(en) UK, May Day Monopoly Game Guide to Anti-Capitalist Actions in London on Tuesday 1 May 2001 II (2/2)
Chuck0
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: (en) UK, May Day Monopoly Game Guide to Anti-Capitalist
Actions in London on Tuesday 1 May 2001 II (2/2)
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 05:39:59 -0500 (EST)
From: "Cop Watch" <copw...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: a-in...@ainfos.ca
To: a-inf...@ainfos.ca
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________
2.4 FREE PARKING
The ‘great car economy’ began life with Ford mass producing family
transport for the masses (at least the better off masses!), giving its
name
to a whole era of capitalist production, which included strikes, factory
occupations and full on class war. In the 1950's the state decided to
speed
up the process, through the massacre of the railways by Beeching. Pretty
soon the predictable (and predicted) results were overcrowded roads and
pollution. Still the Government built more roads, people were sold more
cars and public transport was run down.
This continued until another huge road building programme, primarily
this
time to oil the wheels of trans-european business, provoked a small
resistance, which took shape and grew - Twyford Down, Claremont Road,
Pollock, and Newbury to name but a few. Sometimes mass community
resistance, sometimes increasingly isolated activists bought the road
programme to a halt. The road budget was reduced from £23 billion to a
pittance between 1992 and 1998 and 500 out of 600 schemes have been
scrapped since 1989.
Out of this resistance, particularly Claremont Road, developed ‘Reclaim
the
Streets’ and street parties (e.g. trees from Claremont Road were planted
on the M41 among sound systems and 10,000 people dancing). Efforts that
were repeated city to city, country to country, that grew to build links
with
the Liverpool Dockers, tube workers and hospital workers. Along side all
this, ‘Critical Mass’ mobile cycle blockades also took off. In the
process,
many people evolved from the specific anti-cars struggle into the broad
anti-capitalist movement. Now Labour is putting the road building frenzy
back into place (e.g. the Hastings bypass). It’s the same destruction of
the
earth and communities for the benefit of globalising capital as it ever
was.
All part of the same package as the privatisation of "public" transport
and
fighting it is just as important as it ever was.
USEFUL ADDRESS: British Road Federation (see OLD KENT ROAD)
STRAND
An ancient road running from Trafalgar Square to the Law Courts, linking
Westminster to the City. It was originally a bridle path, running along
the
river. By the 12th century it contained large mansions. In the 18th
century it
was renowned for its’ coffee houses and was a favourite haunt of
prostitutes and pickpockets. Previous residents have included the
anarchist
William Godwin, who lived at no. 191.
PROPERTIES
Armed Forces Careers Office 453-3
A thousand ways to kill
Coutts & Co 440
Bankers to the rich and Royalty – owned by Royal Bank of Scotland
Savoy Hotel
Where rich and famous scum stay
BBC World Service Bush Hse
propaganda to the world, has a shop
Inland Revenue Information Centre Bush Hse
If you have a tax enquiry! Taxes oiling the wheels of capitalism,
subsidising
ethnic cleansing and the arms trade.
RTZ, St James Sq
Uranium, coal and copper mines
Royal Courts of (In)Justice
Enterprise Oil 1-3
Europe, SE Asia, Khazakstan, Morocco, Greece, Albania and the opening
of the Atlantic Frontier in the west of Scotland which is currently
opposed by
Greenpeace
Barclays Bank* 366
Bomber Harris statue, outside RAF Clement Danes Church
Massacre of civilians at Dresden and elsewhere
Citibank & Citigold* 336
Australia High Commission
Still people imprisoned from September 11
Kings College
War Studies Dept trained Indonesian Militias and chemical weapons team
for attack on Iraq
Aroma* Wellington Hse
McDonalds* 35
Starbucks* 355
Reed Employment 402
Administers of workfare schemes, casual employer of Simon Jones who
was killed on his first day at work on the docks, due to lack of safety
procedures
Manpower Employment Services 11
Involved in workfare schemes and provided security guards on road
protests
FLEET STREET
Once the home of all national newspapers, with printers who had some
control over their working conditions. More wages and less productivity
equals less profits for the bosses. Come Thatcher, Murdoch decided to
smash effective trade unionism and moved the Sun and Times to Wapping.
One of the central battles of the 1980’s followed, with pitched battles
outside "Fortress Wapping", the scab unionism of the EEPTU (now part of
the AUEW), the threat to sequest SOGAT funds and secondary picketing.
The workers lost and there are now no papers left in Fleet St, but,
contrary
to propaganda, the working class hasn’t ceased to exist, nor ever will
as
long as there are bosses screwing profits out of those who do the work.
PROPERTIES
KPMG
Auditors and Financial Consultants, involved in carbon trading,
privatisation
and "strategic management of intellectual property". Recently worked
with
Alchemy to asset strip Rover. Members of Chemical Industries Assoc (with
Huntington Life Sciences) and expanding into central and eastern Europe
Barclays Bank* 19
Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer 65
Solicitors who have advised on evicting protesters in the UK (e.g.
injunction
against Ploughshares women) and also in South Africa.
Reuters 85
One of two main competitors (with Bloomberg) in the financial
information
market
Goldman Sachs 130-133
Involved in various IMF "bailouts" (ie privatisation programmes) in
Indonesia
and Sth Korea. Closer to you, they run the consortium that owns nearly
all
Job Centres! Income about £2.6 billion per year. Directors include Peter
Sutherland, who is also Chairman of BP and a former head of GATT, Sir
John Brown, CEO of BP, and Gavin Davis a confident of Gordon Brown.
Odyssey Communications 146
"End to End" e business and online web conferencing
Ernst & Young Linklater Hse, 10 Noble St
Largest provider of tax avoidance expertise in US and globally. Close
collaboration with Price Waterhouse. Assist Shell, Texaco, Saudi Aramco,
defence and aerospace industries and life sciences (animal abuse)
Royal Bank of Scotland* 1
NEWSPAPERS
Associated Newspapers (Mail, Evening Standard, Star) 2 Derry St, W8
Express 245 Blackfriars Rd SE1
Guardian and Observer 119 Farringdon Rd, EC1
Mirror Group 1 Canada Sq, E14
News International (Sun, Times, News of the World, Sunday Times) 1
Virginia St, E1
Telegraph Canada Sq, Canary Wharf, E14
TRAFALGAR SQUARE
Traditionally the end point of demonstrations in London, many of which
resulted in riots. The Chartists began their march here in 1848, that
year of
revolutionary uprisings throughout Europe. Notable demos included:
against
the bombing of Suez (1956); CND & Committee of 100 (a quarter of a
million marching in the 1960’s); and countless union demos. In the
1980’s a
non-stop picket opposing apartheid was held outside South Africa House
and the hated poll tax was effectively killed off by 200,000 people
rioting in
1990. In response the police built a new police station in the old
Charing
Cross hospital and last year succeeded in stopping part of the Mayday
demonstration reaching the Square, imprisoning many people in the
process. Remember this is their territory, the place they want us!
PROPERTIES
Drummonds Bankers 49 Charing Cross
Opened by the Royal Bank of Scotland, now under supervision of Coutts to
create a separate banking system for the super rich
Canada House
(Canada is a major supporter of free trade agreements, e.g. preventing
the
labelling of food, the use of asbestos, of which they are the worlds
major
producer)
Enterprise Oil, Grand Buildings
Oils interests everywhere from Albania to Khazakstan. Opening up the
Western Frontier (West of Scotland) and drilling the Western Siberian
Basin, the Brent Sea, a new gas deal with Iran …
Plus a statue of Charles 1st (beheaded in the English Revolution)
LEICESTER SQUARE
The garden in Leicester Square was originally common land for people to
dry clothes and pasture cattle. Much later it became a centre of
entertainment where people would gather. Also a place where homeless
people would go to pass the time and possibly sleep if they could. As
part of
Westminster council's drive to rid their borough of rough sleepers
(without,
of course, providing any housing) the garden is now locked up each
night.
Now the Government’s Rough Sleepers Unit (RSU) has spent a small
fortune on an advertising campaign telling us to stop giving money to
beggars (phone the RSU on 0845 6061623 to discuss this). Leicester
Square is also the home of the main cinemas, but don’t expect anything
but
the standard Hollywood fare.
PROPERTIES
Cinemas: – Empire, Odeon & Odeon West End
Empire is owned by UCI, who are destroying Crystal Palace park to build
a
multiplex
Pizza Hut
Chiquito Resturant & Bar 20
Bella Pasta
Capital Radio 30
Radisson Hampshire Hotel 31
Haagen Dazs
Angus Steak House
Swiss Centre on Wardour Street
Public face of a state famous for secret banking, protecting the rich &
powerful
Aberdeen Steak House
COVENTRY STREET
Built in 1681 it has always been known as a place of entertainment,
although as early as 1846 it was noted that it was a place of "bad
character". In keeping with this sentiment, the street is probably best
known
for the Fashion Café and Planet Hollywood. The Fashion Cafe was a
bizarre concept, owned by supermodels including Naomi Campbell. As
supermodels are not generally known for their appreciation of food it is
not
surprising that the venture failed and the building is now empty. Planet
Hollywood is owned by Hollywood filmstars Arnold Swarzenegger, Bruce
Willis and Sylvester Stallone. The idea being that the public can feel
as if
they are rubbing shoulders with the stars (whilst lining the stars
pockets of
course). After eating the food and drinking the drink, customers can
complete the experience by buying the T-shirt (and the hat, the bag, the
jacket.....etc.)
PROPERTIES
KFC
Fashion Café (now closed and empty)
Aldwych Theatre
Planet Hollywood (in Trocadero Centre)
TGI Fridays
Trocadero Centre
Aberdeen Steak Hse 21
HMV records (in Trocadero Centre)
2.5 WATER WORKS
The control and sale of water has become a key issue in this class
divided
world, proving the old adage that we would have to buy the air if it
could be
bottled.
British Water was privatised in 1989, by the Tory Government following
the
logic of neo-liberalism. Water is now charged for by the litre, huge
profits
are made by the few and large numbers of people, being unable to pay
their
bills, have their water supplies cut off and are thus unable to have a
drink or
flush the loo.
In Ireland in the 1990’s the Government introduced a much-detested tax
on
water. There was mass opposition to this and resistance was organised in
a similar way to the anti-poll tax campaign here. The success of this
showed again the power of collective action.
In other parts of the world it is the building of dams, which in turn
lead to
large areas being flooded and people losing their homes and livelihoods,
which has led to public protest. In China the damming of the Yantzee
river
will destroy a whole region.
In Turkey the Ilisu dam will flood and area occupied by the minority
Kurdish
community, who already suffer daily repression. Whilst the protection of
the
Kurds in Iraq is used as the pretext for Anglo-American bombing raids,
in
Turkey the British Government are underwriting part of the costs and
Balfour Beatty are the main contractors (see ANGEL). The dam is not
designed to improve the water supplies of local people but simply to
serve
industry. Not only will Kurdish homelands be destroyed but the Turkish
State will also be able to control the water supply of neighbouring
Syria and
Iraq.
Water is big business and this liquid, which is so essential to life, is
simply
another commodity in this topsy turvey world.
USEFUL ADDRESS Thames Water plc 14 Cavendish Place, London W1.
PICCADILLY
The name Piccadilly stems from a 17th century dressmaker who created a
fashionable frilled collar called a "piccadil". Piccadilly Circus,
originally built
in 1819, lost its circular form in 1886 when the slums of Soho and St
Giles
were knocked down to build Shaftesbury Avenue. Since 1910 electric
adverts at Piccadilly have been exhorting us to consume, helped along in
1923 when the giant electric billboards were erected on the facade of
the
London Pavilion. In 1823, roller skates were patented by Robert John
Tyers,
a local fruiterer, "for the purpose of travelling or pleasure." The 1893
bronze
fountain topped by a figure of a winged archer is popularly called Eros,
but
was actually supposed to be a symbol of Christian charity, built as a
memorial to the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.
PROPERTIES
Criterion Restaurant 224
Run by Marco Pierre White for the rich only
The Money Corporation 18
Bureau de change with a great name
Fortnum & Mason 181
Food for the obscenely rich
Caviar House (Restaurant & shop) 161
Ritz Hotel
Tea anyone?
Saab showroom 77
Mercedes Benz showroom 75
Korean Air 67
At the sharp end of capitalist restructuring, workers opposing mass
sackings face state brutality, but have fought back on the streets
The former home of Lord Palmerston, now empty 94
Japanese Embassy
The G8 summit held on the island of Okinawa in July 2000 cost £500m,
just
so protesters could be kept away)
Virgin Megastore 225-229
(Recently revealed plans to take plastic payment only)
Lillywhites Sports Store
Largest sports shop - purveyors of trainers made by children
Tower Records
NatWest bank* 207
Waterstones 206
Lloyds TSB* 39
Time Computer Systems 193
The Orange Shop (Mobile ‘phones) 192
Hatchards Bookshop
Aroma*
Pret A Manger* 41 & 163
HSBC bank* 79
Starbucks
Heidriek & Struggles International Inc
Burlington & Piccadilly Arcades
2.6 DON'T GO TO JAIL
London has no less than 8 prisons, two of which are also used to
lock up asylum seekers, who have fled persecution in their own
lands.
9 prisons in England and Wales are privately run - 4 by Group 4 (see
MAYFAIR).
Around 44% of men and 15% of women are convicted of a criminal
offence at some time in their lives.
Black people are 7 times more likely to be imprisoned and they
receive longer sentences.
Between 1982 and 1998 the figures for suicides in prison more than
doubled. In '98 there were 82 suicides (average prison population
64,744). Of these 40 were remand prisoners (i.e. not yet convicted).
Over 63% of remand prisoners do not receive a prison sentence.
Many prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day and occupy
overcrowded cells.
The life sentence prison population is growing at an even faster rate
than the overall prison population (currently there are approx. 4,500
lifers)
The number of women in prison has doubled since 1993 to 3,400 in
1999. Most are in prison for debt.
In 1995 20,742 people were sent to prison for non-payment of fines.
Labour and the Tories are agreed on the need to send more people
to prison. This requires more prisons, which will be privately
designed, built, managed and financed.
Convicted prisoners may be required to do ‘useful work’ for up to 10
hours a day. The average wage is £7 per week. Useful work includes
making prison uniforms!
ADDRESSES (Do not pass GO, do not collect £200)
Belmarsh Western Way, Thamesmead SE28
Brixton Jebb Avenue, SW2
Feltham (Young offenders) Bedfont Road, Feltham
Holloway (female adult & young offenders) Parkhurst Road, N7
Latchmere House Church Road, Richmond, TW10
Pentonville (see PENTONVILLE ROAD)
Wandsworth Heathfield Road, SW18
Wormwood Scrubs DuCane Road, W12
REGENT STREET
The road was built to provide a link from Regents Park to central
London, to
make profitable the development of new lands and to try and improve the
down-at-heel Pall Mall (see PALL MALL). Around 1890 it became the
centre of fashion and lots of expensive clothes and shoe shops remain.
PROPERTIES
Benetton (Head Office) 255
Mappin and Webb, Pravins, Boodle and Dunthorpe (all jewellers)
Gap and Gap Kids* 146
Liberty
William Morris rip-offs
Barclays* 27 & 212
Na West* 250
HSBC* 133
Lloyds TSB* 132
Disney Store 140
Recently sacked 1,145 workers in Thailand, replacing them with cheaper
sub-contracted labour, 10% of which are children. The CEO, Michael
Eisner, earns over $300m per year.
Starbucks* 76
Angus Steakhouse 74
Purveyors of BSE & Foot & Mouth
Cafe Royal 68
Where posh folk have their parties
OXFORD STREET
In 1886, the coldest winter England had seen for thirty years, 20,000
unemployed dock and building workers took to the street following a
rally in
Trafalgar Square. Looting and ransacking shops they robbed and
terrorised
the rich in their clubs and carriages. This was to be repeated over 100
years later after 1990’s 200,000 strong Poll Tax riot.
Oxford Street is now the jugular vein of consumerism capitalism in
central
London and an epicentre of exploitation. Burger King, for example, make
workers clock off when they are not busy, though forcing them to stay.
Pizza Hut offered a Spanish women a job without pay to ‘help’ her
English.
But the biggest the rip off happens in the third world. Adidas pays its
workers 6p per hour in Burma, where the military keep discipline. Gap
employs children as young as 12 in its Cambodian factories. Nike pays
children 20 cents per hour in China and gets them jailed when the form a
trade union.
PROPERTIES
Gap & Gap Kids* 44-48, 192, 194, 319, 376, 471-475 & 513
Niketown 236
Aroma* 73
Starbucks* 57
Car Phone Warehouse 407
Sells Ericcson, who make riot shields for the cops, and Vodaphone,
aggressive marketers and key players in pushing for the construction of
The Newbury by-pass
Office Angels 25-27
Full enjoyment, not full employment
Whittards 53
Rightist, economic neo imperialist plantation enterprise
McDonalds 8, 185, 291B & 341-349
HSBC* 52
Cheque Point 55
NatWest bank* 79
Woolwich 95
Barclays bank* 109
Bureau De Change 295
Ernest Jones Jewellers 271
The jewel and precious metal trade is notoriously exploitative of
workers
J.D Sports 275
Sellers of sweatshop labour produced garments and footwear
BT Shop 351
Close ally of the secret state in terms of bugging and screening
telecommunications and emails
Acme Appointments 315-319
New Look 309
Many garments sourced in sweatshop labour factories in third world,
industrial polluter, major use of chemically treated synthetics
Marks & Spencer 169 & 470
JJB Sports 128 & 301-309
Sweatshop and child labour brokers
Mappin and Webb Jewellers 409
Lloyds TSB* 399
West One Shopping Centre – home to McDonalds*, Boots* and Pret A
Manger*
Footlocker 363
Yet more child produced trainers
Abbey National 475
Phones For You 449
MacKenzies Jewellers 447
HSBC* 196 & 431
Bureau De Change 453, 483
Dixons 491-497
Brokers of intensive, exploited labour produced electronic goods
H&M 505-507
Bureau De Change 546, 544, 536
KFC 542
First Sport 163 & 526-528
Superdrug 536
Pharmaceutical industry cheerleader
H Samuel 167, 250 & 474
Selfridges 400
Plenty of sweatshop labour produced extortionate garments and goods
Body Shop* 66, 268 & 374
Disney Store 360-366
(see REGENT STREET)
Easy Everything Café and Nescafe 356
Nescafe is part of The Nestle Corp. currently aggressively marketing its
powdered milk in Africa as substitute for breast milk. Responsible for
infant
deaths.
Debenhams 346
Citibank* 306
House Of Fraser
John Lewis 278
Gadget Shop 266
Useless outsourced commodity fetishism. Many produced in third world.
H&M 240-246
Burger King* 142-144
Plaza Shopping Centre- containing McDonalds* and other enterprises
engaged in wage labour and ecological exploitation.
Boots* 80, 138-141, 285-289, 389, 439-441 & 490
Bureau De Change 70, 40
Halifax Building Society 60
Costa Coffee 50
Third world labour force and land exploiter
Lloyds TSB 34
Tesco Metro (see OLD KENT RD) 311
BOND STREET
Bond street was named after Sir Thomas Bond who was the financial
controller of the Queen’s household at the court of King Charles I. In
the
early part of the 17th century the area was swampy, uninhabited and near
a
plague pit, an area where highwaymen preyed on passers-by and
noblemen fought duels. Later in the century Bond street contained large
houses which were sought after by the rich. By the 1850s both Old and
New Bond street were filled with fashionable shops, and by the turn of
the
century the Bond streets were renowned for their art galleries.
PROPERTIES
Sotheby’s Auctioneers 34 New Bond St
The Fine Art Society 148 New Bond St
Benson & Hedges Ltd 13 Old Bond St
Calvin Klein 53-55 New Bond St
Louis Vuitton 17 New Bond St
Remember Posh Spice’s luggage, sadly stolen at the airport?
Cartier 175 New Bond St
Chanel 26 Old Bond St & 173 New Bond St
Versace 33 Old Bond St
Fashion victim no 1
Armani 43 New Bond St
Ralph Lauren 6 & 143 New Bond St
Rolex 29 Old Bond St
Tiffany & Co 25 Old Bond St
Yves Saint Laurent 135/137 New Bond St
PARK LANE
Park Lane has been one of the most fashionable streets in London since
the 1820's - all of its residents being rich and many of them titled.
Now it
mainly consists of hotels for the rich and super-rich and places where
they
buy their toys (note the number of car showrooms). In the early sixties
Park
Lane was converted into a dual carriageway by sacrificing a part of Hyde
Park.
PROPERTIES
London Hilton hotel
Dorchester Hotel & Club
Cooper/Lexus car showrooms 59
McLaren car showrooms 61
Porsche car showrooms 64
BMW car showrooms 68
Grosvenor House Hotel and Business Centre
Angolan Embassy 98
Jaguar & Aston Martin car showrooms 113
Park Lane Apartments Estate Agents 121
Bargain of the week – semi-detached house £895,000!
Mercedes-Benz car showrooms 127
Hotel Intercontinental
Metropolitan Hotel
2.7 SUPERTAX
'Protection' is the key word in the Garment Center racket.
The process is as follows: One day you receive a visit from
a gentleman who kindly offers to protect you. If you are
really naïve, you ask, "Protection against what?" Groueff &
Lapierre, The Gangsters of New York.
Any discussion of tax - income tax, sales tax, business tax, carbon
taxes,
even supertaxes - misses more fundamental questions: Why is it that we
work for money? Why do the products of human labour take on the form of
commodities? Why is production carried out by separate business
enterprises? Why is human life outside the personal sphere of friends
and
family organised as economic buying and selling or as state bureaucratic
activity? In capitalism, separated from each other and from the means of
producing our lives we must sell - alienate - our activity as a
commodity in
order to get money to buy the things we need in order to live.
Commodities
and money are values, the representation of labour under capitalism.
Value
is thus not neutral but the capitalist form of wealth, the expression of
a
world where humans relate through things and to each other as things.
The
state is not separate to this.
In a society of commodity production and exploitation the state has
taken on
roles whether repressive or apparently ‘benevolent’ as has been felt
necessary to maintain social cohesion, i.e. to maintain class society
and
prevent human community. Even when it meets certain needs it only does
so in bureaucratic forms that replicate the forms of value. Whether
organising violence or ‘welfare’, the state is not a neutral form but an
expression of alienated labour.
Tax is fundamentally a category of relating to how a portion of value
already
produced is redistributed. The task humanity faces is to abolish the
production of value itself. To abolish value is also to abolish the
state. Tax
has nothing to do with it.
MAYFAIR
The most expensive square on the board and still the most expensive area
of London, Mayfair is bounded by Oxford St, Regent St, Piccadilly and
Park
Lane. It takes its name from the fair, which was transferred here from
Haymarket in 1686, held here annually from May 1st for 15 days. Soon
this
event became notorious for riotous and disorderly behaviour and in 1708
it
was abolished, only to be revived again with similar results. In the end
the
only way to permanently suppress the fair was to build on the site.
Perhaps
a tradition that needs reinventing!
PROPERTIES
Berkeley Square
Royal & Sun Alliance 30
Mortons Restaurant 28
Cadbury Schweppes 25
Mount City Group of Companies 24
Bank of Ireland 20
Rolls Royce & Bentley Car Showrooms 18 & 19
Audi Car Showrooms 15-17
Lloyds TSB* 14
Allied Irish Bank 10
Pret A Manger* 7
Nat West* 5
Starbucks* corner of Berkeley Sq & Lansdown Row
Maggs Bros Ltd (rare books, manuscripts etc) 50
Scotia Bank Europe plc 48
HSBC* 47
Cluttons chartered surveyors 45
Clermont Club 44
Nicky Clarke hairdressers - corner of Berkeley Sq & Mount Street
where the rich & stupid pay £loads for a cut & blow-dry
Mount Street
Various galleries and art places
Allens (butchers) Ltd 117
Purveyors of bourgeois delicacies like foie gras
Carlos Place
Connaught Hotel & Restaurant - where a portion of caviar cost £120
Grosvenor Square
US Embassy
Grosvenor Street
Killik & Co Stockbrokers 46
Investcorp International Ltd 48
Canadian High Commission (see TRAFALGAR SQUARE) 38
European Credit Management Ltd 34
Klesch & Co Ltd 51
Argyll Investment Management Ltd 58
Barclays Private Bank* 59
Frank Usher 66
posh frock designer
Vidal Sassoon 19 & 20
Pirelli 15
Famous for their hideous sexist calendars
Estee Lauder 73
The "face" of Estee Lauder is scab actress Liz Hurley
Hillier, Parker, May & Rowden 78
Worldwide property services
Starbucks* corner of Avery Road
South Audley Street
Oronti Antiques 37
Mayfair Gallery 39
Purdey - Gun & Rifle Manufacturers 57-58
Spy Shop 59
Counter Spy Shop 62
Sir Brian Moffat, Accountant, has Mayfair office head of Corus the
privatised
steel industry comprised of British Steel and Dutch Hoogovens, mass
redundancies in Jan 01
Group 4 HQ 7 Carlos Place
2nd largest security services operator in the world: security &
surveillance,
runs private prisons & detention centres for asylum seekers,
transportation
of prisoners
Qatar National Bank* 1 Mount St W1
Embassy of Qatar * 1 South Audley St
Embassy of Qatar (military section)* 21 Hertford St
Mexican embassy 42 Hertford St
As the EZLN marched on Mexico City, one woman said "we are all
indigenous now"
3.1 A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY
In the game of monopoly, without money you lose. In capitalist society
money is the God at whose feet we are all required to worship. It is not
a
neutral instrument of measurement, it is the commodity (thing) in which
all
other commodities are reflected. Without money you starve.
The negation of capitalism (i.e. its overthrow and replacement by
another
form of society) has been called anarchism, socialism, communism or
post-capitalism, but whatever term we prefer, it requires the abolition
of
money. In place of a world based on the wages system and commodities
must come into being a world where human activity will never again take
the form of wage slavery and where the products of such activity will no
longer be objects of commerce. We do not need another measure of value
as ‘value’ will be meaningless. Money will disappear.
The end of property
The abolition of money requires the abolition of all property, not just
the land
and buildings represented on the Monopoly board, not just the means of
production, but all property. It is not a question of transferring
property titles
but of the simple disappearance of property. In revolutionary society no
one
will be able to 'use and abuse' a good because they are its owner. There
will be no exceptions to this. Things will no longer belong to anyone;
rather
they will belong to everybody. The very idea of property will rapidly be
considered absurd.
The usual objection is that if property were abolished anyone would be
able
to take my clothes off my back or take bread from out of my mouth just
because I would no longer be the owner of my clothes or my food. In fact
the opposite is true. In place of the insecurity of capitalism (where
only the
rich really have property rights) each person's material and emotional
security will be strengthened. However, it will not be property rights
which
will be invoked as a protection, but the direct interest of the person
concerned. The right and the sentiment of property will die out because
scarcity will disappear. People will no longer have to cling to an
object for
fear of not being able to enjoy it any more if they let go of it for a
single
instant.
There is no magic about this. We will be able to make abundance appear
because it is
already here under our feet. It is not a question of creating it but
simply of
liberating it. It is not that we are suddenly going to produce abundance
but
rather that capitalism artificially maintains scarcity.
In this new-world goods will be freely available and free of charge. The
organisation of society to its very foundations will be without money.
3.2 HOUSING
All over London, from the Old Kent Road to Mayfair, buildings lie empty
whilst people are homeless or living in overcrowded conditions. The rich
stay in the Savoy, whilst homeless people and asylum seekers are dumped
in grotty bed and breakfasts, whilst landlords make huge profits. Rents
are
rising and renting privately means putting up with poor conditions,
scummy
landlords and insecurity. Buying somewhere to live means signing up for
a
lifetimes debt to some bank or building society and living in fear of
unemployment and repossession. Either way homelessness is only a few
missed payments away.
Having lasted barely a century Labour (which largely created it) has now
embarked on the final sell off of all council housing within the next
ten years
– if they can get away with it. Although a statist top down project, it
still gave
millions decent housing for the first time. The Tories in the late
1970’s
tapped into some tenants discontent with their lack of direct control
and
started their heavily subsidised right to buy at the same time that the
then
version of market reform – ‘fair’ rents – was pushing council rents
relentlessly higher. Councils weren’t allowed to use the proceeds from
sales to build more housing. Now you can watch Labour scrambling to
handover their estates to housing associations.
Housing associations are run like businesses, with market rents and
constant talk of surpluses (‘profit’ it seems is a dirty word). Housing
association bosses are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of
the
privatisation of council housing; after all they have the most to gain
as they
take over estates and build their empires.
However, tenants are fighting back. Many ballots went against
privatisation,
so ballots are to be abolished. Now the real struggle begins and tenants
in
Camden, Lambeth and Southwark have organised against privatisation. At
the same time, squatters continue to take back buildings from those who
control our lives. Thousands of people have, for many years, made empty
flats and houses their own homes.
Ordinary people have been steadily forced out of Central London but in
many parts have resisted, from Covent Garden and Waterloo to Tolmers
Square in Euston squatters played their part and some victories were
won.
And buildings are not only for housing. Just as developers take swimming
pools and turn them into loft living opportunities we take their empty
buildings and put them to our own uses. In Hackney the council closed a
nursery down to sell it to developers, local activists squatted it and
turned it
back to community use. Pubs are closed down then squatted and
reopened as social space. The possibilities are as endless as the lists
of
empties.
Squatting is still legal. To strengthen the squatting movement we need
to
support our networks and resources, defend our homes and centres and
spread our ideas and our threat of a bad example.
Further info on squatting: Advisory Service for Squatters 2 St Pauls
Road N1 2QN. Tel 0207 359 8814
3.3 DON’T FORGET THE DICE!
The Dice reflect the myth of the "free
market" within the Monopoly system. The
myth that every ‘free individual’ has an
equal opportunity for success in the
‘game’. But this is an obvious lie; the Dice
are loaded from the start. The unequal
distribution of resources and opportunity is
a crucial feature of capitalism.
The Dice also represents the myth of the
‘invisible hand’, the notion that a laissez
faire economy is self-regulating and follows
a natural order. The truth is that, despite all
attempts to rig the ‘game’, this is never
totally successful and capitalism is still
about risk and gambling. Not wrong in
itself, but the stakes in this ‘game’ are our
lives and wellbeing not just those of the
gamblers and, with the disastrous effects
of capitalism on both a fractured society
and a poisoned environment, the stakes
are high.
A more subtle idea associated with using
the Dice in the Monopoly Game is the
discontinuity of the players. Their
movements are disconnected by the
randomness, they are no longer related by
anything. In this game, as in its real
equivalent, the ‘free’ atomic individual
rules, as disconnected from their
neighbours as the dots on the Dice.
But the Dice can be reclaimed; they aren’t
bad in themselves. The great irony of
capitalism is that whilst it clothes itself in
the mantle of freedom and dons the mask
of justice it is in fact based on neither of
these. Capitalist society requires a specific
social structure and a precise form of
‘individual’. A whole culture machine is
geared to create such a set up. Modern
society is based on control, discipline and
imposed order. Not only of the world it
seeks to exploit but, just as significantly, of
those who make it up and are supposed to
benefit from it. Our lives are monitored,
analysed and regulated today as never
before, as the ethos of the prison seeps
out into everyday life. But resistance to this
Panopticism is still possible; life can still be
made spontaneous and free of instrumental
control. We can start by following our
desires, but in a world were our desires
themselves are packaged and sold back to
us we need something more. It is here that
the Dice are a liberational tool. Living in the
domain of Fortuna can open up new vistas
of freedom when combined with a
collective intention and creative will to
emancipation. On Mayday the Dionysian
Underground (the post-situ
anarcho-surrealist network) intend to
reclaim the Dice and ‘roll it’ on the streets
of London. Join us if you will, or better still
reclaim the Dice for yourself and subvert
the ‘game’.
3.4 GLOSSARY
Aroma Subsidiary of human, land and animal
rights violating multinational McDonalds.
Barclays Bank Investor in arms trade and
human rights abusing dictatorships. Think
oil in Burma, Indonesia, China, think
Monsanto, think …
Body Shop Violator of workers rights.
Owner Anita Roddick does not allow her
workers to unionise.
Boots Pharmaceutical giant engaged in
selling potentially cancerous dioxin
infested products.
Burger King McDonalds’ prettier ugly
sister, i.e. same politics, practices etc
regarding labour and farming.
Citibank, Citigold & Citicorp Biggest lender
of student loans in USA and Latin America.
Helped the previous Nigerian dictatorship
to remove £452m - £60m was delivered in
suitcases!
Gap employs children as young as 12 in its
Cambodian factories. Uses child and adult
sweat shop labour in Third World Free
Trade Zones to produce it’s clothing.
HSBC (Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking
Corporation) Invests in military
dictatorships, nuclear arms etc.
Lloyds TSB loan sharks with unethical
investments - all banks steal.
McDonalds Low wages, exploitative of live
stock, forests and land; major industrial
polluter, engaged in aggressive marketing
in particular towards children, selling
unhealthy food etc.
NatWest bank One time investor in
Huntingdon Life Sciences, plus the usual
genocidal dictatorships and arms (see
Royal Bank of Scotland).
Pret A Manger Now part owned by
McDonalds.
Qatar The next venue for the WTO
meeting, in November 2001. Held here to
make it difficult to attend.
Royal Bank of Scotland Owners of Coutts
and NatWest bank as well as Direct Line
Insurance. Currently being investigated for
having a monopoly in the banking sector
as they are trying to buy Abbey National.
Starbucks Exploiters of third world coffee
growers, also responsible for promoting
earth degrading mono-crop farming.
Obscene profit margins and mean attitude
toward staff- all store tape players are set
at particular speed which prevents any
worker bringing in and playing own music.
Currently teaming up with Microsoft in
USA.
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