The ghost of Anthony Frank Duke

Last month was the anniversary of the death of Anthony Frank Duke. He died twenty years ago after a protracted illness - emphysema - and all the complications that are part and parcel of this harrowing condition. He'd been a 'lifelong smoker'. He had a wonderful sense of humour and one or two talents such as playing a raft of different instruments including the piano, accordion, guitar, and the ukele banjo. He was also a political animal, an organiser par excellence and my father.

The traditional pastime

He'd been a member of the Communist Party in the 1950s and was, in the mid 1960s and early 1970s, the Chair of the local Quarrendon Tenants' and Residents' Association in Aylesbury. This was no ordinary Tenants' Association. It was huge. As a seven or eight year old, if I wasn't trudging the streets delivering leaflets for him, I'd be sat in our living room crammed with members of the Tenants' Association committee as they planned local activities for residents and the wider community. These included social events, dances, carnivals and most importantly rent strikes. And when they organised a rent strike, they won. Most of the committee smoked. I'm not suggesting that our living room was an 'autonomous zone' but clearly the 1956 Clean Air Act held no sway among these latter day Woodbiners. You could almost cleave the fumal strata with your hand into solid blocks of differentiated fug.  I also vividly remember how after twenty minutes exposure to the acrid fumality,* my eyes would stream in agony.   

Caveat emptor

Throughout the late 1970s I watched as his health deteriorated. He went from being healthy and fit enough in his late thirties to race my brother along the street (and win!) to a hollowed out man. I'd pleaded with him many times to give up smoking. It fell on deaf ears. Like many people, he smoked because he found it enjoyable and it helped relieve stress. But in truth, he was thoroughly and chemically addicted to nicotine. And like many other smokers, denial was part and parcel of the addiction. He'd explain away his failing health with a multitude of carefully crafted arguments. He'd worked in light industry for a long time in the days when health and safety was the exception to the rule in factories. His concerns about the damage heavy metals had exacted on his lungs was no doubt very real, yet he seemed stubbornly resistant to the idea that smoking was damaging his health. In retrospect, his earlier switch from high tar to medium, from non-filter to filter, was in itself an inward admission that smoking was the real cause of his creeping breathlessness.

I write about this not for sentimental reasons, but because I have an almost genetic contempt for the advertising 'industry'. The tobacco and advertising conglomerations managed to take two large bites from the cherry that was Anthony Frank Duke: once when he was healthy and later, when smoking-related illnesses had began to extract their inexorable physical tithe.

Cherry bite #1

I smoke for medicinal reasons

Anthony Frank Duke was no fool. He was intelligent, articulate and no armchair Marxist. He'd introduced me to the labour theory of value and the concept of the Marxist dialectic when I was eleven or twelve. So why did he continue to smoke when it was obviously detrimental to his health? Today, we're all aware of just how addictive nicotine is. It's an essential ingredient to keep smokers smoking. But in the 'ciggie' game you have to grab your 'market-share' first and that's where the marketing/ad agencies come in. When he first contemplated smoking, he probably thought that cigarette clenched lightly between his lips would make him look adult, intelligent and a tad glamorous. Marketing and advertising in all its multifarious forms did this. It did it to hundreds of millions of others. Hollywood also played its role in promoting the cigarette as the universal 'glamouriser'. However, although fully addicted by the nicotine, the marketing/ad agencies hadn't completely finished with Anthony Frank Duke.

Cherry bite #2

Later in life, he switched to a new brand of cigarette - Consulate menthol cigarettes. He did this because he thought they'd be less irritating to his throat and his chest. Thinking they were less harmful than ordinary cigarettes, little did he realise that the menthol (extracted from the peppermint plant) is likely to have led him to inflict further damage on his already weakened lungs. Research has shown that because of its capacity to offer the smoker a 'cooler' smoke, has resulted in many smokers inhaling more deeply.(1)  Smokers of menthol brands, despite often smoking less, find it harder to quit because they take in greater amounts of nicotine and carbon monoxide.(2) Why on earth did an intelligent man think that menthol cigarettes were better for him than those he'd smoked for years? The answer lies in the power of marketing. Menthol cigarettes had been partly sold to smokers as a healthy alternative to ordinary cigarettes.

The power of advertising -v- the power of the individual

Justifiably, the tobacco industry has and continues to be excoriated (and sometimes punished in its collective pockets) for visiting these modern day biblical plagues on humanity. The lack of willpower so often associated with smokers is also reflected in the lack of will of any political ruling elites to stop the manufacture of tobacco-based products and an industry from profiting from the deaths of millions of its 'consumers'. Yet the companies that helped mass-market cancer, heart disease and other deadly ailments have largely escaped any scrutiny. I'm certainly no fan of the 'advertising industry'. It's not primarily because it's full of pretentious self-obsessed tossers who think they're capable of directing a German Expressionist film in the 1920s. Nor is it because of my dad or the millions of premature dead who like him, wander mournfully like lost purgatorious souls through the subconsciousnesses of those who remain. I have a more fundamental dislike of this so called 'industry'.

Yes I fully understand the role it performs in the wider capitalist system. But it might be worth remembering that the consumer is secondary to the overriding objective of capital - to produce commodities for sale, whether they be useful to society or not. Armaments manufacturing is likely the single biggest 'industry' in the world. The sub-Saharan multitudes who annually starve can't eat them. So they're hardly aimed at a civilian mass-market. 

The prevailing wisdom: neo-Victorian values and their adherents

M'dear... only a fool would argue that my 
rotundness is as a consequence of the 
manner in which society is structured
for the production of surplus value

Ad agencies are remarkably adept at selling us the shit that we really do not need and likely can't afford. An example might serve to elucidate. Governments are just waking up to the fact that there is an intergenerational time-bomb ticking away that promises to dwarf even the awful tobacco-related holocaust that's plagued the West. The culprit: obesity. Well, more correctly the overweight individual, who is almost daily held up by the press and media as the death-knell-sounder of the National Health Service and not David Cameron.

Such is the media-driven hysteria, that some are now suggesting that obese people should be refused treatment on the NHS. In this paradigm, obesity is the fault of the individual. Foregoing the old arguments about the 'deserving' and 'undeserving poor' which underlie these commentaries, rare are the occasions when a finger wagger draws into focus the social responsibility that the manufacturers of the fat-filled foods have for obesifying almost an entire generation. Rarer still are the marketers and advertisers of high fat, high sugar foods held to account for their central role in convincing humanity to eat what is ostensibly nutrition-less crap. 'Come off it' you say. 'The public are informed, can make rational choices on the information available and can always choose the healthy salad option from the menu.' 

Choice - a silly beggar of a word

A Ginster or more correctly two Ginstae...
and they're not in the opinion of this
author, shite

There's a saying that goes 'the shiter something is, the cheaper it is'. It's a saying I probably just made up. But let us put price to one side, and consider for the moment the packaging of a ready meal. How much of the valuable 'cover space' is devoted to making the food look appetising with words that promote its intrinsic wholesome-ness? Extract your magnifying glasses and delve into the micro-world of the list of ingredients. Fizzy drinks manufacturers rarely plaster pictures of rapid-onset gingivitis on the cans. I don't recall cigarettes ever being marketed as having been rolled on the thighs of thrombosal amputees with nicotine stained fingers. Even rarer is the hoarding that advertises a car by the number of children killed on the roads annually. Advertising is about selling me the 'up side' of a product not those troublesome downers.

Advertisers and marketers - clever devils

Don't get me wrong, some of it's very clever. Although I know they're selling me a sackful of over-vanked vas defrens 'vell' past their sell-by date, I still find a new Dyson very hard to resist. I'd be the last trouser-warmer in a Whitsunday farting party to put up my hand and state that I've been led by the nose with millions of other sheep consumers, to exchange fist-fulls of my wife's hard-earned for the latest computer game or digital camera? But it must work as the global spend on advertising in 2012 will be somewhere in the region of US $489 billion.(3) Capitalists aren't in the habit of blowing $489 billion if they didn't feel the payback would be many, many times this outlay.

Alienation

My contempt for this 'industry' is also driven by the way in which advertising insinuates itself into the DNA of our lives. It's a consequence of the dominance capitalism exerts over every aspect of our lives from the cradle to the grave, creating mass alienation among billions of increasingly atomised individuals. By alienation I don't mean the cod-psychological form of 'alienation' often referred to in the media, but a more structured form of alienation that is the consequence of the way capitalism has organised itself, the workplace, the social and political institutions we interact with throughout our lives.

The division of labour and its impact on radical urination

Profit is the be-all and end-all under capitalism. Everything is subordinated to this end. Someone, somewhere will be making a profit from the nappies you wore as a baby, the clothes you wore to school, the food you eat as an adult and the coffin you'll be buried in. And to make substantial profits efficiently, capitalism requires the workplace and society to be divided - the mass division of labour. Largely gone from this world of mass production are the craftsmen or craftswomen. It's simply not an efficient or profitable way of mass producing goods and profits. Take Garment Worker A who sews gussets day in-day out. The job she does is clearly defined and limited. She's largely a Chaplinesque cog in the global knicker machine. Is it fulfilling? Having worked on a factory production line or two (not in a knicker factory) I recall that it was utterly soul-destroying. The work required very little skill but demanded just enough attention to stop me plotting the overthrow of capitalism and pissing in my boss's fuel tank.

But let's compare Garment Worker A's role to that of Mr B Spoke Tailor from Jimmy Saville Row who begins and completes every gold lame shell suit he makes. His is a hugely satisfying job and he gets to see his wealthy distressed-haired client walk out dressed to the nines. The two jobs are worlds apart. Yet alienation for Garment Worker A doesn't end here. Not only does she not produce the complete product, she can only unlock the usefulness of the finished item she makes through the exchange of a portion of her wage.

I'm still not convinced this universal gusset-stitcher is 
going to catch on in the wider pant game

The functional value and sheer brilliance of the advertising executive

Moreover, Garment Worker A is also prone to spending her hard earned wages and other money borrowed on credit cards, on things she really doesn't need and can ill-afford. This is where the modern day symbiosis between the advertising industry and capitalism (including the political system) comes into its own. In many respects, advertising has become and end in itself and inherently useful in ideological terms to the demands of and continued domination of capitalism. Advertising execs are virtuosos when it comes to feeding on our alienated states, exponentially magnifying our insecurities thus creating false needs and wants.

An indebtedness to Margaret Thatcher among others

Margaret Thatcher stated that every person should have the right to 'own' their homes and a whole industry developed to convince us that we can only be truly satisfied by mortgaging ourselves up to the eyeballs. She could have made a bigger fortune as an ostensibly female Don Draper in the advertising business. Indeed, so powerful did this message become - that individual ownership is preferable to social ownership - that it provided an ideological framework upon which a whole raft of privatisations could be enacted. It also provided the basis for the current global economic crisis as over-inflated property values were used as collateral by millions of people in the UK and US, to borrow in order to go on holiday, buy the cars and the 'must have' pretty things that nightly adorn our TV screens courtesy of the ad agencies.

The creation of a false consciousness

The East Anglian cockchafer... not 
rumoured to chafe cocks

Advertising has played an integral role in consigning many tens of millions of average or low-incomed families to years of debt and penury. It has also sustained and concretised division and inequalities within society.  It has created its own form of false consciousness among substantial sections of Western societies, of what is and what is not socially acceptable, or to use the buzzword of the day 'appropriate'. To compete for that job, wrinkles and grey hair on women (ie 'ageing') are unacceptable. Hygienic deoderants and anti-itch cream are almost uniquely marketed to women as men clearly never have rancid knackers or severe groinal chafing. The physical constraints that capitalism imposes upon the individual are hinted at in the way luxury 4x4's (or if one uses upper case $x$'s) are pitched to us, helped along by programmes like the puerile 'Top Gear', itself little more than a glorified advert for the motor industry. 4x4s are marketed as an essential means of 'escape' and entirely necessary in overcoming the very real propensity of nature to re-impose itself without any prior warning in our towns and cities. Whereas these big polluters are largely aimed at a male demographic, cock sprays aren't.

Get 'em while they're young

The Australian Crazy Keith...
nor does he

My granddaughter knows the words and catchy jingles to a host of adverts. Most of us can recall several advertising jingles from our youth. It signifies the power this 'industry' exerts over us. Parents often feel helpless in the face of 'pester-power'. Children are also helpless in the face of intensive branding strategies formulated by well paid marketing executives who rely on 'peer pressure' to raise brand awareness and consumption. At a societal and individual level, this can result in the real-world bullying of vulnerable and disadvantaged children whose parents simply cannot afford the latest 'must-have' trainers or iPhone. It also nightly ruins my enjoyment of the very few decent programmes on TV with the possible exception of the BBC, a statement I shall qualify below.*

A Freudian slip?

Advertisers and the advertising industry have cleverly tapped into the widespread levels of alienation that exist throughout what has increasingly become an homogenised global capitalist society. And the more alienated individuals become, the greater is the propensity to try and find personal fulfilment in the impersonal world of consumer goods. Selling us this dream is almost a science. Edward L Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, recognised the role Freud's ideas of psychoanalysis could play in selling consumer products. Bernay was almost single-handedly responsible for promoting the idea among women in the 1920s, that smoking was socially acceptable.(4)  Marketing/advertising is the velvet glove that envelopes the iron fist of capitalism. Advertising is neither benign nor is it beneficial to society. It is a waste industry that imbues no value into the commodity it promotes, nor does it enhance our lives. It certainly didn't add anything of value to the life of Anthony Frank Duke.

Is being told what to do the natural condition of humanity?

Make a start by singing from  
the same hymn sheet?

In our natural condition we are social beings. We are wonderfully creative, natural producers, thinkers and shapers of the world around us. Whilst we are alienated from the tools necessary to be creative and produce the things we actually need - the social ownership of the offices, the schools, hospitals and factories - instead of the things we're told we need, nuclear submarines will always take precedence over CT scanners,  gas-guzzling cars over a cheap, reliable public transport transport system.

Alienation is the antithesis of our natural condition: it is the unnatural condition for humanity, imposed upon humanity by a system organised for the principal benefit of a tiny minority. Advertising draws deeply from this wellspring of unhappiness and unfulfillment, promising us a better life in the here and now. The irony wouldn't be lost on a chap called Karl Marx. Like religion that went before it, it offers us the promise of a 'heart in a heartless world' and a 'soul in soulless conditions'. The brand has become the 'opium of the people'. It rarely if ever delivers.

Throwing off the muck of ages

Luckily, it's not all doom and gloom. We can not only resist, but we can fight back. Class struggle is central to usurping the power of the the unrepresentative minority who control our lives. Ask an Egyptian, Tunisian or Libyan if they feel empowered and more in control of their lives. The fight back can be small to start with. So when a tiny minority decides that it's essential that hundreds of thousands be spent in re-vamping her/his office space and that over a hundred teaching staff be voluntarily severed, you can begin to break down your own alienated state and that of others in the same boat as you, by arguing precisely the opposite and organising to resist this policy. Your success will of course depend entirely on how well organised you are, how much you're up for a fight and your tactical use of socialised collective action.

But don't take my word for it. Ask anyone who's been on a huge demo or taken mass collective strike action. That feeling of empowerment - that we're not alone, that we can really change the world - that's your alienation falling away. So be confident. Be bold. Protest. You never know, you may win.

I'd like to think that the ghost of Anthony Frank Duke would be marching right alongside you.


Notes and References

* Made up
** The BBC are increasingly guilty of peppering their own output with adverts for their own output. They have also been criticised for spending vast sums on star-filled trailers/musical extravaganzas that are nothing more than glorified adverts for their output.


(1) 'The First Conference on Menthol Cigarettes, 'Setting the Research Agenda' Executive Summary,' US Department of Health and Human Services, March 2002, sourced at http://dccps.nci.nih.gov/tcrb/MentholExecSumRprt4_10-16.pdf
(2) Sourced at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090110085918.htm
(3) Rochester Institute of Technology sourced at http://printinthemix.com/fastfacts/show/543
(4) Held L, 'Psychoanalysis Shapes Consumer Culture: Or how Sigmund Freud, his nephew and a box of cigars forever changed American marketing. December 2009, Vol 40, No. 11
Print version: page 32 Sourced at http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/12/consumer.aspx

The Pestilence and the Poppy

Yes.... we’re a little late. It's axiomatic of our lifestyles and the odd night or two spent imbibing the meanest quality turpentine in what is unusually clement weather. The controversy has once again raged in the tabloids and media excoriating some in the public arena including Channel Four's Jon Snow. It goes something like this: people like Mr Snow should bow to the peer-pressure and the ideology of the right-wing rags, don their red floral emblems in the most public manner on our screens in order to remember the dead of the First World War.

Raging bull... shit

We won't dwell too long on the arguments for the red or indeed those for the white poppy. We won't delve into the history/rationale for the adoption of the poppy as a symbol in the first place as writers such as Mark Steel, Robert Fisk and others have pretty much covered this base. We won't raise the issue as to why we never seem to remember the war dead of South East Asia, the millions killed in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, as well as the war dead of Africa and the Middle East: Angola, Algeria, Congo, Kenya and countries such as recently invaded Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine.

We shan't linger on those who argue that Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday have been hijacked by the pro-war lobby in order to justify the two most recent invasions and occupations of foreign countries by British troops (something we were taught only the nasty Nazis did during the war). We'll ignore for now the despicable way 'our boys', the so called 'heroes' have to rely on such a simple mechanism as charity to reintegrate the physically and mentally war-crippled back into society. We'll also avoid for the time being the way in which this kind of unquestioning support for foreign imperialistic endeavours is always usually the sub text which states 'we're all in this together' as part of the wider project of building some sort of 'national interest' which will no doubt serve the British ruling class well as they slip the neoliberal juggernaut into its final top gear and dismantle what's left of the publicly provided welfare and health systems and all recognisable forms of social provision. 

The cauldron of heresy

Instead, we've come up with an alternative and we'd like to throw into the cauldron of heresy. It goes something exactly like this: that we should eject good old Papaver rhoeas (the traditional red poppy) from its premier position on the combined lapels of the British masses and replace it with a variety that is equally well known around the globe - Papaver somniferum more commonly known as the Opium Poppy.

Try wearing this fucker with
pride on any Remembrance
Sunday

We can almost hear the national accord resonating across breakfast tables as hirsute Mail-reading opinionists scream forth “Why you hypocritical pre-Christian berserker...!” And anyone who read last week’s sorrowful serving from our campfire pot might at first glance agree with this general sentiment as they wipe what’s left of their unannounced and reconstituted early morning tea and toast from their impeccably waxed handlebars. Yes we’re arguing for the good old Opium Poppy and we won’t be deterred. We will of course endeavour to explain why. It’s got something to do with trade and of course war... oh yes, and it’s also got something to do with the growth and consolidation of the British Empire and British capitalism. We hope it will give some food for thought.

The British state - drug pusher extraordinaire

At the root of our justification of the above is a short historical analysis of drug addiction of the opium based variety. We're not discussing such addiction at a private or individual level, but its use at the macro level.

John Newsinger in his fascinating expose of the bloody history of the British Empire puts it rather succinctly: ‘The British Empire was the largest drug pusher the world has ever seen.’(1) Putting the forced enslavement of millions of black Africans to one side for the moment, it appears that far from being a civilising force for good as some revisionist historians would have us believe, the good old British Empire was also founded in large part on using military force as well as illicitly state-sponsoring smuggling operations in its initial stages, to 'encourage' millions of Chinese people to become... well... heroin addicts! At the centre of this operation was the East India Company which was granted a monopoly in its production and trade by the British government in 1775. Newsinger shows how:

[i]n the 1760s some 1,000 chests of opium (each weighing 140 lbs) were smuggled into China, and this figure gradually increased to around 4,000 chests in 1800... Expansion only really began after 1820 so that by 1824 over 12,000 chests were being smuggled into China, rising to 19,000 in 1830, to 30,000 in 1835 and to 40,000 chests (an incredible 2,500 tons of opium) in 1838.(2)

In Gibb-ian terms are we talking jive or simply talking shite?

“Sir, although reasonably eloquent, you are little more than a tripe-speaking adjunct to the periphery. What the devil does this have to do with war and the fallen?” can almost be discerned among the general hubbub emanating within the plate glassed environs of the bald and apparently untouchable. Given the involvement of the East India Company, we thought it was worth doing a little digging. It appears that the East India Company still exists today. On its website it states:

‘Since its creation in 1600 by The Royal Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I, the influence of The East India Company has been well documented. Without The Company our world would not be as it is today. It changed the world’s tastes, its thinking, and its people. It created new communities, trading places, cities and shaped countries and commercial routes. Singapore and Hong Kong were established by The Company and India was shaped and influenced by it. At one point The Company had the largest merchant navy in the world and conducted and controlled 50% of world trade. With statistics like that it’s easy to forget that at its heart, were real people.

Our heritage is in the spirit of those pioneers. The East India Company’s employees did not set out to change the world. They were people who set sail to establish trade routes, to discover and bring back new goods, and in doing so broke down the barriers of the world. They were explorers, traders, innovators. They took risks, they broke new ground and they sometimes got it wrong...’

The Honourable East India Company - changers of taste

Well it certainly changed the tastes of many Chinese. And we've never heard of drug pushers referred to as 'pioneers' before. Maybe today's pushers of narcotics could re-invent themselves by whacking on a Playtex body-shaper, dropping the word 'pusher' and replacing it for the more business friendly and taxable word 'trader'. It appears that the history of the East India Company has had a similar makeover:

The East India Company made the first successful sea venture to China in 1699, and Hong Kong’s trade with British merchants developed rapidly soon after. The Company was interested in Hong Kong’s safe harbour located on the trade routes of the Far East, thus establishing a trade enterprise between Western businessmen and China. Chinese commodities, namely porcelains, landscaped-furnishings and tea were popular among the European aristocrats. As trade grew the British Government became concerned to reduce its huge purchases in silver from China and replaced the silver with opium. The trade of opium for Chinese products grew rapidly. The Chinese emperor banned the drug trade in 1799 but to no avail. Smuggling came about as neither foreign traders nor Guangdong merchants were inclined to forgo the profitable business, and this led to the Opium Wars. Throughout the next few years, the British enjoyed a fruition of success from opium. When they lost monopoly of the trade, other foreign traders stepped into the illegal opium business for a share of wealth.(3)

A postmodernist take on pipe smoking?

All in a day's work

Give those chaps at the contemporaneous East India Company their due, it is at least a dabble into a form of history albeit of the 'cod' variety. It does mention the Opium Wars. It also mentions the trade in opium but it manages this in a rather sanitised sort of way. So let's just re-adjust the historical record slightly and establish here that not only did the Honourable East India Company trade opium, the Company mass produced it in India. It was a fortunate consequence of the Company's conquest of Bengal (the East India Company had its own large private army of around 200,000 men and a large private navy) that it 'took control of a well-established opium industry involving peasant producers, merchants, and long-distance traders.' 

These activities were reflected in this region with the Opium Wars (1839-42, 1856-58 and finally from 1859-60 where the British and their French allies finally occupied Beijing) which consolidated Britain's stranglehold on the trade in opium in China.

Opium - the super commodity of its day

The consequences of the initial illegal trade in opium and the later wars to establish its 'legitimacy', ensured that opium would become the most profitable commodity of this period. This resulted in huge levels of addiction with the inevitable social breakdown. For Britain and the East India Company the 300 million inhabitants of China were viewed as 300 million potential 'customers' for their highly desirable commodity. The statistics are quite staggering. By 1830, the illegal trade in opium had created around 3 million Chinese addicts with some estimates stating that the levels of addiction among the Chinese was as high as 12 million, fed principally by illegal importation by the Honourable East India Company. Britain and the East India Company can bask in their shared glory knowing that by the early 20th century approximately twenty seven per cent of the Chinese population were regular opium users.

'On the company lies the responsibility of fostering the trade in every way possible, the revenue from this source alone, in Bengal and Bombay amounting probably to some five millions sterling a year … at present the British government holds the position of a producer and dealer in opium; a postion not only anomalous, but highly derogatory to the dignity of, and which can hardly be maintained with honour to, the crown'. (4)

There were more direct human costs with the imposition of the will of the British state on the Chinese state and its people? Militarily there was a huge technological imbalance. It ensured massacre after bloody massacre. For example, in October 1841 around 2,000 Chinese were slaughtered in the taking of Jinhai by the British. Mass rape and pillage were also commonplace in order to ensure the appropriate conditions for trade.

Opium and war

Natural bed-chaps: war and opium

We've seen how three wars were fought by the British to establish and monopolise the trade of opium to China and to create a 'free market' for the East India Company's products. Conversely, and rather ironically, today the language of 'war' is used by the US and UK governments to conduct their largely futile 'war on drugs'.(5) And at a military level we are told, wars are needed to stop the production and export of cocaine from countries such as Colombia. How does one fight such a war? By funding right-wing paramilitary death squads of course. Investing billions in countering the trade in untaxed cocaine really has nothing whatsoever to do with maintaining a foothold in its 'backyard'. Nor does it reflect a worry among the US ruling class that the poor and disenfranchised have brought to power the likes of the often leftish Hugo Chavez in neighbouring Venezuela.

Oddly enough, the biggest producer of opium today is Afghanistan. Given the invasion by NATO forces led by the US and UK, common sense might suggest that the trade would be declining. We were told after all that one of the reasons for the invasion was to stop opium production in Afghanistan. Even more ironically it appears that under the brutal pre-invasion Taliban regime, production had decreased markedly. What can we extrapolate from this? The actions of the US and its NATO allies have led directly to the huge increase in opium production and its concomitant - the growing problem of heroin addiction in that region and throughout the West.(6) A cynical type might even say that the evidence shows that the British troops stationed in the Helmand Province who we are told are there to help in the efforts at reconstruction, have done little more than help reconstruct the pre Taliban opium trade.(7) Long gone are the promises that the invasion would help reduce the production of opium.

The history sanitisers

Rarely does the British state recognise its culpability in the heinous crimes perpetrated in the name of trade or the protection of the right to trade. More so when the victims of these crimes are hidden from view, half a world and a century and a half away. There are quite a few high profile historians who are perfectly happy to assist them in this endeavour. Despite the teeth gnashing of the 'glory-in-death' pundits or the analysis-free liberals who believe that those who were slaughtered on the fields of Flander died 'in the service of Queen and country', there is no glory, nor indeed is there any victory in marching across the life-hungry corpulence of no-man's land towards certain death in order to establish the primacy of British capitalism over its German competitor. There's no glory in slaughtering hundreds of thousands simply to establish a framework for 'free trade' in the Middle East and the right of Britain to 'do business' in Iraq or Afghanistan when the true human costs remain conveniently hidden from our view.

Outside of the rarified atmosphere of the jingos' glorious Valhallah of blood and blue, for many, seeking to impose what is for all intents a rather British foible on the world, is a little like the 'red in tooth and claw' British imperialists imposing their blood-soaked 'Butcher's Apron' on their former colonies.

So next year we'd like to propose the wholesale adoption of Papaver somniferum to be worn on our collective lapel-age to both internationalise an event, but more importantly as a symbol to remember those who were the innocent victims of the greed of a tiny but powerful group, and who saw nothing but profit in the misery of the untold addicted Chinese millions.

Notes and Resources

(1) Newsinger J, The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire, Bookmarks, London, 2010, Pg 44
(2) Greenberg M, British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1842, Cambridge, 1951, quoted in Newsinger J, The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire, Bookmarks, London, 2010, Pg 49
(3) Website of the East India Company sourced at http://www.theeastindiacompany.com/
(4)Lockhart W, William Lockhart: The medical missionary in China : a narrative of twenty years’ experience London : Hurst and Blackett, 1861, pp 401-402
(5) For an excellent analysis on the role drug use plays in Western societies see A Farrell 'Addicted to Profit: Capitalism and Drugs at http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj77/farrell.htm
(6) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sourced at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/index.html
(7) The Independent, 28th August 2007 sourced at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/record-opium-crop-helps-the-taliban-fund-its-resistance-463283.html

The Death of a Beautiful Friend

On Wednesday, I shall be attending a funeral. Not only will this funeral be a deeply sad occasion, I think I can safely say that it will break the hearts of every person there.

You see, my friend Dave Roberts died two weeks ago. He was only twenty eight.

I can remember when I first met Dave. I’d moved into a dilapidated house in Salford which I was renovating from the ground up. It was September or early October 2001 and the US and Blair were preparing to drop weapons of mass destruction on the population of Afghanistan in response to the terrorist crimes committed by a group comprised of largely Saudi nationals. To say I was a little angry would have been an understatement. I’d plastered anti-war posters across the boarded-up windows and hung them from the scaffolding surrounding the house. In an odd way, this acted as a catalyst. A young lad called Dave introduced himself to me. I can't quite remember if he knocked on the door by way of an introduction. I recall that when I met him for the first time he did have two or three of his friends with him. Given he was only 18 or 19 he exuded a supreme confidence. From that point on, I was accepted into his extended family of friends.

Dave was an organiser par excellence. He was also a do-er. Together, as an anti-war group we travelled to countless demos, fly-postered everywhere and organised anti-war meetings in Eccles and Salford. It went something like this: I’d book the coaches on my credit card and Dave, Gaz, Ste and Beb would organise the bums on seats. He was almost single-handedly responsible for our anti-war banner – the legendary ‘Red Eccles’ standard. I think he was also the principal composer of the chant "Red... Fucking... Eccles... Red... Fucking... Eccles..."  which was of course an important accompaniment to any anti-war protest whenever our banner had a presence. He certainly had a hand in spray painting 'Welcome to Red Eccles' on the entrance to Albert Street in Eccles adjacent to the motorway on Wellington Road a greeting that didn't last long at the hands of the local New Labour Salford City Council.  

Dave was passionate in his anti-war activities. In producing the above banner he was given a remit: he wasn't allowed to spend more than £1.50! Not only did he produce a fine banner, he also came in under budget! He was so immensely proud of it. It quickly became the focus of attention from a variety of different groups. On every demonstration, throngs of people would stop us and ask if they could take pictures of our rather simplistic, Heath-Robinsonesque standard, which unlike the professionally made trade union or anti-war counterparts, displayed its amateurishness proudly, oozed anger and directed its venom like a stick-bound spitting cobra directly in the eyes of the naked imperialist ambitions of the US, the gods of war and war-profiteers. This was a banner everyone wanted to carry.

Yet there was another group who demonstrated an ardent interest in our banner. They also demonstrated an almost universal hatred of it and proved uniquely determined in their efforts to seize at every opportunity our huge red anti-establishment emblematic. The rationale for their determined efforts we concluded was the wording which proclaimed boldly FUCK CAPITALISM, FUCK IMPERIALISM, ‘FUCK WAR’ AND FIGHT THE LAW’ among other things. How many times did we have to prize from the poles grabbing constabularic hands. Very quickly a pattern emerged on protests which went something like this:

Generic Police officer: Take the banner down or I’ll have to arrest you.

Dave: Why?

Generic Police Officer: Its offensive.

Dave: I find the bombing of innocent civilians offensive. Why don’t you arrest Tony Blair?

Generic Police Officer: Displaying offensive words is illegal under section blah... blah... blah... of the blah... blah ... blah...

Dave: Get fucked!

The final line inevitably induced the same response from the police. It also engendered an equal and concomitant response from members of the public who would surround the banner and berate the police, successfully fending off their hostile advances. It was Dave’s handiwork that did that!

The second Red Eccles banner on tour
with CarbonSilicon

Many battles later, the police were to seize our banner at the fag end of an anti-war demonstration in Manchester. I say seize... the person left in charge of the banner (who shall remain nameless but knows who he is) kindly handed it to the police when they asked him to. I later went to Bootle Street police station with a few irked colleagues and enquired at the reception if I could have our banner back. The officer on duty disappeared and returned five minutes later. “I’m afraid we burned your banner out the back earlier” stated the grinning officer barely able to suppress his glee at their apparent triumph. “You can have the poles back though” he added caustically and with more than a hint of irony which was odd given he was a copper. We made our excuses and indicated to the officer where he could put them which involved shoving them up his arse. At the time, I didn’t realise that Dave had been arrested and was being held in the very same police station. Luckily, later on that evening, we were also allowed to retrieve young Dave who unlike the banner, had not been burned out the back. The triumphalism of the police was to be short-lived as the very next demo provided ample opportunity to air the bastard progeny of banner#1 which was even more offensive to the police. I still have this banner. I could never throw it away as I know the effort and loving care Dave invested in this project, produced in his parents garage. I took it on tour with me when I played with Mick Jones in CarbonSilicon. It became our backdrop at every gig.

He was also a vehement anti-racist and anti-fascist. How often had I seen him dart out of a kettled demonstration against the BNP in Oldham to try and beat seven kinds out of one or two members of the ‘master race’ who despite their apparent liking for fist-based trouble proved remarkably light on their feet when pursued by Dave in a pair of rather striking tartan trousers! Indeed, I ran into Dave on the 11th October 2009 at the organised protest against the EDL in Manchester in Piccadilly Gardens whom I almost stumbled across. He was a little worse for wear drink-wise and I was the apotheosis of gloom. I was glad to see him as he grabbed me in his trademark all encompassing affection-laden hug. Dave’s hugs were always heartfelt and meaningful. You were for that moment, the centre of his often oblique yet wonderful universe. Seeing him cheered me up no end.

He was also a talented musician. I once bumped into him at Big Fish rehearsal rooms in Ancoats where he was rehearsing with the Whiskey Bastards. He invited me in. True to type, he sat down, ignored the band and started gabbing away asking how I was, what I was doing... much to the chagrin of his compatriots who didn’t know me from Adam and clearly wanted to resume their rehearsals as the room was costing them money. He jumped up and they launched into one of their songs. It was excellent. Although I’d heard about the band, I’d never seen them play before. It was clear to me that here Dave was in his element... happy playing, performing and being creative in the moment. He had a huge grin plastered across his face which for me was his default setting. He was sunshine epitomised. Not wishing to disturb the band further, I stood up, waved my goodbyes and left. It was the last time I saw him.

It's often the case that those around us who seem to have the most carefree lives and exude such an intrinsic effervescence, are underneath profoundly troubled. For Dave, over the years heroin increasingly came to dominate his life. I found it impossible to keep in touch with him as he was always losing his mobile. I wasn't even sure which part of the country or world he was living in. 

Nevertheless he exuded a warmth and compassion, displaying a tireless concern for you even when you knew that his day to day life was at the very least precarious. Yet he was more, much more than this. You see Dave was one of those very rare people that gave a damn about the underdog. It was as if it was programmed into his DNA. I once came out of the Crescent pub with Dave around 1:30 one morning many years ago. We were both a little inebriated. We stood at a bus stop. On the opposite side of the road, two lads waiting for a bus to take them into Manchester were being mugged by a gang of around ten lads on bikes. He was off over the road like a shot. Hot on his heels I caught up. Dave was in the thick of it and the crowd dispersed as if by magic not knowing what had hit them. He proved again and again not only in words but in deeds that he was the eternal friend of those being oppressed. When he entered a room he became the focus of attention, not because of any ego – he was the most self-effacing person I knew. He was the focus of such attention because he'd earned it or would earn it in the future. In a crowded room or bar, when you were in conversation with him he listened. To him you were the most important person in the world. He loved life and those he touched loved him.

Looking at the many pictures of him posted on Facebook by so many people and I realise that my own recollections are but a tiny anecdotal fragment in a much grander life that was crammed with adventure, passion and love. In truth I can hardly bear to look at them as the tragic death of such a young man has for me created a huge vacuum and a deep sorrow. Yet I look back and realise that young David Roberts taught me a lot. He taught me a great deal about politics. He taught me to be bold, to be confident, to act on your ideas and to seize the moment. Yes, in his short life he demonstrated time and again that the important thing is to plan and to act.

What will I miss most with the passing of Dave Roberts? I will miss his uniquely colourful and whimsical voice, and the way in which it would weave in and around the general hubbub in the room. I will miss his laughter and his singular humour attached to that wonderful mischievous smile that only Dave Roberts could smile. But most of all I will miss the fact that he was simply there.

The Unnatural Conditioning of Worker (A)

'The CBI has demanded the retirement age be lifted to 70, in order to help tackle Britain's growing pension crisis and increase the state pension.' 

Source BBC News Online July 19 2004

Any chance you could do an extra shift?

Much is being made in the media of the axing of the retirement age which is officially set at 65 in the UK. Few could deny that ageism is endemic in British society. Many see the scrapping of the official retirement age as being a progressive move, that will stop unscrupulous employers from dismissing or refusing workers over the age of 65 work. The Coalition government's move is thus seen as a victory for elderly workers and a significant step towards fighting discrimination by some charities. According to the BBC News website, the charity Age UK said it was a "huge victory", while Nesta, a body which runs 11 projects tackling the issue, said older people contribute "immeasurably" to the economy and society.” Without being accused of being a vile discriminator against the elderly the question must be asked as to whether the scrapping of the retirement age really a progressive move.

Although possibly the most handsome viking in the picture,
is the chap third from the left a vile discriminator?

British Workers - the donkeys of Europe

British workers on average work some of the longest hours in Europe. So it would seem odd that ordinary people in the UK would choose to work longer than is necessary. Yet it's clear that some do. The question is why? Some may see the new changes as a way of avoiding the 'scrap heap'. Others may see it as a means to potentially prolong and thereby lead a healthier life. Indeed, it's being sold to workers by the press precisely this way. For many approaching or who have passed the age of retirement, the social aspect of work is important. Equally, a feeling of having a purpose in life is also a significant factor for many who choose to continue working past retirement. Yet the decision of many people to continue in employment is not necessarily charted by a desire to achieve all these things but is dominated by a simple material reason - lack of money. Even those who herald the extension of the working life, root the decision of the retiree to continue working in the lack of financial provision to enable elderly people to enjoy a decent standard of living once retired. In contrast to those who argue that working longer promotes health and longevity, there might be far better ways of achieving this. An OECD report makes a simple correlation: the higher pension levels are, the longer people tend to live.

Is your nest egg this big?

Moreover, there is a wealth of research that indicates that those who work in manual occupations are more likely to die younger particularly those who 'choose' to work past the official retirement age.

"For most working people, life expectancy has only risen by less than two years since the 1970s. Life expectancy for the average female hospital cleaner, for example, has not increased by one day since then...Many people, especially manual workers, are still only predicted to live until the age of 65 – meaning they’re likely to die before they get any pension whatsoever." Socialist Worker, 26 June 2010

Savery, Luks, Lawson and Alan conclude that 'it seems that people who work in such occupations as labourers, plant and machine operators and tradespersons and apprentices are the most likely to have work-related accidents and/or illnesses than other occupations and many of the people in the high injury incident occupations appear to be males.' We might therefore suppose that the bulk of the resistance to extending the retirement age or shortening the life of workers would be led by the official labour movement. Yet opposition to ditching the official retirement age at sixty five comes from an unlikely section of society.

The bosses are on your side... aren't they?

Although around two thirds of employers would like to see the retirement age lifted some employers appear to be resistant to extending the age of retirement. Now without wishing to impart an atom of undeserved cynicism to this article, their opposition might appear to be based less on an inherent genetic proclivity towards altruism and more on a deep-seated form of self-interest known colloquially as 'the bottom dollar'. Why on earth would employers wish continue to pay high wages to established employees who would also retain their long-established, secure contracts? It's much better surely to employ younger employees on precarious contracts and lower rates of pay isn't it?

The time-limited worker

Despite the adverts with Michael Parkinson or June Whitfield that impart into the subconsciousness of the individual a warm afterglow of post-retirement bliss and a free pen, capitalism continues to be an acutely punitive and calculating system. If you don't save up enough for your old age - tough! It offers very little in the way of comfort or security for billions of people who are seen as past their sell by date and treated accordingly.

Why the glum look?

For many, retirement conjures up an image of living purgatory. In this context, the workplace can seem like a haven in a hostile post-retirement world, particularly when what is on offer is a retirement where pensions and benefits are so low as to make every day life a struggle for survival. Factor into this the acute isolation that is often the hallmark of retirement, and the rationale for working on seems perfectly understandable and compelling. Yet at the root of this isolation is a characteristic - alienation - one of the central pillars of Marx’s analysis and understanding of capitalism. It is in the exploration of this alienation that we are offered a tantalising glimpse of a future world free of want and of free association, where the 'being' in the social human being becomes fulfilled and truly in control of her own destiny.

Alienation

As capitalism has progressed and aged so has it insinuated commodification - or reification - into virtually every aspect of our lives. At the root of alienation stands the fundamental relationship between worker and employer. To live - to eat and sustain ourselves - means entering into a contractual obligation with an employer. Despite the entrepreneurialist nonsense pumped out in television programs such as Dragons' Den, propaganda that desperately tries to convince worker A that she can be her own boss, the reality is that few become petit bourgeois go-getting parasites and most of us have little choice but to sell our labour. Why? Well the local borough assizes await those foolhardy enough who enter a baker's emporium and leave with a loaf of bread without first exchanging the precise cash value of that loaf with the owner of the shop. Yes bread costs bread. And like billions of other workers around the world, worker A is locked by compulsion and the dread of poverty into selling her labour in return for wages. For eight hours a day, five days a week (if she's lucky) her labour power becomes the property of the capitalist - she becomes commodified.

“The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and size. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity – and this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general." Karl Marx , Estranged Labour, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

You are er..... free of a sort

Thus, at the root of alienation lies a fundamental un-freeness dressed in the apparel of freedom. Under capitalism the worker is free - free to sell their labour to the employer. There is of course another choice: Hobson's choice. They are also free to choose to wallow in the poverty of life on the dole or to starve should they choose penury. This compulsion means that entering into a relationship with the capitalist employer is fundamentally unequal. It's also unequal in another way. It is after all the capitalist who owns the means of production: the workplace - the factory, the supermarket, the office and suchlike. He also owns all machinery within as well as your labour power for eight hours a day. As worker A finds that she really has no control in deciding whether to work or not she also realises very quickly once she has signed on the dotted line that, that she has no control over the tempo of the working day. Why not contextualise this a little and imagine an everyday sort of scenario.

The conscience of worker A

Worker A is keenly interested in the plight of ordinary people in Africa. She works in the baking industry, daily producing bread for our tables. Indeed so productive is she as are her colleagues due to the huge levels of mechanisation and technology involved, that every day she produces a massive surplus of bread. Now because of their astonishing productivity, this surplus cannot be released onto the market. If the capitalist employer were to do this, it would lower bread prices. Dearth raises prices whilst a glut drives them down. The owner of the Hitler Bakery decides that it's best to bin the surplus in order to maintain stable prices and a decent profit.

In her own oppression, worker A feels an innate sympathy with the millions going hungry in Sub-Saharan Africa that she watches on her TV. Yet she feels utterly powerless to do anything about this terrible state of affairs despite working in a bakery that could feed thousands of hungry people daily, for very little. Closing her eyes, she imagines a world where all the bakeries pool their over-produced bread and she envisions an African sub-continent of healthy thriving smiling children. Yet in the real world of 8am, she cannot influence in the slightest the distribution of the commodity she produces. She cannot direct the surplus loaves away from the filthy bins towards the hungry mouths of starving children. For worker A it is food. It is life. For her boss the capitalist it is objectified money. It is profit. And it's his.

The democracy of the workplace

Worker A is a skilled baker having trained for many years to gain her skills. Yet through technological progress and the introduction of modern production line methods which mean imposing a division of labour on the overall process, she now finds she produces only one component of the whole - the roughly kneaded dough and no more. Her skills are no longer relevant or required.

There's little democracy
in the Hitler Bakery

Moreover, because of the obvious limitations of democracy in the workplace - there is none - she finds she has no automatic right to exert any control over the intensity of the labour process - how fast the line moves. This division of her labour (and of all her fellow workers) and the rate of exploitation is again determined by dictat from above. Even if worker A is a member of a militant trade union who successfully fight back against any increase in the rate of exploitation, neither she nor her colleagues have any rights over the final product as it rolls off the production line. That right belongs to the capitalist and he alone. For all the combined efforts of worker A, her colleagues and their powerful trade union, the end result is that their labour has produced not a use-value - something that is directly useful to her or to society - but a commodity to be exchanged for money. For worker A its manufacture is the means to nothing more than to earn a wage in order to be able to then purchase her own bread and/or other commodities. For Marx, the cleaving of the producer from the direct production of commodities for use - her alienation - is unique to the capitalist mode of production. And under capitalism this alienation has expanded and deepened on a scale never before seen in history. Consequently the tendrils of alienation and the negative consequences of this alienation, have insinuated themselves in every individual and many of the relations we take as natural within society.

Raising the sell-by-date

What is conveniently ignored in the discussions concerning extending the sell-by-date of the worker is the essence of what it is precisely that the worker imparts into that which they produce. The division of labour has resulted in previously unknown and unimaginable levels of productivity.

They're extracting the piss among other things
but you'll do it all over again tomorrow

Yet for every joule of energy the worker produces, this energy is affixed within the product of their labour no matter what that product may be. Capitalist production draws from the worker vampire-like the very essence of their life. They can rest and present themselves anew tomorrow but they literally have expended their life in the employ of the capitalist. And it is non-refundable. The product of their labour consumes them. The harder they labour the younger they die. For the capitalist this is of no concern as there are many keen workers-in-waiting, in a very long queue ready to take the place of the worn-out worker.

You did ask for something that would stretch you more

Capitalism through a process of constant modernising necessary to compete effectively, shapes society and seeks to shape the consciousness of the worker. If you live in a working class area, you will among the inhabitants, witness more illness, deformities and lack of education as well as extraordinary levels of social decay. The health of the population of middle class and wealthy areas stands in complete contradistinction. Capitalism shapes the physical geography and the human geography of towns and cites, bringing millions together in order to toil and worship in the shrines of capitalist production. The division of labour in the workplace is reflected in the social division in the towns and cities between the leafy wealthy suburbs and the run-down estates. The production process is full of inherent contradictions that are constantly exploited by worker A and her compatriots. It is the everyday struggle of her class against the undemocratic dictat and exploitation of the owner of Hitler Bakeries.

Although workers are socialised in order to produce within the workplace, they are however dissuaded from socialising in the workplace. To the capitalist, each one of is seen as a valuable and necessary single cog in his bigger machine. Massive conurbations of cheap housing ensure an on-the-doorstep workforce for the capitalist. Everyday he witnesses a magical manifestation in his factory more real than the endeavours of a room full of medieval Florentine alchemists on piece-work rates. Through the collective endeavours of his workers, unrefined raw materials - the fruits of nature - are converted as if by some other worldliness into things of intrinsic value to the capitalist. Yet although worker A produces loaves in their thousands, standing between these valuable and often necessary consumer goods and her empty stomach stands the capitalist with his outstretched hand ready to fill her stomach but empty her wallet. Her labour owned by the employer, worker A is alienated completely from that which she has with her skills produced. And she finds she can only access this good by an exchange of values: cash for goods.

Surrounded yet alone

Yet alienation doesn't halt only at this lonely stop. For the first time in history we have the productive capacity to build a world of plenty where no single person wants for anything. Starvation could be consigned to history with warfare. Social life in the early 21st century should be ideal. In the most intensely exploited societies such as the UK and US, the opposite is the case for the vast majority of poor workers. Working the longest hours in advanced western industrialised nations UK and US workers are also some of the poorest and have the worst quality of life. Stress is common as are stress-related illnesses. Not content with seeking to mould our minds during the eight hours they take from us, the owner of Hitler Bakeries and his small clique of enlightened profiteers, through the wonderous mechanism of modern information dissemination (owned by the capitalist), millions are persuaded, through fear and images of rampaging anti-social youths shown almost nightly on TV screens, that the best way to address these issues is to ensconce themselves in their prettified laminated brick prisons. The worker is socialised in the workplace yet individualised within the process of production and at home. Worker A is increasingly a frightened, atomised individual within wider society ready to be remade in any image the capitalist sees fit - an individual consumer at the mercy of the ever predatory advertisers. Witness the farrago of advertisements that interrupt her evening enjoyment of the TV with increasing frequency. Witness the programs designed to make worker A feel unhappy about the shape of her body. Yet even this for a price, can be changed. Steeped in the alienation that capitalism imbues within the individual and through wider society, the singular identity of the individual worker is elevated to new heights, promoted as such in the shit-on-the-competiton, X-factorised post-modern world. In academia and beyond, postmodernism has extended its services to this late capitalist creed in providing theoretical justifications, and terrified former Marxist critics into eager submission and more than willing apologists for identity realpolitik.

The world according to price

"But there must be an escape" I hear you bellow over the top of the auto-cultured Jeremy Clarkson's laddish grammar school car-salesman's patter as he convinces over 1,000 Zoo readers to purchase the latest BMW and massively pump-up CO2 emissions and BP's profits into the bargain. Even the sane majority who reject the modern so called 'phenomenon' of the fame-istas, capitalism inexorably insinuates itself throughout virtually every sphere of their lives apace. Those areas traditionally considered and perceived of as ‘their own’ are reified as everyday social activities are ever more drawn into capitalist market relations. Enjoying a pint, eating out, the cinema, holidays, all pastimes that involve the purchasing of enjoyment. Even the enjoyment of music and downloading it has a price tag. Laws recently introduced protecting intellectual copyright (the rights of multinational entertainment corporations) are particularly punitive for the individual. Worker A ignores this at her own peril.

I happen to own the intellectual copyright on the song
you lot are singing en masse... please desist
or your vocal chords will be seized!

Museums had until recently an entrance price as do most national heritage sites. It is likely that museums will reintroduce an entrance fee under the cost-cutting coalition government. Indeed, those areas of social interaction that traditionally catered for workers in the late 19th and early 20th century, are portrayed in the press and media as anachronistic or are subsumed by a deluge of ‘buy your own happiness’ advertising. If they can't turn a reasonable profit they're closed. It's all about 'added value'. The free and public areas traditionally enjoyed by the masses such as parks are allowed to fall into disrepair or become places of perceived danger and no-go areas for the young and elderly alike. They are then sold off for development. Traditional pastimes such as bowling greens, cricket grounds, playing fields, and public gardens are abandoned to the winds or the private sector due to cuts in funding by local authorities. The initial alienation imparted to the worker through the simple relationship of capitalist production, now stretches its tendrils through every walk of life.

Taking responsibility for your own idiocy

If this wasn’t enough, the process of production (whether that be in directly producing commodities/goods or labouring within the service sector or industries) does not enhance the intellectual life of the worker. It retards the worker's intellectual capacity.  How? This comment from a postal worker epitomises the impact that capitalism has on the intellectual and creative capacities of workers: “I would like to retire soon, and I could on paper,” said Henry. “The problem is that when I hit 60 I will get £95 a week – that’s all I get for working for 35 years. I can’t live on that. I would like to take up art. But I won’t have the money.”*

But how can this be so when in the West it appears obvious to any capitalist-induced simpleton that educational attainment for the mass of people has improved dramatically? "Compare the education levels of an ordinary worker now to his 19th century counterpart and you'll see a dramatic and consistent improvement" you scream brandishing the empirical evidence; the stats as proof. Consider one moment the role of state education in objective terms, and a different picture emerges. The basis of state education is to provide the individual with an education to enable them to compete effectively for employment. State education also provides a level playing field, providing employers with a workforce imbued with a standard level of skills. Few employers would today contemplate employing individuals without certain educational qualifications. Average levels of attainment among workers are absolutely necessary for capitalism to compete effectively with other capitals competing for the same general markets nationally and internationally. For more specialist, knowledge-based or technologically advanced production, enhanced skills are required and these are provided through access to further education or higher education. Oh and by the way, we have to pay for that as individuals now as Higher Education is also now a commodity.

The innate ability of the toffs on the left was the
important thing, not their privileged backgrounds

Almost every month, the shrill, persistent crow-like caws among sections of the right wing press are heard demanding that University degrees be replaced for some students by vocational courses and training in order to produce the right sort of employees for industry or the ‘employment market’. By this, they of course do not mean vocational training for the sons and daughters of the powerful and wealthy of worker A. Few employers would consider an undergraduate, Masters degree or PhD as essential for work in manual production, till work or burger flipping. Similarly, employers based in the sciences or in fields of research and development such as pharmaceuticals and IT, would not consider simple GCSE’s on their own as sufficient. The division of labour seen in the workplace is replicated in colleges and universities. Capitalism through its requirements limits the full intellectual development of the individual particularly for those employed in the manufacturing or lower grades of the service sector.

I work therefore I am an idiot

Moreover, the process of production - the working day - does in itself mitigate against the development of intellectual capacity. Most physically demanding repetitive work is intensive enough to ensure that the individual has to afford it a level of concentration or application that does not allow for free thought and the development of higher knowledge. Physical labour is also physically tiring. For many millions of workers, physical exhaustion means that only limited numbers of the most committed will embark upon gaining extra knowledge after work or at the weekends. Television is portrayed and can be useful as an alternative means in which the worker might gain useful education. But its utility is limited as even the most educational programmes on offer do not offer a complete or holistic approach to imparting knowledge. Instead it offers a fragmentary menu form which the passive recipient can dip into, imparting facts and figures, yet not providing the tools or framework with which to understand the world, never mind trying to change it. The advent of cable TV almost confirms Marx's words:

“It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.” K Marx, Estranged Labour, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

It is telling that few workers wish to remain any longer than is necessary in their place of work during the day. Indeed they see the workplace as a prison and home as their place of sanctuary. Although rarely recognised as such, work becomes the real barrier to self-fulfilment and realising the intrinsic potential of every worker. The yearning for self-realisation and fulfilment is diverted through all manner of mechanisms. Capitalism does not encourage the active participation of the individual in society but passive participation in the act of active consumption:

“First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague.” K Marx, Estranged Labour, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

For the worker approaching retirement, the future does not look at all bright nor does it look orange. For many retirement appears as dark as that area just beyond the event horizon of a black hole. In their twilight years, no longer seen as a productive unit within the overall capitalist schema, deprived of the necessary financial resources to access the marketised world of real life, for the elderly, this long drawn out process of complete alienation is complete.

Lower not higher

When the owner of Hitler Bakeries and his friends call for the scrapping of the official retirement age we should resist. When they drag out a few grey haired trumpeters of modernisation who in their younger days probably killed time crossing picket lines at pensioner-piss parties we should give them the two-finger salute. They steal enough of our lives already. Not only should we not give them any more, we should demand that they give some back and that the age of retirement is reduced to 60 for men and 55 for women. The state pension should be set at a decent level, a living pension. The retirement of all workers should be one of plenty not poverty, of self-realisation not of self-denial.

This is no victory for workers nor will raising the retirement age end age discrimination by employers. Anti-discrimination legislation has not removed discrimination on the grounds of sex or race in the UK and beyond. Women are paid much less than men for equivalent roles and black and Asian workers are more likely to suffer unemployment than white workers.

Ultimately, the key to removing the horror of poverty in old age must be tied to consigning the system that creates and perpetuates this state of affairs - capitalism - to the yellowing pages of the history books. 

See you on the barricades comrades if my back's not too bad!