NG: The prospect of war in the Gulf earlier this year saw more opposition in the US than in 1990-91. Why do you think that was?
NC: That's not entirely true. There was plenty of opposition in 1990 before the last Gulf War it was the first war in history where there were huge demonstrations before the bombing took place and hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated. Once the bombing started there were a couple of weeks in which it was quiet, but at the end of January there was a big demonstration.
But people did protest this time. Partly it was sparked by the events in Ohio State, where the administration made a real mistake. This was their first attempt to present their case to the public and they picked a very safe place a Midwest football school figuring that nobody was going to raise a question. They had it very carefully planned so that only pre-selected people were allowed in and they monitored the people who were allowed to ask questions, so they figured it was going to work fine. But there were some people, not a lot, who organised and handed out leaflets. And they managed to get at least one, maybe more, of the official questioners on their side. As soon as questions started coming up which were even mildly provocative you could see quickly that the audience was supporting them.
It was a public relations catastrophe and it was broadcast on national television. It also sparked a lot of other activities that might have remained dormant. But there was virtually no press coverage of them. So yes, there was opposition, but it remained very narrow because the major issues were never discussed in public. There was a lot of discussion about what the US ought to do should we bomb or should we listen to UN secretary general Kofi Annan but they never addressed the issue of whether we should follow the law, as there is a law which says that the threat or use of force is illegal.
NG: What about the issue of sanctions? In 1990 most people and many on the left agreed with the idea of sanctions. This time round people see the devastation that sanctions have caused to civilians.
NC: Before the war in 1991 the call for sanctions was an argument to try to avoid war. Actually it was a misleading argument, and Britain was even worse than the US in this respect. There was virtually no coverage of the Iraqi offers to withdraw, so it seemed like the choice was either war or sanctions.
But there was, after all, another choice namely explore Iraqi withdrawal offers and see if they are serious. The US wouldn't do that. It flatly refused, and the press almost entirely would not cover the question. Chances are that the sanctions would have worked by August, and the discussion about sanctions or war was a mostly fraudulent discussion.
Now the question of sanctions is different. The cost to the population has become something of an issue. It's clear that sanctions help Saddam and weaken the opposition. Also the story of the CIA attempt to organise a military coup partially leaked. The real story never got out, but the Iraqi National Congress was organising in the north pretty effectively and it claimed it already had Iraqi army divisions defecting. Saddam keeps the loyal troops close to the power centres. Most of the army is out scattered round. They say that the CIA coup basically undercut them, because the CIA didn't want the support of popular rebellion. They wanted a military coup which would essentially restore the old system, but with new faces.
NG: Last time there was a sizeable coalition to intervene, but this time it was largely Britain and America.
NC: Not largely, it was Britain and America. In the region the only country that gave even tepid support, and it was pretty tepid, was Kuwait. Bahrain pulled out. The Emirates were adamantly opposed. Saudi Arabia flatly refused and went out of its way to restore relations with Iran.
NG: How do you see the relationship between Blair and Clinton in the wake of the crisis in the Gulf?
NC: Blair is Clinton's puppy dog. The Americans count on the British to do anything they tell them to. There was an accurate comment about this by the Kennedy administration, which had particular contempt for Britain ... as we can see now the internal documents are out in the open. One senior Kennedy adviser, Dean Acheson, described Britain as 'our lieutenant'. He said, 'The fashionable word is partner, that's what they like to hear, but basically they are a lieutenant.'
It was very clear during the Gulf War of 1991. John Keegan, a military historian, characterises the British establishment line as 'we can't compete with the Japanese, we can't compete with Italy economically, but we have 200 years of tradition of smacking the niggers in the face, and we are good at that, so we'll go along with the boss.'
NG: Why is the left in the US still behind Clinton? Many feminists have come out in defence of him, and people are going along with him even though he has abandoned the few promises that the Democratic Party used to make.
NC: The feminist movement is not particularly left wing. It is in favour of particular issues that range all over the place. And Clinton has made some gestures toward women's rights more than the Christian right, so he gets some support on that. There certainly is support on what is called the left. Then there are those who get a certain access to power and influence this way.
NG: The argument was always that the Democrats were a lesser evil. As Clinton becomes more and more of an evil, presumably people start to question that?
NC: It started right away. There were some illusions at the beginning, like the New Statesman article which said that socialism was victorious. But it didn't last long. There was a programme at the beginning to give stimulus to the economy, but the Democrats backed off really fast as soon as there was a threat from the financial community. After that it's just a straight business agenda. The North American Free Trade Agreement was a clear example, and the labour movement still continues to back him even though he has undermined it at every point.
NG: Do you think Blair is copying that?
NC: Yes. The idea is if you restrict the political arena completely to the corporate agenda, then people have nowhere else to go, and a slightly softer version will pick up anybody that's opposed. There is no media critique and there is not much in the way of organisation. There is a large activist left, but it's highly disorganised.
NG: What is it like being a socialist in the US at the moment?
NC: I find it easier than ever. There has been a major shift in consciousness. Topics that were almost impossible to talk about 20 or 30 years ago I can talk about now all I like. I never restrict what I say in public.
In the 1960s and the 1970s even when I was talking to left wing groups there were lots of things I just wouldn't say, like criticising wage labour. Now I do it anywhere. Just last week I gave a couple of talks in what are called conservative places a farming area of Minnesota, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is part of the old industrial centre. That was actually organised by the North East Indiana Labour Council which is a first for me, to get invited by a mainstream labour union. I talked to them the same as I would talk to you about the legitimacy of corporations, that workers should take over the factories. They didn't find it surprising.
NG: Do you think the victory at UPS had an impact?
NC: It had an impact, but unfortunately it was followed at once by the undermining of the Teamsters' leadership, which negated whatever impact it had.
NG: Didn't it put class and workplace politics back into the spotlight?
NC: To an extent yes, but right after that there was a huge defeat in the Caterpillar strike, which has been going on for years, and the Staley strike. When Caterpillar lost, it was a serious blow. Those are major unions.
Of course class is obviously there it's in everybody's bones. The class structure is much more sharply visible than it was in the past. Probably two thirds of the population have seen their income levels actually decline in the past 20 years. For younger people it's much worse entry level wages are way lower, so you can't miss it.
Both in Britain and the US the gap between rich and poor is growing, yet the US has never been known as a place where the gap between rich and poor is small.
Around 1980 inequality in the US was not very far from the OECD average. Since then it has moved up very sharply, so now it is about what it was in the 1920s. In the 1950s and 60s it was narrowing, then levelled off in the 1970s and has now started going up sharply. These are all effects of the big changes that took place since the liberalisation of financial capital in the early 1970s. That set off attacks on the welfare state and attacks on wages. The business press is pretty frank about it. They call it 'capital's clear subjugation of labour for 20 years'.
NG: You said there is a very big activist left in the US. How do you see the prospects for organising to make the left stronger and more effective?
NC: In some ways it's astonishingly effective. Take for example the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). This is the ultimate investor rights agreement. It grants corporations rights to do just about anything. It bars governments at national or even local level from instituting any restraints on investment flow, from consumer safety to investing in deprived areas, or women's rights. Just about anything you can think of, it barred. It was negotiated intensely, in secret, for three years at the OECD, because they knew that if it got out there would be uproar. It was due to be signed this April.
Well, there has been grassroots opposition despite a total blackout in the media, and enough so that they had to back down.
Here is a confrontation with the concentrated power of the world. The OECD countries and all the transnational corporations were in favour, the business organisations were all involved for years, trying to ram through an investor rights agreement which is like a utopian dream for them. They were stopped by popular organisation, without any public information programme. That is quite a triumph, and it ought to be hailed.
In fact the business press is upset about it. The Financial Times recently had a very revealing piece, which said a horde of vigilantes descended on the poor OECD, and they didn't know what to make of it. They were overwhelmed by the financial power and the organisational skills and the media influence of this horde of vigilantes. And they quote some diplomats who say that in the good old days you could at least sign treaties in secret and just have them rubber stamped by parliament. But now maybe we are going to have to let the special interests in (special interests are the whole population).
It's a very revealing article as it shows their totalitarian mentality the fact that you have only 99.9 percent control of the media is a disaster. This conception of the G7, the transnationals, the IMF and the World Bank being these weak little desperate figures overwhelmed by hordes of vigilantes gives an interesting insight into the conception they have in mind, which is not totally false.
Here without any organisation, and no resources or media, public interest groups and grassroots organisations are able to block the agreement. They were afraid of the popular reaction. Can that ever get together? It's very hard, especially in a country like the US where nobody knows what's happening on the other side of town.
This was a real victory and it should not be overlooked. Actually the Iraq thing was a major victory too. Despite everything no media, no information, no connections, no money the scale of opposition is such that it just blocks things.
People are instinctively opposed to what's going on. They don't have much information but they can see what's happening to their lives and they can sense what's going on, and they are disruptive enough to make life difficult but it's not organised.