2 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial.......................................02
2016 Presidential Election...............03
Reproductive Rights Attacked.........05
University Faculty Fight Back..........06
Imperialism in the Pacific...............07
The History of Horror Film..............08
Drone Warfare and US Imperialism....10
Review of Just Mercy...................11
Big Pharma....................................12
Fighting Fund................................13
What Will Socialism Look Like?.........14
Our Program..................................15
ISSUE 091 | NOVDEC 2015
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EDITORIAL
The Crisis and the Minimum Wage
T
he Great Recession may have technically ended in June 2009, but what re-
ally matters are full employment and a steadily increasing quality of life. Capi-
talisms inability to provide this is not due to individual malice or indifference
though there are plenty of sociopaths on Wall Streetbut because under capitalism,
creating jobs and paying workers are mere afterthoughts to the real reason for the
systems existence: profits. This is the inner contradiction and absurdity of a socio-eco-
nomic form that can exist only through the exploitation of workers, and yet is unable
exploit all the able, willing, and available workers, millions of whom must humiliate
themselves every day, offering themselves up for jobs (exploitation) that dont exist.
Economist John Maynard Keynes is famous for advocating government deficit
spending in order to save capitalism from workers revolution. According to his calcu-
lations in 1935, on the basis of a 15-hour workweek, all workers could have jobs, and
the capitalists could maintain a healthy rate of profit by exploiting them. Of course,
Marxists are against capitalist exploitation altogether. But the point here is the follow-
ing: if a much lower workweek and decent standard of living for all was possible on
the basis of the technology and productive capacity available eight decades ago, just
imagine what would be possible today!
Millions of Americans are not only treading economic water but on the verge of
drowning. One stark measure of this is the federal minimum wage. First set at 25 cents
per hour in 1938, it crept up to $7.25 as of July 2009. Peaking in inflation-adjusted
purchasing power at $8.67 in 1968, todays minimum is more than a dollar lower in
real terms than was 47 years ago and has lost over 8.1% due to inflation since 2009.
According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, if worker productivity
were taken into account, the minimum should have been $21.72 an hour in 2012. An
estimated 3.7 million workers earn $7.25 or less. 42% of all employed Americans earn
$15 or less. To these must be added the 8 million officially unemployed and millions of
others who are no longer even counted.
In recent years, workers have begun mobilizing to Fight for $15, an important
beginning to labors fight back against the decades-long offensive of the bosses. But
even $15 is a far cry from a true living wage in many parts of the country. A worker in
New Jersey would have to work 94 hours a week at the state minimum wage of $8.38
to make ends meet. The estimated living wage for a single adult living there is $19.76.
In Hawaii, a single adult would have to work 100.7 hours a week at the state minimum
of $7.75, with the living wage estimated at $21.44. Compare this to the $10.5 million
average annual pay for a Fortune 500 CEO in 2012. Divided simply into 52 weeks and
40-hours per week, this works out to more than $5,000 per hournearly 700 times
more than a minimum wage earner!
When we launched Socialist Appeal in the Fall of 2001, our program called for a
living wage for alla national minimum wage of at least two-thirds of the average
wage. No exceptions. For a sliding scale of wages tied to inflation. A few years later,
we decided to concretize this by demanding $16 per hourroughly two-thirds the
average wage at that time. But many years events have passed since then, and this
demand deserved revisiting. After a thorough discussion, our national leadership has
voted unanimously to change our demand to $25 per hour, tied to inflation through
periodic cost of living adjustments.
This is still a long way from genuine socialism. However, we do not approach the
demands in our program in isolation. Taken as a whole, they form an all-round tran-
sitional program to fundamentally change society. The aim of our program is to raise
workers political horizons as to what would be possible if society were rationally or-
ganized and administered democratically by the workers themselves. The demand for
a higher minimum wage and the many other basic reforms we put forward simply
cannot be fully implemented and maintained within the profit system. When working
out our demands we do not proceed from what is possible within the artificial limits
of capitalism, but from the objective needs of the majority, the material wealth actu-
ally existing today, and the potential for multiplying that a thousand fold and more
under socialism. To achieve all this we need strong unions and a labor party with a
revolutionary socialist program. To fight for these we need organization, resources,
and numbers. Humanity deserves more than the minimum! To do your part, join us
today!
John Peterson, Editor
US POLITICS
Bernie Sanders and the Presidential Election (Part 2)
Continued from Socialist Appeal 90 . . .
B
ernie Sanders call for universal
health care is absolutely correct,
and understandably resonates
with millions. But the only way to actual-
ly achieve this is to nationalize the insur-
ance giants, hospitals, and pharmaceuti-
cal and medical technology monopolies,
which we should integrate into a high-
quality, unified health care system avail-
able to all. Likewise, to achieve universal
free education we must bring into pub-
lic ownership the private colleges, trade
schools, and universities, and link them
with existing public education networks
to create a unified, world-class higher
education system. Unfortu-
nately, Sanders is not call-
ing for any of this.
Other demands, such
as taxing the rich and rais-
ing the minimum wage, we
Marxists would support.
However, we must also
point out the limitations of
such demands. Capitalism
is a system of commodity
production, for the purpose
of exchange, in the pursuit
of profit. If a capitalist can
set up shop in a location
with lower taxes and la-
bor costs, they will. This
is precisely what is behind
the attacks on union rights
throughout the US. This is
also what explains the con-
tinued existence of the an-
ti-union Taft-Hartley Act,
which severely restricts the right of work-
ers to strike. As far as we can tell, Sanders
has not called for this law to be repealed.
Socialism is not capitalism plus a few
reforms. It is a fundamentally different
system that builds on what humanity has
already achieved under capitalism: col-
lective production of the wealth of soci-
ety. But under capitalism, a handful of
private owners appropriate the surplus
wealth which the working class produces.
Under socialism, the workers themselves
would collectively manage this surplus
wealth, and utilize it to satisfy human
need, not private profit. To take human-
ity to the next level, and to unleash the
enormous economic and human poten-
tial that capitalism squanders, we must
make the main levers of the economy
the top 500 companiespublicly owned,
democratically administered entities.
Sanders calls for a higher minimum
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
wage, more public works, increases in
Social Security, and more. The Marxists
support any reforms that would increase
the standard of living of the working
class; however, history shows that re-
forms like these are only possible if we
make serious inroads against capitalist
private ownership of the means of pro-
duction. Given the massive public debt,
there is no other source to fund all the
social and economic programs society re-
quires. Without the nationalization of the
major industries and their integration
into a democratically planned economy,
crisis-ridden capitalism, and everything
that organically flows from it, will con-
tinue to drag humanity down.
And without a mass party of the work-
ing class, without an organic link to the
labor unions, with no real organization
behind him to keep him accountable and
to fight the bosses in every workplace,
campus, and working-class neighbor-
hood, a Sanders government would find
itself weak and in crisis from the begin-
ning. He would find himself faced with
an overwhelmingly hostile media, Con-
gress, judiciary, and government bureau-
cracynot to mention the outright sabo-
tage of the capitalists. It would therefore
be virtually impossible for him to even
begin to implement the main elements of
his program.
Sanders and imperialism
For Marxists, imperialism has a pre-
cise and scientific meaning. It is the stage
when a capitalist economy is dominated
by monopoly and finance capital, it ex-
3
ports capital to other countries in search
of higher profits, and uses its close connec-
tions with the state apparatusincluding
the militaryto defend its interests in-
ternationally. This is true of the US today,
and has been since the late 1800s. Today
there are 7,000,000 businesses in the US,
but the top 500 corporations alone con-
trol 75% of the economy. There is massive
investment overseas and the military-
industrial complex has reached stagger-
ing proportions. There is a vast network
of diplomats and military bases whose
aim is to defend the US capitalists profit-
making operations. The US capitalists
which Sanders refers to as the billionaire
classwage class war against the workers
both at home and abroad.
Unfortunately, Bernie
Sanders does not openly ex-
plain and oppose imperial-
ism. While he has opposed
some spending on wars, at
other times he has voted to
fund the military, and is an
avid proponent of the new
advanced F-35 fighter jet,
which he hopes to manu-
facture in his home state of
Vermont.
Likewise, he does not
take a class position regard-
ing Israel. The Zionist re-
gime of Israel is one of the
main allies of US imperi-
alism in the Middle East,
although the two do not
always agree. The Zionist
state came into being on
the basis of war, occupation,
racism, and discrimination against the
Arab people of the region, and has used
the policy of divide and rule to oppress
and regularly slaughter the Palestinians. A
correct approach would seek to unite the
working class in Israel with the Arab mass-
es under occupation, to jointly put an end
to the exploitation and growing poverty of
the Israeli workers and the Arab masses.
In other words, the only solution is social-
ism, based on the united class struggle
and cooperation of all workers, peasants,
and the oppressed, against their common
capitalist exploiters and their local thugs.
This is the only way to begin establishing
a genuine and lasting peace in the Middle
East. Instead, Sanders clearly leans in the
direction of supporting the Israeli regime,
and offers no real solution.
Finally, the imperialists search for
cheap labor and to more thoroughly ex-
ploit markets internationally was what
4 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
was behind NAFTA, and is what is be-
hind the latest Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) trade agreement, which Obama
and many in the Democratic Party sup-
port. Sanders correctly opposes the TPP,
but does so with overtones of America
first! nationalisminstead of calling for
workers internationalism and a socialist
federation of the Americas and the world,
with mutual respect and solidarity as its
guiding principles.
Bernies record
Although people can and often do
change their positions on various issues,
Bernie Sanders political history is worth
reviewing to track his trajectory. It is in-
teresting to note that when Bernie Sand-
ers was in college, he was a member of
CORE (Congress Of Racial Equality) and
YPSL (Young Peoples Socialist League),
which had links to the Socialist Party of
America. He began his political career as
a member of the antiwar Liberty Union
Party in the early 1970s, in Vermont.
Prior to that he had lived and worked on
a kibbutz commune in Israel, where La-
bor Zionism likely inspired himwhich
would also explain some of his pro-Israel
positions today.
In 1981, he won the position of Mayor
of Burlington, Vermont, as an indepen-
dent, and subsequently won reelection
three times, defeating both main political
parties even when they teamed up to de-
feat him in elections.
In 1989 Sanders spoke alongside one
of Britains Marxist members of parlia-
ment, Terry Fields, at the founding con-
ference of the Campaign for a Labor Par-
ty. In 1990, he went on to win election to
the US House of Representatives for Ver-
mont, once again running as an indepen-
dent. However, this was the beginning of
a long association with the Democratic
Party, with which he has caucused con-
sistently ever since. Although he stood
against the initial invasion of Iraq, earlier
in 2001, Sanders had voted in favor of the
authorization that led to the invasion of
Afghanistan.
In 2006, riding a wave of anti-Bush
sentiment in which the Democrats took
control of both houses of Congress, he
won a seat in the US Senate. While he
again ran as an independent, this time
he had the blessing of many Democratic
Party bigwigs, including Chuck Schumer,
Harry Reid, and Howard Dean.
In 2010, Sanders gave an eight-and-a-
half-hour-long filibuster speech against
the extension of the George W. Bush tax
cuts for the rich. In the aftermath of the
Occupy movement, his reputation for his
stand against the Bush tax cuts led to calls
for him to run in the 2012 election, which
he rejected. Fast forward three years,
when a group of ex-Occupy activists, who
set up People for Bernie Sanders, encour-
aged Sanders to run. In addition, the Pro-
gressive Democrats of America encour-
aged him to run as a Democrat.
All on his own in Washington, DC,
without a clear political program, meth-
od, and party to keep him on track and
hold him accountable in the face of the
immense pressures that exist in capital-
ist society, its not surprising that Bernie
Sanders has found himself moving clos-
er and closer to the camp of the Demo-
cratic Party, through the alleged need to
be pragmatic, i.e., to accept the narrow
limits of bourgeois politics and the capi-
talist system. His direct involvement with
the Democratic Party as a potential presi-
dential candidate can only lead to more
pressure being put on him to fall in line.
Bait and switch and the role of the
Democrats
Bernie Sanders is not the first left-
leaning politician to run in the Demo-
cratic primaries. Although conditions
change and history never repeats itself
exactly, it is nonetheless instructive to re-
view similar campaigns from the past. It
is not for nothing that many have referred
to the Democratic Party as the graveyard
of social movements.
Populist Democrat George McGovern
ran for president in 1972. At that time,
there was a huge movement against the
Vietnam War, the civil rights and wom-
ens movements were also large, and there
was a wave of strikes, including unofficial
wildcat strikes. In this context, McGov-
ern won the Democratic nomination. His
role was to ensure these movements did
not move toward an alternative left-labor
political party, to keep them in safe
channels that did not threaten the rule
of capitalism. As was also the case with
the William Jennings Bryan campaigns
in 1896 and 1900, when McGovern was
nominated, key parts of the Democratic
Party sabotaged the campaign, and Nix-
on won reelection in a landslide.
In 1984 and 1988, Jesse Jackson ran in
the Democratic primaries, proposing to
create a Rainbow Coalition comprised
of civil rights activists from a variety of
backgrounds, as well as a program similar
to FDRs New Deal. In both campaigns,
Jackson served to play the role of bait,
drawing many who otherwise would have
been moving even further, and away from
the parties of big business, right back into
the big tent of the Democrats.
In 2004 Dennis Kucinich ran in the
Democratic primaries as an antiwar can-
US POLITICS
didate, only to lose and endorse pro-war
nominee John Kerry. In 2008, Kucinich
ran again, this time on a program to re-
peal the Patriot Act, legalize same-sex
marriage, end the War on Drugs, estab-
lish universal health care, and many oth-
er social reforms. After he failed to win
the nomination, he again went on to en-
dorse the Democratic candidate, Barack
Obama.
The Democratic Party, which histori-
cally was a party of the Southern slave-
owners and the Northern capitalist politi-
cal machines, gained its worker friendly
reputation during the FDR presidency,
when the New Deal Democrats became
dominant within the party. Using the car-
rot of the various New Deal programs,
they aimed to pacify and control an in-
creasingly militant labor movement that
was moving in the direction of forming
a labor party. The Democrats cynically
used the Works Progress Administration
programs to win elections by hiring the
unemployed during election season, only
to lay off many workers once their elec-
toral positions were secured.
The economic reality is that New Deal
did not end the Great Depressionthe
massive state-directed buildup and par-
ticipation in the slaughter of World War
II is what finally revived the economy.
What the New Deal did was take the edge
off just enough in order to allow capital-
ism a political and economic breathing
space, and, eventually, another lease on
life after the war. While many people
desperate for any relief have illusions in
a new New Deal, genuine socialism will
make the New Deal programs of the past
seem like childs play.
Author Gore Vidal knew a thing or
two about the American political system,
having grown up in a family steeped in
American politics. He once said that the
United States has one political party,
the Property Party, and it has two right
wings, the Democrats and Republicans.
This is an apt assessment of the US politi-
cal system.
The Democrats and Republicans,
while formally two separate parties,
merely represent two different wings
of the American ruling class. One wing,
more arrogant, more brazen, and less
farsighted, seeks to implement counter-
reforms, cuts, and austerity as quickly
as possible. Another wing, a little more
intelligent, more sensitive to the moods
of society, and slightly more farsighted,
seeks to implement counterreforms, cuts,
and austerity in a more calculated way,
so as to not provoke a backlash from the
working class.
. . . to be continued in Issue 92
WOMENS RIGHTS
The Struggle for Abortion RightsWhich Way Forward?
TOM TROTTIER
T
he struggle for abortion rights has
always been vitally important for
Marxists. The choice of having and
raising children is always more difficult
for the working class. Many working class
women are forced to obtain an abortion
because they have no adequate or afford-
able child care, and cannot afford to sim-
ply quit their jobs. This is not as much of
an issue for most wealthy women. Even
when abortion was illegal, many ruling
class women could have it done secretly
and safely by a private doctor, or travel
to a country where it was legal to have
the procedure. On the other hand, work-
ing class women were forced to endure
dangerous and unsafe conditions, with
abortions performed by people who were
often not trained medical professionals.
Many women died or were severely in-
jured by the procedure.
Even though abortion has been legal-
ized, it is not so simple for working class
women to get one if they choose to have
one. 58% of women seeking abortion are
in their 20s and dont have a regular or
high enough income, or a partner to help
cover the costs. Most health care plans
wont cover the cost of an abortion, which
averages $500, but can approach $1,500
in the first trimester. 42% of women seek-
ing abortions have an income level below
the poverty linea percentage that has
surely increased dramatically since 2008.
Now the Republican Party has
launched a major attack on Planned Par-
enthoods funding. Although Planned
Parenthood receives no federal money
for abortion services, the extreme right
wants it defunded, and some members of
Congress are even willing to shut down
the federal government to attain their
goal. Although Planned Parenthood is
the latest target, this issue is really about
the broader struggle to stop the steady
erosion of abortion rights.
Ending federal funding is seen as a
way of crippling or at least indirectly re-
ducing abortion provision; it is estimated
that one out of four abortions in the US
are provided by Planned Parenthood.
This is all part of a national political ef-
fort to use laws regulating medical clinics
in order to shut down health care cen-
ters that provide abortions. These kinds
of regulations have led to horrible situa-
tions in places like Texas. Texas is enor-
mous, larger than the whole of France.
In 2012, there were 41 clinics in the state
providing abortions; now, after the pas-
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
sage of ever-more restrictive laws, there
are only 18. As a result, depending on
where a pregnant woman happens to live,
she could be forced to travel hundreds of
miles to and from a providerassuming
she can even afford the cost and time off
from work to have the procedure done.
Many women must therefore wait until
they have saved up enough moneyor
simply not get an abortion, leading to
bigger problems later.
Abortion was made illegal in the US,
at the state level, between the 1820s and
the 1870s. This was all within the context
of the institutional patriarchy and sexism
of American capitalist society. The role
of a woman was to be wife and mother.
If she needed to work outside the home,
this was in addition to, but not instead of
her other roles.
Both world wars drew many more
women into the workforce. But after each
of these wars, and especially at the be-
ginning of the postWorld War II boom,
women who had entered industry and
other jobs were sent back home. Given the
relative prosperity, some working class
women ended up as full-time housewives
and mothers, as the household could sur-
vive on a single income. However, as the
economy slowed down and the squeeze
began on workers wages, rights, and con-
ditions, the contradictions resulting from
societys limitations on women and the
hypocrisy of bourgeois values led more
and more women back into the work-
force. This was excellent for capitalism
at the time, as the expansion of the work-
force served to drive down wages and
increase the rate of profit. In the 1960s
and 1970s, the civil rights movement, the
antiVietnam War movement, LGBTQ+
struggle, and the general youth rebellion
also led to a growth in the movement for
womens and abortion rights.
In 1973, the Supreme Court made its
famous Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing
abortion nationally during the first tri-
mester and, with some restrictions, dur-
ing the second trimester of pregnancy.
The Supreme Court always balances the
economic and social needs of the ruling
class to ensure the stable maintenance of
the capitalist system. They saw the grow-
ing rebellion on the streets, with the re-
sulting social and political instability, and
they did not want this to go any further.
They calculated that by granting a few
reforms, they could cut across this move-
mentand they did just that. However,
even the most basic democratic rights
are at risk as long as the capitalists are
5
in control, and almost immediately, the
right wing launched a counterattack.
As with most medical procedures, in
order to assure maximum patient safety,
abortions should be conducted in a hos-
pital or a regular medical office, with the
necessary staff and equipment to deal with
any and all eventualities. In the US, how-
ever, the ruling class has successfully seg-
regated the delivery of abortion services
to abortion clinics. With many hospitals
under the control of the Catholic Church
and other religious entities, the provi-
sion of abortions has been shunted aside
to these isolated clinics, many of them
run by Planned Parenthood. If abortions
were conducted in hospitals, the throngs
of right-wing protesters harassing wom-
en entering these small clinics would lose
their easy targets for intimidation; and
if they tried this tactic at hospitals, the
majority of the public would quickly turn
against these fundamentalists. As before,
wealthy women have other alternatives to
these clinics and are not subjected to this
kind of humiliation.
The liberals and the professional
womens rights organizations like NOW,
NARAL, and EMILYS List have not
challenged the segregation of abortion
services to these isolated institutions.
Their strategy has been to lobby, initiate
lawsuits, and support pro-choice Demo-
crats, under the assumption that this will
lead to good Supreme Court judges. We
now see that their strategy is leading to
defeat, as access to abortion services is
being rolled back in one state after an-
other.
Working class women cannot leave
their lives in the hands of conservative
or liberal politicians, no matter of which
gender. The fight for abortion rights and
equality must be linked to other demands
that will bring about positive change
for all workers. All hospitals and medi-
cal offices should be nationalized under
democratic workers control. All health
services, including abortion, should be
provided free at the point of service in
hospitals and regular health clinicsno
more segregation, and no more paying
for health care! This must be combined
with the struggle for fully paid parental
leave and free, high-quality daycare cen-
ters, which should be available at or very
near the site of a parents employment.
Needless to say, the capitalist system will
not provide these kinds of reforms in any
meaningful way, and this struggle must
therefore be a struggle for socialism. u
6 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
California Faculty Associations Fight for Five
SAMUEL CREMO & PETE WALSH
The California Faculty Association
(CFA) has begun the Fight for Five
campaign in a dispute with the adminis-
tration of the California State University
(CSU) system after seeing faculty wages
stagnate for ten years and real wages fall
by up to 25% between 2004 and 2013.
The CFA is demanding a general salary
increase of 5% for fiscal year 2015/2016,
whereas the CSU administration has pro-
posed a mere 2% increase. This miserly
offer adds insult to
injury in the context
of the administra-
tions history of never
settling during the
mandated media-
tion process. Over the
same period, the av-
erage tuition paid by
students in the CSU
system has increased
by over 300%, dis-
crediting the admin-
istrations claim that
increasing faculty
wages would lead to
tuition increases
they have already
risen dramatically de-
spite stagnant wages.
In light of all this, the
CFA has called for a
strike authorization
vote.
Deteriorating working conditions for
instructors directly affects the quality
of education students receive. With an
average yearly salary for CSU faculty of
$45,000, and with more than 50% of fac-
ulty making less than $38,000 in gross
earnings per year (often with terminal
degrees and hefty student loans), instruc-
tors are commonly driven to teach nu-
merous courses at multiple school sites.
This leaves them less able to devote time
and attention to individual students and
courses. A general salary increase for in-
structors is an important step for ensur-
ing quality of education for all university
students.
Following the enactment of the Cali-
fornia Master Plan for Higher Education
in the 1960s, public higher education in
California was relatively low cost and well
funded . What, then, has led to the mas-
sive tuition increases and deteriorating
wages and conditions for the employees
of the California State University system?
Following World War II, capitalism (es-
pecially US capitalism), experienced a re-
vival, known as the postwar boom. After
the severe economic decline of the Great
Depression, this recovery was largely due
to the destruction wrought upon Euro-
pean production and the resultant ability
of the US capitalist class to export both
capital and consumer goods to Europe.
Based on the expanded markets and ris-
ing profits, the bosses were able to con-
cede some concessions fought for by the
working class, temporarily buying a rela-
tive degree of class peace.
With the end of the boom in 1973,
however, the inherent contradictions of
capitalism were exacerbated once again,
leading to a prolonged crisis. With the
productive forces of Europe having
been reconstructed, the capitalist class
once again was driven by competition
to produce more goods than could be
purchased back by the working class.
Since all value is created by labor, and
workers are compelled to sell their la-
bor power (their ability to work) for a
wage, but work longer than the time re-
quired to produce the value of their la-
bor power (the socially necessary labor
time required for the maintenance of the
workers their families), more values are
produced than can be absorbed by the
market. This is what Marx called a crisis
of overproduction. The value created over
and above that which is paid back to the
workers in wages is called surplus value.
This is the source of the capitalists prof-
its. The struggle over this surplus is what
constitutes the class struggle. Along with
things like Social Security, state-funded
LABOR AND EDUCATION
education represents part of the social
wage the working class has won from the
capitalists in the course of this struggle.
In the midst of the crisis of their sys-
tem, the capitalists are driven to roll back
reforms won in the past in order to claw
back more of the surplus value created
by the workers. Reducing wages (both
paid and social), lengthening the work-
day, cutting education, and shifting the
burden for funding it to working people
are all ways in which they seek to increase
their profits. The irony is that at a time
when we are told
there is no money,
there is actually
more than enough
wealth in society to
provide free, qual-
ity education for all,
living grants for stu-
dents, a living wage
for instructors, and
to wipe out all stu-
dent loans. Under
capitalism, however,
in which a small
parasitic minority
controls society in
its own interests,
this is impossible.
The CFA, in its
struggle against the
CSU administra-
tion, should be sup-
ported in this by all
California students and workers. Their
demand of a 5% pay increase, far from
being extravagant, merely aims to slow
down the onslaught. Such an increase
would not even make up for the loss of
the purchasing power due to inflation
over the last decade. By linking their
demands with those of students and the
working class in general, thereby gain-
ing their support and solidarity, and by
backing these demands with rallies, dem-
onstrations, strikes, and occupations if
forced to do so, the workers of the CFA
could win much more than they are de-
manding, such as a greater pay increase
that is tied to inflation and the rising cost
of living. However, to secure any such
gains against future rollbacks and to en-
sure a high and ever-improving quality
of life for all workers, we need to unite to
fight both in our unions and in politics.
For this we need working class solidarity,
a strong and militant labor movement,
and a labor party of, by, and for the work-
ers, fighting for socialism. u
IMPERIALISM IN THE PACIFIC
Deep Discontent in Japanese Society
TIMOTHY BAY
J
apanese society is in a deep crisis. Af-
ter decades of economic stagnation,
the political elite is making desper-
ate attempts to revive the economy, at the
same time as attempting to whip up anti-
Chinese nationalist sentiment to shore
up support. Yet, the recent mass move-
ment against the reinterpretation of the
so-called pacifist clause shows that the
political system is reaching its limits.
The postwar regime in Japan is crum-
bling, with tax hikes, end to lifetime em-
ployment, and tax cuts for the corpora-
tions. The remilitarization is only another
nail in the coffin of the postwar settle-
ment. Turnout in elections has dropped
from 69% to 53%, which is a sign of the
mass disillusionment with bourgeois pol-
itics. At the same time, the Communist
Party doubled its share of the vote in the
election last year to 13%, adding another
2 million votes. The stage is being set for
revolutionary convulsions in Japan, and
the movement against the changing of
the pacifist clause is only the beginning.
Aspiring sincerely to an internation-
al peace based on justice and order, the
Japanese people forever renounce war
as a sovereign right of the nation and the
threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes. To accomplish the
aim of the preceding paragraph, land,
sea, and air forces, as well as other war
potential, will never be maintained. The
right of belligerency of the state will not
not be recognized.Article 9 of the Japa-
nese constitution
After the horror of World War II, paci-
fism was forced onto the Japanese people
at gunpoint. The US wished to eliminate
the threat of an independent military
power in the Pacific, and it seized the
opportunity presented by victory to dis-
mantle the Japanese military and write
a repudiation of force into the Japanese
constitution. It soon came to regret this,
however. Pacifism gained support among
the Japanese population, who saw it as
a means of redirecting the money spent
on military affairs to socially useful tasks.
Cold War geopolitics forced the US into
the position of bearing the cost of defend-
ing Japan.
As memories of world war began to
fade, the need to counter China and the
Soviet Union in the region increased, and
as the potential profits of a Japanese mili-
tary became apparent, the ruling class of
both the US and Japan began to look for
ways to remilitarize the Japanese state.
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
This project has not gone unopposed.
While Japan has had a de facto military
in the form of a self-defense force since
1954, Japan has only been able to take
part in UN peacekeeping missions since
1992, and only since 2004 has the coun-
try taken part in the support aspects of
such missions. All of this is taking place
in the context of the decline of US impe-
rialism, while competition with Chinese
imperialism for regional influence is ris-
ing. The US needs Japans help in holding
off Chinese expansion at the same time as
the Japanese bourgeoisie no longer feels
that the US is capable of defending its in-
terests.
Nonetheless, despite this creeping mil-
itarization, and Prime Minister Abes best
efforts, Article 9 isnt going to be revised
anytime soon. The Japanese proletariat is
committed to defending what they view
as Japans pacifistic constitution and, in
doing so, have revived memories of the
1960 struggle against Japans security
treaty with the US, which ceded Japanese
land for US military bases.
The people of Japan are not interested
in engaging in imperialist adventures on
behalf of the Japanese bourgeoisie and
their US allies. The past imperialist ad-
ventures of the Japanese bourgeois did
not end well, with 3 million dead in World
War II, and massive atrocities committed
in China and Korea. To add insult to in-
jury, the rearmament program will cost
no less than $240bn, at the same time as
the government is meting out austerity
on the poor.
To get around this popular opposition,
Abe has launched a campaign to reinter-
7
pret the constitution by introducing the
idea of so-called collective self-defense,
which allows Japans self-defense force to
take part in operations to defend its al-
liesrather than merely protecting Japa-
nese territoryand sanctions the sale of
weapons to foreign powers. The measure
is deeply unpopular in Japan, and there
is widespread agreement among legal ex-
perts that it is unconstitutional in its fun-
damentals. But with a stagnant economy,
growing social discontent, and highly lu-
crative weapons sales in the offing, even
the basic democratic right of deciding
whether or not the people of Japan wish
to alter their constitutional system has
been thrown out the window.
Pacifism in Japan was the product of
the balance of forces after World War
II with the Chinese Revolution and the
rise of the Soviet Union. It was not by a
sudden change of heart by the Japanese
ruling class. Wars and militarism are
not caused by shifty politicians lacking a
commitment to peace, but by real con-
tradictions in economic and social devel-
opment. Abes maneuvers are merely an
expression of the needs of Japanese im-
perialism in this period. Militarism and
imperialism cannot be separated from
the capitalist system. They necessarily
arise from it and can in the end only be
eradicated when capitalism itself is abol-
ished: To end war we have to end capi-
talism! This movement shows the first
cracks in the regime, and prepares the
way for a struggle, not just against im-
perialism, but against capitalism itself in
one of the systems key bastions. u
8 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
Horror FilmCapitalisms Decline Through the Lens
MARK RAHMAN
To read the unabridged article, please
visit SocialistAppeal.org
I
n an article on World War I, Lenin
once remarked that, Capitalist so-
ciety is and has always been horror
without end. In discussing the early de-
velopment of capitalism in his classic,
Capital, Marx said that upon its arrival
in history capital comes dripping from
head to foot, from every pore, with blood
and dirt. In the same book, Marx stated
that, Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-
like, only lives by sucking living labor, and
lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
In the very same chapter, Marx compares
the capitalists drive for surplus labor to a
werewolf s hunger. ticipating in a reactionary slaughter.
Armed with a Marxist understanding of
society and a knowledge of the enormous
potential for a better world, these individu-
als saw capitalism for what it wasa hor-
ror. Their identification of age-old folklore
and Victorian era tales of vampires, were-
wolves, and boogeymen with the crimes,
injustices, and enormous waste of capital-
ism is not surprisingit is a feeling uncon-
sciously shared by millions and reflected in
the popularity of the horror genre since the
very beginning of cinema.
Whatever the intentions behind the
production of these films, they have inev-
itably tended to act as a mirror reflecting
the anxieties and fears of the time. The
films that connected most with viewers
were invariably those that seemed most
familiar and relatable, no matter how
fantastical the story was on the surface.
Because of this it is no accident that you
can trace various points of the last centu-
ry of capitalisms prolonged death agony
through the most popular horror films.
The earliest film studios produced hor-
ror, but it wasnt until the aftermath of
World War I that the genre really reso-
nated with viewers. World War I repre-
sented a historical turning point in the de-
velopment of capitalism. While capitalism
had developed the means of production
to enormous levels unimagined in pre-
capitalist society, it had begun to reach its
limits by the turn of the century. Through
the war, capitalism had concretely proven
to the whole world that it was no longer
an ascendant system, but a system of cri-
sis that threatened to drag all of humanity
down with it. The war led to the destruc-
tion of huge swathes of Europe; the death
of more than 16 million people, nearly half
of whom were civilians; and left millions
of soldiers emotionally and physically
scarred by the slaughter.
The landmark German expressionist
films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
and Nosferatu (1922) tapped into the psy-
chology of unease and insecurity in post-
war Germany. Revolutionary upheavals
and counterrevolutionary setbacks com-
bined with economic crises to characterize
this period in German history. Between
the creeping vampire killing scores in
their sleep (Nosferatu), and the sleepwalk-
er manipulated to commit murder at the
behest of a mad doctor (The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari), the films highlighted the feeling
of many German workers that they had
been duped and cowed by the German
ruling classand even their own leaders
in the Social Democratic Partyinto par-
towards science fiction, dealing with fears
Seeing the brutalities of war firsthand
left many soldiers struggling to adjust to
life as normal on their return from the
front. This found its expression in a num-
ber of horror films from the 1920s which
focused on monsters that were wrestling
with their own inner demons. In 1920
alone, two adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde were produced in the US, and
another German adaptation titled The
Head of Janus.
A decade later, the stock market crash
on October 24, 1929 ushered in the deep-
est crisis world capitalism had yet seen.
The ensuing hardship felt by millions of
workers led to widespread cynicism and a
deep questioning of society. In the United
States, Hollywood played no small role in
attempting to bolster confidence in capi-
talist society. But the popularity of hor-
ror films at the time still reflected a bleak
outlook that was characteristic of the
American psychology prior to the mid-
1930s fightback of labor.
Frankenstein (1931) and Island of Lost
Souls (1932) zeroed in on the horrors that
humanity itself could conjure up. Loosely
following Mary Shelleys classic novel,
Frankenstein, the film depicted a mon-
ster who was brought to life by a crazed
doctor, abandoned, and rejected by the
world he sought acceptance in. Upon its
release, unemployment in the United
States had nearly doubled in one year.
Additionally, the phenomenon of vast
numbers of immigrant workers in search
of a livelihood added to the widespread
feeling of rejection and alienation.
In Island of Lost Souls, an adaptation
of H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau,
the doctor is transforming animals into
humans, but they are incomplete, half
ARTS AND CULTURE
human and half animal, experiencing the
emotional and cognitive complexity of
humans, but treated as animals for mere
experimentation. The film ends with the
death of Dr. Moreau at the hands of his
tortured subjects.
By 1934, the American working class
was regaining energy and confidence.
Three general strikes (San Francisco, CA;
Minneapolis, MN; Toledo, OH) ushered
in a new period of labors rebirth in the
form of the Congress of Industrial Orga-
nizations. The mood of doom and gloom
had been replaced with a mood of defiant
fight back and this may explain Holly-
woods shift towards campiness and com-
mercialization in the horror genre that
lasted through subsequent decades.
The horror films of the 1950s turned
about the effects of radiation, prehistoric
monsters, scientific experiments gone
awry, and invaders from outer space.
Godzilla (1954), which was produced
in Japan, reflects the psychological im-
pact of the dropping of the atom bomb
and the carpet bombing of many Japa-
nese cities. Tapping into the fears of nu-
clear war, the film was an international
hit and ignited a series of sequels and
other similar big monster films.
In Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(1956), alien plant spores have rained
down on suburban America, creating
clones of people that are devoid of emo-
tion. It was interpreted by some on the po-
litical right to represent the soulless con-
formity that existed in the Stalinist Soviet
Union, but many on the left saw in it the
soulless conformity that was all-consum-
ing in McCarthy-era United States.
Almost preempting the youth move-
ments of the latter half of the decade,
many of the films of the 1960s begin to
highlight intergenerational conflict, a
theme that has continued ever since.
Psycho (1960) is perhaps the quintessen-
tial example of this. The film begins as a
typical Hitchcock thriller, with a woman
stealing a large sum of money from her
employer and heading for California. On
the way she meets Norman, the young,
sensitive, but awkward keeper of the
Bates Motel. Normans motherwho is
later revealed to be dead and to live on
exclusively in Normans mindis abu-
sive and extremely jealous of anyone who
might steal his attention away from her.
George Romeros classic Night of the
Living Dead (1968) took the world by
storm. Many themes are at play in this
film that highlight the political polariza-
ARTS AND CULTURE
tion of the time. In a nod to the civil rights
movement, the main protagonist is a de-
cisive and strong black man, Ben, who
is often at odds with a patriarchal white
man, Harry, on how to defend themselves
against the zombies outside. The film was
produced just months after the assassina-
tion of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bens
deathnot at the hands of zombies but at
the hands of police who mistake him for
oneseems to pay tribute to this.
By 1973 the postwar boom had reached
its limits, ushering in a two-year-long
recession that was felt over much of the
world. In the United States it was charac-
terized by the return of high unemploy-
ment, stagflation, and the clawing back
of gains made by the labor movement
throughout the postwar period.
The mid-70s recession made its mark
felt in a number of films of the later 1970s,
particularly George Romeros Dawn of the
Dead (1978), in which four people take
shelter in an abandoned indoor shopping
mall where all their needs are within reach.
Shopping malls were a new phenomenon
at the time, reflecting capitalisms new de-
pendence on credit and consumerism to
artificially keep the economy alive.
In 1974, Tobe Hoopers The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre was released and be-
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
gan to introduce a number of ideas that
were to later be adopted by the slasher
films of the 1980s. The film focuses on a
group of young hippies visiting rural Tex-
as from the city. On their way they meet
an unsettling hitchhiker who explains to
them the superiority of killing cows with
a sledge hammer, versus the machinery
that took his job away from him. It is later
revealed that he is just one member of an
entire family of sadistic murderers who
presumably all used to work at a nearby
slaughterhouse. One by one the hippies
all meet their gruesome end, except for
the final girl, a motif that was to become
characteristic of many horror films from
the 1980s onward.
John Carpenters Halloween (1978),
Sean S. Cunninghams Friday the 13th
(1980), the late Wes Cravens Nightmare
on Elm Street (1984), and even Alien
(1979) and Terminator (1984) represent
the quintessential films of the slasher
genre. Each of these films also includes
the final girl motif, with audiences iden-
tifying with a female protagonist.
The rest of the 1980s into the 90s was
characterized by a series of sequels, re-
flecting Hollywoods increasing unwill-
ingness to invest in new ideas.
The 2000s continued to produce ex-
9
tremely commercialized movies that were
more often than not derivative of previous
horror films. However, a few innovations
in the genre are worth mentioning. Saw
(2004) and its subsequent sequels ham-
mered away at the idea of a killer who
places his victims in horrifying positions,
offers them the choice to kill or be killed,
or to risk horrible disfigurement in order
to survive. This is not unlike the dog-eat-
dog morality that capitalism promotes!
The horror film genre has become a
part of modern folklore. In pre-capitalist
society, mythological tales of ghosts, spec-
ters, demons, and godsboth good and
badwere used as explanations for forc-
es of nature that could not be explained
and that humanity had no control over.
Avalanches, forest fires, floods,
droughts, volcanos, plagues, and more
were catastrophes that challenged hu-
manity. It is the labor process by which
we reshape our environment to overcome
these elemental forces that defines us as
a species. However, we live in a society in
decline, in which the very forces that hold
the most sway over the fate of humanity
are out of our control. What can be more
horrifying?
Modern bourgeois society, with its re-
lations of production, of exchange and of
property, a society that has conjured up
such gigantic means of production and of
exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no lon-
ger able to control the powers of the nether
world whom he has called up by his spells.
This quote from the Communist Mani-
festo sums up the crossroads humanity
finds itself at. While capitalism has devel-
oped the means of production to a level
that can provide a comfortable life for
all and has given us the tools to conquer
nearly any obstacle nature can throw at
us, we are (for now) stuck in a situation
where the booms and slumps of the stock
markets determine the fate of billions of
people. The only way to overcome this
contradiction is through the revolution-
ary transformation of society, with the
organized working class at the helm, tak-
ing conscious, democratic control over the
tremendous forces we, as a species, have
created.
This would lead to a flowering of hu-
man science, technique, and culture on
an unimaginable scale, giving us the tools
to build a society free from the anxieties,
insecurities, and horrors that psychologi-
cally maim and scar millions of people. A
society in which we are free from the blind
forces that affect our lives would likely re-
sult in the decline of a genre that will al-
most certainly come to characterize class
society on the whole and the final stages of
capitalisms decline in particular. u
10 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015 CRISIS OF IMPERIALISM

American Imperialism and the Drone War

CONSTANCE LEE

A
lthough its power has declined
in recent years, the United States
remains the dominant military
and political power in the world. The fall
of the USSR left a vacuum on the world
stage, and without an ideological enemy
a counterweight to American military ag-
gressionthe US expanded its power and
influence with merciless interventions.
Through a series of both covert operations
and outright invasions, the US protected
the economic interests of its capitalists
and consolidated worldwide political
domination. For an entire historical pe-
riod, American imperialism faced little
opposition domestically or internationally.
Nonetheless, such brutal foreign policy
could not go wholly unnoticed by the in-
creasingly war-weary American public. In
order to gain a marginal degree of popular
support, both presently and historically,
the true nature of these foreign interven-
tions has been consistently obscured and
mystified by the state and media.
On October 15, the Intercept pub- phrase capture/kill is a misnomer, for the region. The instability devastating the
lished a series of articles about the inner the administrations efforts are exclusive- region arose precisely because of Western
workings of the drone program. The in- ly about killing, regardless of the collat- imperialism. The imperialists are there-
formation was obtained from military eral damage. fore fighting against the terrorism they
documents released by an anonymous When a strike is authorized, there is themselves created, while sowing the
whistleblower. Unsurprisingly, the docu- then a 60-day window for the strike to be seeds for even more chaos and instability.
ments revealed the cynical degree to carried out. Therefore, the threat is clearly The last section of the Intercept ar-
which the US had been lying about the not imminent. In fact, the term immi- ticles, titled Target Africa, details the
drone programspecifically regarding nent threat has never been defined by recent expansion of US military bases
its authorization and targeting proce- the governmentbut surely two months in various regions of Africa. At present,
dures, and its effectiveness. is not a plausible definition. Individual these seem to be used primarily for refu-
Firstly, what has the public been told strikes themselves are not authorized by eling aircraft and drones. However, this
about the drone program? The Obama President Obama; rather, the target is au- expanding military influence shows the
administration has stated that drone thorized. As a result, civilians live in con- continued efforts of US imperialism to
strikes would be more precise and re- stant terror of this imprecise drone war. shore up its interests worldwide, even if it
sult in fewer casualties than sending in Zubair Rehman, whose grandmother was has been forced to beat a strategic retreat
ground troops. Strikes would only be killed by a drone, said in 2013, I no longer in many areas due to the economic crisis.
made in situations of imminent threat love blue skies . . . When the sky brightens, Imperialism is, as Lenin said, the high-
if there was a near certainty that the drones return and we live in fear. est stage of capitalism. Capitalism inevi-
target could not be captured. The so-called War on Terror is used tably leads to the aggressive expansion
According to the documents, roughly to justify the drone program. However, of markets, as the capitalists attempt to
9 out of 10 victims of drone strikes are contrary to what the US government and increase profits by exporting capital and
untargeted. Those untargeted are post- bourgeois media say, this is not a war for using military force to defend and expand
humously labeled enemies killed in ac- democracy in the Middle East. The US their access to economic resources such as
tion, whether they were actually enemy has no qualms about supporting undem- oil and cheap labor power. The drone pro-
troops or simply civilians. In one exam- ocratic regimes. It has upheld numerous gram is just another tool of US imperial-
ple, during 201113, the CIA launched tyrannical states in the past and contin- ism. As the public grows tired of sending
Operation Haymaker in Afghanistan ues to do so in the presentso long as US in boots on ground, remote-controlled
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In the interests are maintained. For example, bombings becomes the more viable, albeit
end, 35 targets were eliminated, though the US has blatantly toppled democrati- less effective, method. However, the solu-
200 were labeled as enemies killed in ac- cally elected governments, such as the tion is not merely to demand the end of
tion. In this manner, the high number of leftist government of Allende in Chile the inhumane drone program. Imperial-
civilian deaths is concealed. Drone strikes in 1973. More recently, the US has sup- ism and its horrors will continue so long as
have not been precise by any defini- ported despotic states in the Middle East, capitalism continues, and this is why the
tion of the word, nor have they resulted such as Saudi Arabia. Nor has the War on root cause of this unrelenting misery must
in reduced casualties. Furthermore, the Terror increased security and stability in be abolished once and for all. u
BOOK REVIEW
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
CHRISTOPHER HILL
T
he decay of the economy is lead-
ing to more and more people being
shut out from the traditional labor
market of capitalism. This section of soci-
ety is targeted with particular viciousness
by the state apparatusoften referred to
as the Criminal Justice Systema mis-
nomer if ever there was one. American
capitalism has created the most incarcer-
ated nation in the world. More people, as
a percentage of soci-
ety, are imprisoned
here than in China.
As the prison ap-
paratus continues to
grind down millions
of peoples lives, a
section of those who
work in this system
are becoming radi-
calized. One such
person is Bryan Ste-
venson. Stevenson
is a lawyer who has
spent the last several
decades running a
legal aid non-profit
called the Equal
Justice Initiative
(EJI). It special-
izes in advocating
the abolition of the
death penalty, and in
cases involving those sentenced to death
who are likely to be innocent, children
who were sentenced to life in prison, and
those who are guilty of crimes, but who
they believe should be given leniency due
to mental disability or other extenuating
circumstances.
According to the Death Penalty Infor-
mation Center there are currently 3,035
people on death row, 1,284 of whom are
white, 1,250 black, 386 Latino, and 81 de-
scribed as other. According to the same
source, a combined 44.4% of those who
have been executed since 1976 are black,
Latino, or other (than white). So far this
year there have been 22 executions in the
United States: 9 whites, 8 blacks, and 5
Latinos. This in a country where 63% of
the population is white, 13% black, and
17% Latino. Multiple studies have shown
that the number of actual crimes com-
mitted is relatively even across racial
lines, but that members of ethnic minori-
ties are much more likely to be arrested
and convicted of crimes.
Perhaps the most famous case that
Stevenson worked on was that of Walter
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
McMillian, a black small-business owner
who was framed by law enforcement for
the murder of a young white woman.
McMillian had angered many white
people in his hometown of Monroeville,
Alabama by having an affair with a white
woman. Walter had dozens of witnesses
saying that he was home on the day of
the murder, but he made an awfully good outright, but instead says that Neither
scapegoat, and the racist police depart-
ment wasnt going to let the opportunity
slip.
This is not some far-flung historical
footnotethe year was 1988. McMillian
was sentenced by an all-white jury to life
imprisonment, but the judge overruled
them and instead imposed a death sen-
tence. It wasnt until 1993 that the EJI
was able to prove that the main witness
had been badgered by police into false
testimony, and McMillian was finally
released. Several years later he was diag-
nosed with early onset dementia, which
may have been triggered by his trauma
while on death row, and he passed away
on September 11, 2013.
Capitalism depends on the exploita-
tion of human beings, and dividing the
working class with racism is one of the
ways in which it facilitates this. It can-
not provide an adequate standard of liv-
ing for billions around the world who
are nominally free, so we shouldnt be it by no means did away with racism. The
shocked that it cant provide a humane
existence to those behind bars. Any at-
tempts to fundamentally transform this
system must eventually come up against
the unscalable walls imposed on all such
endeavors by the forces of the market.
11
There is a huge prison-industrial
complex in which many corporations
make massive profits through the con-
struction of prisons, food, security, and
other services, and as Stevenson cor-
rectly points out, we mustnt forget about
convict-leasing. The first section of the
13th amendment does not abolish slavery
slavery nor involuntary servitude, ex-
cept as a punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted,
shall exist within the
United States, or
any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
Slavery is still legally
permissible so long
as the person to be
enslaved has already
been convicted of
a crime supposedly
warranting such
a punishmenta
loophole that has
been a boon to cor-
porations who have
benefited from legal
forced convict labor
since just after the
Civil War.
The biggest
causes of crime are
poverty and men-
tal illness. The first
is a question of bread, as Lenin would
sayif there is not enough to go around,
people will fight over and steal it to sur-
vive. As for mental illness, are there not
ways to deal with this other than lock-
ing people away in prisons or institutions
where they often get worse, not better?
Once freed from the confines of profit-
ability, scientific innovations could help
us ease the suffering of the mentally ill,
integrate them back into society, and pre-
vent or ameliorate its occurrence in the
first place. There are many people who
dont even get the basic care they need
and deserve, due to a lack of funds and
the gutting of public programs.
American capitalism was born with
slavery in its foundations and institution-
al racism is a necessary byproduct of this.
Even though the Civil War ended slavery,
IMT believes that to end racism, discrim-
ination, exploitation, and oppression, all
the resources that humanity has at its dis-
posal should be democratically used and
rationally planned to provide for social
needs, rather than for profit. u
12 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015 HEALTHCARE UNDER CAPITALISM

Capitalisms Sickness and its Cure

K KHAN

T
oday, the capitalist class is nothing
more than a parasite. It has noth-
ing to offer those suffering from
disease and illness but elaborate market-
ing scams and patent speculation.
When Marx and Engels wrote the
Communist Manifesto, the capitalist
class still had a progressive role to play
in history, at least as far as improving
the productive forces of society was con-
cerned. However, even as they noted this,
they pointed out the vulgar aspects of
capitalism. Due to the need for a con-
stantly expanding market, the capitalists
revolutionized the means of production,
ridding the world of old prejudices in the
process, creating conditions in which all
that is holy is profaned.
In this context, Turing Pharmas re-
cent purchase of Daraprim, a drug used
to treat a rare immunological disease
known as toxoplasmosis, and in conjunc-
tion with other drugs, AIDS, has moved
from the mere vulgar and profane to the
vile and criminal. The price of the drug ist crisis that exploded in 2008. There For some years this dynamic seemed
has been raised overnight from $13.50 are very few avenues left, in general, for to serve the pharmaceutical industry and
to $750 a pill. The cost of treatment for investments that yield stable returns. the capitalists quite well. It may even
patients has risen from about $1,130 Speculation, in the manner of betting on have had some positive effects on peoples
to $63,000. Over the course of years of horses, has overtaken actual productive health here and there, but this was only
treatment, the cost could now be over endeavors by the capitalist class. as an afterthought to the pursuit of prof-
$600,000 for many patients. This in- However, beyond the general decay its, and came at the expense of pillaging
crease of over 5000% is sickening even by of capitalism, there is something more the working classin 2013, 60% of bank-
capitalist standards. After all, this drug specific to the pharmaceutical industry ruptcies in the United States were due to
was formulated in 1953. in this story which reveals the whole in- unpayable medical bills.
Martin Shkreli, the hipster-CEO of dustry to be a rigged shell game that has But like all other capitalists, the
Turing Pharma, insists that he is merely been played for years. It started with the Pharma bosses are in trouble. There is a
looking after shareholder interests and creation of synthesized human insulin patent cliff approaching over the next
that ultimately, this price increase is good in 1978. This innovation, prior to which decade or so. As patents on major block-
for patients! This despite being roundly diabetics were administered pig insulin, buster drugs are set to expire, these com-
condemned by even the bourgeois me- sent shockwaves across the pharmaceuti- panies stand to lose billions in revenue
dia. This is one of those moments when cal industry. The shock wasnt related to to generic drugs. The focus on the entire
capitalism stands so naked that even the the use as a treatment for diabetes, but industry has now shifted to specialty
most loyal of the emperors servants pro- rather, that it was produced by a corpo- and orphan indications. In other words,
test that he has no clothes! rationconnected to the academy and towards rare diseases which do not have
Gradual price rises of 20%, 100%, or hence public fundingand then in-li- major marketed drugs.
200% are entirely acceptable in the view censed, or purchased, by Big Pharma. It is in this context that Turing pur-
of the bourgeois and their sycophants, This changed the game for pharma- chased Daraprim for $55 million from
something that happens regularly in the ceutical companies, and they abandoned Impax Laboratories in August. It treats a
pharmaceutical industry. But this blatant any pretense to basic in-house scientific specialty indication, and the drug pres-
gouging risks exposing the entire market research. Today, large and medium-sized ents challenges for generic companies,
economy for the cold, heartless cesspool drug companies do not innovate. That because there is only a small market
of profit it truly is. work is done by biotech companies, often of potentially millions of people who de-
Under the pressure of mass outrage, spun out of university incubators which pend on it to stay alive. It is a small mar-
it seems Turing Pharma may be toning create new drugs with the specific aim ket containing those whom Turing in-
down its initial 5000% price hike, but of being acquired by or partnering with tends to hold hostage! While CEO Martin
the way the system operates remains the a major pharmaceutical company. Pfizer, Shkreli insists the money will go towards
same. Because there is an internal logic Merck, GSK, and even medium-sized innovations, even a cursory glance at the
if the functioning of capitalism can be companies like Turing are in the game product pipeline for Turing shows that
called thatto what Shkreli is doing. In of commercializing and marketing drugs they have only ever innovated in minor
part this is a continuation of the capital- for profit, full stop. ways. For instance, taking existing drugs
FINANCIAL APPEAL / WELLRED BOOKS
traditionally administered orally and
formulating routes of administration as
sprays. This is a money grab, nothing
more, nothing less.
Capitalism ran its course as a progres-
sive force long ago. Today, the capitalist
class is nothing more than a parasite. It
has nothing to offer those suffering from
disease and illness but elaborate market-
ing scams and patent speculation. The
entire focus is on maximizing the return
on investment. It is an open secret in the
Pharma industry that most spending is
focused on the maintenance of chron-
ic illness, not on developing cures for
chronic or acute ailments.
This stands in stark contrast with the
kind of work done for decades in Cuba.
That small, isolated island nation is lead-
ing the way in research towards cures. It
has already proven it is possible to stop
the transmission of HIV from mother to
child and is boldly working on an HIV
vaccine. Cuba is by no means a truly so-
cialist society. Socialism in one country
is a concept conclusively debunked by
history. Socialism must be international
or it is nothing, and must include direct
democratic planning and control over the
economy and the state by the working
class. Nonetheless, the Cuban health care
system is example of what can be done
on the basis of a nationalized, planned
economy. It is a harbinger of what hu-
manity will be capable of when it focuses
on cures instead of profits, of what genu-
ine socialism will look like once it spreads
across the entire world.
Under socialism the vast resources hu-
manity has developed under capitalism
could be harnessed towards providing
real cures. Under socialism, the for-profit
Pharma companies will be dispensed
with and replaced by a massive, publicly
owned, and rationally planned phar-
maceutical industry under democratic
workers control. The noble professions
of medicine and scientific research will
be freed from the twisted logic of capi-
tal, and will serve to meet the needs of the
many, not the profits of the few.
But such a society will not arise on its
own. It requires the hard work of build-
ing of a mass revolutionary Marxist in-
ternational that intervenes actively in the
struggles of the world working class. If
you find yourself disgusted by capitalism
and are sickened by the fact that Turing
Pharma can get away with vampirism,
you need to do something. Join the Inter-
national Marxist Tendency and the strug-
gle to build a world that isnt driven by
the lust of wealth for the few and misery
for the rest of humankind. u
SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015 13
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NEW FROM WELLRED
The crisis of capitalism is the main
Workers Control and
reason for the decline in wages and
paid benefits. This diseased system can Nationalization
only offer a reduced standard of living
for the vast majority of the population.
However, in the struggle against capital-
ism, the workers need leaders with a so-
cialist program. Instead, we have trade
union leaders who accept capitalism as
the only possible system. They refuse to
build a mass labor party to fight in the
workers interests. They refuse to mo-
bilize the class toward a general strike
and to take the anti-labor laws head-on.
They simply accommodate the workers
to the austerityand then they wonder
why the proportion of the labor force or-
ganized into unions has been mired in a
decades-long decline!
Look at the recent negotiations at
Chrysler, where the workers rejected the
first proposed contract because of the
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with the question of what work-
they are misdirected by the present labor
ers control of industry would look
leaders.
like and why nationalization and
There is no quick solution to this prob-
democratic central planning of the
lem, but there is a way forward. We need
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14 SOCIALIST APPEAL - ISSUE 91 - NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015
What About the State and Democracy Under Socialism?
BEN GLINIECKI
P
rior to class society, which arose
around 10,000 BCE at the time
of the neolithic revolution, society
was organized without money and with-
out a state. Classes did not exist at this
time because the pro-
ductive forces were in-
capable of producing
more than what was
required for subsis-
tence living, thus an
exploiting class and an
exploited class were
an economic impos-
sibility. Engels, basing
himself on the work
of anthropologist
Lewis Henry Morgan,
describes the way in
which these primitive
communist societies
operated. In the con-
text of a study of the
Iroquois, he points
out:
The authority of
the sachem [leader]
within the gens was
paternal, and purely
moral in character; he
had no means of co-
ercion . . . The gens deposes the sachem
and war-chief at will . . . The members of
the gens owed each other help, protec-
tion, and especially assistance in aveng-
ing injury by strangers . . . The gens has
a council: the democratic assembly of all
male and female adult gentiles, all with
equal votes.
This is a description of a society with-
out state structures such as the police,
army, courts, prisons, or a political appa-
ratus separate from and standing above
society. Because the productive forces
were held and worked in common, ev-
eryones economic interests were aligned,
meaning that no state instrument with
coercive powers was required to enforce
one classs will against another. Social-
ism will bring society full circle, but on a
higher technological level. Just as money
will eventually wither away under social-
ism, so too will the state. A genuine pro-
letarian state will, by its first act, begin
the process of its own dissolution. This
is because expropriation of the means
of production and their administration
under democratic workers control as
part of a planned economy will begin the
elimination of class distinctions, the dis-
tinction between those who own property
and those who dont. A society in which
everyone owns and works the means of
production is one without classes; it is a
society that will no longer require a state
apparatus who use laws and force to keep
the exploited in check.
This picture of what the state under
socialism will look like contrasts sharply
with what happened in the USSR under
Stalin. The monstrous bureaucratic state
that choked the planned economy in that
country was not a healthy workers state,
since it lacked any workers democracy,
which is fundamental for the running of
a healthy socialist economy. As the capi-
talist market also withers away, ensur-
ing efficiency and preventing corruption
will still be required. The mechanism for
this must be democratic control of the
economy by the workers themselves. As
Trotsky once said, the planned economy
needs workers democracy like the body
needs oxygen.
In concrete terms, this means imple-
menting measures such as the right of
direct election and immediate recall
for all elected officials, at all levels, who
must also earn no more than the average
workers wage, so that they have the same
material interests as the people they are
supposed to represent. We must not be
made to wait years before being able to
kick out representatives who have made
decisions that arent in the interest of the
majority. Lenin also spoke of the need to
WHAT WILL SOCIALISM LOOK LIKE?
get everyone involved in the work of ad-
ministration of the new society, so that a
special class of bureaucrats does not es-
tablish itself, separate from and above the
rest of the working class. If everyone is a
bureaucrat, then no one will be a bureau-
crat.
The experience of
occupied factories in
Brazil offers us an ex-
ample of the concrete
elements of workers
democracy in prac-
tice. The elected fac-
tory council is subject
to an immediate right
of recall. This council
meets weekly to dis-
cuss the plans for the
factory, and the min-
utes of those meetings
are published for all
workers to examine.
Furthermore, the fac-
tory budget is voted on
by every worker in the
factory, each and every
month. This model,
like the soviets in Rus-
sia in the early 20th
century, is the embryo
of a new form of state
power, placing politi-
cal and economic control in the hands of
the workers themselves, without forcing
them to rely on anyone else.
The soviets in the early USSR were
elected workers councils in which work-
ers participated and were elected to run
their workplaces, localities and regions.
Such a direct, participatory democratic
method is much closer to the working
class than a bourgeois democracy, be-
cause it gives people immediate control
over their lives in a way that representa-
tive, parliamentary democracy can never
do. Take the upcoming presidential elec-
tion as an examplewhichever party
wins, it will be a government that imple-
ments austerity in one form or another.
We have no real choice in this matter
because the economy is in private hands,
and to keep the capitalist economy work-
ing the government must submit to the
will of those who own the key levers of the
economythe capitalists. Only by giving
control over politics and the economy to
the working class can we guarantee genu-
ine democratic choice. u

OUR PROGRAM: WHAT WE FIGHT FOR
FOR A MASS PARTY OF LABOR
BASED ON THE UNIONSBREAK
WITH THE DEMOCRATS AND
REPUBLICANS: Only organized
labor has the numbers and re-
sources to effectively challenge
the bosses parties. Foramilitant,
class independent, socialist pro-
gram to fight against the attacks
of big business. By fighting for
the working class majority at the
polls, in the workplace, and on
the streets, such a party could
quickly become a mass force and
turn American politics upside
down.
THE RIGHT TO STRIKE, UNION REPRE-
SENTATION, AND COLLECTIVE BAR-
GAINING FOR ALL WORKERS: Repeal
all antiunion laws including Taft-
Hartley. End compulsory arbitra-
tion and the victimization of trade
unionists and those forming new
unions. Organize the unorga-
nized. Mobilize the rank and file
and unite the labor movement to
fight back against the bosses. No
to concessions! For trade union
democracy. All union officials to
be regularly elected with the right
of immediate recall by the mem-
bership. All officials to receive no
more than the average wage of a
skilled worker.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: No to layoffs.
Thirty hours work for forty hours
pay. The right to a secure, full-
time job, full benefits, or a place
in education. Job security for all
temporary workers and interns
with equal pay and treatment. For
a massive program of useful pub-
lic works to create quality union
jobs torebuild our infrastructure.
For a national minimum wage
of at least $25 per hour. Wages
to be tied to inflation through
periodic Cost of Living Adjust-
ments (COLA).For union control
over hiring and firing. Establish
union-controlled job training
and hiring halls in communities
with high unemployment. Volun-
tary retirement at age 55 with full
benefits. No to the privatization
of Social Security.
SAFE, AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR ALL:
Endhomelessness. For an imme-
diate moratorium on evictions.
For the nationalization of fore-
closed and vacant homes, to be
allocated to those in need under
democratic workers and com-
munity control, with residents of
foreclosed properties allowed to
genuine freedom of expression. need. All nationalized compa-
Nationalizethe means of commu-
nication, and democratize access
nies to be run under democrat-
ic workers control and man-
stay in their homes. No compen- to the media and the use of pub- agement, and integrated into a
sation to the foreclosing owners, lic meeting spaces on the basis of socialist plan of production to
except in cases of proven need. proportional representation. meet the needs of society. Con-
Rent for all housing, includ- NO TO RACISM, PROFILING, AND PO- solidate the nationalized banks
ing Section 8 and government- LICE BRUTALITY: No to racist and into a single, publicly owned
owned housing, to be fixed at not antiworker police, courts, and and administered national
more than 10 percent of wages, as laws. End the phony war on drugs bank to protect workers sav-
part of a voluntary, national plan in the U.S. and internationally. ings and guarantee affordable
for housing. Abolish the death penalty and loans to all.
release all political prisoners. For
UNIVERSAL QUALITY HEALTH CARE:
SOCIALIST INTERNATIONALISM:
For a socialized, national health the immediate and unconditional
legalization of all undocumented
End NAFTA, CAFTA, and
care system. Free scientific re-
immigrants. Full rights and am- pull out of the WTO and oth-
search from the profit motive.
nesty for immigrant workers and er bankers deals that are the
Full access for all to the latest
medical technology, treatments, their families. End all racist im- tools of imperialist exploita-
migration and asylum controls. tion. No to the FTAA and the
and discoveries. Massively fund
research for cures and treat- For the right of residency and TPP. Abolish the World Bank
ment of AIDS, cancer, and other dual citizenship. For the right to and International Monetary
diseases. Nationalize the health speak ones own language. Access Fund, and write off the debts
insurance companies, the medi- to Social Security with equal ben- imposed by Wall Street and
cal equipment and pharmaceuti- efits for all. No to guest worker imperialism. For international
cal industries, the mega-hospital programs. For family reunifica- economic cooperation based
systems and related clinics, and tion and an immediate end to on the interests of working
integrate them into a single state- raidsanddeportations.No tobor- people, not a handful of mul-
owned and democratically man- der walls, militarization, and re- tinationals. No to the war on
aged and administered health pression on the border. For the working people at home and
provider. unity of the working class: mobi- abroad. Cut the military bud-
lize the labor movement to com- get and invest instead in social
QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL: Ful- bat racism and discrimination
needs. No to militarism and in-
ly fund and expand our public and to improve conditions for all
tervention in the Middle East
schools, colleges, and universi- workers.
and around the world: with-
ties. End corporate encroach-
draw all troops from Iraq and
ment into the classroom. No to A SOCIALIZED PLAN OF PRODUCTION
Afghanistannow!End the em-
means testing, vouchers, charter FOR AGRICULTURE: Nationalize the
bargo on Cuba. Hands off Latin
schools, and privatization. No to food distribution and agrichemi-
Race to the Top and No Child cal giants that destroy farmers America!Unite with Canadian
Left Behind. Abolish tuition fees livelihoods and endanger public and Latin American workers
andforgive studentloans. Provide health in the pursuit of profit. A in a socialist federation of the
living grants and paid internships democratic plan of food produc- Americas as part of a world so-
to all students. Nationalize the tion would protect small farmers cialist federation.
private universities and colleges and agricultural workers jobs
and merge them into one united and security. Fully fund nutrition
public system of higher educa- assistance and extension pro-
LEARN MORE ABOUT
tion. For lifelong learning for all grams. Full union rights for all
from the cradle to the grave. agricultural workers.
AND JOIN THE WIL
T
he Workers Interna-
OUTLAW ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINA- ACTION TO PROTECT THE ENVIRON- tional League bases
TIONEQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL: Equal MENT AND JOBS: For public own- itself on the ideas of
pay for work of equal value. Full ership and control over natural Marx, Engels, Lenin, and
paid leave for expectant mothers resourcesthe land, major in- Trotsky, and on the further
after the 1st trimester; parental dustries, mining and logging development of these ideas
leave with full pay for up to two companies, transport, oil, gas, by the International Marxist
years after birth or adoption.Free and other energyto ensure a Tendency. We fight for inter-
and safe, quality after-school pro- safe and healthy environment for national socialism, in which
grams and childcare facilities in all. Environmental plans would
the world working class has
the workplace. Affordable public be measured in generations, not
democratic control over the
laundry services and subsidized fiscal quarters. Free and efficient
means of production, dis-
restaurants serving healthy, qual- public transportation for all.
tribution, and exchange. A
ity food to help free working NATIONALIZE THE KEY LEVERS OF THE workers government in the
women from domestic servitude. ECONOMY: THE MAJOR INDUSTRIES, US would take over the vast
Full reproductive rights up to BANKS, AND CORPORATIONS: No to
wealth now owned by just a
and including abortion. No to austeritymake the rich pay for
handful of individuals and
discrimination on the basis of the crisis! Break with the irra-
democratically use it in the
sexual preference, gender iden- tional chaos of the capitalist free
interests of everyone. We
tity, and expression. Defend our market. Nationalize the Fortune
invite all those who are in
civil liberties from attacks in the 500. No compensation to the mil-
agreement to contact us.
name of the war on terror. For lionaires, only to those in genuine