its own logic, alogic which requires a constant dynamic ofproduction, since it consists merely of theincrease of that abstract category, that fetishcalled value. Labor not only participates in

this process, it constitutes its essence. Valueis dead labor.

And this fact is most recognized when people

are obliged to defend their jobs in one way oranother. As they defend them, they do notask, Does what we are producing makesense? Is it even a danger to our own lives?

Even if it is a nuclear power plant, it does notmake any difference; jobs are defended by allpossible means. In this defensive struggle, no

oneasks about the concreteend ofproduction or about its possible or actualconsequences; the only issue is whether ornot they can continue to sell theircommodity: labor power. But in order to bean integral part of this gigantic machinery ofvalorization on a material level one mustmentally and ideologically identify oneself

with that machinery. In this way modernindividuals do not distance themselves fromlabor. They do not define it as merely any

function necessary to make money, in the

sense of I work, I make money, and thatsall, but they consider it honourable to workand to make their living by working, instead

of being lazy. But that is not all. In addition,


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the mechanism of working, that is, offunctioning within the machinery ofvalorization, is implanted in the very psyches

of individuals socialized by capitalism. For thisreason, they feel the need to constantly be insome kind of motion, even if they are notworking in the strict sense of the word. They

cannot stop moving, they constantly feel theneed to be doing something, and they are notcapable of leisure. This phenomenon may,perhaps, be more prevalent in Germany thanit is here in Portugal, but I think that thetrend is the same. It is the tendency tocontinue in the rhythms of work even outside

the job, of occupying ones free time withactivities which have the character of labor,such as, for example, the whole cult of

sports, of body building, but also the endlessentertainment within the culture industry.

In this sense, one can saythat labor has alsoestablished itself as an end-in-itself in thepsyches of modern individuals.

Seen from this angle, the relation betweenlabor and capital must be re-evaluatedandanalyzed in a very different way than

traditional Marxism has analyzed it. From theperspective of traditional Marxism, aseveryone here knows, the class struggle wasthe cardinal point. Only the working class wassupposed to be capable of overcomingcapitalism. This belief was justified with theargument that the interests of the working

class were opposed to capital. It was, then,logical to concentrate on the working class asthe revolutionary subject. But if we shift

perspective, as I am attempting to do now,this point of view is invalid. Of course theinterests of capital and labor are opposed insome way: struggles for higher wages, betterworking conditions, recognition of unionrights, etc., cannot be immediately reconciledwith capitals interest in increasing its profits.But these opposed interests are rooted in a

common social system. Two poles exist withinthis common social system, capital and labor(other interests also exist, but I am now

speaking from the point of view of traditionalMarxism). And these poles struggle with eachother, of course, but this struggle, in itself,neither transcends nor overcomes the social

constellation which constitutes their commonboundaries or foundations.

From the historical perspective, one could say

that it seemed for a while that the class

struggle went beyond capitalism. Why? Iwould say that the principle reason for thisappearance was that in that period, above all

during the second half of the 19th century

and the first half of the 20th century,capitalism had not yet fully developed inaccordance with its own logic. What does this

mean? Well, according to the immanent logicof capitalism, if we view it as a totalizedcommodity society, each producer and sellerof commodities must be the bearer of rights.

And the worker, from the formal point ofview, is nothing but a seller of a commodity,of the only commodity he possesses: hislabor power. But during the period underdiscussion he did not possess those rightswhich correspond to a seller of commodities.

The proletarian classes, the working classes

of the 19th and early 20th century did nothave the right of political representation, toform unions, they were not bearers of the

rights of the citizen; they did not possess

those basic rights which, by the logic ofcapitalism itself, correspond to every sellerand producer of commodities. What, then,

was the unconscious objective of the classstruggle? The objective was to realize theserights. The bourgeois classes, of course, didnot voluntarily renounce their privileges, but

defended them with all the means at theirdisposal. But this was not a defence against asupersession of capitalismas the twocontending parties imagined it to bebutagainst the supersession of a particular phaseof capitalist development. The result of classstruggles was thus the realization of a society

where the whole world is the bearer of thesame rights, where the existence of tradeunions, of social legislation, and of the rights

of labor, become the norm. This does not, ofcourse, mean the end of human exploitation,of repression and social inequalities (whichare, to the contrary, increasing), etc., but allof this takes place within the established andgeneralized form of the democratic and legalState, the latter being the political form whichcorresponds to commodity society.

The systemic identity of capital and laborbecame increasingly clear in this historicalprocess of the realization and generalizationof capitalist society as a totalized commoditysociety. We see this, for example, in theideological expressions of the representativesof the labor movement, which went more or

less like this: Those capitalists do not work!Wework, they do not work, they areparasites, they do nothing! We are the basis

of society because we work! This is exactly

the same polemic which the bourgeois classesdirected against the feudal classes in the 18thcentury: We are the ones who work! Those

dukes, counts and other nobles do no work at


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all. We are the ones who represent society.The workers movement only assumed thispolemic and turned it against the bourgeoisie.

In this manner, they undoubtedly increasedtheir self-confidence and won publicacceptance. But how? By identifyingthemselves offensively with their supposed

enemy: the bourgeois class. The latter, onthe other hand, had no difficulty in showingthat it also worked and was by no means

lazy. Henry Ford, for example, calledhimself the number one worker in mycompanyjust as the Prussian kingFrederick II said: I am the number one

employee of my State. Nor was he lying, inany respect. The functionaries, the managersand businessmen of capital obviously work.

And they often work an extremely gruellingschedule: 11, 12 or 15 hours a day are not

exceptional for them. Of course, they work ata much higher level in the social hierarchy,they make a pile of money, but in order to doso they make themselves into slaves of thevalorization process of capital, just like theworker in a factory or a cashier in a

supermarket. They, too, must obey thatabstract end-in-itself which yields to no one.The capitalists do not rule over this automatic

process, but are ruled by it, they arefunctionaries of its constant dynamic.

Little by little, this social reality was positivelyaccepted, it was declared to be a kind of

second nature. This has reached the pointwhere workers are now exhorted to seethemselves as businessmen, as the

entrepreneurs of their labor power. This isquite consistent ideologically, because if thebusinessman is a worker, the worker is also abusinessman. But it is not by chance that thisreversal of the identity of the two poles takesplace now. It has the function of legitimizingthe deregulation of the labor market, in asituation of a crisis of labor characterized by

the constant diminution of sectors of laborwith job security and the constant growth ofsectors with temporary, precarious and low-

paid jobs. This situation is sold ideologicallywith a defence of the businessman, saying:

We are no longer workers, we are allbusinessmen. The relative advantages of a

secure job are called obsolete and a kind ofbarrier to the realization of ones

individuality; and the life of the new

businessman is described as that of acreative individual who does not allow

himself to be restricted by formal rules, bybureaucracy, and things of that sort, but who

is happy to constantly be in motion and notto be tied down to a definite job.

What is terrifying about this is that thisideology has been so widely accommodated. Iknow many people of my own generation, for

example, who as of 8 or 10 years ago, didnot identify with work at all. They workedonly when necessary, in order to survive, orthey tried to live on social security. But today

they are small businessmen, they work withcomputers or in advertising, they dont earnmuch money, but they identify with whatthey are doing, they work 15 hours a day andare proud of it. They are often only minoremployees in precarious conditions, withoutlong-term contracts, and are obliged to take

several temporary jobs at the same time, butthey actually define themselves asentrepreneurs of their own existence and are

proud of their flexibility.

We are, then, confronted by a paradoxicaland contradictory situation: the crisis oflabor, the crisis of the society of labor, of the

society of commodity production, isaccompanied by an extremely strongidentification with laboras the reactions toSchrders attack on the lazy has already

demonstrated. In other words, the materialfoundation of the society of labor is breakingup while, simultaneously, a fundamentalismof labor is produced which seeks to achievethe impossible: to re-establish thatfoundation. I confess that for some ten ortwelve years now I have nourished the slight

hope that, with the downfall of laborsobjective basis, the ideology of labor wouldalso be shattered. One must, of course, take

account of the fact that the social climate ofthat time was different. Today we face a verydifferent situation. I do not want to say,however, that the identification with labor istotal and airtight. There are always manycontradictions, not only economic and socialbut also ideological. For example, the verywell-known contradiction wherein labor is

being eliminated by the permanent increaseof productivity and, despite this fact, it is theunemployed who are blamed for this process.

It is quite obvious that this is an irrationalargumentbut it does work.

One thing remains clear: there is noautomatic emancipatory process set in

motion by the crisis on an objective level. No.The reactions to resolve the systemscontradictions could be totally opposed to any

impulse towards liberation from the system.

One must view the tremendous increase inracism, which is almost always related to theideology of labor, within this context; as is

shown by such expressions as the following,


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forexample: Thesepeople who come here,these blacks, they dont want to work, theytake advantage of our social welfare system,

and things of that kind. Or else theimmigrants are accused of stealing jobs.These two forms of denunciation are, ofcourse, mutually contradictory: if one does

not want to work one cannot at the sametime be a rival in the struggle for jobs. Thesetwo things cannot simultaneously co-exist.But in racist ideologyas in any otherideologythis does not constitute a problem,because it is not a matter of rational andcoherent argument. Racism, like other

ideologies which capitalism produced in itslong historyabove all, anti-Semitismcomes into its own during the crisis because

it allows the supposed culprits to be definedand thus reaffirms society as it is.

We find ourselves, then, in quite a difficultsituation for thinking about the formation of

an emancipatory social movement. There isno specific social interest which one could sayis opposed to capital and therefore thecapitalist system. There is no social class (nor

has such a class ever existed, and it neverwill exist) which could be defined as apotential revolutionary subject. And thismeans that the revolutionary strategies oftraditional Marxismand in a wider sense, ofthe traditional leftmust be tossed in thegutter; strategies which essentially consist in

the attempt to awaken the allegedrevolutionary subject by means of agitationand propaganda and to organize it in the

party form.

What, then, should be done? There is nosimple answer. What can be said is that, onthe one hand, it is absolutely necessary to

struggle against the increasing economic andsocial pressure and repression which growsalong with the crisis process. But these

struggles can only become powerful if theycast doubt upon the prevailing logic ofvalorization and the commodity, if they donot accept them as invincible social forms.Otherwise, they can always be easily derailedby having to accept, for example, that socialspending must be reduced because globalcompetition allows no other alternative, or

that squatted buildings cannot be occupiedbecause this violates the rights of privateproperty, etc.

Against such ideological and practical

deception, which is one of the principlecauses for the collapse of the socialmovements of the 1980s and 1990s, it is

absolutely necessary to put forth and extend

a discourse of radical criticism of commoditysociety and labor and all of its institutions,these being principally the State, the market

and patriarchal domination. Such a discoursecould be capable of creating points oforientation of reference for the variousparticular struggles and helping to ensure

that they could be the basis for ananticapitalist movement which measures upto the 21st century.

============================

Pamphlet Review: Anti Semitism andNational Socialism by MoishePostone

This pamphlet reproduces an essay by MoishePostone which was first published in 1986 inGerman and the Jews since the Holocaust:

The Changing Situation in West Germany.

Postone begins by arguing that in Germany(West Germany when the original essay was

written) neither the conservative/liberalpolitical wing nor the left have been able tocome to terms with the relationship betweenanti-Semitism and National Socialism. Theconservative/liberal position has concentrated

on the gulf between the Nazi past, focusingon the treatment of the Jews whilst largely

ignoring other central features of Nazism andthe present situation. However because of theobsession with the division between the pastand present it has avoided what Postone

describes as; a fundamentalconfrontationwith the social and structural reality of

National Socialism This reality, he adds, didnot just vanish in 1945 and the condemnationof anti-Semitism has been used to legitimisethe present system. Anti-Semitism has beenviewed primarily as a form of prejudice, a

scapegoat ideology and this has failed tobring to the surface the concrete relationshipbetween anti-Semitism and central aspects ofNational Socialism [pages 3-4].

The left has concentrated on different aspectsof National Socialism. These include how itfunctions for capitalism, the destruction ofworking class organisations, the rearmamentprogramme, its expansionist policies and thebureaucratic nature of party and statedomination. However it shares with the

conservative/liberal viewpoint a failure toview anti-Semitism as a central block of

National Socialism and has also failed to bringout the central relationship between the two.


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Furthermore, Postone points out, both the leftand conservative/liberal perspectives viewmodern anti-Semitism as anti Jewish

prejudice, as a form of general racism. But,Postone argues, the Holocaust cannot beunderstood as long as anti-Semitism is linkedto a general form of racism or so long as

Nazism is viewed simply in terms of largecapital and a bureaucratic police state [page4].

The Holocaust, Postone argues, should not beviewed in a quantitative way either in termsof the number of people murdered or in the

degree of suffering imposed, as there are toomany other examples of mass murder andgenocide. The particular question to be

addressed is qualitative as aspects of theextermination of the Jews by the Nazis seem

beyond explanation if anti-Semitism istreated as a scapegoat strategy where thevictims could have belonged to any othergroup. Why for example when Germany wason the verge of defeat was so much effortdiverted to transport Jews to the gas

chambers [Pages 5-6].

Anti-Semitism, which should not be mistaken

with ordinary anti-Jewish prejudice, is anideology which emerged in Europe in the late19th century. What is commo

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The Libertarian Communist No. 24 Autumn-Winter 2013

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