Rugby League: In League with big business?

This features in this weeks issue of the Socialist - despite Rugby League having a traditionally working class background, I haven't ever come across any writings by Socialists on it. The photo is of the George Hotel in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire - the birth place of Rugby League.

AS TOP-flight football becomes more and more under the control of ridiculously wealthy individuals and businesses, we can learn from the creation of another of England's most played and supported sports.
Rugby League was born out of the northern working class' desire to play sport without fear of reducing their meagre incomes or putting their jobs at risk. By the late 19th century the three major British sports had already begun to form league structures, with football even forming a professional body in 1885.
But sports, whose rules were largely formed and made official by the upper class, were mostly amateur. This prevented the working class from taking a full role. Workers faced long working days, poor nutrition and often did hard physical jobs. Organised sport at a high level was often left to those with the money and lifestyle to support training sessions and regular matches.
In rugby, increasingly popular in the north, especially around West Yorkshire and Lancashire, a generation of talented working-class players had become frustrated at being forced to miss games because of work or to miss work through injury.
The owners of northern rugby clubs were forced to reflect this anger. So when the southern-dominated Rugby Football Union refused to allow working players to be compensated for missing work due to rugby the northern clubs broke away, forming what became the Rugby Football League.
Its creation reflected the working class' growing power. RL became, for the northern masses, a rallying point and an example of the pride felt in watching fellow workers allowed to perform at their best - a sensation far from that felt watching football's Premier League today.

The revenue game

Bearing its history in mind, the formation of the top-flight British Super League, is a betrayal of the values that the sport held on to for most of the 20th century. Super League was formed in 1996, bringing with it higher TV revenues but imposing some serious changes in the game.
One was the shift to a summer season which, due to matches being played on firmer ground, made the game much faster. This necessitated ever fitter, more superhuman players, generally limiting the playing of the sport at a high level to those with a naturally large frame and powerful physique.
Also negatively, it led to cheap US-style commercialisation of the sport, with cheerleaders and silly name changes. Historic teams such as Bradford Northern and Wakefield Trinity became Bradford Bulls and Wakefield Wildcats.
The new Super League, trying to draw in a new rugby league market, included 'expansion' teams in areas with no RL traditions, such as northern France and London. Neither fared well financially nor drew in supporters.
The economic calamities didn't stop there. In 1999 the RFL reduced the number of top-level teams, offering clubs a £1 million bribe to merge. This was taken up by teams struggling financially. Hull Sharks and Gateshead Thunder merged, as did Huddersfield Giants and Sheffield Eagles, robbing communities of local teams.
The latest development is Super League's franchise system, imported from the US sports world. It removes the threat of relegation, thereby guaranteeing TV revenues and encouraging greater investment in clubs. Yet the criteria for entry to the franchise are mostly financial - how well the team plays or their fan base are secondary considerations.
The spectre is there of RL becoming like the football Premier League. Already a few big teams tend to dominate the league, while more fans are priced out of watching their local teams play (adult ticket prices increased dramatically under the Super League).
Top RL players are still closer to their communities than in football; the sport has retained its working class fan base. Leeds Rhinos captain Kevin Sinfield visited the Yorkshire Post strikers' picket line last month.
But rugby league has degenerated, aided by the profit-hungry league owners and media backers. This reinforces the need for democratic planning of the sport by representatives from the local areas, supporters' groups, players and coaches.

Bob Fine on Law and Class – Part 1

This piece looks at the first section of the chapter by the same name in Capitalism and the Rule of Law a book consisting of a selection of papers from the January 1979 joint conference between the National Deviancy Conference and the Conference of Socialist Economics. By the way, I’ll be away for about a week so this post and the one below are to keep you going for some time.

Fine starts his paper by looking at E.P. Thompson’s critique of some left groups, castigating them for dismissing anything to do with the state could potentially be positive. However, Fine isn’t interested in them, rather the assumptions that underlie Thompson’s stance. He argues that

“For the basis of Thompson’s critique consists in an unflinching belief in the democratic character of the legal side of state power. He writes that law seems to him to be ‘an unqualified human good’, in that it ‘imposes effective inhibitions upon power’ and defends the citizen ‘from power’s all-intrusive claims’. No problem is raised over the form of bourgeois law itself, the only issue concerns the struggle against the intrusion of ‘class-bound procedures’ into the legal mechanism”(pg.30)

He goes on to argue that Thompson is stating that bourgeois law will form a basis for working-class power to develop from. To Thompson’s position he contrasts that of Engels, who argued that under communism law would disappear and that capitalist democracy, with bourgeois law and everything, complements the domination of capital. After quoting from Engels he says,

“The issue which these passages from Engels raise is that the bourgeois form of law is contradictory. Between two polar positions, between its dismissal as a mask and its elevation as an unqualified good, we need to understand the way in which law acts as a form of domination, the social basis upon which this form of power emerges and sustains itself, and thence the contradictory functions which it performs both for the rulers and the ruled, capital and labour.”(pg.31)

Fine, then discusses why he feels the form of law is of significance at that time. One is the question of law under Stalinism, and the second is the attacks on civil liberties and increases in police powers occurring at that time in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. He goes on to state:

“It is in this context, when the imperatives of capital accumulation and the class struggle have put into question the viability of the ‘rule of law’, and when we witness a movement toward the substitution of bureaucratic-police rule for social-democratic forms of power, centred around legality and parliamentary representation, that the issue of forms of bourgeois domination has emerged again with particular sharpness… it becomes imperative to differentiate between the forms of power through which the domination of capital is left mediated and secured… this emphasis on form poses its own dangers: that of neglecting the class content behind the forms of law; and of neglecting the significance of the erosion of legality for the imposition of new conditions of exploitation and accumulation.”(pg.32)

He then suggests that quite an apt place to draw from on these issues is Trotsky’s analysis of the rise to power of fascism in Germany and the transition to Bonapartism and then fascism and differences between these forms. He goes on to say

“…the significance of the form of law could not be separated from its content: namely, the class relations which constituted the foundation of the legal form; and the transformation of these class relations hidden behind the move first to ‘Bonapartism’, which relegated legality and parliamentarism to shadows of their former selves, and then to fascism which substituted for them brute force and police terror. The strength of Trotsky’s analysis was precisely to probe the links between these distinct forms of state power and the class relations which provide their substance. Trotsky, in the course of his extended critique both of those who identified social democracy with either Bonapartism or fascism, and of those who defended the spirit of the constitution as it elevated the bureaucracy above society, constantly searches for the class basis of these historical development.”(pg32-3)

After quoting an article of Trotsky’s (Fascism, Stalinism and the United Front) to further elaborate his point, Fine concludes his section with the following words.

“For Trotsky, the defence of the form of law could not be isolated from its content. Bourgeois law was not an absolute elevated above the conditions of civil society which gave it birth; but the expression of capital mediated by the independent organization of the working class. It was for this reason that it had to be defended against attack from the right and against indifference from the left as the political form necessary for the exercise of ‘proletarian democracy’ and for the transition to socialism.”(pg.33)

I have to say, I think Fine’s general point is really good. However, I think, although he states he isn’t making any ‘mechanical parallels’, it’s a little too much to exaggerate the attacks to civil liberties and increasing of police powers during the 70s and 80s to the coming to power of fascism in Germany, but the points regarding form and content which Fine makes through this I think are spot on. There is another point I want to take Fine upon which is the last sentence of the last paragraph I quoted. Whilst capitalist democracy is the most favourable political form for workers under capitalism, it is not ‘necessary’.

Review – Their Morals & Ours by Leon Trotsky

This is a semi-comment/semi-review article really, but the point I make I feel is rather important.

Their Morals and Ours is an effective exposition of the class basis of morality. In it Trotsky attacks socialists and other lefts who claim to adhere to a universal morality, exposing that anything that is supposed to remain constant for all time can only emanate from some sort of ‘god’. Marxists on the other hand have a dialectical understanding of society, noting that society changes and that all ideas (including Marxism) are interlinked with the material conditions in a given stage of society.
But it is the discussion of ‘means and ends’ that I found the most interesting. Here Trotsky discusses the famous statement that ‘the ends justify the means’. He explains that for Marxists that these are interdependent, that only the means that genuinely serve the ends of the liberation of humanity from capitalism are justified. Thus they must unite the working class, strengthen its party (both internally and externally) etc. Thus such things as individual terrorism fail such a test as they tend to weaken the working class and divide it rather than strengthen it.
The context of such actions is also important. It is one thing to shoot someone in the street in cold blood, it is a different thing when one is on the front line of a war. Thus the same action can be justified or not depending on the context. The relevance of such a recognition is very useful for developing a Marxist critique of criminology.

Class Inside The Criminal Justice System

Now I’d like to think people are well aware of the well-documented class bias in the criminal justice system (not to mention racial and other biases). So today I want to deal with the relation of class within the criminal justice system.
Why should I do this? Because there is a perception for some that those working for the state (and here I mean the prisons, police, courts etc. the ‘armed bodies of men’) form one reactionary mass. Needless to say, I think this is false. It is important to note that the tops of any industry and other state occupation (ie. teaching, civil service etc.) are different to the people at the bottom of those organisations. In my opinion there is a certain analogy between your basic civil servant, factory worker, prison officer and police constable, just like there may be between a senior civil servant, factory manager, prison warden and chief constable.
Okay, so a police officer has more discretion in their work than a factory worker. But who decides the broad thrust of the actions of these groups, it is those at the top not the bottom. Would we suggest that all civil servants agree with means testing because they have to carry it out? The same to an extent applies to strike breaking or stop and search with the police. (Of course this doesn’t mean that all civil servants or police officers are opposed to such actions either). To get some say in how their institution is run they need collective action – unlike those at the top. The courts are somewhat different with the judiciary drawn from the legal profession and the magistracy is drawn from whomever local political players nominate. Both of which are not generally working class, or are at all that sympathetic either.
Which brings me to what I suppose is the real reason why I began writing this. Namely that when I wrote about Devolution and the Criminal Justice System in relation to Wales it was pointed out that I was dismissive of the notion that extra jobs in Wales may result from establishing a fully developed Criminal Justice System.
Now the reason for me being dismissive was mostly because such jobs would only be jobs stolen from English workers, and it wouldn’t be all that many jobs, simply some administrative posts. The main benefactors would be those at the top who would be running the justice system of a region not a nation – with a prestige boost to match.
Job creation with regards to more immediate problems such as making the criminal justice system more ‘accessible’ (ie. building prisons and courts so that travel time for families etc are reduced etc.) would result in more jobs without taking them from elsewhere.
Indeed all the immediate problems that face welsh people in relation to making the Criminal Justice System more accessible to them as a nation (the lack of local prisons, lack of Welsh language provision etc.), do not require a separate Welsh jurisdiction. In my opinion a Welsh Criminal Justice system would be valid if it were to be constituted on a more progressive basis to the current system, in that it was truly democratic – especially in relation to the judiciary – basically if it were run in the interests of the ordinary workers in Wales (regardless whether Welsh speaking or not, or whether they were born in Wales or not – that should not matter) and not to create prestige posts for the Welsh middle class.

Students and Politics

Becuase I've posted this piece up so quick, I think yesterdays article may not get a look in on international justice. I would very much like feedback on that article as I still have a write up to do on the subject. Thanks

This piece is a critical look at an article featured in last weeks Weekly Worker on Students and Politics see http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/708/drivenideas.html. I find that from time to time this paper produces some interesting articles, although I'm not keen on their politics of orientating themselves towards the existing left rather than the wider working class. I don't agree with quite a few bits underpinning the article, but some discussion of the questions it raises can be useful

The first thing I want to take issue with is his arguement that student politics is centred in 'old universities' and former polytechnics that have made themselves like the 'old universities'. He sees this as being due to large numbers arts/humanities and social science students.

This doesn't bear up to my experience at all, perhaps it might be analogous to 'traditional student politics' but not revolutionary student politics. Our student politics grows up around activists, true perhaps there is a skew towards the area's suggested above, but i think that is due to things I will discuss below, not an inherent feature of the only students who become political. In fact at both universities I've been at (University of Huddersfield and Bangor University are both quite different) we've had people from a range of degree areas including Music, Journalism, Chemistry, History, Psychology, Sociology, English, Languages, trainee Nurses, Marine Biology and even Buisness Studies.

Our politics as I mentioned grow up around activists, usually groups of a few or more people who will organise stalls, petioning, protests etc. These from the core of the group who usually attract other people around them. The more established a group, the more likely it is to have links with local colleges or local universities depending on where the group starts from. True it is easier to organise at university, but this is becuase of the existence of large student unions, freshers fayre, and the ability to get easy funding for your society. But it a society iether won;t exist or go anywhere without activists.

I do agree with the article that events politicise students, ideas are important.. but they are certainly not the only factor as I shall explain. Ideas always have a larger impact on young people becuase generally speaking they are more open to our ideas. And suprise, suprise many students are young people.

Ideas however, in my opinion, seem to be more of a driving force for more middle class layers of students (or perhaps it may be becuase it's the only driving force for them whereas in others layers of students it is one of several). But there is a contradictory nature to students class position. They are drawn from across the various layers in society. Of course the children of the rich go to university, many students are from middle class background and there a sizeable number from a working class background (like me!). I wouldn't want to speculate on the proportions of each, but i'd say that those from a working class background are sizeable and the same from a middle class background.

I would say generally, that the rich students won't be interested, middle class students are interested from an ideological point of view and thus are somewhat unreliable - they turn up to whatever they fancy - whereas working class students have some real bad material obsticles to get over. The biggest one is usually having to work either whilst at uni (like me) or over the summer (like me again!). Then you've got the overpriced and crap accomodation, cuts (which disproportinately affect poorer students as they can't afford to do extra activities or restarting their degree etc. to overcome this) and so on.

I would argue that it is possible to build struggles in response to students material cirumstances - their have been campaigns against cuts, against cuts to halls of residence or their privatisation, and although the fight against fees at the moment hasn't been that big (due to the pernacious role of NUS), it's important to remember that fees were scrapped once before.

Because of the contradictory class nature of students as a whole, they are undoubtedly influenced by workers moving into struggle - the highpoint of the students movement doesn't coincide with the high point of working class struggles in this country for no reason whatsoever.

Although I don't think the article is particularly good, what it tries to discuss is an important question in terms of how we develop a fighting students movement, that is of a sound theoretical base from which to organise from.