Blood On Their Hands

The Formula 1 bosses are right to say that holding the Grand Prix there has highlighted the oppression in the country, because of the media coverage.  That is a condemnation of the way the media have ignored the torture, and human rights violations, going on in Bahrain, over the last year, not a justification of F1 being in there.  Its true that questions have been raised, but, at the same time, it has been an opportunity for the Bahraini tyrants to claim that the opponents of the Grand Prix, i.e. the Bahraini masses, are extremists!

Jean Todt, justified the presence in Bahrain, partly by pointing to the fact that, last week, the Grand Prix was in China.  Personally, I would not have lost sleep if the Chinese GP had been cancelled either, but the situation in China is not the same as that in Bahrain.  There is not currently mass protests for democracy taking place in China, nor are there massive amounts of military force being used to subdue such protests.  In Bahrain that is the case.  In fact, on a proportional basis, more Bahrainis have died, as a result of State oppression, than have Syrians!  Besides that the Bahraini tyrants are themselves closely connected with F1 itself.  It simply will not do for David Coulthard to claim that the drivers do not properly understand the political situation in the country.  For one thing, what is there not to understand.  The country is a medieval, Feudal Monarchy, run by vicious tyrants, who are killing people for daring to demand freedom and democracy!  Besides which, if you don't understand the issues, then, in such a high profile position, you have a responsibility to find out, or else you are complicit.  As, the protesters have said, in fact, the repression has increased in recent days, precisely because the tyrants have tried to present things as normal, and to prevent the people from being able to effectively protest.

But, of course, F1 is a rich boys sport.  Its no wonder that its interests are aligned with the rich tyrants of the Bahraini Royal Family, and not with the ordinary Bahrainis facing torture, murder and oppression by those tyrants.  Nor is it a wonder that those other rich boys, those that make up the millionaire boys club that is the Tory Cabinet, have also been loathe to upset their friends amongst the Sunni, Gulf Arab tyrannies, whose activities they are more than happy to turn a blind eye to, in order to ensure their supply of oil, and in order to keep making billions from selling them luxury goods, and more weapons with which to murder the people.

These are the same Tory millionaires who, of course, were only to prepared to bomb the shit out of Libya, and Iraq, and Afghanistan, supposedly in the name of freedom and democracy, and defence of human rights!  They are the same millionaires' club who would do the same to Syria given the chance.  Yet, when it comes to their freinds in the Gulf tyrannies, they cannot even bring themselves to a limp protest such as opposing the holding of the Grand Prix there.

A couple of weeks ago, a lone protester upset the rich boys annual rowing race in protest at elitism.  The generally reserved British are not given to kamikaze tactics.  But, one prominent Bahraini human rights protester, gaoled for life, simply for demanding democracy, is on hunger strike, and may die this weekend, such is his commitent to his cause.  I hope it doesn't happen, but it is not at all impossible that protests, on the track, during the race, could occur, which would have dire consequences.  I hope it doesn't happen for those reasons, and because the F1 authorities, and the Bahraini tyrants would then use it to justify their claims that the protesters were extremists.  They would all claim, of course, that they could never have seen such an eventuality.

Of course, the Tories would be sympathetic to such an excuse.  After all, these are the same rich boy Tories who are happy to see British workers die in industrial accidents, because they do not beleive in things such as Health & Safety.  In both cases, the blood is on their hands.

Northern Soul Classics - All Turned On - Bob Wilson & The San Remo Strings

More early Torch magic. Flat out, 100 mph stuff. 

Northern Soul Classics - Move - Jess & James

Another biggy from the early Torch, which was also a biggy at the Wheel. This one from Jess & James, real names Fernando & Toni Lameirinhas, who escaped the Dictatorship of Salazar in the 1950's, moving to the industrial city of Charleroi in Belgium. I'm including two versions. The first because its 1967 footage of Jess & James, but it cuts off short, the second because its the full version.

Making The Workers Pay? - Part 5

The Floating Reserve

The Floating Reserve, as I described in Part 4, is made up of workers who move in and out of the labour market, thereby accommodating the cyclical movements of the economy. Often, this reserve is concentrated within certain sections of the workforce, and indeed, those sections, which previously formed the Latent Reserve – the Peasantry, Women, Children, Immigrants – provide the basis for the Floating Reserve. But, in developed economies there are always unemployed workers of all sorts at any one time, and this is a basic requirement for the functioning of the system. As old industries decline, and others rise, workers need to move from one industry to another. In the meantime, they may need to be retrained, certainly they will need to find new jobs, and maybe new homes in other locations. This is what economists call frictional unemployment. In a growing economy it is not a bad sign, but an indication of dynamism and change. The periods of unemployment for workers affected in this way, are not very long. Moreover, because such periods of unemployment are a normal part of the functioning of the economy – as opposed to unemployment caused by an economic crisis – the workers wages have to cover such periods, in just the same way that workers wages have to cover them for the other aspects of what is required to ensure their reproduction, such as insurance against sickness absence, and old age. These costs, because they are part of the normal costs of reproducing Labour Power, are an integral part of the Value of Labour Power.

In fact, viewing things in this light, it is possible to understand the logic for Capital behind the introduction of State run Unemployment Insurance and Benefits. As I stated, previously, in relation to China, the absence of such State run insurance and welfare schemes, means that workers will always tend to over compensate. An individual worker can never know if they will be ill, or what their healthcare costs might be. They will never know if or for how long they will be unemployed. They will not know how much the education costs for their children might be, or how long they may spend in retirement. In order to be on the safe safe side, workers will always tend to overestimate these costs, and try to ensure that they save enough money to cover them. In an economy like China, that focuses on exporting its production, this might not be a problem. The workers savings do not go into consumption, but there is sufficient external demand to soak up the production anyway. The workers savings – around 50% of income in China – are used to finance investment, to increase production even further.

However, no economy can continue to expand on the basis only of exports, and doing so results in fundamental imbalances, as well as making the economy increasingly subject to external shocks over which it has no control. When the US and European economies slumped after the Credit Crunch, China was forced to take decisive measures to stimulate domestic consumption, so that the massive output from its factories could be consumed, the profits from that production realised, and the workers kept in employment. China needs to shift the balance of its economy to increase its domestic market, and is taking steps to do so, including encouraging big increases in Chinese workers wages. But, it also needs to shift the balance of Chinese workers wages away from such high levels of savings and towards consumption. After all higher wages might simply result in more saving. The most effective means of doing that, as US and European Capital found during the last century is the establishment of a Welfare State.

The Welfare State, acts as a huge insurance scheme into which the workers are forced to pay. It means that instead of each worker having to estimate their own requirements, those requirements can be calculated as an average for the whole class of workers. Because, the reality of unemployment, sickness, and so on taken as an average is much lower than what any individual worker estimates it to be for themselves, the amount that actually needs to be set aside to cover these things for workers as a whole is significantly less than workers individually would set aside. In other words, the amount of savings – what Keynes calls the Precautionary Demand for Money – can be significantly reduced with the introduction of a Welfare State, and this means both that more money is available for domestic consumption, and the reduced demand for Money means, lower rates of interest, which can in turn stimulate economic activity.

The other thing here is that because the average wages the workers need to cover these eventualities has fallen, over time, this is reflected in the Value of Labour Power. Consequently, wages can fall, raising profits. The workers receive in their wages, the equivalent Value sum, required to cover this element of their reproduction i.e. the cost of insuring themselves against unemployment, sickness, old age etc., and then hand this over to the State, as an insurance premium, out of which the State then funds the provision of these Welfare services.

However, as stated above, in calculating the Value of Labour-power, what is taken into account is only that amount, which, on average, is required to cover the reproduction of Labour Power under conditions of full employment i.e. under conditions where all available Labour Power is employed other than for that, which is frictionally unemployed. Consequently, covering such unemployment via a state run Unemployment Insurance Scheme, just like covering Health Insurance, or Education provision, by a similar scheme, represents a more efficient system for Capital, which reduces the Value of Labour Power, and raises profits. That is why all developed economies introduced Welfare States.

However, because what is included in the Value of Labour Power is only insurance for these periods of frictional unemployment, it can also be seen why these State run insurance schemes have only covered short periods of unemployment. If workers are unemployed, not because they are simply moving from one job to another, as part of the normal functioning of the system, but are unemployed for longer periods, because the system has itself entered a crisis, then this is no longer a question of ensuring the reproduction of the necessary labour-power, because under such conditions, less labour-power is itself required! Under such conditions, from the perspective of Capital, the Unemployment Benefit is being paid out to sustain Labour-power, which it does not actually need. It is a cost over and above what is required for the reproduction of the necessary Labour-Power, and therefore constitutes a deduction from Surplus Value.

Here then we see yet another contradiction faced by Capital. On the one hand the introduction of the Welfare State, and in this instance, the provision of Unemployment Insurance, best meets its needs for ensuring the efficient reproduction of Labour-Power, on the other, when the system enters into a crisis it is not easy to reduce this provision.  Of course, in addition to these efficiency savings, which raise the rate of profit, it also benefits from ideological reinforcement of the system, because such provision encourages the idea of the neutrality of the Welfare State, thereby hiding its true class nature. However, when the system goes into crisis, that imposes additional costs on Capital reducing the rate of profit below what it would otherwise have been, and any attempt to remedy that by cutting Benefits, as happened in 1931, risks exposing the true class nature of the State, and the image of the Welfare State, as some beneficent provider.

The significance of the Floating Reserve in dealing with this contradiction can then be seen. It can act as a convenient safety valve or regulator for Capital. Perhaps, the clearest example of that can be seen in relation to the peasantry. The only country, as Marx points out, which has ever come close to the ideal of having a working-class in the pure sense is Britain. In the Grundrisse, Marx describes Labour as “Not Capital”, and Capital as “Not Labour”. In other words, for both to exist in their ideal, pure condition workers must own no Capital, whereas, Capital must do no Labour. Such conditions never exist. In Germany, for instance, until quite recently, a significant number of workers retained some connection to the countryside. Many had small holdings, or plots of land, from which they could obtain some income, or at the very least provide themselves with a modest amount of food. That is not uncommon in other European countries. In Russia in during the Civil War, faced with starvation in the towns and cities, millions of workers who had only just come from the countryside, returned to their villages, where they could have some hop of being able to feed themselves.

This is a classic example of the Floating Reserve. Capital, not requiring the available Labour Power, is able to dismiss it without the need to pay for its subsistence, or face the social and political consequences of refusing to do so. Instead, this Floating Reserve, disappears from the labour force, and provides for its own subsistence by other means essentially outside the sphere of Capital. But women workers, child workers and immigrants can also perform this function for Capital.

Because of the essential characteristics of human reproduction parents subsistence has to be financed by Capital, whether they are employed or not. Having said that, Aldous Huxley, in “Brave New World” described the ultimate of the Fordist, Welfare State, in which children could instead be brought up in State run orphanages, where that State could ensure that they were more effectively indoctrinated, and turned into efficient workers who loved their exploitation! Given that industrial Capitalism developed within the existing framework of a paternalistic society, where the role of child rearing, and the care for the sick and elderly within the home, was assigned to women, it was natural that it would adapt to that reality.

As a consequence, an obvious solution for Capital in meeting its fluctuating needs for Labour-Power (some of which, of course is always dealt with via things such as overtime working) is to utilise female labour-power. Where Capital cannot meet its needs by overtime working, it can draw in female workers. There is a whole discussion that has taken place in the Marxist and Feminist movements about the role of female labour-power, around the question of wages for housework, and so on, which I do not have space to deal with here. In short, let me simply say that it depends upon the conditions and time scales involved. For the reasons set out above, about the nature of human reproduction, in conditions where women do not in general work – for Capital – then their subsistence has to be covered in the wages paid to male workers. In conditions where, in general, women do work for Capital – which in itself means that a variety of economic and social changes are required, such as the mechanisation or socialisation of domestic labour – then their subsistence will tend to have to be covered in the Value of their own Labour-power. In reality, it will also depend upon the structure of households, for example, are the majority of households based upon families (which will tend to make household income more significant), or are they based upon individuals (which will make individual income more significant).

But, likewise, when Capital faces some kind of crisis, and its demand for Labour-power falls, it is convenient for Capital to be able to dismiss female workers as part of a Floating Reserve, and for them to disappear from the labour force, back into the domestic sector, just as happens in many less developed economies with peasants. A concomitant of this, for Capital, is that having returned to the domestic sphere, this female labour-power should not simply represent an additional cost for capital either in the form of payments of welfare benefits, or in the form of a requirement of higher male wages to cover their subsistence. In other words, having returned to the domestic sphere, this female labour power, like that of the peasant, must be capable of covering its own subsistence by other means. That is why, under such conditions, there is usually some attempt to also move some of the social and welfare functions that were taken on by the State – which were part of those economic and social changes referred to above required to free female labour-power for use by Capital – back into the domestic sphere.

In fact, from the perspective of modern industrial Capital, this does not have to be female labour power. To the extent that men are prepared to become house-husbands, to undertake the tasks of child-rearing and caring etc., then this provides industrial capital with greater flexibility, particularly where the structure of employment is such that it has come to rely on female labour-power more than that of men. It is just that Capital, particularly Big Capital, is very opportunistic, and rather than rock the boat, it is more than happy to adapt to the social conditions in which it finds itself, rather than to try to change them.

Of course, much of what has been said above in relation to female labour-power can also be said in relation to immigrant labour power. In fact, to the extent that Capital can utilise guest worker schemes, such as those in Germany, it can reduce even some of the contradictions it faces in utilising female labour-power. But, it does so only by creating new contradictions. On the one hand, it requires an increasingly costly, and oppressive State apparatus to police “illegal” immigration. On the other, as recent experience in Britain has shown, attempts to place caps on immigration, merely result in shortages of particular types of labour-power, which in turn cause economic problems.

Back To Part 4

Forward To Part 6

Should We Defend Representative Democracy?

I was just watching Peter Kellner giving the 2012 David Butler Lecture on the BBC Parliament Channel. (See: here) In it he sets out the case for Representative Democracy as against Direct Democracy, which he defines narrowly here in terms of decision making by Referenda. Representative Democracy he contends is under threat from the latter, which is an insidious means by which democracy itself has been undermined by authoritarian forces.

Marxists are clear when it comes to a question of defending representative i.e. Bourgeois Democracy, against a return to feudal absolutism, or its supplanting by fascism or Bonapartism. We are not proponents of Bourgeois Democracy, we are advocates of direct workers democracy of the type we practice in our Trades Unions, Co-operatives, and Workers Parties (though in all these we are not content with the the current standards of democracy actually achieved). However, we recognise that alongside bourgeois democracy go a number of bourgeois freedoms, such as the right to assembly, to free speech etc. Of course, all these rights and freedoms are ones which the bourgeoisie itself sought, for its own ends, in its class struggle against the landed aristocracy, and which it requires for its own rule. They are extended to the working class only under sufferance, which is why male workers did not obtain the right to vote, even in Britain until the latter part of the 19th Century, and women workers not until after WWI. Whenever the bourgeoisie feels that the enjoyment of these rights, by the workers, seriously threatens its own rule, or even its ability to make profits, it acts to withdraw them or restrict them. That may simply be restrictions on the right to strike, to organise through to the use of fascists or a military coup to remove those rights and freedoms completely.

Nevertheless, in so far as workers are able to enjoy these rights and freedoms, they are vital tools for facilitating the workers own activities, and the building up of their own resources. Consequently, we are not advocates of bourgeois democracy but of workers democracy, but we are prepared to support a political struggle for or to defend bourgeois democracy and freedoms as a means of furthering the interests of the working class. But, it is precisely because we are not advocates of bourgeois democracy, but of workers democracy which determines the basis upon which that struggle is conducted. The best illustration of that is given by Trotsky in his Action Programme For France. In it, he sets out that we struggle for, or to defend, these bourgeois freedoms not with the tools of bourgeois democracy, but of direct workers democracy, and proletarian class struggle. Our task after all is not to promote bourgeois democracy, but to illustrate its inadequacy, its sham nature, and the superiority of workers democracy. So, for example, Trotsky proposes defending bourgeois democracy against the fascists in France by such means as:

1) The abolition of all business secrets

2) “Factory committees, peasant committees, committees of small functionaries, of employees could very easily, with the help of honest technicians, engineers, accountants loyal to the working people, do away with the “business secrets” of the exploiters. It is by this method that we must establish public control over banks, industry and commerce.”

3) “...the workers under arms must retain all political rights and should be represented by soldier committees elected in special assemblies. Thus they will remain closely linked to the great mass of toilers and will unite their forces with the people organized and armed against reaction and fascism.”

4) “All the police executors of the capitalist will, of the bourgeois state, and its cliques of corrupt politicians must be disbanded. Execution of police duties by the workers’ militia. Abolition of class courts, election of all judges, extension of the jury for all crimes and misdemeanors; the people will render justice themselves.”

5) “The task is to replace the capitalist state, which functions for the profit of the big exploiters, by the workers’ and peasants’ proletarian state. The task is to establish in this country the rule of the working people. To all we declare that it is not a matter of secondary ‘modification,’ but rather that the domination of the small minority of the bourgeois class must be replaced by the leadership and power of the immense majority of the laboring people.”

6) “To reinforce the struggle of both the workers and peasants, the workers’ committees should establish close collaboration with the peasant committees. Constituted as organs of popular defense against fascism, these workers’ alliance committees and these peasant committees must become, during the course of the struggle, organisms directly elected by the masses, organs of power of the workers and peasants. On this basis the proletarian power will be erected in opposition to the capitalist power, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commune will triumph.”

“We are thus firm partisans of a Workers’ and Peasants’ State, which will take the power from the exploiters. To win the majority of our working-class allies to this program is our primary aim.

Meanwhile, as long as the majority of the working class continues on the basis of bourgeois democracy, we are ready to defend it with all our forces against violent attacks from the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie.”

In other words, although the situation was one in which it was the forces of reaction which were on the attack, Trotsky refuses, correctly, to deal with this by assuming a purely defensive strategy. He utilises the old football maxim “the best form of defence is attack”. This is the opposite of the position adopted by the Stalinists and Reformists, who respond by looking to alien class forces, and by subordinating the workers struggle to the bourgeoisie, through the Popular Front.  He recognises that the reaction is itself a sign of the maturing of contradictions in society, the need of the bourgeoisie to respond with such measures, and, therefore, the potential for this situation to turn into its opposite, a revolutionary situation, in which the working-class can go on to the offensive. That, of course, is why Trotsky can include in his demands, the demands for nationalisation of the banks etc., which under other conditions would be unnacceptable. Of course, it is not the Capitalist State, who he looks to, to undertake such nationalisations he says,

“Nationalization by the workers means the destruction of the great private monopolies, support of small enterprises, redistribution of products for the benefit of the great mass of producers.” and,

“The great institutions of the state (post office, customs, education, etc.), which exploit several million toilers, function for the benefit of capitalism. The recent scandals have shown the corruption that reigns among the higher functionaries.

The small government employees are exploited by the corrupt and venal officials who utilize their office to permit the possessing class to crush the labourers still more.

We must make a clean sweep. With the collaboration of all the exploited, committees and unions of small government employees will make the necessary changes to establish real social services that function by and for the labouring masses.”

Of course, these are the last methods by which Kellner seeks to defend bourgeois democracy. His first line of argument is to set out his attack on Direct Democracy. This is done, not by examining the potential for i,t as set out in, for example, Classical Greek Democracy, or even the workers democracy as it exists within the Labour Movement, but by limiting it to the use of referenda. Here the old trick of guilt by association is adopted. All kinds of Dictators have utilised referenda, so, therefore, they must be bad. That is then extended. Kellner provides details of a poll his organisation, "Yougov”, had undertaken on a number of important issues. The results of this poll could only be a surprise to middle class liberals who need to get out into the real world more.

The poll showed that there was a majority of support for a number of reactionary measures, such as leaving the EU, stopping all net immigration, bringing back hanging, providing details of known paedophiles and so on. So, the argument goes, no self-respecting liberal progressive could possibly consider giving the working-class a meaningful vote over any of these things. Much better to only allow the workers a meaningless vote, and allow the professional, bourgeois politicians to continue in the same way ruling over the workers' heads, and in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Part of the problem here, Kellner argues, is the very nature of referenda, which force the electors into making binary choices, all or nothing. So, for example, Kellner says, in relation to the Immigration question, the referendum could only ask whether voters wanted to stop all net immigration or not. But, for a professional psephologist that is a ridiculous claim for him to make! There is absolutely no reason why such a referendum could not ask a question such as - “Are you in favour of 1) no net immigration, 2) net immigration of 100k – 200k, 3) net immigration of 200k – 300k, 4) net immigration of 300k – 400k, 5) no limit.” Voters could then be asked to respond as with AV, by ranking their preferences.

Moreover, with the advance in ICT, his other objection, that of the time required to set up referenda to deal with new or changed conditions is rapidly disappearing.

Failing to deal with reactionary ideas feeds
support for the extreme Right

What Kellner's approach signifies is the arrogance of the political elite, as well as its basically bureaucratic and lazy attitude. The real answer, to the fact that a large proportion of the British people hold reactionary ideas, in relation to nationalism etc,. is not the bureaucratic response of ignoring the views of the majority, which can only ever feed support for the parties of the extreme right, as the people become ever more alienated from a political class that fails to reflect their concerns, but is to make the case, against those reactionary ideas, more effectively. After all, part of Kellners task here was to make the case as to why Representative rather than Direct Democracy should be supported. If a political campaign can be waged for that, it can be waged for the political ideas that Kellner or anyone else seeks to promote.

But, that is true in the organisations of the Labour Movement too. The answer to the actual lack of democracy within the Trades Unions, the Co-ops, and the Workers Parties, is not the ultra-left and sectarian response of seeking purity, through an infinite number of schisms, but to focus on the actual needs of the workers themselves, and by addressing them, build a mass workers movement from the base up, focussed not within the parliamentary channels of the Trade Union Branch committee, but on the workplace floor, not in the CLP, but in the LP Branch, linked closely and in practice with the TRA, or neighbourhood committee, as well as on a day to day basis with workers in their Co-operative enterprises, Housing Co-ops, estate Co-ops and so on. It will always be the case that only the activists devote their time to the parliamentary bodies of the Labour Movement, often to the detriment of their practical day to day work of dealing with workers problems. At least until Socialism has become a well established fact, the majority of workers will only participate in their organisations if they see an immediate need to do so, for example, during a strike, or because they have some financial imperative for doing so – for example, in running their own Co-op of some form or another. If we want to build a truly democratic movement, it has to be a mass movement, which can only be built from the ground up. If we want a truly democratic movement it has to be based on active mass participation, and that can only happen if workers have a direct imperative for engaging in such activity. Without that workers direct democracy will be as much of a sham as representative democracy is today. It would be to simply replace one political elite with another.

Northern Soul Classics - Baby Reconsider - Leon Haywood

This is probably the first of the real big sounds of Northern. It debuted at the Torch either late 1970 or early 1971. In the Summer of 1971, I was working at the DHSS Offices in Hanley. The offices were part of a huge block of buildings in which was also situated the Top Rank, where that year we'd also started to dance on a Saturday, in addition to the Torch on a Friday.

I remember one decent Summer's day, Tony Blackburn was presenting the Radio 1 Road Show outside the Rank. Keith Minshull turned up with a copy of this, and was offered some absurd amount of money for it by TB. I can't remember now if it was £50, or £500. Both seemed absurd at the time. By comparison, I was earning £9 a week for running up and down stairs at the DHSS offices, which I could just about make up to £12, if I worked until 9 p.m. several nights a week, and a Saturday morning!

Of course, we couldn't afford to pay what people like Tony Blackburn could pay, but we could afford to pay the £1 for a bootleg copy on Jeff King's "Soul Sounds" label, which is why a long running debate arose at the time in the pages of Northern house journal "Blues & Soul", about the rights and wrongs of bootlegging.

Making The Workers Pay? - Part 4

In Part 3, I looked at the means by which Capital seeks to deal with the drying up of the Latent Reserve, and the contradictions, which result from this. Of course, the other means used by Capital to resolve the problems that arise from the using up of the Latent Reserve also create contradictions, and problems for Capital. For example, the use of immigrant labour causes political problems, particularly when a crisis occurs, and workers are made unemployed. Capitalism did not spring into existence on a blank canvas. It arose out of Mercantilism and Feudalism, and all of the ideology that went with those systems, and indeed which they, in turn, had inherited from the past. So, for example, Capitalism proper, Industrial Capitalism, exploits people without fear or favour. It does not care whether you are British or Indian, black or white, gay or straight, male or female, a Manchester United or a Manchester City supporter. It performs a cold cash calculation of what your labour-power is worth, and what profit it can make from it. But, this industrial Capitalism entered existence in societies where these differences DID play significant roles, where people were far from being equal. Feudal society was based on the notion that everyone was unequal, that society was like a pyramid with God at the top, the Kings beneath him (with God always seen as a paternal rather than maternal figure, and thereby providing an ideological basis for the subordinate role of women) and so on down to the lowliest serf.

When bourgeois ideas first begin to take root, they do so as the manifestation, not of the rise of the industrial bourgeoisie, but of the merchant classes, whose symbiotic relation with the Feudal Aristocracy establishes the system of Mercantilism, and with it Colonialism. As, the Black American Marxist, Oliver Cromwell Cox, describes, in “Race, Caste and Class” Racism arises as a means by which this bourgeois ideology, which asserts a fundamental equality – Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite – reconciles its actions in treating millions of human beings in the Colonies as fundamentally UNEQUAL! It does so, by denying their humanity. Although, logically, from the perspective of cold cash calculation, this kind of discrimination makes no sense for developed industrial Capitalism, as with many other aspects of society it inherits from the past – for example, in Britain the failure to carry through consistently the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution, the persistence of heredity in the shape of the Monarchy, House of Lords etc – the Big Capitalists prefer to deal with it by bureaucratic methods, rather than by a frontal assault on those sections of society – such as the small capitalists, reactionary petit-bourgeois etc. - where these ideas have strongest grip. Indeed, where they can oportunistically use it for their own advantage, to divide a powerful and challenging working-class, they are prepared to do so – though it plays less of a role in this respect than many of the Left suggest.

A look at the experience of the 1980's shows that, in fact, in those old heavy industrial areas, where deindustrialisation, and the collapse of industries such as Mining, Steel Making, Shipbuilding etc. occurred, women's employment fared significantly better than that of Men. It was not just the fact that female labour-power was cheaper to buy for Capital, but that frequently in the new, light industrial production that was established, and certainly in the new service industries, female labour-power was more productive than male labour-power. It was often not discrimination from Capital, that women faced in these areas, but from working-class men. Certainly, there is evidence that where women became the main or only breadwinners in these areas, it did not result in a significant reduction in their domestic workload to compensate. An intersting discussion and analysis in this respect is provided by Jane Wheelock in “Capital Restructuring and The domestic economy: Family Self-respect and The Irrelevance of 'Rational Economic Man” (Capital & Class 41, Summer 1990). A look at the preponderance of female labour-power in the State Capitalist sector, which grew markedly from the late 1980's through to 2010, particularly in these areas, is an indication of that. State Capital located to these areas, partly in order to offset, the effects of deindustrialisation, which could have had long-term consequences for the economy as a whole, but also to take advantage of cheap labour thereby providing itself with an alternative to the astronomical costs facing businesses located in London.

Another contradiction faced by Capital in this regard is that, following the initial period of industrialisation, when what is required is a vast, available supply of cheap, unskilled Labour-Power, Capital's strategy changes. It is no longer dependent upon this Latent Reserve, but is able to deal with its requirements for growth, and the cyclical fluctuations of the Business Cycle, by utilising another labour reserve – the Floating Reserve. The Floating Reserve, as the name suggests is made up of workers who float in and out of the labour market. The relative over-population, which Capital creates, by the continual rise in labour productivity, is the main source of this floating reserve, made up of workers who spend a few months out of work, before finding a new job. Even during the 1930's, the average period of unemployment for a worker was only around six months – though, in areas like the North-East there was chronic unemployment with large numbers of workers unemployed for years. But, it is useful for Capital, particularly during periods of Long Wave downturn, such as the 1930's, 1980's, to be able to concentrate this Floating Reserve on women, who can be encouraged by one means or another to return to the home, or on immigrants, who can be either excluded via Immigration Controls, or encouraged to leave the Labour Market if not back home. The use of “Guest Workers” in Germany, whereby Turkish workers were encouraged to come to the country when there were labour shortages, but who had few rights, and who could be sent back home when there was no more work, was a classic example of this.

But, here too Capital faces contradictions in this regard. The EU as a single market requires the operation of a free movement of labour within its borders. Now, for example, in Britain, the greatest number of immigrants come from within the EU, particularly from Eastern Europe. But, as was seen with Mrs Duffy's intervention against Gordon Brown, at periods of high unemployment, this can lead to these workers being scapegoated for the problems of Capitalism. It also means that the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory Party, under pressure from UKIP and the BNP, can exert additional influence on the Party, pushing it further in the direction of the interests of the nationalistic small capitalists, and the reactionary petit-bourgeois. For Big Capital, whose agenda is for the creation of a Federal Europe, with open borders, the free flow of Capital and Labour, for the establishment of a central state, with control over fiscal and monetary policy etc. This is the opposite of the direction of travel they require. Once again, the attempts by Capital to “Make the Workers Pay” are riddled with contradiction, which ensure that it suffers itself as a consequence of such measures. That is not surprising given Marx's analysis of Capital as a social relation. Who says Wage Labour also says Capital, just as who says Capital also says Wage Labour. These are not in reality two distinct things, but as Marx makes clear, merely aspects of the same thing. Capital cannot make Labour pay without imposing costs on itself as a consequence, just as Labour cannot make Capital pay without imposing costs upon itself.

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