Engaging Reverse

I'm not a religious chap. As an impressionable stripling I admit that I rather enjoyed religious education and readings from the Old Testament filled to the brim with tales of woe, water and wilful wanking. As I progressed through school, I found the greatest pleasure in teasing out its inconsistencies. My mid to late teens saw me finally eschew the supernatural and the illogical cobblers of The Bible and Erik Von Daniken with his caravan of alterneratii, for a solidly materialist perspective. The transition from impish ignorance to Montesquieuian maturation was an eurekan enlightenment transformational process not dissimilar to the Vulcan mating ritual of pon farr, which I assumed most people including Leonard Nimoy, went through.

In a way, I was lucky. My dad was an advocate of Marx's maxim of ruthlessly criticising everything that exists including my first pierced ear lobe. (1) Yet I recall him once telling me that he had reached a point in his life, that so dispirited was he that he'd seriously considered going into the Catholic church. I believe this was in response to the crisis of Stalinism in the USSR during the 1950s which created a series of internal crises of confidence for many communists. At the time I found it difficult to reconcile this admission with his Marxist views. It was only later that I began to understand how Stalinism had sowed political and ideological confusion widely and deeply throughout the left in the second half of the 20th century. With the international revolutionary left divided on the best organisational strategy to roll-back the juggernaut of neoliberalism currently bulldozing its way across the Mercator and through what remains of state-funded public services, it's clear that the dead weight of Stalinism still weighs heavily on the Marxist left. But it got me to thinking, which regular readers of this blog will know, is nearly always a bad thing.

An engaging chap

Jean Jacques Dessalines - kicked Napoleon's arse
and did more to end slavery than 
Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce

I recently stumbled across a 2011 article by Melvyn Bragg in the Telegraph on the King James Bible. Bragg is a great admirer of this lexicon of liturgy. Within this article, he dips a slender business finger into the sticky honey pot of common sense. Take for example, the matter of the abolition of slavery and one Mr William Wilberforce. Now I remember reading about slavery at school and Wilberforce featured in the abolitionist camp to some fine tune. And of course, only a poltroon of the highest abandon would denigrate Wilberforce's role in the wider campaign to abolish slavery. But where, I wondered, were the Quakers in Bragg's abolitionist schema? They did after all tirelessly campaign for abolition in Britain? Where was Thomas Clarkson? Clarkson did as much if not more than any other individual to raise in the wider consciousness the brutality and inhumanity of the trade in 'black skins'. He was also rather an adept organiser riding somewhere in the region of 35,000 miles on horseback, criss-crossing Britain, spreading the abolitionist word. While he was at it, he also took great pains to gather first hand testimony for the abolitionist cause whilst founding anti-slavery committees in whichever town he rested. What of Olaudah Equiano, a slave who earned his freedom and wrote a best-selling life story that was read by tens of thousands? Nor was there a nod towards the nationwide mass boycott of slave-grown sugar, which at its height was reputed to have involved around 300,000 people, being quite possibly the first PR based, mass consumer campaign.(2)

The beginning of the end

Finally, and most importantly, there is no mention of the slave uprising and the self emancipation from slavery by the slaves for the slaves, in the French slave colony of St Domingue (present day Haiti) led by Toussaint Louverture in 1791. It was the military success of Louverture (and after his capture Jean Jacques Dessalines) and the sheer bloody determination of the black slaves to free themselves and found their own free, self governing state which was to send shock waves around the pro-slavery world and bring this African holocaust to the beginning of its end. Abolition certainly wasn't brought to these oppressed by the warships of the British Royal Navy enforcing the belated will of the British Parliament nor in any of the speeches of William Wilberforce. There's a slight whiff  of a 'great men' reading of history in Bragg's view. We might also call it a common sense reading of the anti-slavery movement in Britain, and it's one I'm sure the Gove-ish right would positively endorse.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. Lord Bragg is after all... well he's a Lord. He's a cultured chap, having curated the South Bank Show for many a year. One needs more than a modicum of intellect to wade in such culturally refined waters. But there's an overtone to this article and I can't help feeling it's ever so slightly hostile to the concept of 'reason' or more precisely what Bragg denotes as 'atheistic reason':

'I respect those who have no faith or little faith or are indifferent to it, but the current notion that atheistic reason marks the apotheosis of human intelligence, strikes me as being very doubtful. I’m as certain as I can be that there’s more to come.'

Lord Melvyn doesn't really elaborate on what this 'more to come' might be. Yet it's possible to divine from his words his real meaning and it's a word which carries with it a considerable degree of authority - it's the word 'belief'. As if to buttress his newly rekindled religious reawakening, Bragg calls up the names of Einstein, the Astronomer Royal Lord Rees and the physicist Stephen Hawking. He doesn't raise the name of one noted scientist Professor Richard Dawkins to reinforce his case for one very good reason. Dawkins' recent foray into the spume of what's been described 'militant atheism', is intrinsically hostile to Lord Braggs' personal view of faith. However Bragg is onto something when as it's reported, he 'poured scorn on the famous atheist's reliance on “reason” to destroy the Christian argument, insisting that faith was something that should be carefully examined.'

Dawkins: accepts that evolution goes only in one direction. 
What are his views on the establishment of a private
university which would appear to go in the 
other direction?

The Dawkins Delusion?

Here Bragg and I agree. I don't see there's much in the way of value in engaging in debates or long expositions with religious fanatics or leading churchtypes as a way to undermine religion and religious ideas. He might convince a largeish handful to reject their gods. However, US imperialism and its sponsorship of various Middle Eastern autocracies, the antics of it's best Zionist friend in that region and a few unmanned drones over Pakistan will inevitably create far greater numbers of radicalised religious adherents. The world's most advanced technological industrial economy is perfectly happy to co-exist, indeed encourage the rantings of the Christian fundamentalist right, a group not known for advocating progressive or liberal policies.

If Dawkins wants to see the back of religion, it aint gonna happen his way. So, if it's not Professor Dawkins militant atheism that exerts a tidal influence over serious numbers of humankinderies, what does? It's capitalism and religion - in that order. That religion can still command the loyalty of hundreds of millions of believers on the grounds of an idea, stands as a testament to the sheer flexibility of the various doctrines. To put it bluntly, if it didn't adapt, it wouldn't survive the titanic forces that it's exposed to on a daily basis by the hegemonic system of capitalism. Surely Professor Dawkins sees the immense irony in the persistence of organised religions and their concomitant religious ideologies within an inherently hostile environment, demonstrating in real time, the evolutionary theories he famously expounds?

Your eminently flexible friend

Religion is as globally relevant today as it was in the time of the First Crusade in 1096. It's inherent theological and textual flexibility allows adaptation, refinement and bespoke tailoring for the benefit of a dominant ruling class that a Saville Row suit maker would envy to the nth degree. Don't take my word. Look at the historical record which provides ample examples. Religion rarely if indeed ever, runs ahead of systemic socio-economic/political change. In fact the opposite is the case. The historical record shows us that established religious institutions and doctrines have acted like an fouled anchor chain on newly emerging systems of production and exchange. The friction created by this inertia has led to periods of intense social, economic and political contestation - they're called revolutions and their impact on society is usually profound. Take the English Revolution for example.

For God, for Queen King and for Country!

Our ancestors largely accepted the common sense that the monarch sat at the right hand of God. The pulpit and the sermon maintained and disseminated this prevailing wisdom across Europe and beyond. In consequence, European ordinary folk (usually poor and horribly exploited under an oppressive feudal system) suffered the whimsies of kings and tribulations often associated with monarchical absolutism. Between the years of 1640-60, a huge grass roots social movement developed in what we know today as Britain which attempted to dislodge this nugget of common sense with the not inconsiderable assistance of an army of russet-coated chaps and an executioner's chopping block. This process spread further with revolutions in America (1776), France (1789) and later two revolutions in Russia in 1917 which finally laid to rest the spectre of this type of absolutism in the West. It was a process which managed to remove by force of arms, God's divine fingers from of the plum duff of the political and economic sphere. These first three revolutions, although important for the promulgation of the enlightenment project, can be said to have provided the ideological and scientific foundations for capitalism to develop: they were firmly bourgeois revolutions.

Howzat: the first wicket keeper?

Cauldron of the revolution?

Despite the far-reaching consequences of these revolutions, they failed to completely eviscerate the church from the state, allowing it to re-root itself in the fertile soil of emerging bourgeois (capitalist) society. In Britain, Protestantism and later Methodism, proved eminently adaptable taking their place in the vanguard of unregulated industrialisation. Both demonstrated how religion could through a variety of twists and turns, continue to provide valuable services to capitalism particularly in the sphere of ideological control. And as Marx recognised, so often because of the propensity of capitalism to shift into overdrive in the 'race to the bottom', religion also acted as a salve on its worst excesses, providing a haven or 'a heart in a heartless world' to the impecunious individual.

Gandery sauce

Throughout history, to the oppressor and the oppressing minority class, religion provided a code by which to live (and importantly a schematic by which the majority 'others' should live). Yet for the oppressed, religion provides a common framework by which they may conceptually locate and thus interpret their own oppression. It can also provide the oppressed with a common language of resistance, and the means or an arena (the congregation or church) whereby radical or even revolutionary levelling ideas can be translated into direct actions:

" …a numberless crew of locusts have sprung out of the bottomless pit, assuming to themselves the names of Arians, Arminians, Socinians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Familists, Antiscripturists, Antisabbatarians, Antitrinitarians, Libertines, Erastians, Levellers, Mortalists, Millenaries, Enthusiasts, Separatists, Semiseparatists, Quakers, and many more of the same brood … No country from the foundation of the world hath brought forth and brought up, so many monstrous births as it [England] hath done." (3)

Yet Bragg chooses to invert this schematic, putting the cart before the horse:

"There is much else that secularists, atheists and the indifferent choose to ignore in our history. This Bible inspired many great philanthropists, it gave purpose and support in the 19th century to the Bible Women and the Slum Sisters and the Sunday Schools, all of which took on the dispossessed and destitute in society and insisted on redemption and improvement. And there is more. But mostly we find other causes to explain these movements, and of course there were economic causes and political causes and the Enlightenment played an increasing part, but the King James Bible, the national book which fed so many of our great writers and gives us so much of our daily speech still, was the life force of much that makes the modern world."

Adapt and survive

Unlike Bragg's idealism, I see the motivations of the groups he mentions, as residing either in their guilt or self-interest, or for the more socially minded, based in their intrinsic humanity. African slaves, converted to Christianity on the plantations, hardly had need of a holy book to make them conscious of their own miserable oppression. That they framed it and their gradual but increasingly organised opposition to it in the religious language of the day, was premised upon their own interpretation of 'the Good Book' and the sermons of anti-slavery proselytes.

Yet what should we make of a body of theology that can with apparent ease, have an appeal for those at the top and bottom of society? Religion like nationalism, acts like reinforced concrete, setting hard in the interstices between contending class interests in societies. The structurated wooliness of religion presents the likes of Dawkins with an insurmountable obstacle: as long as class oppression exists, religion (in all its forms) will adapt and survive. I can provide a golden nugget of evidence straight from the horses mouth. Even in the face of the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that validates Darwin's evolutionary theories, the  Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in a 'public dialogue' with Richard Dawkins, can embrace evolution without fear of contradiction from a higher authority when he states that 'he believed that human beings had evolved from non-human ancestors but were nevertheless “in the image of God”.

Agar capitalism

The insurmountable problem Dawkins has to confront is not religion per se. It's the conditions that allow these superstitious anachronisms to persist and flourish. Simply put, in order to consign religion to the ash heap of history, one must also consign to the shitter-emptying-pit, the systemic causes of want, war, ignorance, poverty, exploitation and oppression in its multifarious guises - ie capitalism.

I'm no spring chicken. Nor is Lord Bragg. I'm nearer to the end than I am the beginning. Nor am I a churl of the first order of magnitude. I respect a person's right to 'believe' and to practice any religion or form of worship they so wish as long as they they're not trying to impose it on others, particularly when those others are me. Maybe his 'first steps back on the road to faith' provide him with some solace and warmth in realisation of his own mortality? Maybe this reverse rests on the apparent global hegemony of a liberalising capitalist system that appears to have seized the ideological high ground? I understand why it daily humiliates former left leaning intellectualites into an accommodation with the prevailing wisdom of 21st century. Yet I find it odd that the same forces should drive Lord Bragg into an apparent accommodation with the common sense of a bygone 17th century autocrat.

Notes and References

(1) Marx to Ruge Kreuznach, September 1843, sourced at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm

(2) Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains, Mariner Books, 2006
(3) Thomas Hall 1660 sourced at http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-072.htm

Usual disclaimer: This work is and expression of opinion on a matter of public interest and contains the opinions of the author. It is intended to report current events that are of public interest and public concern. The reproduction and use of any documents, photos and video images herein is to provide humour and accuracy in order to avoid civil litigation and claims of misquoting. In reporting current events they are used within the context of Fair Dealing or Fair Use. The author is happy to provide further acknowledgement if requested (email below). 

 The author also suggests that before embarking upon expensive civil actions for libel, contact the author. We have reams of documentary evidence which we are happy to provide. A right of reply also operates. We are also happy to make corrections and if necessary provide an apology. Email garypaulduke@gmail.com

Circle... square... square... circle...

On the tenth reading, it still left me feeling a little befuddled. It definitely said at the top of the webpage "Against the Cuts". Which cuts was he referring to I wondered? Could it be that he supports the job cuts at the University of Salford - Manchester yet doesn't support the job cuts? I could only liken the emergent paradox to that experienced by a dysphasic transporter operative on the USS Enterprise who's trying to explain to a justifiably pissed off Captain Picard, that a dodgy Romulan cloaking device is responsible for the disappearance of Geordie La Forge and Ensign Ro, not his sweaty business finger.

Textual analysis

I like Martin Hall's blog. It's always fascinating and full of interesting detail. But this week it seemed to be missing something. I'd concentrated my efforts on distilling from the text a single reference to the UCU Salford's ballot for industrial action against mass job losses. I couldn't find it but I put that down to the antiquated pince-nez perched forlornly on the end of my nose. A thought crossed my mind. Was he attempting to square a circle, which I find has the potential to be quite a dangerous manoeuvre, especially if one is prone to inguinal hernias. The evidence would suggest that he's publicly supportive of students in their 'Carnival Against Cuts'  protest last week against the cuts he's imposing. Will he, I wondered, support the trade union initiated anti-cuts strike action as publicly? I also wondered would he show his support by refusing to cross staff picket lines? Moreover, would he and Adrian Graves jog that extra mile and make a small sizeable contribution to the UCU hardship fund? Would he then join the pickets outside the Maxwell Building with acoustic guitar in hand for a few rousing choruses of Kumbaya? If so, can I film it?

Guff and nonsense

Like the Salford UCU, I also thought it apposite to try and de-link some of Hall's discourse from the guff that's doing the rounds on the BBC news and among the pro-market politicians of all hues about the inevitability of cuts. I'm quite interested in political economy which makes me interested in the global economic crisis that's engulfed most of the major Western economies since 2007-08. It's worth bearing in mind that a softening-up process has been going on for years in the press and media with all the talk of a 'rapidly ageing population', 'unaffordable gold-plated public sector pensions' etc.

The establishment would have us believe that our excessive demands for publicly funded health and welfare systems are the cause of this crisis and not the financial and banking system that encouraged personal debt levels to climb to the historically high levels in order to provide demand for consumer goods. The seeds of this process were sown in the 1980s under the Thatcher and Reagan governments. The shift towards debt as a means of financing the expansion of capitalism (based upon mass consumption of consumer goods), was hung on a large coat hook of depressed wage levels in the US and the UK. In the eyes of the new paradigmatics, credit (including mortgages) was the preferred mechanism in providing workers with an almost perpetual advance against future earnings. Since then, capitalism has in effect tried to have it both ways: to keep wage levels low to claim a larger share of the surplus workers produce, and to create a dependency on debt among workers to supplement low wages and provide a consumer base for this section of capitalism to expand and make massive profits. But like my monthly credit card bill, at some stage debt has to be repaid. Capitalism had made no provision for this, placing its faith in climbing property prices/values to provide a cushion for any immediate economic crisis in this sector. It hasn't worked.

An historical crisis with deep roots

Karpo Marx reciting Kapital
by karmonica to friends

The crisis we're experiencing today is not new but a continuation of the original 2007 crisis which in itself is far more deeply rooted in what Karl Marx saw as the tendency over time, of the rate of profit to fall over the entire system which we'll save for another blog. Capitalism cannot create a new bubble of consumer frenzy driven by debt as this is what brought this current prolonged crisis to a head. It's response is rather of a traditionalist hue: to depress wages, working conditions, protective legislation, create a 'reserve army of unemployed' and in the process depress wages further. Another way of guaranteeing profitability is to hive off public sector services to the private sector. More usually this is achieved through outsourcing where public taxes are used to provide guaranteed profits for middle-men type companies who act as intermediaries. These companies provide no direct services but take a large slice of public monies, bringing in third parties to supply services undercutting the public sector. It's what's known in the trade as a 'race to the bottom' as workers rights are trampled on. It's a veritable feeding frenzy for those successful 'bidders'.

Forward the cutters of cloth

So even if for a moment, a chap accepted (and he doesn't) the notion put forward by such paragons of humanity: including the IMF, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, bankers, the CBI, Ed Miliband, Angela Merkel and the other neo-liberealists; that in times of hardship, cuts are necessary due to the global economic crisis , it's worth remembering that it's a crisis of someone else's making; a capitalist class and their friendly bankers who don't claim benefits or use public services. A chap's of a mind to suggest as they made it, let them pay for it.

However, there seems to be a bit of an anomaly when it comes to cutting one's cloth at University of Salford - Manchester. Professor Hall says that '[m]any universities in Britain have less money. Since late 2010, we have had a range of funding sources removed...' Given the hundreds of jobs at risk, I thought this worth some exploration.

Project Headroom

Clear evidence if any were needed to show that there's many a job
still to be had by the BBC at Salford Quays

As any historian will tell you, it's always worth going back a bit. If a chap's memory serves him correctly, in 2008-09, Salford UCU and the campaign group SUDE among others, persistently warned as the West stood on the crest of the financial turmoil sweeping the globe, that common sense should dictate that the University could not afford its MediaCity presence. We argued publicly that the University should not sign the agreements that would bind them into huge levels of expenditure during an economic downturn. Given the global turmoil, sound advice one might posit? The trouble is that even though this chap 'common sense' has a loudish voice, it seems senior managers including the then Registrar, now Deputy Vice Chancellor, Registrar and Secretary, Freedom of Information 'Champion' Adrian Graves, as well as the then Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe, either didn't hear it, or chose to ignore it and sign on the dotted line anyway.

Payment by results or payment by peanuts?

It's unlikely that Peel Media would accept payment for the weekly rental costs in peanuts so the University pay them in non-peanut currency - £40,867 of this currency every week until 2020 which according to the fine, investigative Salford Star will cost in the region of £20 million. That's about the cost of the salary of one academic every week for the next eight years or so. And that's excluding the costs of fitting out the four floor building which are reported to have cost in the region of £30 million or 666 academics (at an average of say £45,000 per annum). Now that's a ruddy lot of scholars and money by anyone's standards. Or is it?

A ruddy lot of money (Part II)

Much has been made by angry members of the UCU (in the opinion of this writer justifiably so) threatened with unemployment, of the manner in which senior managers are pushing ahead with the 'Estates Master Plan' which in peanut-speak means the spending of even vaster-er sums on new buildings and refurbishments. The plan was published sometime 2008-09 and judging by the activity of construction workers on or around campus, it would seem to be moving ahead with some gusto.  I decided that as the holidays are approaching, a little currency conversion might help readers put this Master Plan into some perspective. For Phase One of the plan, if one peanut = one pound, in currency conversion terms the University would be looking at spending around 107 million of these tasty blighters. I did a further calculation and extrapolated from the results that that would give any reasonable person wind. The importance of spending these vast sums of money on 'excellent buildings' was emphasised by DVCRSFoI'C' Graves to the University Council recorded in the October 2010 minutes:

'The Registrar and Secretary and Deputy Vice-Chancellor emphasised the importance of the Master Plan to the University’s strategic aspirations; the ability to attract and retain high calibre staff and students was predicated on the ability to develop a high quality, welcoming environment. Given that MediaCity UK would place the University at the leading edge of media programme delivery, it was imperative that excellent buildings were designed and constructed elsewhere on the University campus.'(1)

Strategic aspirations

The almost inevitable consequence of either; a) being publicly 
excoriated in Morrisons by a penurous 
unemployed academic, b) self-fornication,
c) rising wheat prices

There's nothing wrong with aspirations, particularly aspirations of a strategic variety. My own strategic aspiration is premised upon being able to complete my daily shop in Morrisons without having recourse to publicly excoriate the manager in front of some pensioners, over the skyrocketing price of breadstuffs, which according to my calculations, is rising faster than a methane emissions in a Ukranian fart-catchery. But I was worried that Graves' words were being misinterpreted. The chap doing the 'consulting' over the current job losses was one Keith Watkinson who is a resourceful human all of which you can read about here. Watkinson of HR reports directly to Graves. And all the evidence at the moment seemed to suggest that Watkinson was doing the opposite of retaining high calibre staff. Would he be rigorously disciplined by Dr Graves I wondered, for deviating from the Master Plan? If so, can I film it?

Der Masterplan

This Master Plan interested me. Why? Well it's predicated upon a '24.5% continued growth in student numbers over ten years' according to the online blurb. Yet blogger Hall has stated for the record, that 'from this September onwards, we will be a smaller university with fewer students to teach...' And as we mentioned earlier he's also stated that since 2010, that 'a range of funding sources' have been 'removed'. Yet the refurbishments and plans for new buildings continues apace. I wondered why? With the relevant information to hand, I decided to let one go... another question that is. So I asked, given the evidence that the UK economy is in a recession and that the Tory government are convinced that even deeper and broader cuts to public expenditure is the solution to the crisis, surely prudence and pragmatism would dictate a hold on all major projects involving large capital expenditures? 

Pounds and pennies

I often find such talk of hundreds of millions of peanuts pounds overwhelming. So large are they that they can become difficult to grasp. There's an old saying that speaks of the focusing of one's attention on one's peripheral pocket currencies of diminutive denominations in order to secure financial stability in the medium and long term. We've already seen how prior to the imposition of Project Headroom in 2007-08, senior managers gave the green light to expenditure on consultants of £3,961,109. I decided to cast a figurative eyeglass over the finer detail of some more recent expenditures on consultants and other things, which readers can find ensconced on the Whatdotheyknow freedom of information website:

I did some more sums. It came to a total of £170,248.79. I then perused the University of Salford - Manchester's evidence to a recent Justice Committee report into the Freedom of Information Act. 

Yes... this 'particular case is me

Was this a good use of public money in a time of mass job cuts and tightening of budgets?

Pennies from heaven

I then mulled over the £402,000 spent recently refurbishing the Ol' Fire Station, and the £50,000 Hall and Graves have already 'invested in the libel proceedings against me with more to come. I considered the above in light of Hall's recent communication with staff:

'While we will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies, I have an obligation to ensure that the University remains financially sound, continues to achieve its objectives, and continues to improve provision of learning and teaching opportunities for our students. We cannot do that if our academic staffing bill exceeds the income we have available from student fees.'(2)

I wondered just how such expenditure would ensure 'that the University would remain financially sound' or how it would 'improve provision of learning and teaching opportunities for our students'. How would it save jobs? 

From fire stations to panic stations?

If anything, the sense I get from reading Hall's latest online missive, is one of panic. Clearly, the threat of industrial action and student anger from below is provoking a response from above. I'm firmly of the opinion that these job cuts - in fact all future proposed job cuts as there will be more if Hall's words are to be taken literally (see below) - can be successfully resisted. But this will involve rejecting the 'common sense' arguments that cuts to our services are necessary as well as strike action. As we should oppose the closure of every school, hospital, old peoples' home, or the cut of a single benefit to pay for a crisis not of our making, Salford UCU should oppose not just compulsory redundancies but every job cut and course closure at Salford. It is our University after all.

When all is said and done, students prefer lots of teaching and academic staff. First and foremost, a university is its academic staff and its front-line administrative staff. If you're in any doubt, ask the students. It's the academics that produce cutting edge research, advance knowledge and truth and in the process, produce the next generation of innovators. The front-line staff ensure this happens. I've yet to find a nice new shiny building that can achieve this.

Besides their logic doesn't convince me. If these jobs and courses were of value to the institution, students and society last year and the year before, they are of intrinsic value to the institution, students and society today.


 Notes and References

(1) University Council minutes October 2010 sourced at http://www.governance.salford.ac.uk/cms/resources/uploads/File/council_committees_minutes/Council%20mins%2010-11/Minutes%20-%20101005%20-%20confirmed.pdf

(2) The text of Martin Hall's communication to staff sent on the 25th May at 09:34

'UCU ballot for industrial action.

The UCU is asking staff to take industrial action in opposition to compulsory redundancies at our University. Whilst it is not yet confirmed that there will be any compulsory redundancies, I’m writing to give you the background and to explain why we cannot give this assurance. If you have not been notified that you are impacted by the current organisational change proposals, you are not part of the current process. Secondly, it is not yet clear that there will be any compulsory redundancies. We are doing everything we can to prevent this. I would, of course, prefer to give a guarantee that compulsory redundancies will be avoided. But we have had more than 400 funded student places removed by HEFCE and 100 more places will be removed in 2013. This is further compounded by the inclusion of international students in immigration controls. Because we will have fewer students to teach, and reduced fee income, we are forced to reduce the numbers of our academic staff. We are not alone in this situation. A significant number of universities are being forced to reduce their levels of academic staffing. More generally, more than 300,000 publicly funded jobs have been lost in Britain. There is no real prospect of things improving over the next few years. We have been exemplary in our consultation with the unions, sharing information about allocated student numbers as soon as we could, in early February. We have followed the full requirements, and spirit, of labour legislation and processes in consultation and mitigation, and have entered into discussions which have resulted in the mitigation of a significant number of the proposed redundancies. We will continue to consult with UCU over our proposals with a view to achieving them through voluntary means wherever possible, but also to discuss how we may resolve the dispute they have registered with us in balloting for industrial action. Our primary concern is, and remains, the future of our staff who are caught up in this process. While we will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies, I have an obligation to ensure that the University remains financially sound, continues to achieve its objectives, and continues to improve provision of learning and teaching opportunities for our students. We cannot do that if our academic staffing bill exceeds the income we have available from student fees. You will of course make up your own mind whether or not to support industrial action. However, were the UCU to succeed in moving from negotiation to confrontation, its actions may have a direct and damaging impact on the quality of teaching and the student experience. I cannot see how this will help anyone, or affect our circumstances favourably. You have, of course, the right to industrial action. I have the responsibility of ensuring that you are aware of the implications for you personally. I’ve asked HR to prepare a Q&A factsheet which you can access by clicking here. This highlights the key issues you need to consider. I had hoped that the UCU would continue to work with us in defending the principles of equity, access and the improvement of quality of learning and teaching, and I still hope that we can re-establish this common purpose. Yours sincerely

Martin Hall,

Vice-Chancellor

Usual disclaimer: This work is and expression of opinion on a matter of public interest contains the opinions of the author. It is intended to report current events that are of public interest and public concern. The reproduction and use of any documents, photos and video images herein is to provide humour and accuracy in order to avoid civil litigation and claims of misquoting. In reporting current events they are used within the context of Fair Dealing or Fair Use. The author is happy to provide further acknowledgement if requested. To make any such request press here.

The author also suggests that before embarking upon expensive civil actions for libel, contact the author. We have reams of documentary evidence which we are happy to provide. A right of reply also operates. We are also happy to make corrections and if necessary provide an apology. So, to save £££sss please avail yourself of this opportunity if you really feel it necessary, which you can do by clicking here or by emailing garypaulduke@gmail.com

Douglas Bader's legs

When I was at junior school, all the pupils had to belong to a house. Like many things in life, it was imposed from above and was therefore compulsory. I knew of no fellow pupil courageous enough to take the issue up directly with the Headmaster, Mr Coath. To an impressionable youngster brought up on Sooty and Sweep, Mr Coath looked like a less-than-benign David Nixon, but with a terrible dynamic. He was also known for his diabolically skilful use of 'plimsoll fear', which legend has it, could be extraordinarily persuasive. Each house had a colour, red, green, blue and yellow. They were also named after some famous derring-doer types like: Leonard Cheshire who against all the odds and under hostile fire, set up a care home charity in 1948 (Red); Douglas Bader notable for his magnificent portrayal of actor Kenneth More in the 1956 film Reach for the Sky and his ability to play golf lying down (Blue); Robert Falcon Scott who had an icy landmass named after him (Green) and Francis Chichester who sailed in boats (Yellow). I was in Scott.

False legs, false hope or false consciousness?

The three handed Harry Corbett in his heyday

On the odd occasion, one of these adventurist types would be invited to the school to give an 'inspiring' talk. I recall one such event. My good self, one amongst many impressionable youngsters probably dressed in a pair of grey demoniacs (long grey shorts that itched like billio in the crotchal regions), sat patiently in rows on the cold, highly polished parquet flooring of the school hall. Douglas Bader (irritatingly dressed in civvies and not a smart 1941 RAF uniform or his golfing plus twos) was ushered into the hall by a nominally fawning headmaster. The usual covert side-of-mouth chitter-chatter from the floor was this afternoon unusually subdued. Indeed, several of us nearly had to seek medical attention after the event from the school nurse for strained ear drums. We had potentially damaged them we were told, because of our concerted but vain attempts to discern from the attenuated hubbub, the sound of Douglas Bader's legs clanking as he ascended the steps up to the rostrum. Yes, the prevailing view among gullible seven to eleven year olds was that those legs of his were made out of metal (probably tin). It was a silly notion as it was clear that they were expertly hewn Long John Silver-like, from two solid pieces of lignum vitae, the unyielding stuff from rainforests afar.

An Odyssean journey?

Aah... Bisto?

I can't recall any of his words but I remember being a bit miffed that the name that represented our house would never make it to such an event as the berk had misplaced himself somewhere in the icy wastes of Antarctica. If he had, we'd probably have sat just as quietly trying to detect the sound of his legs fizzing as they thawed out in front of a three bar fire. Mind you, I don't recall Francis Chichester ever making it to Meadowcroft Junior School either. I and my peers were rather prone to classical flights of fancy and we'd probably have filled our ears with beeswax and tied ourselves to the climbing frame in the hall in order to avoid the beautiful yet malignant songs of the Homeric sirens beckoning us to consume watery gravey like Odysseus and his ship mates.

Competition - early years intervention

To be frank, having your school house named after these famous adventurers rarely if ever instilled the sense of adventure in young and impressionable school types I'm sure our 'betters' believed it would. Battle lines were almost invariably drawn along lines of colour... "red's better than green..."  "... that's bollocks... there's more blue on this planet than red OR green put together" was the clincher. I find it interesting how this artificial division created and imbued within such young impressionable clipped ears a competitive spirit, probably intended, played out to its fullest in the annual sports day. I'm not a fan of sports days nor am I a fan of competition in any form in the education sector or anywhere else for that matter. I have a poor record in egg and spoon races and competition has a poor record historically.

Competition in the workplace

Historical musings aside, most people accept if begrudgingly the concept of competition for jobs. It's a hard fact of life. You compete against other people for the privilege of being employed and thus exploited by your employer. However, this form of competition is largely external to the process of surplus value creation - it's something you do before the boss gets his or her hooks into you. How sad it is then when this form of competition is introduced into the workplace, particularly in a university where collegiality is seen as a fundamental and much cherished principle.(1)

Academics ahoy!

I learned last week that former colleagues in my old haunting ground at the University of Salford - Manchester, in the department school? college? of English, Sociology, Politics and Contemporary History are having to re-apply for their jobs (those staff below professors). Twenty two academics have been told that they must compete for sixteen jobs. More widely, it was reported in last week's Weatherfield Gazette (2) that sixty five academics are at risk. The UCU branch leadership view the process of pitching one colleague against another in this manner as 'abhorrent'. I agree.

Collegiality holed on the reef of competition?

In an Olympic year, could this be a fairer way 
of deciding who keeps their job?

I pondered my time as an undergraduate and postgraduate at Salford. I'd received the finest instruction, a first class education and excellent advice by staff members in ESPaCH, being taught by some of the most knowledgeable and dedicated academics and professionals in their fields. Crescent House then had a cafe/restaurant on the fifth floor which was eminently conducive to heated arguments and debate at lunchtime. It was a lovely environment for learning. Contrary to myths expounded in the courtroom, I have nothing but praise for my years at Salford and nothing but the highest praise for those staff I came into contact with. Yet my mental wanderings have led me to one or two conclusions which I think might have some relevance to staff at Salford, and in particular those staff whose future employment status will now be determined, like the winner of my school egg and spoon race, by the simple mechanism of competition. These musings are not meant as a criticism of my own union but a reflection on a strategy to save these jobs.

No Lenin

I'm a great believer in organised collective action. The Arab Spring and the wonderful OCCUPY protests around the world are inspirational. Yet where are the protests at Salford? Protests are relatively simple to organise. Even I've managed one or two in the past and I'm no Lenin. But with the help of other kindred spirits I find that the odd demo can be convened with very little effort. For example, as a member of a dedicated university anti-war group, we organised three coaches to send anti-war protesters to London in February 2003 from Salford University. Small groups made their own banners and placards. I recall I booked all three on my credit card. I, with other anti-cuts students and staff, was involved in organising the magnificent SUDE protests at against job cuts again at Salford in 2008-09. For example, we wore masks and carried a coffin across the A666 outside Dr Graves' office, stopping rush-hour traffic. I raise this not to blow my own trumpet but to show that it's actually quite an easy thing to do.

Why protest?

Imagine a world without protest. Imagine the conditions we would be forced to live in and the policies we would be forced to accept if there was no such thing as protest. Protests arise because of the inadequacies or lack of democracy. Mass demonstrations raise matters publicly and inspire others to join in or follow suit. At Salford such public demonstrations of anger at job cuts would act as a pole of attraction for other staff and students. Quite often the press and media show some interest. Are they effective? Judge for yourself the words of one Adrian Graves, current Registrar at the University, who sent this email to the former Harloe, which we covered in an earlier blog:

'...isn't it supremely ironic though, that Gary Duke is so sensitive about his own reputation that he has organised a campaign amongst students to defend it  - having carried out a sustained campaign himself over six months aimed expressly at damaging the reputation of six or seven people and the university itself - through the anonymous publication and distribution of three scurrilous pamphlets within and without the university, through speeches at well publicized demonstrations and meetings subsequently published as video on the internet, a sustained press campaign in the local and HE sector press nationally and through lobbying MPs, local government councilors, and other influencers: Sorry - steam coming out of ears.

Adrian'(3)

Reputational sensitivity - how can we measure it?

If we were trying to measure reputational sensitivity among university employees, might we not use the initiation of libel proceedings as a key indicator? The meaning of this email is clear to any reasonable person - the esteemed Dr Graves frowned upon my SUDE activities. He seemed to have a particular problem with a little device I used which involved thinking up something called an idea, attaching this idea to a series of words which I then strung together into something called sentences which I orally projected through something called a face-based-sound-augmenter to crowds of miffed staff and students. Clearly protesting and speaking out against job cuts is not yet against the law. But in light of the above email, I'm even prouder to have played a small part in this wonderfully vibrant campaign to save jobs and to campaign for a decent education for students at Salford. The campaign galvanised the campus unions, drew in students, the Student Union, and created the foundations for the reinvigorated UCU branch we have today.

Where is the mass opposition today?

Yet as far as I'm aware, since then we have had no public protest, no activity led by students and staff to halt the savaging of hundreds of jobs. It's as if having begun to build a strong union on the back of large public protests, that public protest and public opposition on the streets is no longer deemed necessary by the union branch executive and therefore must be safely channelled into bureaucratic strategies to save and secure jobs. The trouble is, such strategies have clearly not produced the desired results as we witness yet another round of job cuts.

The inexorable consequence of not feeding academics or are they merely potential Frankenstein burners? 
(word of warning, burning Frankensteins is not lawful and potentially an act of harassment, 
bullying, and victimisation if committed in the workplace)

The importance of light lunches should not be overestimated

Salford UCU are good at putting on light lunches and to be frank, light lunches are nice. But a hurriedly grabbed sandwich is no substitute for direct collective action. I'd just like to state at this juncture, that  I have no wish to be cast as some chap called William Critical. I want my union to be strong and effective. So, as a member of Salford UCU I'd like to propose a 'three point plan' which I think could be adopted quite easily and quite quickly by the UCU branch. Alternatively, as I thought it up in the pub on Sunday evening I might call it a 'three pint plan'.

Three Point Pint Plan

It goes something like this.

1. Immediately initiate a ballot for strike action. The rationale: do those staff being told to re-apply for their jobs feel that this is a voluntary process? In my opinion it's compulsory redundancy and something I warned against at the last EGM.
2. Stop fannying around and simply tell members and other staff to refuse to participate in this process. This way, an essentially non-voluntary process will quickly become a compulsory process. Staff will at least know where they stand, and the union can thus engage in what unions do - taking strike action to protect and secure jobs.
3. Call a public meeting, invite all staff and students. Publicise this meeting as widely as possible. Use this meeting as the base for the launch of a campaign of regular staff-student protests outside the recently re-vamped Ole Fire Station. Propaganda and publicity is essential in helping to build a grass-roots movement. It will force the Student Union to stop abstaining at University Council meetings over job cuts. Importantly it must be publicly and directly supported by all the unions. Such a tactic will also draw into activity members and non-members and help revitalise the UCU branch.

Unanimity

I sensed at the last EGM a feeling that those members who attended (so many they were crammed into every seat and every step of the lecture theatre) wanted more than just a light lunch and rhetoric - they want action. The vote for strike action was unanimous. Not one abstainer. It should  be abundantly clear even to the most exasperated plug-plotter, that staff have had enough and are up for a fight.  History tells us that when the unions take on the bosses, more people join unions, borne out by the evidence that the branch has increased its membership since the magnificent national strike action of November 2011.

A role model or a model aeroplane?

If Douglas Bader could play golf, drive a car, dance, fly a Hawker Hurricane in the Battle of Britain, get shot down over German Occupied France in 1941, escape from a series of prisoner of war camps, end up working in the oil industry and appear at my school with a pair of wooden legs, then the UCU president Chris Sheehy can surely translate her fiery words into positive and immediate collective action. Although no one can guarantee that direct action and a strike will win, I can guarantee that if no ballot is called, the union and its members will lose.

Notes and References

*Another word for opinion
(1)This is the view of the Salford UCU and it's a view this writer agrees with.
(2) This is a comedic device. It's actually called the Salford Advertiser which arrived through my letter box on the 29th March 2012
(3) Email from Graves to Harloe dated 30 May 2009:

Usual disclaimer: This work is the opinion of the author and is produced in order to report current events that are of public interest and public concern. The reproduction and use of any documents, photos and video images herein is to provide accuracy in order to avoid civil litigation and claims of misquoting. In reporting current events they are used within the context of Fair Dealing or Fair Use. The author is happy to provide further acknowledgement if requested. To make any such request press here.

The author also suggests that before embarking upon expensive civil actions for libel, contact the author. We have reams of documentary evidence which we are happy to provide. A right of reply also operates. We are also happy to make corrections and if necessary provide an apology. So, to save £££sss please avail yourself of this opportunity if you really feel it necessary, which you can do by clicking here.

In the land of the arse-kickers, the three-legged man is King

I find the notion of 'common sense' fascinating. How often do we hear such general sentiments as: 'they should bring back hanging... bring back corporal punishment... humans are selfish by nature... students are smelly, lazy bastards...' I could labour the point by throwing in the odd 'young people today have no respect for their elders'. I could but I won't, as far too many surly pre-Cambrians have walked through doors I've held open and not registered one decibel on the acknowledg-ometer. Given much of the trollop that passes for 'common sense' in the sphere of politics, I think it's an area that could do with some exploration over the coming weeks.

The strange death of Western liberal democracy

The reason I raise this issue is because of a particularly pervasive common sensical baguette which has pretty much bitten the dust over the last month or so. And this baguette is no trifle despite the lack of real analysis   in the news and in more 'serious' newspapers. Mixed comestibles aside, at a personal level, the removal of two prominent European political leaders has been a bit of a Christmas spoiler. You might be asking 'My dear chap.  Given your obvious political leanings, why are you showing such concern for an obviously conservative type as the naturally dark haired Mr Berlusconi... a chap like you would surely be celebrating his demise? You might also be wondering why I should dwell on such a matter for this, the first posting of the new year. Well these events got me to thinking which as regular readers will know is nearly always a bad thing. You see I spent a large part of the holiday period pondering long and quite hard the concept of liberal democracy in the 21st century, in light of the manner in which both leaders were ejected from their Prime Ministerial positions. Events in Europe had instilled within me a deep concern and for very good personal reasons.

A heavy investment in the system

Some might already know that I've spent quite a few years studying politics and history in an official capacity - as a sort of student type. The recent political developments on the European front brought forth an apparition which like Dicken's famous spectre Jacob Marley, was almost too horrific to endure without a second bottle of Glenfiddich. I felt a bit cheated. Like many other British subjects, I'd been scrupulous in voting at every general election during the last thirty three years. By my calculations and using my excellent powers of recall, I estimated that I'd voted in precisely eight general elections. Even on my gnarled and twisted fingers I could work out that I'd invested heavily in parliamentary democracy. At three minutes a vote (the time it took to walk into the voting station and place a cross expertly on a ballot paper and walk out again) I figured that the political system had consumed twenty four minutes of my time which I'd never get back. It was rather irksome. Yet even then the ramifications of what had occurred hadn't properly sunk in. I knew there had to be another reason for me being sweaty. It dawned on me on Boxing Day.

Back to the drawing board? 

It concerned how Mr Berlusconi's resignation would impact upon the elemental validity of my undergraduate degree? Question after question raced through my pyretic mind... was it now more worthless? Would former students now bereft, organise themselves into an errant commonwealth called the 'quite disgruntled' and seek to collectively realise the scrap value of the paper their degrees were written on? The possibilities seemed endless. At a personal level, I found myself reassessing my period as a knowledge apprentice. Was my time spent at university reading, researching, debating, and engaging in something called 'political activity' a complete waste? What about that tortuous process where one spends days and weeks... even months writing up their research producing dissertati and doctoral thesi of the highest quality and originality? Was this nothing less than a fools errand best undertaken by a chap dressed in a harlequin suit with bell-infused headwear?

The games of the mind

But there was something niggling away in the back of my withered consciousness that like a fear that dare not speak its name, dared not speak its name. Drawing deeply from the large glass of 12 year old single malt, I girded what was left of my loins and lay bare my most apocalyptic anxiety... would I forthwith be receiving a letter from a Deputy Vice Chancellor stating that in light of these momentous European events, I would be required to resit the manifold politics exams I'd taken as an undergraduate? Moreover, would he be stipulating that there'd be some expectation that I'd also be required to comprehensively re-write all those expertly written and plainly interesting essays I'd produced during my three years as an undergraduate, essays that had promoted so much conspicuous pleasure among lecturers in the past?

The author of a series of fine political essays prior to
finding out they were in fact shite

The Quill and the Quotidian

The thought of resurrecting my quill appalled me. In my mind, despite lacking the most basic personal hygiene skill-set, I pictured myself as a revered essayist with sideburns. And those essays had clearly been procured from the depths of my innermost methodological sanctum. It wasn't pleasant down there. Drawing forth such cerebralatorious sagaciums had proved personally taxing on many levels, most of them personal and all of them taxing. I found it difficult to conjure up from my extensive lexicography an appropriate simile. I could only liken the deleterious consequences of even considering reproducing such intellectual chef d'ouevre to maybe the barren efforts of a once consummate literary Onanist on a downward Viagran spiral with an arrested urethra.

Persona non grata

At the most primordial level, and considering my status as persona non grata, would I be able to find a geodetical interlocutor with a taste for human sacrifice worthy of peer-worship, one who would even consider giving me a mark over 60 percent? In the circumstances I found it hard to remain objective. Was I being too optimistic? Could it be immeasurably worse than I was trying to imagine? The wider ramifications of Berlusconi's fall from power, like a stone cast into a pond, splashed a bit. Had all the official texts on politics so cherished by undergraduates, now been rendered obsolete by events? Were 19th century Fourdrinierists eagerly lining up to secure the contract for the mass rendering of tens of thousands of tomes like so many chicken bones into the environmentally friendly bouillon destined for the manufacturies of moist anal wipes?

The inevitable consequences of a severe
lack of attention to detail in humans

Empty shelves?

A series of midnight sweats ensued, induced by fear and copious handfuls of Pseudoephedrine. It did little to help, invoking an unholy trinity: erectile disfunction, pulmonary palpitations and a peculiar dream-like state where an imagined tracking shot in staggered slow-motion captured sepia-tinged reminiscences of pregnant bespoke shelving, attended by leagues of desirous savants with pretensions towards melancholy. Almost immediately the image dissolved offering the viewer a counter-tableau of academial abhorrence. In this inflamed immateriality of unawakened contingency, where once was poised a proud university library teeming with a variety of political and theoretical discourses, now stood an anachronism, a materiality of bricks and mortar, reduced in form to a choleric penury more reminiscent of post-reformation priest's occasional wank-hole.

Down in the cellar

On waking, I decided to forego my New Year's eve celebrations and instead try and see if there was anything worth salvaging. I dug out the bundle of essays I'd written well over a decade ago. Thumbing through them, I was immediately struck by their brilliance. It confirmed the correctness of my original decision to put in three 100 watt bulbs and bugger the consequences for the environment and my pocket. I had the feeling there was some form of redemption buried away somewhere in this pile of perspicacity. I recalled that somewhere lay a fine piece of work with the words 'interesting' scrawled on it by professor of some renown. As I leafed through the ream of dusty, yellowing essays, I drew out the substantial dissertation and pondered the typed words on the crumpled page, I mentally kicked myself.

Yes, if my memory served me correctly, I remembered how I'd made the ineffable decision in this final killer essay to eschew a comparative study. Instead I chose to put all my physical energies into more empirical approach; analysing a political system that was opaque and moribund, where the involvement of ordinary people was negligible, where strong leaders were chosen by a tiny unrepresentative, unelected, privileged elite, backed by a subservient press and media who accepted and reported their decisions uncritically?

Reading the words ten years later, I realised that my anguish through the Christmas week had clearly been based on some form of diabolical personal imprudence. And hindsight's a wonderful thing with hindsight. Gazing over the typed paleology I breathed a sigh of relief as I reaffirmed my original correct decision to write about the British parliamentary system.

Usual disclaimer: This work is the opinion of the author and is produced in order to report current events that are of public interest and public concern. The reproduction and use of any documents herein is to provide accuracy in order to avoid civil litigation and claims of misquoting. In reporting current events they are used within the context of Fair Dealing. The author is happy to provide further acknowledgement if requested. To make any such request press here.

The author also suggests that before embarking upon expensive civil actions for libel, contact the author. We have reams of documentary evidence which we are happy to provide. A right of reply also operates. We are also happy to make corrections and if necessary provide an apology. So, to save £££sss please avail yourself of this opportunity if you really feel it necessary, which you can do by clicking here.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: the hypocrisy of the superiors

Newsreaders and television journalists are aghast. Journalists in New York are said to be in shock. However, being journalists and simple reporters of events they have managed to retain their collective 'objectivity' and ensure that just the facts are reported. Of course great concern has been shown by journalists with regard to his alleged activities... concern for the markets that is. As the shock waves reverberated around the globe journalists reported that the financial markets had dropped with the Euro falling half a cent to $1.0463. They also demonstrated even greater concern that a pre-arranged meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel scheduled the same day now had to be cancelled. Many of the same pundits have demonstrated considerable distress as his electoral chances in the forthcoming French presidential elections in 2012 appear to evaporate by the hour. 

Oh yes, and if you'd missed it, Dominique Strauss-Kahn is alleged to have attempted to rape a female hotel worker, and committed a violent sex attack against her. The victim is of course only a low-profile cleaner.

The Impeccable credentials of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Dominique Strauss-Kahn on the other hand is rather high-profile and has impeccable credentials. In the last twelve months or so, as Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he has overseen so called 'bail-outs' of faltering economies in the West.(1) This in practice means that unelected ratings agencies such as Moody's can choose to downgrade a country's credit rating. Pracically this means a government of such a country that wishes to borrow money on the international markets at low rates of interest finds it becomes increasingly problematic. Enter stage right Mr Strauss-Kahn with the IMF cheque book. He and his acolytes propose radical surgery meaning a restructuring of the economy of this country in return for organising a loan which of course has strings attached. These strings are usually huge cuts to public spending and privatisation. It also means loans to the government with the faltering economy from those that are buoyant (such as the UK, France and Germany) at interest rates well above the usual rates. It's a process that's proved very successful in the so called 'developing world' which largely remains stubbornly under-developed. Its success can be measured in the untold tens of billions it has shifted from the pockets of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa, to the less-than-lean wallets of the wealthy bankers and shareholders of banking institutions in the West. It will achieve the same in the West as ordinary people in Europe suffer this Western brand of structural adjustment. Like their counterparts in Africa and Latin America, many will find themselves out of work as government and local authorities slash public sector services ready for wholesale privatisation. It's a future where many will be forced into low-paid precarious employment as welfare benefits are scrapped or severely restricted. Many more will find themselves out of their mortgaged-up-to-the-eyeballs homes as a consequence.

Jacques Sprat ate no fat...

Strauss-Kahn who according to reports earns in the region of $431,000 tax free as head of the IMF has no need to worry about such trivial matters. It's reported for example that the suite in which the alleged sexual assault occurred - the exclusive Sofitel hotel near Times Square - cost $3,000 (£1,850) a night.(2) His arrest was of course widely reported where he was wrenched from his Air France seat and handcuffed. It was of course a seat located in First Class.

Pretender to the throne

Oddly, it appears that the irony of Strauss-Kahn's political ambitions and political trajectory as potential President of France in 2012 is lost on journalists and commentators alike. It also appears to have by-passed those in his own political party the Parti Socialiste (Socialist party) which is the French equivalent of Britain's New Labour. Why? The IMF has since the 1970s, epitomised that peculiar brand of aggressive capitalism known as neoliberalism itself championed in political and economic terms firstly by the dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and later Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It was known for its fire-sale attitude toward wounded capitals who had encountered difficulties in a global economic downturn of the stagflationary 1970s. It also struck a bellicose approach towards working class organisations such as trade unions (and in Pinochet's case working class political opposition and democracy itself). It was defined by its intrinsic hostility towards public services, public sector workers and a theoretical antipathy towards state intervention in the economy or elsewhere. For the neoliberals, state interventionism = socialism. Hostility towards state intervention meant outright hostility towards its ideological epitome socialism or communism. This was more widely played out on the broader canvass labelled the 'Cold War'. In reality it was a clash of two ideologies: not capitalism versus communism but free market capitalism versus state directed capitalism or more simply put - free markets versus closed markets. It did however suit the ruling classes on both sides at an ideological level. Despite its appellation it was quite often characterised by the intense heat it created and in the case of Korea, Vietnam, Africa and Latin America the many millions of corpses. 

Poacher turned egg-whisker

The Independent today can report that Strauss-Kahn's arrest for alleged rape has 'plunged France's socialists into turmoil' (see related articles) yet should it not be Strauss-Khan's leadership of the above institution that provides the crisis for the French socialists? Strauss-Kahn has often been described as a 'Champagne Socialist'. Yet does it not seem at all odd that a person who was planning to stand as a presidential candidate for a socialist party, could head an organisation that is stridently antithetical to the principles of socialism? This is even more trenchant particularly as many advanced Western economies including the UK, France and other less industrially developed countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, are mired in a period of deep austerity imposed from above. One might have thought it would have at least given the Parti Socialiste apparatchiks and supporters pause for thought, as Strauss-Kahn's variety of socialism appears to be champagne socialism without the socialism - it's unabashedly champagne and it's the most expensive money can buy. If we could take a knife and slice the Parti Socialiste in half like a stick of rock, like it's British Labour counterpart, the word 'capitalism' would run along it whole length. And like a stick of rock, there's no way of removing the 'capitalism' without destroying the whole.

A necessary sacrifice for the future or a future sacrificed?

They got him a shirt of the very, very best...

Should we be surprised at this turn of events and the details of Strauss-Kahn's luxurious lifestyle? Hardly. Many accept that this type of activity is not simply the prevail of high profile political pretenders. How often are workers told that it is they who have to make essential, almost inevitable sacrifices, usually by millionaire policiticians? Everyday across the country and the continent, a tiny group of very well salaried unelected types who wield immense economic power, decide that it is you and a significant part of the workforce who must either lose their livelihoods or accept a lowering of the terms and conditions of employment. Yes it's you who may have to reapply for your job on worse terms - your boss certainly won't. Indeed the opposite is often the case as this corporate elite in their luxurious offices with the concomitant trappings of economic power may because of their strident ideology of restructuring clad in a florality of words such as 'transformation' or 'reform' receive much acclaim and possibly an increase in their remunerative packages and retire to prosperity with maybe a nice title to boot. Yet we're told that these necessary sacrifices are for some future good - our good. It's an uncashable chip. 

No we should not be at all surprised. Nor should we forget that their apparent power is based wholly on the fact that we remain passive, as recent events in Egypt and beyond have demonstrated. We should nonetheless take the hollow cant of our own everyday superiors with a large pinch of low-sodium salt.

Notes and References

(1) The New York Times May 16th 2011, sourced at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/dominique_strausskahn/index.html

(2)The Guardian online Sunday 15th May 2011 sourced at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/15/dominique-strauss-kahn-arrest-allegations

Related articles

• Strauss-Kahn arrest affects French election (independent.co.uk)