socialism

Socialists win Dutch elections

Dutch politics, Geertje Wilders, Pim Fortuyn, Socialistische Partij
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I know y’all are waiting with bated breath for the results of the Dutch parliamentary elections, as the tensions and excitement of that tough election campaign slowly ebb away. Good news, the SP, the one true Dutch socialist party has won big, with 25 seats after about forty percent of the votes have been counted, almost tripling from their 2003 results of nine seats. The biggest losers are the freemarket liberals VVD, who lost about a third of their seats and became the fourth party after the SP. In other words, the socialists have won out over the liberals, especially as the other liberal party, D66, lost half its seats.

Meanwhile the Christian Democrats, traditionally the largest party in the Netherlands, have also lost but much less than their coalition partner VVD, going back from 44 seats in 2003 to 40 seats now. Profiting from their loss is the more outspoken Christian / leftist ChristenUnie, who may be against abortus and gay marriage but who at least remember Christ instructions about feeding the hungry and clothing the needy…

On the rightwing asshole front, the LPF (the grave robbers of Fortuyn) is finally going to disappear from parliament, but unfortunately the man with the hair, cryptoracist Geert Wilders, has picked up the LPF votes, with 9 seats for his Partij voor de Vrijheid, the Party for the Freedom of Anybody but Muslims. Another of the rightwing firebrands, Marco Pastors, has also picked up a seat. Though it’s disappointing these demagogues will enter parliament, at least the various splits on the right kept them from gaining more.

In the centrum of politics, the social democratic PvdA and Green GroenLinks, have lost just as big as the liberals have, reversing the situation in the 2003 elections when the social democrats picked up many of the votes the SP seemed to have in the bag until a few weeks before the election. Then people voted strategically and saw their hopes of a centrist government dashed, now they’ve realised it’s better to vote for the party they really support.

Some commentators have already said this is an election in which the middle has been deserted for the far left and rightwing fringes. They are wrong. It was the true left, the SP, who won to the disadvantage of not just the centrist left, but also the centrist right, while on the rightwing
fringe the seats have just been rearranged, rather than any having been gained. Wilders just picked up the votes lost by the LPF as well as some of the more rightwing of the VVD votes, but did not gain anything beyond it.

This is encouraging. It means that not just have the neoliberal policies of the CDA/VVD government been rejected, but the voters have not chosen for the easy, populist and bigoted siren call of the extreme right, but rather for principled leftwing parties. Not just for the SP, but also the Christen Unie and the Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals), all parties that chose a principle course. A true rejection of the neoliberal consensus that has ruled the Netherlands for the past 25 years.

All of which however does not make the formation of a new government any easier. Neither the left nor the right is able to form a government on their own, so some sort of left-right coalition has to be formed, with my money being on a CDA-PvdA-SP coalition, or maybe a VVD-CDA-PvdA coalition. It’s going to be interesting.

Football and the English socialist

Football, socialism
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It’s an even year, so as always the English socialist is put in an awkward position: who to support for the Worldcup? Supporting England is out of the question, because, as Snowball puts it:

As if the corporate takeover isn’t bad enough (many firms have produced ‘I love England’ badges for their employees), then the political consequences don’t bear worth thinking about. All of the main three capitalist political parties are doubtless gearing up already to associate themselves with supporting England – and it is likely that Blair will try to use a good Cup run and the associating ‘feel good factor’ to hang onto power – though one suspects the hapless croquet playing fuckwit Prescott will not be used in too many New Labour photoshoots playing football.

This sort of feeling is quite widespread amongst English socialists, but I’ve never seen its like in other countries. Certainly Dutch socialists are content enough to support the Dutch team, rather than coming up with convoluted reasons to not support it. That is not to say the Engerland-haters don’t have a point: the Worldcup is commercialised, politicised and will be used by quite disgusting people to bask in its reflected glory. But I still think you’re making a category error if you take your disgust about
the circus surrounding the cup as a reason to not support England. Your support of Trinibad and Tobago instead of Engerland will not stop the abuse, only boycotting the Worldcup might do it.

Even worse is being anti-England out of a misplaced sense of anti-imperialism: Blair’s policies will not change because the SWP does not support England! It just seems like yet another form of identify politics, a way to show how socialist you are without, you know, doing anything about it. As the Dead Kennedys said quite a while back “Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz On your five grand stereo / Braggin that you know how the niggers feel cold And the slums got so much soul“.

Victory for the Shell strikers?

socialism, Unions
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strikers at Shell

Last week Shell workers went on strike to keep their retirement rights. It did not take long for Shell to cave in (link in Dutch) under the threat of closing down production at the refineries at Pernis, “Europe’s largest”.

The unions fought to keep the retirement age for current employees at 60 as well as to force the company to keep paying the entire pension premiums. In the new agreement with Shell, they have largely though not entirely gotten what they wanted. For current employees, retirement age will stay at 60, but the official retirement age will still become 65. To bridge the gap between 60 and 65, there’s the “levensloopregeling”, which is a new savingsplan introduced by the Dutch government this year, through which you can save up part of your wages before taxes to either take early retirement or unpaid leave, with wage taxes defered to the moment you actual start using the fund. Shell has now pledged to annually pay 6.5 % of each worker’s income into this fund, instead of the 3 % it had first offered. By trading in two vacation days, each employee can add another 1.5 % annually as well. However, the Shell workers will have to start contributing to their retirement funds: 2/5 of their wages.

So, a victory for the Shell strikers? Or could more have been achieved with a more hardline attitude?

Shell workers strike for pension rights

socialism, Unions
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strikers at Shell

Yesterday the evening crew at the Shell Pernis oil refinery –the largest in Europe apparantly– started the process of shutting down production. (You can judge the scale of the operation by the fact that it will take a week to completely shut down the plants.) They will be joined by their co-workers at the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (Dutch Oil Company) from Wednesday. Both the unions and the Shell bosses have warned that the strike will lead to higher petrol prices if it continues for long.

The Shell workers are fighting Shell’s plans to reduce their pension rights. At the moment, Shell workers
retire at full pension at age sixty, with their pension premiums being paid entirely by Shell. Shell now
wants to move the retirement age to sixty-five and oblige its workers to start paying premiums themselves. This is already in place for new employees, but Shell now wants to extend it to all its workers.

Not unreasonable you might think, as this is the case with the majority of workers anyway. Why should Shell workers get a better deal than the rest of us? If we are expected to work till 65, why not them? Why should we suffer this strike?

As one worker set it on the NOS news last night, “Shell expects us to keep to the agreements we made, so we expect Shell to do the same.” If you want to, there is always a case to be made against striking, but if you never strike you cannot defend workers rights. If we meekly allow the bosses to redefine benefits with the argument that it is “no worse than what the rest of us get”, there will be a race to the bottom. There are always workers who have won more benefits than you have: the answer is not to push down their benefits to your level, but to push up your benefits to theirs.

And Shell is in no position to complain about the costs of all this, with record profit levels in the third
quarter of this year…

Science fiction and socialism

science fiction, socialism
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More evidence socialism in science fiction was present long before Ken MacLeod and China Miéville:

MICHELISM (“MISH-el-ism”) At the Third Eastern in October 1937, Don Wollheim read a speech written by John Michel, which denounced the “Gernsback Delusion” and declared that stf had made idealists and dreamers of fans, since it is the best form of escape literature ever invented. Since we cannot escape from the world, science-fiction has failed in not facing the realities being fought out in Madrid and Shanghai [and later in other locations we’ll leave you to fill in as events unprogress] and in the battles between reaction and progressive forces at home and abroad. “THEREFORE: Be it moved that this, the Third Eastern Science Fiction Convention, shall place itself on record as opposing all forces leading to barbarism, the advancement of pseudo-sciences and militaristic ideologies [referring to the racist notions of Naziism], and shall further resolve that science-fiction should by nature stand for all forces working for a more unified world, a more Utopian existence, the application of science to human happiness, and a saner outlook on life.” Hot debate followed and the motion was defeated 12 to 8 (the 8 being the Futurians, voting en bloc).

From Fancyclopedia II, first published in 1959, a large encyclopedia of science fiction fandom and fanspeak. You’ll have to scroll down a bit to find this, as there are no links to the individual entries. Found thanks to mr rasfw, James Nicoll.