Northern Soul Classics - I'm On My Way - Dean Parrish

He appeared briefly on last week's video outside the Casino Cafe in Wigan.

This is another one of the Wigan end of the Nighter's. It is the magic that is Dean Parrish.

I can remember around 1975, listening to this on the radio, before setting out to walk the two or three miles to work in the morning, and all the way along it was rolling round in my head. By 1975, what had started out nearly ten years earlier as an underground movement, of a few thousand of us working-class kids in northern towns had become mainstream. Records that we knew even better than many people in the US where they had come from, and which virtually no one in Britain was aware of - correctly identified in the film Soulboy, were being picked up by the big record companies, and released on versions of their "Disco Demand" series. In fact, even some of the Radio 1 DJ's like Tony Blackburn had their own Northern Soul records.

That was reflected in other forms of culture too, as disco took off. Northern Soul dancer Keb Darge featured with Paul Weller in the video below was one of the first to take part in the televised dancing competition as shown in the second video, where he still had hair. He demonstrates just some of the moves that many of us used to take for granted - and which unfortunately some of us are only capable of performing fewer of nowadays!

Third is today's featured video "I'm On My Way".

The Paul Weller link is also included in the fourth video again from Dean Parrish performing, a piece of early Paul Weller writing with "Left Right and centre"

Finally, I've included a recent performance of "I'm On My Way" in New York, but also check out Youtube, for his live performance outside the Supermarket that now stands where the Casino used to be!

The Politics of Pontius Pilate

In a discussion on Dave Osler's, blog recently, the AWL's Jim Denham asked the question whether if revolutionaries in Libya were calling for the US to impose a “No Fly Zone”, we shouldn't refrain from opposing it. The question was framed in the same kind of rhetorical vein as when the AWL asked if Israel bombed Iran, what grounds socialists would have to objecting to it!!!

Now, in an article, Chris Reynolds, which is a pseudonym that has been used by Martin Thomas, fleshes the point out. In fact, the political approach taken is one the AWL have adopted in the past. It is the politics of Pontius Pilate.

The AWL are careful not to call for action by powerful Capitalist States such as the US, in the way that their mentor Max Shachtman called on the US to intervene in Vietnam.

But, in instance after instance they have made it abundantly clear where their sympathies lie, and which social force they look to now as the means by which their goals are to be achieved. The AWL as Third Campists claim to be in favour of the independence of the working class, but in fact, you will search in vain for any evidence in the AWL's politics for any focus on the working class being the force, which they believe is capable of bringing about progressive change in the immediate future. If they still believe in that principle at all, it is, in practice something they only see as a potential in the far distant future. For now, their emphasis is placed on calling on the Capitalist State to act, with the working class at best reduced to the role of some kind of pressure group nudging that State in the right direction. Or as now, whilst not actually calling on the Capitalist State, in the form of the US etc., to act, is framed in terms of well, if it does, we shouldn't oppose it.

Of course, when the Capitalist State does act, and as could be expected the results are far from those which socialists would have desired, the AWL, like Pontius Pilate, washes its hands of the matter, and says not my fault, I didn't demand they did this.

In their article "Yes to Libya", not "no to the USA", the AWL say,

“Compare the "no-fly zone" operated against Saddam Hussein in the northern (Kurdish) part of Iraq by the US, Britain, and France from April 1991, after the Kuwait war. That "no-fly zone" provided some protection for the Kurds. To campaign for its removal would have been to campaign for Saddam Hussein to be free to bomb the Kurds.

We should support the people of Libya - and especially any democratic or working-class forces in the anti-Qaddafi movement. We should distrust the US government, but not let kneejerk "no to the USA" reactions dominate our thought.”

Now, of course, there is lots of times, where Marxists from Marx himself onwards, have pointed out that the actions of Capitalism, whilst brutal and oppressive in the manner in which they have been applied, are looked at objectively and historically progressive. For example, Chris Reynolds in another article written a few years ago refers to the stance adopted by Lenin in relation to the Stolypin reforms.

Those reforms were implemented by the Capitalist State, in Tsarist Russia, as a means of modernising Russian agriculture. As a consequence, they had implications for the small-scale, inefficient peasant farming in Russia, that would drive thousands of peasants off the land. Lenin's response was clear. We will not call for such reforms, because of the consequences they will have for the peasants, and because it is not our role to propose and support what are Capitalist measures.

However, because objectively in developing Capitalism in Russia, the measures are progressive, and, therefore, Lenin argued, we should not oppose them. Instead, the role of socialists he argued was to struggle for the interests of workers and peasants within that process of modernisation.

That is quite right. When Capitalists attempted to modernise production in Britain, through the introduction of new technology, it was not the job of Marxists to try to hold back this development, which was progressive, but to fight within the process of modernisation for the workers interests.

But, this is quite different from the way the AWL want to apply this type of reasoning to the intervention of powerful Capitalist States. Firstly, Lenin's response to Stolypin was not just to sit back while the reforms occurred, and wait for the results so as to criticise their effects. Despite the weakness at that time of the working-class, and of the Russian Socialists, it was to try to organise that struggle for the workers and peasants interests, and to set out clearly what a socialist alternative to them was.

In relation to the introduction of new technology, a Marxist response, is to fight for the workers interests within the process by advocating New Technology Agreements and so on, but precisely because of what Marx had to say in his arguments with Weston, precisely because of what he explains in Capital about the rising Organic Composition of Capital, whereby Constant Capital in the form of machines etc. pushes out living labour within the production process, we have to explain to workers that such a struggle is really at best a rearguard action, that the consequence ultimately has to be within the confines of Capitalism, job losses etc., and it is precisely for that reason that our task is to present workers with a credible immediate alternative, by explaining the need for them to establish Co-operatives in order that they have direct control over that process.

But, there is no way that workers can adopt this kind of approach when it comes to the intervention of powerful Capitalist States. In fact, Chris Reynolds himself in the current article sets that out. He writes,

“imagining that we could "fine-tune" a military intervention by pressure of demonstrations or petitions is a fantasy.”

Quite right, which is one of the many reasons we should OPPOSE such action. This is not like the introduction of new technology, where, if there is strong workplace Trade Union organisation, workers CAN have some chance of waging a struggle against job losses resulting from its implementation, and CAN have some hope of struggling – in the short term – to be able to force the bosses to share the benefits of that new technology with them, in the form of higher wages for raised productivity, or reduced hours to share out the available work.

And, such a struggle can be the basis within which Marxists are able to demonstrate to workers why such gains can only be short lived, and why they need to move forwards to defend those gains by taking over the means of production for themselves.

But, exactly how does the AWL think that workers in Libya, or anywhere else could adopt this approach in relation to the intervention of the US in Libya? It certainly offers no strategy, by which it thinks this could be achieved. But, this is the second reason that Marxists should oppose the intervention of the US or other powerful states in Libya. Our task, is to explain to workers around the globe, that the Capitalist State, be it their own, or some other, is their main enemy.

Our task is to demonstrate to workers that whether within their own country or internationally, the only force they can and should rely on is their own collective strength. In Libya, the focus of Marxists propaganda and activity now should be to try to assist the Libyan working-class in organising to defend itself. And that has to be understood in terms way beyond the purely Trade Unionist, Economistic sense that the AWL want to limit such action and support to.

The Libyan workers need to follow the example of Egyptian workers in establishing their own militias, they need to be developing their own neighbourhood committees that can democratically control those militias. They need to be establishing their own Factory Committees, and organising Workers Defence Squads for them. And workers, particularly in Egypt and neighbouring states, but also workers in Europe should be organising to send arms to those workers so that they can defend themselves.

In fact, if we had the kind of Labour Movement we had back in the 1930's even, we would be developing the equivalent of an International Brigade, which could make contacts with Libyan workers, and go to their assistance, in the same way that the Islamists organise throughout the globe, and send their supporters to fight for their ideology.

But, nowhere is such a perspective argued for by the AWL.

It was not argued for by them in relation to the choices workers faced in Russia faced with a coup attempt by Stalinist Generals, when instead they sided with Yeltsin who was acting as the representative of Imperialism, it was not argued by them in relation to Yugoslavia where instead of calling for a workers response they welcomed the intervention of Imperialism, it was not argued by them in relation to Iraq, where they not only failed to call for the Iraqi workers to mobilise to kick out Imperialism, but positively OPPOSED such calls being raised, it was not adopted by them in relation to the issue of possible Iranian nuclear weapons – which not even the US believes Iran yet possesses – where instead they preferred to justify an attack by Israel, it is not used in relation to Tibet, where they side with those reactionary forces seeking to restore Landlordism, and so on.

The instances where they DO positively oppose such outside intervention are:

1) the intervention of the USSR in Afghanistan, where the concern about the dangers of clerical-fascism, and a descent into Civil War, that were their focus for refusing to call for the withdrawal of US and UK forces from Iraq, were somehow seen not to be an issue

2) the intervention of Russia to stop the genocidal attacks waged by Georgia against South Ossetia.

In other words, intervention by “democratic imperialism” is fine, but not by anyone else! That is where the opportunist, subjectivist political methodology of the Third Camp leads you. Zigging and zagging, and lacking any anchor to your politics outside some kind of 18th Century Kantian Moral Imperative.

Not surprisingly, because it is the kind of Moral Socialism of Sismondi and the Narodniks against which Marx and Lenin battled intensely. Not surprisingly that Moral Socialism has its manifestation when it comes to the economic sphere too – what Lenin castigated in its Narodnik formulation as “Economic Romanticism”. It is characterised by a naïve and ultimately reactionary desire to hold back Capitalist development, rather than as Lenin argued to push it forward by progressive means, and by a debilitating belief in the power of the Capitalist State. That is why the AWL rather than calling for revolutionary action by workers to address their immediate problems by a revolutionary transformation of property relations – in the first instance establishing their own Workers' property – instead call on workers to place their faith in the good offices of the Capitalist State asking it to nationalise this, that and the other on their behalf. Worse they even then sow illusions in this state by asking the workers to believe that having done so this State could be persuaded to hand over control of its property to them!!!

Trotsky was clear about what this kind of politics amounted to.

He wrote,

“It would of course be a disastrous error, an outright deception, to assert that the road to socialism passes, not through the proletarian revolution, but through nationalization by the bourgeois state of various branches of industry and their transfer into the hands of the workers’ organizations.”

Nationalized Industry and Workers’ Management

Yet, time and again, the AWL – and they are not alone – perpetrate this deception of the workers, calling at the drop of a hat for the Capitalist State to nationalise this or that enterprise so as to exploit the workers more effectively than the former private Capitalists, and in the process miseducating the workers about the true class nature of that state, failing time and again to teach the workers to rely on their own self-activity.

As Marx, put it in his “Critique Of The Gotha Programme”, criticising that approach by the Lassalleans, they “attempt to cover their shame” in raising this demand, by adding in the vacuous demand for “Workers Control”, but Trotsky explained exactly what that demand means in these kinds of circumstances too. He wrote,

“If the participation of the workers in the management of production is to be lasting, stable, “normal,” it must rest upon class collaboration, and not upon class struggle. Such a class collaboration can be realized only through the upper strata of the trade unions and the capitalist associations. There have been not a few such experiments: in Germany (“economic democracy”), in Britain (“Mondism”), etc. Yet, in all these instances, it was not a case of workers’ control over capital, but of the subserviency of the labour bureaucracy to capital. Such subserviency, as experience shows, can last for a long time: depending on the patience of the proletariat.

The closer it is to production, to the factory, to the shop, the less possible such a regime is, for here it is a matter of the immediate, vital interests of the workers, and the whole process unfolds under their very eyes. workers’ control through factory councils is conceivable only on the basis of sharp class struggle, not collaboration. But this really means dual power in the enterprises, in the trusts, in all the branches of industry, in the whole economy...

However, a bourgeoisie that feels it is firmly in the saddle will never tolerate dual power in its enterprises. workers’ control consequently, can be carried out only under the condition of an abrupt change in the relationship of forces unfavourable to the bourgeoisie and its state. Control can be imposed only by force upon the bourgeoisie, by a proletariat on the road to the moment of taking power from them, and then also ownership of the means of production.

Thus the regime of workers’ control, a provisional transitional regime by its very essence, can correspond only to the period of the convulsing of the bourgeois state, the proletarian offensive, and the failing back of the bourgeoisie, that is, to the period of the proletarian revolution in the fullest sense of the word.”

Workers’ Control of Production

So, the AWL and the other Trotskysant organisations that raise these demands – should tell us, which of these it is they are basing themselves on. Are they telling us that we are actually in the kind of “period of the proletarian revolution in the fullest sense of the word” that Trotsky refers to here, in which case they are fantasists, and deluding themselves and were they to have any influence in the workers movement the workers as well, or are they really arguing for nationalisation under workers control in the other scenario, in which what they are calling for is “class collaboration, and not upon class struggle. Such a class collaboration can be realized only through the upper strata of the trade unions and the capitalist associations”, in which case they are exposed as out and out reformists and class collaborationists.

Given, the attitude to the intervention of the Capitalist State in relation to Iraq, Libya and so on it seems clear that it is the latter in relation to the AWL, and that is manifest in their attitude to Cuts, and Privatisation in Britain, where they have now formed a Popular Front with the State Capitalist bureaucracy, and do not even try to cover their shame by raising the demand for Workers Control, or even Democratic Control over services, let alone the transformation of these services into Workers Property, as Marx, Engels and the First International demanded.

A revolutionary strategy can only be built by placing the working-class at the centre, and insisting upon its complete independence from the bourgeoisie and its state.

The task of Marxists attempting to recover true Marxism from the shit of Lassalleanism and Fabianism that the Second, Third and Fourth Internationals, and worse the epigones of those organisations, like the AWL, have poured upon it over the last 100 or so years, is to demonstrate just how revolutionary action by the working class can be built, and how even in its current weakened condition, the working class can mobilise to defend and pursue its interests in opposition to its class enemies, and thereby build its forces, and make itself fit to rule.

State Capitalist Attacks Its Workers' Pensions Again

The British State Capitalist has decided once more to attack the pensions of its workers. In a report by John Hutton, a series of proposals have been put forward that would involve workers in the State Capitalist sector, paying hugely increased contributions towards their Pensions, working longer, and receiving fewer benefits.

At a time when those workers are facing massive job losses, a continued freeze on their pay at a time when inflation is going through the roof, and like all workers seeing further attacks on their living standards through increased Tax, and diminishing services its no wonder that the Trades Unions in the State Capitalist Sector are looking towards putting up some kind of resistance to these proposals.

The one element of Hutton's proposals that might have been a step forward, the idea of a “lifetime average” rather than “final salary” basis for calculating pensions, has in fact already been undermined by the Liberal-Tory Government who by changing the basis of index-linking from the RPI to lower CPI, have already knocked around 20% off the “lifetime average” calculation of pensions! The lifetime average is a more equitable basis of calculation, because in the State Capitalist Sector, in particular, those who receive by far the largest pensions, are those at the high end of the salary scale, the Chief Officers, and top Civil Servants, whose salaries are multiple times those of the ordinary workers. These workers have, in fact, paid in lower contributions as a proportion of their Pension, over their working lives, because they will have started out lower down the salary scale.

But, how successful the Trades Unions, in the State Capitalist Sector, will be is doubtful. This is just the latest round of attacks on workers pensions in the State Capitalist Sector. In all of the previous attacks, the Trades Unions have caved in to pressure from the bosses. In the Civil Service they have even undermined the potential for a unified response by their workers, because in the past they agreed to the establishment of a two-tier workforce, that saw new workers already having to accept a worse pension scheme than existing workers. Moreover, those previous struggles were conducted in conditions where the economy was expanding, and where the last Labour Government was pumping large amounts of additional financing into the State Capitalist sector. The conditions then, with expanding workforces were much better than they are today, when the Liberal-Tory bosses are seeking to reduce the number employed in the State Capitalist Sector, and are seeking to cut back State spending.

As the strikes in Greece by workers in the State Capitalist sector over the last year has shown, under those conditions, strikes are a pretty toothless response. In fact, they are an example of what Engels described in the 19th Century, when he spoke about the way the bosses can use strikes for their own advantage. For the Liberal-Tory bosses, if workers go on strike, then that will immediately do their job for them. It will mean that their wage bill falls, because they will not be paying workers when they are on strike. It will also mean that their other costs of providing services falls too. Moreover, to the extent that life goes on during the strikes, to the extent that the Liberal-Tory bosses are able to get work done, transfer work to others in the private sector etc. they will be able to turn around to people and explain why their plans for such privatisation have been verified in practice.

We are probably likely to see that in relation to the Post Office dispute over coming weeks.

In the 1970's, the Marxist economist Michel Aglietta, argued that the revolutionising of productive potential that had arisen as a result of the introduction of microchip based technology, had transformed social relations, and the work process. In the same way that “Fordism” had transformed manufacturing production, he argued, “Neo-Fordism” was leading to a similar transformation in relation to Services. That happened first in the private sector, particularly in those services such as in Finance, where massive improvements in efficiency were made possible, with equally massive improvements in profits. But, Aglietta argued, it was inevitable that these transformations would also have dramatic consequences for those kinds of activities within the State Capitalist Sector.

That is what we are seeing now. It is being sharpened by the fact that in a globalised economy, many functions, especially in relation to service provision can be provided by workers anywhere in the globe, and being paid wages accordingly.

If you are sad enough to get your information from the Daily Mail or Daily Express, or even from some of the more respectable news providers, you could be forgiven for believing that all workers in the State Capitalist sector get lavish pensions, all of which are paid for by other workers via their tax. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. The average female worker in Local Government after a lifetime of hard work, and paying quite large amounts into their Pension Fund – no one ever mentions, of course that during the 1990's when Stock Markets were soaring and so these pension Funds had more than enough money to pay out benefits, the Local Government employers stopped making their contributions to keep down Council Tax – will receive only around £55 a week!

Part of the reason that the Pensions in the State Capitalist sector are so poor is to do with the vast amounts of commissions, and charges that the Pension Fund managers – basically those same Banks and Finance Houses that caused the Financial Meltdown – rake off.

The sums are truly staggering as a Panorama investigation showed recently. As I related in my blog Pensions How dare They?,

“It found that the investment of workers funds was almost like the kind of Ponzi scheme that others have recently been jailed for. It involved, workers money being taken in by Pension Companies, who then placed it with other institutions based on how much of a kick-back those institutions would give them, and a large cut in commission, and administration charges was deducted by each of these institutions. In total these organisations were deducting so much that workers pensions were being reduced by anything between 30%-60%.

“In one HSBC pension plan, £120,000 paid in over 40 years would result in fees and commissions totalling £99,900.

The company said its pension product is competitive.”...

I demonstrated that difference in my blog , Co-operatives And Pensions, which showed that the average pension for a worker at the Spanish Mondragon Co-ops, is £13,600 a year. That compares with a pension of just £3,500 a year for the average Local Government worker in Britain!!!!”

In other words, the average worker in the Mondragon Co-op Pension Scheme receives a Pension nearly FOUR TIMES that of the average British Local Government worker. That despite the fact that wages in Spain are generally lower than in Britain! It shows yet again, just how much workers are being ripped off by Capital, and it does not make any difference whether that Capital is Private Capital or State Capital. It demonstrates once again that whilst workers have no reason to accept the Liberal-Tory proposals for privatisation of State Capital, they also have no reason to simply defend State Capitalism either, which exploits them often more brutally, and effectively than does Private Capital.

As The Success of Workers Power At John Lewis demonstrates, where workers have just enjoyed an 18% bonus based on the success of the business they collectively own shows, the way forward lies in the slogan “Neither State Capitalism Nor Private Capitalism But Workers Ownership”.

Workers' Power Manifests Its Superiority Once Again

The John Lewis Partnership, has just shown once again the superiority of worker owned property over Private or State Capitalist property.

In a year when most private capitalist firms have been struggling, when wages have been cut or at best frozen as those firms struggled for sales, in a year when once again the State Capitalist sector has been shown in the Health Service and elsewhere to be unfit for purpose, despite the grinding down and brutal exploitation of its workforce – and in part is unfit for purpose BECAUSE of the way it treats its workers – John Lewis, which is owned by its workers has had a stellar year, once again. Its profits are up by 20%, and after using some of those profits for new investment, it has been able to announce that all of its workers are to benefit accordingly by receiving a bonus equal to 18% of their wages!

This just a day before workers in the State Capitalist sector are told that in addition to seeing their jobs go, their wages frozen yet again, they are to see their Pensions slashed too. And, as the pensions received by workers at the Mondragon Co-operative in Spain show, its not as though those Pensions for workers in the State Capitalist sector in Britain were very good to start with.

It is just another example, if any were needed of why workers need to reject the idea perpetrated by the bosses and their agents in the Labour Movement that workers have no alternative but to rely on either Private or State Capitalists to provide them with work.

In the 19th Century, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels identified the power of the working class, and analysing the worker's co-operatives that were the spontaneous creations of the workers, formulated their views about how such Co-operatives would both form the basis of the future socialist society, and how those existing co-operatives represented the means, and the form by which workers would transform property relations within existing Capitalist Society.

Analysing the workers co-operatives established by workers in the textile factories in Lancashire, Marx in Capital identified the basis upon which these Co-operatives were more efficient than private Capitalist companies. It was no just that the Co-operatives did not have to pay out profits to private owners of Capital. Nor was it that workers exercising control over the hiring of Managers were able to obtain the necessary skills for a fraction of the salaries that private companies were paying. It certainly was not because the Co-operatives received any favourable treatment.

On the contrary, as Marx sets out, and as James Connolly described in relation to the workers agricultural Co-op at Ralahine, the workers faced opposition from private companies who were supplying them, and higher rates of interest on money borrowed.

The reason that the workers' co-operatives were more efficient was that they unleashed all of the talent, and enthusiasm of the workers in a way that Private or State Capital never can do, because Private and State Capital is always concerned with the maximisation of profits by the exploitation of the workers. Once they are freed from that Capital-Labour relation, workers are freed to bring all of their dynamism, their inventiveness to bear on the work process in their own immediate interests.

If they can find a better, more efficient way to carry out their work, the workers in a worker owned enterprise will do it, because it can both save them their own labour-time, make their work easier, and also make their enterprise more efficient, thereby guaranteeing their future employment, and their potential for growing the business and their incomes. As Connolly showed in relation to Ralahine, this meant that the workers had a direct interest in ensuring that any new machines that could facilitate this were introduced rapidly, and Ralahine introduced such new machines way ahead of private farms.

Moreover, a worker owned enterprise will be more considerate about how, and to what extent it expands. It will take a longer term view than a private or State Capitalist enterprise. Both Private and State Capitalism is happy to cut back on production or service provision when the needs of Capital dictate it.

As we see now in the State capitalist sector in Britain, the State is seeking to reduce service provision, and to slash jobs and wages. A Private Capitalist who sees the potential for immediate profits will seize it, taking on new workers if necessary, confident that when the immediate upsurge has passed, he can simply throw those workers back on the scrap heap. But, where workers own their own enterprise or service, they will want to ensure that they not only maximise their short term situation, but that they maximise their long term interests too, which means ensuring they have a job tomorrow as well as today. They will have an incentive in not over investing and expanding, but in utilising any short term boom to build up reserves, as well as investing in new and more efficient capacity. That way, when the boom is over, they will have reserves to use to see them through a slower patch, to use to retrain and so on.

Workers ownership of their means of production via a Co-operative, means that they autoatically have control over those means of production, and over their work process.

That means that should the worst happen, they can immediately implement the idea describe in Trotsky's “Transitional Programme”, of a Sliding Scale of Hours, maintaining their class solidarity, by sharing out the available work between them, so that everyone is treated equally. That places the worker owned enterprise in a much better position to take advantage of the next upturn.

Marxists would have some disagreements with the set up of John Lewis. It is a Partnership of all its workers rather than a Workers Co-operative in the true sense.

But, Marx and the First International were keen not to impose any rigid formulas as to how the workers would organise their own enterprises, feeling that the workers themselves in each instance would be far more inventive than any prescription could ever be. Marxists would argue that in order to obtain the maximum benefits, and to protect again the competition of the huge Capitalist Trusts and Monopolies, the workers at John Lewis should look to bringing their enterprise within the remit of a national Co-operative federation, that could help defend them, provide greater economies of scale and so on. It would be logical to link John Lewis with the Co-op itslef, and with the Co-op Bank, especially if such a relation led to workers in the latter Co-ops adopting the principle of worker ownership, in place of being Consumer Co-ops.

It would also be a good idea, if they could link up, and promote Co-operative production, joining with the very many worker owned producer Co-ops around the globe, such as that of the Mondragon Co-ops. Better still would be to take advantage of the Workers University established by the Mondragon Co-op.

But, even without those further developments it shows the superiority of workers onership, and of workers power. At a time when the workers at the Post Office look set to take part in a struggle that seems doomed to defeat as the Capitalist State has numerous options for transferring their business into the private sector,

it provides a powerful example of the direction workers should be focussing their efforts, rather than fighting rearguard actions which in any case amount to nothing more than defending their continued exploitation at the hands of Capital.

Entropy

Last night I was watching the first programme in Brian Cox's new BBC series Wonders Of The Universe. In it, he was examining the question of the “Arrow of Time”, and “Entropy”. I'm sure that physicists understand this much better than I do, but on the basis of the argument put last night, I'm far from convinced.

Brian began by examining the arrow of time by looking at ice falling from a glacier into the sea. There is no physical reason he said why the picture we see could not be reversed. That is that we see a wave coming in, and ice jumping out of the water and attaching itself to the glacier. We don't see that happen, he argued because the probability of it happening that way around is far smaller. Fair enough, I thought at the time, though I thought the argument was a bit false, because the laws of physics most particularly of gravity are precisely what makes it less likely. However, my wife reminded me this morning about a news story over Christmas, about an ice scultpture that had spontaneously formed on a lighthouse, precisely because water had splashed up from waves, and in the freezing temperatures had solidified and attached itself to the lighthouse. That made me consider that what is or is not more or less probable, does indeed dependend upon the material conditions existing within the specific case.

He went on to explain this probability in terms of Entropy. The example he gave was of a pile of sand. Pick up a handful of sand from this pile, and toss it back, and the basic structure of the pile is unchanged. That is because there are trillions of combinations in which the grains of sand can be organised, and still leave the pile looking exactly the same. However, take the same amount of sand, and give it order and structure by moulding it into a sand castle, and this is no longer true. Take a handful and drop it and it no longer looks like a sandcastle, the particular order and structure has been disrupted. That is he says because the probability of the grainbs of sand simply falling back to how they were is very low.

But, I have to say I am not at all convinced by this argument on philosophical grounds for various reasons. Firstly, the concept of order and structure is a human concept. It is an idea that humans have created to enable us to make sense of the world around us. That is why even in things that are unordered and unstructured, the human brain attempts to provide that organisation and structure, by ralating what we see to something that is organised and structured that we recognise. It is why we are fooled by optical illusions, for instance. When we look at a sandcastle, we see organisation and structure because it is something that has been deliberately created to have what we call organisation and structure, and resembles other things, houses, castles etc. whereas in fact all it really is, is a pile of sand. In fact, our brain is so attuned to seeing organisation and structure that even if you knock most of the sand castle down, we will still recognise it as a sand castle.

On the other hand, we see the pile of sand, and do the same thing, we equate it to a hill, a pyramid, or something that also has form and structure. Pick up a pile of sand and drop it, and it still looks the same. But, of course, it is not the same, any more than the sand castle was the same after the procedure. If you were an ant climbing the pile, you might notice a considerable difference to the pile after it has been reorganised, for instance. It is only because our brains are attuned to looking at things at a superficial level that we conclude that nothing has really changed that we make this rash conclusion. Consider a cloud. People often say they can see a face in clouds. Does the fact, that this cloud is formed in such a way that it creates the image of something we are familiar with, something we consider to have form and structure – a face – mean that this cloud DOES have more form and structure than any other cloud? No, of course not.

The point of the argument was that, precisely because it is less likely for matter to be organised and structured than to be chaotic, there will be a natural tendency for matter to move from being ordered and structured to being chaotic. But, I have to say that looking at the nature of reality, I would say that you could find at least as many instances where the opposite is the truth. If we start from the Big Bang, then we have a spewing out of an almost infinitely large number of sub-atomic particles. The probability that these particles might form themselves together in some form of more complex structure is indeed, extremely low. So low, in fact, that in order to make the mathematical models of the Universe work, physicists have had to come up with the idea of the multiverse to explain the existence of the Universe we live in! But, that brings us back to the point about what is probable or improbable being determined by the precise conditions that exist in the particular case. In an infinite number of Universes within the multiverse, so the argument goes, the laws of physics and so on will not lead to the coming together of atoms and molecules, will not lead to gravity bringing together clunps of matter to form stars, planets, galaxies and so on. In our particular, Universe, and an infinite number of otehrs like it, those conditions will hold, however, improbable.

The probability is much greater that all of the myriad sub-atomic particles created at the moment of the Big Bang would have simply acted chaotically, sped off into space never to be seen again. But, in fact, they didn't, or at least a large number of them didn't. Instead out of the chaos and formlesness of the Big Bang came order and structure! Particles came together to form more complex particles, and more complex structures, as many as 12 different dimensions existing at the time of the Big Bang, were formed into some kind of order and rationality in the shape of the four we deal with now, the rest being integrated into these more complex structures. Out of the chaos of the Big Bang, not only were the more complex strcutures of matter and energy created, but the various forces that act upon that matter and energy were established, itself acting back upon these increasingly complex strcutures, to provide them even more with form and structure, and driving forward their complexity.

From simple atoms, molecules were formed, out of the formlessness, gravity acted to bring these molecules together in plasma and gas clouds. Out of these clouds, more order and structure was formed creating stars, planets and galaxies. I don't see order descending into chaos there I see the opposite. I see a tendency in our Universe for order and structure, DESPITE the high probability that you would expect to the opposite. But, it doesn't end there.

If we look at our planet, we see the same process. The probability that chaotic atoms would come together to form the molecules that form the basic amino acids that are the building blocks of life, is also highly improbable. Yet, again we see that it happened, despite the improbability. The likelihood that the amino acids would combine, and form life is improbable, and yet it happened. If we look at life itself, even simple plant life, rather than chaos out of order we see the exact opposite. How improbable is it that chaotic atoms of carbon dioxide, should be consumed by plants and through photosynthesis be tuned into energy. How improbable is it that chaotic atoms of nutrients in the soil, or the molecules of water should be trapped by plants, and transformed from such chaotic existence into the order and structure of complex cells? How unlikely is it that these cells should organise themselves into more complex structures to form leaves, stems, flowers, seeds, and so on? Once again, what we see is not a tendency for chaos out of order, but order and structure being formed out of chaos.

The most complete expression of that is the establishment of intelligent life itself i.e. us. How improbable is it that the various amino acids, should come together to form cellular life, that through a process of natural selection, which is itself an expression of a tendency towards order and strcuture out of chaos, should end up with the amazingly complex strcuture, which is the human being? What I find interesting from a philosophical perspective is what this signifies. Scientists never tire of reminding us that we are all stardust. All of the elements that go to make up our material existence, were created in the stars. But, in fact, what human beings signify in becoming self-aware – including the self awareness that all we are is that stardust – is the Universe itself becoming self aware. I don't mean that in some kind of New Age mystical sense.

If we consider our own self-awareness, we wouldn't say, for example, that our leg was self aware. Yet our leg is part of us. Animals are not self aware, and so it is obvious that it is not just the brain that is elf aware either. It can only be some part of the human brain that is self enables us to be self aware. Yet, without our legs, arms, heart, lungs and so on we could not exist, for that part of the brain to provide us with that self awareness. In the same way, humans as just some infinitessimally small part of the Universe, by becoming self aware represent that Universe becoming self aware, precisely because without it, we could not exist, and we are an inextricable part of it.

The obvious illustration of that, is the way in which human beings are able to consciously change matter, and energy, thereby changing the nature of reality and of the Universe. It might be highly improbable for sand to spontaenously organise itself into the shape of a sandcastle, but matter that has formed itself into a human being has no difficulty whatsoever in shaping that sand to be a sandcastle, or other matter to form telescopes, space shuttles or whatever we develop the technology to construct. Once again, the chaos that was transformed into order to form human beings, is once again via a feedback loop raised up into a means for constructing even more order, even more structure, even more complexity.

But, as Brian pointed out, humans have done this in a fantastically small period of time considering the age of the Universe already. As he pointed out, 2,500 years ago, humans still thought the Sun was a God. But, in fact, most of man's achievements in bringing order and structure to the Universe have not been the work of the 200,000 years Mdoern man has been about, or the 5,000 years since the dawn of civilisation. They are in fact, the product of man's achievement over more or less the last 250 years. As Marx writes in the Communist Manifesto,

“The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.”

My question, would then be, in a Universe, which, despite all of the improbabilities, has spontaneously created the order of stars, galaxies and planets out of the chaos of a formless soup of fundamental particles, that has grouped spontaneously generated the conditions on at least some of those planets for life to be established, and for intelligent life to be established, that has seen in the space of just 250 years, the most complex to date product of this process of creating order out of chaos – Man – begin to harness the forces of Nature, including the understanding of how the Universe was created, and of what it is composed, and how it works, who would bet against such a Universe continuing to find means by which of creating order out of chaos? If Man has created the level of order out of chaos we see in such a small timescale, who can say what further advances Man, or some other intelligent life form might be capable of in the millenia to come? Already, Man is moving from his own self-awareness to develop intelligence and self-awareness in non-organic forms i.e. in computers and robots. I don't think we should confine the Universe to its ultimate heat death just yet.

Northern Soul Classics - Time Will Pass You By - Tobi Legend

Time to slow it down with one of the great Wigan Casino end of the Nighter tracks from Tobi Legend.

Time For Labour To Euthenise The Liberals

No one could have foretold that the Liberals collapse at the Bradford By-Election could be so complete.

At the previous Oldham By-Election, as I showed in my blog Labour Trounces Liberal-Tories, the Liberals had only appeared to not do so badly, because the Tories had shifted their votes to them. In fact in Oldham, the joint Liberal-Tory vote collapsed by 50%. But, the Bradford result is far worse than that for the Liberals. Not only did its vote evaporate, but the Tories vote fell by half to.

The Liberals have no credible excuses. During the election campaign they had been going round telling peoplke that in the General Election they had come second to Labour, in an attempt to shore up the anti-Labour vote.

In fact, they had only beaten the Tories into second place in Bradford, by six votes. But, for a party to go from second place down to sixth place, and to lose so much of its vote that it is beaten not only by the cranks of the BNP and UKIP, but even by an Independent Candidate, that its vote collapsed to such an extent that it lost its desposit, is incredible.

Nick Clegg says the Liberals will bounce back. Well, one thing is for sure they could hardly see their support fall much lower! But, that should now be Labour's task.

In reality the Liberal-Tories have become a single party. There is no real ideological difference between Clegg, Osborne, Cable, and Cameron. The reason the Liberal vote has so severely collapsed, even more than that of the Tories, is that they feigned Left for electoral purposes, and have now been exposed for the vicious, right-wing, Capitalist Party serving the interests of the petit-bourgeoisie, and reactionary elements in society that they have always been. That is why they were able to secure the votes of those elements in Oldham.

The inevitable conclusion has to be for Clegg and Co. to merge with the Tories. Electorally, what support they had in the centre-left has gone. The only votes they can now expect to pick up are those of the hard right, and in the majority of seats - certainly after yesterday's debacle - there is no reason for those voters to lend their vote to the monkey when they can vote for the organ grinder.

The Liberals are now dead as a political force, and not before time. Labour should now do the decent thing and euthenise them.

In recent weeks sections of the far Right in the Labour Party, such as Peter Mandelson, have been arguing that Ed Miliband should leave the door open to doing a deal with Clegg.

Yesterday's result shows how disastrous such a course of action would be. Mandelson and the Labour Far Right, want to pursue that course, because so long as the Liberals are thrown a lifeline, they can continue to fulfill a function for the labour Right, of prviding a counterpoise to the Labour Left, and the rank and file of the Party. The Labour party should invite Mandelson and his cothinkers to do the decent thing. If he wants to maintain a link with Clegg's Liberals after they have shown what they really are, then he should join them, and follow them into the Tory Party where he belongs.

For decades the Liberals presented a problem for Labour, because they split the anti-Tory vote. That was most significant when the SDP was formed and created the alliance with them.

Without that, then in 1983, its possible that Labour might have defeated the Tories. It would certainly have don much better than it did, providing a more solid base for fighting the Tories during the Miners Strike, and into the 1987 Election. Now, the tables are turned. Whether the Liberals formally join the Tories or not, they pose no threat to Labour votes. They can only split the Tory vote, which is why they will come under significant pressure to merge with the Tories.

But, the election yesterday shows that even if the liberals do merge with them, they face significant further problems. Labour now has no challenge to its Left, because the Liberal attempt to pose in that position has been exposed. Labour is free to hoover up the votes of the Left and Centre-Left, which will be easy pickings as opposition to the Liberal-Tory Cuts grows, and as workers and the middle classes find their living standards being squeezed by inept Government economic policies. Squeezed in the centre ground, the Tories will be led to move rightwards.

Yesterday, the Tories themselves lost out to the lunatics of UKIP. That shouldn't be overstated. UKIP has tried, understandably to capitalise on its second place, but in reality its second place its meaningless. In reality Labour's vote was such a landlside - securing 61`% of votes - that all the rest was just a sharing out of what was left. UKIP secured just a fifth of Labour's vote!

However, the Right-wing of the Tory Party is already restless. It feels that Cameron has used the Coalition to push through less right-wing policies than they would like. With the only ground available for the Liberal-Tories to pick up being on the Right, they will be under increasing pressure to undercut support for the BNP and UKIP, by increasingly moving on to that ground.

Yet, that will be likely to cause further contradictions within the Liberal-Tory Party, as more "Liberal" elements of it, recoil at such a move. Nor is it clear that such a move would in any case be even electorally succesful. The BNP were seen to be a busted flush at the last General Election, and although there may be a hard core of Daily Mail readers who will always be prepared to vote for racist and reactionary policies, its not clear that a significant electoral bloc can be built around such policies without losing even more votes at the same time. That is likely to be even more true when the main concern moves to opposition to the Cuts, and defence of living standards.

If Labour does not rebuild itself in the coming period then it never will. But, Labour faces problems too. In Council Chambers around the country, it will face the problem of how to respond to the Cuts. If a large anti-Cuts movement existed at the moment, which was putting considerable pressure on the Government, then it would be necessary to demand that Labour councillors voted against the Cuts. In the absence of that, such a strategy is not credible.

We should not ask people to engage in pointless adventurism that in any case could have worse consequences. In reality such stands will only result in the Government introducing direct control of Councils, bringing in Commissioners, and introducing even more drastic cuts than a Labour Council might have done. That is no reason for Labour Councils not using every tool at their disposal to mobilise opposition to the Cuts.

But, it is necessary to develop new ideas and strategies for this fight. As I have said at a number of anti-Cuts meetings I have attended, it is depressing that these fights are the same fights that I was involved in nearly 40 years ago, when I first became involved in the Labour Movement. The reason that is the case, is that oulined by Marx.

So long as Capitalists own the means of production they have the whip hand. Workers are forced time and again to fight the same battles just to stand still. The only solution to that is for workers to take ownership of the means of production themselves. However, it has proved impossible to convince workers as a whole of the need to do that at the level of society as a whole. They look at the example of the USSR, and rationally conclude it is not a desirable prospect. They look at State Capitalist enterprises, and are not impressed by that either. But, we do see workers taking over businesses such as John Lewis, and Waitrose. We have even see them taking over Hospitals to run on the same basis. In fact, there are a number of enterprises that workers have taken over, and begun to run on their own account, and have made them succesful.

In a number of places, where bosses have threatened closure, workers have occupied plants, again opening the possibility of taking them over.

All of these examples, may not be perfect, and they would all be better if they were joined together in some national federation, and part of a concerted strategy developed by the Labour Movement, but they do show that workers can be won to the idea fundamental to Socialism - that workers should and can own the means of production - here and now, thereby creating the basis for the establishment of that principle across society.

We are now seeing some fundamental changes in the way production, particularly of services is undertaken, and those changes, mean that the old established forms of the State Capitalist Sector of the economy will have to change or die.

The latest challenge to the Post Office is an example of that, and the Capitalists are probably rubbing their hands at the propsect of a strike which will facilitate the further transfer of functions to the private sector. As Engels, once commented,

"Even strikes, than which nothing had been more nefarious up to 1848, were now gradually found out to be occasionally very useful, especially when provoked by the masters themselves, at their own time."

Rather than trying to defend the old Capitalist Status Quo, which increasingly will become indefensible, it is up to the Labour Movement, and the Workers Party to propose and develop new forms, new ideas, and new ways of responding. We now have a chance to use the Cuts to transfer ownership of the means of production out of the hands of the Capitalist State, and into the hands of the workers themselves. But, such a transformation cannot be conducted from the top down.

Any such move would be more likely to be simply a means of saving money, and in any case, the workers themselves must want to take over these functions.

As Engels himself commented,

“It seems that the most advanced workers in Germany are demanding the emancipation of the workers from the capitalists by the transfer of state capital to associations of workers, so that production can be organised, without capitalists, for general account; and as a means to the achievement of this end: the conquest of political power by universal direct suffrage.”

But, since that time the Labour Movement has gone backwards terribly. It is not just Trade Union bureaucrats, jealous to preserve their function of negotiating between the workers and the State capitalist bosses, who oppose such a movement, but sections of the Left too.

Real Marxists have to wage a serious struggle to win the movement back from the ideas of Fabianism and Lassalleanism from which it has been suffering for so long, and to move it back to the ideas such as those elaborated above by Engels. The Labour Party and marxists within it, have a perfect opportunity to organise and fight for such a reorientation in grass roots struggles against the Cuts, and thereby to begin to rebuild the Labour Movement around the idea of working-class self organisation, and self-government.