About Socialism (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

After trying to explain Socialism to friends I often find them suddenly asking, “But how much would a manual worker get?” or something equally startling. I suppose it must be partly my fault for advocating “production for use” and “common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution” etc., without always getting across even the major implications of such Socialist fundamentals. (It’s also partly the fault of Labour, Communist, Conservative and other political parties who intentionally propagate the idea that the nationalization in the UK and the capitalism in Russia have something to do with Socialism; and that wage-earners, money and armed forces etc. can or do exist in a Socialist society. Some of the members of these parties genuinely believe these ideas out of ignorance —others, better-read and “knowing the score” deliberately preserve the deception out of self-interest.)

And so, for the benefit of readers not long acquainted with the Socialist Standard or other Socialist literature, here are some of the physical implications of a Socialist society.

There will be no money. The necessities and good things of life will be produced by the community and owned by it, so no one will be in a position to sell anything to anybody. Each individual will take (literally) freely what he or she needs—no buying, no selling, no stealing—all impossible, and money superfluous. Each person will work because he or she is a human being to whom useful work is natural and each will eat, and enjoy leisure for the same reason. There will be no “If you don’t work you don’t eat” threats. The only “punishment” for consuming without producing will be the pity and possible “patronage” of one’s fellow beings. (Which is probably worse than it sounds!) Stealing having disappeared — so will prisons, policemen and armed forces. Likewise there will be no vested interests, power groups, nations or nationalism. The motive for war will cease to exist.

Because of the advanced state of material development the world has now reached, all this is within our reach, requiring but one more thing—the understanding of, and consequent desire for Socialism by a majority of the citizens of the world.

R. B. Gill

Remember Soweto? (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the headlines have died down over the recent riots in Soweto, South Africa, and the press vultures are picking over some other gory carcass, it is worth a look at what the Johannesburg Star had to say before the outbreak of riots.

In an article on 14th June 1976 it described Soweto as ". . . just a huge agglomeration of people living without many of the accepted amenities of urban life. Physical security, schools, decent sanitation, and roads, electricity, proper shopping and recreational facilities . . ." In other words, a massive shanty town for “probably well over a million people” (i.e. black workers). Since last year, when the Johannesburg Star had another article on Soweto “matters have not improved”. The cauldron could well have boiled over earlier.

The real concern of the paper is revealed in the last paragraph of the later article:

Can any government in its right senses allow this drift towards disaster to continue? Even if you leave human compassion right out of it and simply consider the huge potential threat that is building up here to the security of everyone. White as well as Black?

The capitalist class are always willing to “leave human compassion right out of it”. What they are concerned with is “the security of everyone”, specially themselves. You can’t have the workers going round rioting, stealing and destroying property; they might start bringing these reactions into the factories and other places. Workers must respect property. The capitalists must keep the lid on and maintain law and order “at all costs” as Vorster emphatically pointed out.

The tragic lesson of Soweto is that the capitalists will unhesitatingly use the state power when they think their interests are threatened. While we abhor the conditions under which the South African workers are forced to live, the solution does not lie in abolishing apartheid but in the recognition by all workers that their common interest lies in the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism throughout the world.

T. K.

So They Say: Ungrateful Lot (1976)

The So They Say Column from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ungrateful Lot

Much play has been made recently by both Labour and Conservative! groups on their various schemes to allow Council tenants to purchase the properties they occupy. The Southwark Community Development Project and the Joint Docklands Action Group of Newington decided to conduct a survey to discover the appeal of such schemes to those concerned, and came up with the conclusion that “few are interested in buying a typical council flat.” The report in The Times of 29th June seemed to have regarded the findings as something of a foregone conclusion. It argued:

While new houses with gardens on suburban estates or in new towns, for example, would attract ready buyers flats in inner city tower blocks would have little or no appeal.

While surveys like this never cease to amaze us, it shows just, how unreasonable workers can be. Who else but the members of the working class would express disapproval at the prospect of spending their lives, and paying for the privilege at that, packed together well above ground level in noisy and uncomfortable cells of concrete (often, as in the case of Ronan Point, with no visible means of support, or lifts—even if installed), albeit with magnificent views over the previously erected low-rise slums? Come to that, who else but the workers would be offered such a glorious opportunity to join "the property owning democracy”?

O Brother!

"We should not destroy or split or seek to destroy in any way the Labour Government” said Mr. Benn on the 4th July, and no doubt the Labour government gave three cheers for Benn and said "Amen”. He was speaking at the Institute for Workers’ Control in Keele University, in his capacity as Labour’s Energy Secretary, when he also revealed to his audience the information that capitalism was in "irreversible decline.” We do not know if he was standing on his head at the time.

Now we who advocate the abolition of the capitalist system were naturally agog with excitement at a “leak” of this magnitude. Was there to be a surprise announcement from the government? We scanned the newspapers. Yes, there was an announcement from Healey. No, it was not a surprise—except perhaps for his fellow minister Benn.

Britain would be one of the few countries which could look forward to a rapid recovery over the next 18

months . . .

The Times, 7th July 1976

Followed presumably by three more cheers and back-slapping. Considering that both these men are “united” in a political party which expresses the view that a system of exploitation is the only one to which workers are entitled, and capable apparently of both declining and recovering at the same time, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that were they to pool their respective talents and issue a joint statement, it would prove twice as ignorant as either of their individual efforts.

Sir Willie?

The fanaticism with which William Hamilton attacks the Royal Family appeared to have abated somewhat when he voiced “concern” over a motion from other Labour MPs—themselves expressing “surprise” over the Queen’s purchase of Gatcombe Park for her well- breeched offspring Princess Anne. The price was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 12th June as £500,000. No, No, said the microscopically-minded Hamilton, the Monarch should spend her money as she saw fit. What was wrong was that “the Royal wealth which makes such expenditure possible has been due to the failure of successive governments to tax that wealth in the same way as that of all other citizens.”

Can it be that he is angling for something? Considering his immense publicity services to the Crown, he must surely be deserving of some appropriate medal or title. This would be no more than he deserves. We note incidentally that in the Register of MPs’ Interests, he gives one source of income under the appropriate heading of “royalties”—a reference to the money from his literary masterpiece on the Royal Family. While he, and others, spend so much of their time and effort in expressing a petty outrage at the size of the molehills, they have missed the mountains—capitalism rumbles on. But then Labour MPs could hardly be expected to think about anything as fundamental as that.

What could be fairer ?

It is usually the practice, after being led up the garden path by one man, to find at the end of it another who then exhibits a bag from which he releases a cat. Although capable of fulfilling both rôles, Eric Varley, Secretary of State for Industry, has been releasing the cat.

The dictionary definition of a scientist is given as: “A person learned in one or more of the natural sciences” and science as: “Systematic and formulated knowledge.” Now Mr. Varley has not so much altered the definition, but put it into perspective! within the context of capitalism—where, like all other members of the working class, scientists must live by selling their mental and physical energy to the ruling class. He was bemoaning the fact that “to be a technologist or a manager in industry is considered to be a pretty lousy job” and from this erudite premise, drew the conclusion that potential but reluctant scientists just did not know what they were missing:

Qualified scientists and engineers, although numerically a small category, have a particularly significant role. They have the innovative capacity to generate and translate the technology into competitive and saleable products and the responsibility for managing the production processes.

Daily Telegraph, 7th July 76

A significant role therefore, not in an abstract sense of the pursuit of Knowledge, but in the real economic field where the owning class is in pursuit of something else, the accumulation of capital.

Class Distinction

“More than 1000 London dockers, who are being paid £57 a week for doing nothing, at a cost to the Port of London of between £6 million and £7 million a year, are ‘moonlighting’ to double their earnings”, reported the Daily Telegraph of 30th June. “A scandal” is their description. They do however concede that the men, on average 1,250, do no work for the reason that there is often no work for them to do. The men are protected, however, under the National Dock Labour Scheme from sacking on this ground alone, and even the inducement of a £5,250 “golden handshake” to accept redundancy has failed to shift them. Considering the apparently universal exhortations from the press for workers to pull out their respective fingers and earn themselves a living, we would have thought that the taking of a second job would have merited praise. Apparently not, so “a scandal” it remains.

Surprising then to note that the moral indignation of the Telegraph respectfully faded to nothing when it reported on the twelve, no doubt “just”, women whom Paul Getty “richly remembered in his Will” (10th June 76). Among others they noted that Lady Ursula D’abo, sister of the Duke of Rutland, was to receive 1000 of his shares, worth £93,361, and how she was duly “surprised by the gift. The shares will remain in Getty Oil until I die, as he would have wished.”

All highly commendable; no mention here of a “scandal.” No mention, incidentally, of what happen to the share dividends either—we refer to the large cheque which drops through the letter box from time to time. Work for a living? My dear, who do you think opens the envelope!

Idle-ized

Who was Eric Singer? If you never heard of him— Snap! But on 30th June The Times published an obituary of him. What were his achievements? Take note.

According to the article, he was “an early, though later disenchanted” member of the German Communist Party. In Britain he became “a planning consultant”. To illuminate that, he was able to do his day’s work “before most people had roused themselves from their beds”, which clearly means it was a very small day’s work. What did he do after the rest got up? “He left behind an uncompleted book on inflation and an unpublished work on architecture.” He spent the war “at the roulette tables in Lisbon”, and became “a purveyor of gallantries to ladies, snuff and gossip to men”. “He greeted each day with his freshly-plucked button-hole, his stick and his joie de vivre”.

This reminds us strongly of Fred Bloggs. In his teens Fred joined the Balls Pond Road Libertarian Society, resigning when he discovered he had mistaken its name for “Libertine”. He was widely known in all four corners of the betting shop, while his élan and the je ne sais quoi with which he rolled a Nosegay cigarette made him a favourite of barmaids everywhere. He always alluded to his lifelong redundancy with the characteristic epigram: “Never done a stroke and don’t intend to, mate.”

What a curious world where a man is praised for having had political delusions and spending his life as a fashionable idler.

Alan D'Arcy

Labour-Power and Wages (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The particular form of society in which we live is capitalism which is composed of two classes, defining class as relationship to the means of production. The capitalist class own the means of production, which enables them to exploit the working class and to live luxuriously on the surplus-value the workers produce. The working class have no ownership in the means of production and must therefore, to live, sell the only commodity they possess: : their mental and physical energies, viz., labour-power.

Labour-power is not to be confused with labour; the latter is the function of the former. Labour-power, being a commodity, is subject to the same economic laws as other commodities. The value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially-necessary labour-time required for its reproduction. In applying this yardstick we shall see that labour-power exists in the living individual: therefore the value of labour-power resolves into the means of subsistence, food, clothing, living accommodation, all the things required to reproduce the labour-power for the employment in which it is engaged. This includes provision for the worker’s family, as his children must replace him in the labour market.

The purely physical means of subsistence required to keep the worker sufficiently supplied with energy to continue in working order is qualified by historical or social elements; these reflect wants arising from developing social conditions, and varying standards of living obtained by workers in different countries. The value of labour-power may therefore vary within certain limits. It may, for example, be increased by the expansion of the social element, or the social element may be brought nearer to the bare means of subsistence just sufficient to keep the worker as exploitable material. Any further reduction, reducing wages beyond the physical element, would result in labour-power failing in normal efficiency.

Wages are the price of labour-power, the expression of its value in terms of money, although price and value are not necessarily identical. Wages therefore may rise above or fall below the value of labour- power, depending on the pressure of capital on one side and the resistance workers are able to put up. A constant struggle takes place as a necessary result of the wages system. The worker must always try to maintain his standard of living, the capitalist will always try to increase his profit.

The value produced in a working day is divided into two parts. The first is that which has to be returned to the worker as wages. The remainder is appropriated by the capitalist class as owners of the means of production, and is called surplus-value. Clearly the one cannot increase without the other decreasing. Also, wages can never rise above the point where the average amount of profit is threatened to any extent. However, it is a mistake to suppose that this conflict of interests constitutes the class struggle. It is one part of the class struggle, a necessary but limited one. The ultimate struggle is over the ownership of the means of production and distribution, and its prosecution requires comprehensive political action.

Failing that, the basic position of the wage-worker remains unaltered. As we have seen, labour-power is a commodity and like other commodities has value. But it is unique among commodities in that by its use, i.e. when the worker produces by applying his energies to natural resources and raw material, he creates value. He not only adds value, but more value than that of his labour-power. It is the difference between what the worker receives as wages, and the total value he produces, that is the source of the capitalist’s profit. The worker must supply the capitalist with surplus-value in order that he may work for his own livelihood.

Socialists ask their fellow members of the working class to look beyond the wages system, to become conscious of the need to move on to an altogether different society. A society where wages would have no place, there would be no wage-working class, and no capitalist to appropriate what is produced. Property society has served its purpose. Socialism will give rise to new social relations corresponding to the ownership of the means of living being in the hands of the world community. The aim should be to abolish the wages system and to replace it by a system where people can freely take the things they require, as they will freely take part in producing them.

P. Young

Letter: Small Fry (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Small Fry

I read with interest your reply to Robin Cox, entitled “Working and Class” (March Socialist Standard), in which you say that a self-employed business man employing a handful of people cannot be classed as a member of the capitalist class proper. With which I agree, but by the same token, if a person retains the full value of his own labour and the surplus value of, say, 5 or 6 other people then he cannot be classed as a member of the working class proper.

I remember reading an article which, if my memory serves me right, made this very point, saying that the labour theory of value was very elastic and that the small business man came into an economic “grey area”, but that these people were such a small minority of the world’s population it was of no importance to the scheme of things. It also rightly pointed out that a self-employed person’s interest lies more with the working class than the capitalist class, as often in an economic crisis many find themselves fighting for their very existence. Indeed, thousands have found themselves relegated to the ranks of the dole queue in competition for the sale of their labour-power.

I would be most interested in your comments.

E. Higdon. 

Auckland, N.Z.

Reply:

In addition to the answer you yourself give, we would say the following. The kind of small enterprise you suggest is seldom independent and would not be capable of competition with larger companies. Instead, it is commonly dependent on one or another of them. It supplies components, or sub-contracts, or plays a part in distribution.

The “business man” running such a firm is theoretically getting his living from the surplus-value produced by those he employs, but in practice he is supervising a segment of the larger enterprise. Usually the use of his own labour-power is as indispensable as that of the employees, and in effect he is himself employed and exploited. When the major company reduces production he is likely to be left with his outlet diminished or gone and his liabilities to meet: hence the many bankruptcies among small companies.

It is convenient to the capitalist class to let small enterprises go on in this way. Many of them produce cheaply because they are in sub-standard premises, employ part-time or casual labour, or believe sacrificial cheapness equals competitiveness and will get them more contracts; and the volume of goods or services supplied to a company in this way is not sufficient to be worth the company’s while to incorporate in its own production. As an example, a few years ago the Esso oil company operated a system of “authorized installers” for central heating. Under it, small businesses installed boilers, pipes and radiators for small returns—so that Esso heating oil could then be sold. Not much doubt who was, and who was not, realizing the surplus-value in that case.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: The Working Class (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Working Class

You are interested in the working class which is 60-70 per cent of the population. Have you any surveys, or are there any socialist-type surveys which indicate a particular psychology especially comparing them with other classes and how they differ? First money; according to probate statistics the working class leaves nil as far as this district is concerned in the overspill Manchester area. As far as I can see they are not interested in looking after their own social interests like tenants’ league and political meetings. They are certainly fond of children. They are also fond of hire-purchase. They do not tidy up their gardens like the middle class bungalows here. What have they not that the higher-ups have?

W. Popplewell, 

Knutsford

Reply:

You are approaching this matter from the wrong direction. The working class, as you indicate the overwhelming majority, is so called because the members of that class have to rely on a wage or salary in order to live and maintain their families. The term “middle class” is confused, although it is popularly used to denote those who earn relatively high wages or salaries; this does not influence the economic realities of the “middle class.” They too have to sell their labour-power in order to live.

Members of the working class leave relatively little because while they are selling a lifetime of labour- power they receive (in wages and salaries) only that amount which generally accords with the amount required for them to live. There is no surplus. Hire-purchase is a debt which workers incur because they are unable to purchase certain articles outright. But neither of these phenomena indicates a fondness or an innate characteristic displayed by workers: they are reflections of working-class poverty.

Matters such as the workers’ fondness of children, and gardening habits, clearly vary in individual circumstances and are also open to a wide range of opinion. Although it would be unsatisfactory to draw any common significance from them, what can be said is that by and large, members of the working class look after children and gardens. The point to note here is that these do not necessarily have to be their own.

On your last point—the working class have not got the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. This is the factor which underlies all working-class behaviour, and not some “special” psychological characteristic.

The answers to the questionnaire you have also sent, cannot be dealt with here. We suggest you approach the reference section of a public library which will have many of the statistics you require.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Ownership and Arms (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ownership and Arms

Your party supports common ownership of the means of production and distribution, but opposes nationalization, calling it state capitalism. How, therefore does your party propose to bring about common ownership and does it wish to do this for all industries?

Your party opposes religion, why? Is this because your party is based on Marxism?

Finally, why does your party oppose and wish to abolish the armed forces? In a socialist state surely they could be used to defend freedom and democracy. If this country were to be invaded by hostile forces what would your attitude be to resistance?

Michael Newton,

Cambridgeshire

Reply:

Nationalization is a means of running capitalism under the auspices of the state. It has nothing whatever to do with Socialism and bears no resemblance to common ownership. Look at the coal mines, the railways, electricity and steel: the same capitalist economics of money, wages, and profits and competition for markets hold sway as in the “private sector”. Common ownership means that the whole world and all its industry and resources will be held in common by all mankind. Goods and services, being produced solely for use, will be freely available according to need. How? A democratic majority on a world basis will first come to understand the need to change and then vote for it. This presupposes their readiness to co-operate in bringing it into being and running it.

Yes, Marx has supplied the scientific basis for opposing religion. The crude and primitive mumbo- jumbo of religion has served successive ruling classes through centuries. When the working class develop class-consciousness they will have no further need for pie in the sky. There is no rational or scientific basis for religious ideas; clinging to them anchors the workers to capitalism.

Your final question assumes “this country” will go Socialist first and be on its own. You must be on your guard against nationalistic habits of thought. The workers of the world are confronted by the same social problems, all arising from the same cause—capitalism. Socialist ideas will not spread in isolated pockets here and there. Millions of workers in this country must become Socialists before the system here can change. Can your really imagine this happening while in the rest of the world ideas stand still? As Socialism involves working together and organized co-operation, then as the movement for Socialism grows the liaison and unity of workers will grow and will necessarily be world-wide. Hostile forces are a product of capitalism. They are represented in the military machines of rival capitalists struggling for markets and profits. Workers have no country to defend, and armed forces only exist to conserve the property of the capitalists. Workers have a common interest wherever they are, and no reason to be hostile to each other. For further expansion of the above arguments you will find our pamphlets War and Questions of the Day well worth reading.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Giving way over wages (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Giving way over wages

I have bought the Standard for 34 years and voted “Socialism” at elections as you advise us to do.

Recently I have been having a battle in the local newspaper with married women teachers who have husbands earning the average industrial wage of £60 a week. I have suggested that where they have joint incomes of £160 gross per week they give up their employment in favour of the young unemployed who receive £11 dole. The reply of the married women teachers is that the law has now been changed and they are going to hang on to the good life no matter how many are out of work. This legislation I believe was due to pressure on the Labour government by women’s organizations. By the way the local Labour Party have kept out of the argument!

What has the SPGB to say on this matter to the unemployed? I myself am existing on £14.15 invalidity pay at 59 years of age. Will we ever get Socialism? Do we deserve it? The so-called "middle-class” women have no principles.

E. Hewkin,

Derby

Reply:

We sympathize with your anger over inequalities, but in this instance you are mistaken. What you are proposing is a variant of the “wages fund” idea; i.e. that a certain amount of money is available, and one group of workers gets more only at the expense of another group. That is not the case, nor is the converse—that if one group relinquished its higher wages the money would go to others who are poorly paid.

If married women teachers resigned on principle as you suggest, who would get their jobs and salaries? In the present situation, the answer is “Nobody”. The numbers of teachers are being cut down, not by sackings but by non-replacement of those who leave (normally by retirement). The authorities, who are seeking to reduce government expenditure, would be gratified at having the process thus speeded-up; they would not then defeat the object of “cuts” by giving extra money elsewhere. The result therefore would be two people out of work instead of one, with the dole as it was.

But higher incomes do not mean opulence for workers. Wages represent the cost not only of producing labour-power, but the cost of reproducing it: maintaining the worker and his family. Some labour- power is a cheap product, requiring little training and maintenance—hence low wages. Skilled, professional and managerial workers generally are selling a more expensive product, hence its higher price. However, the latter must also live in a manner which reproduces their labour-power satisfactorily; and, just as with unskilled workers, that will take them to the extent of their incomes. In housing, for instance, poorer-paid workers may live in Council dwellings or privately-owned ones, at relatively low rents. A mortgage of £7,500 on an “owner-occupied” house at present Building Society rates over 15 years means repayments of nearly £100 a month, and similar expenses knock holes in the sort of wages you refer to. Please understand that we are not asking you to shed tears for people with incomes several times bigger than yours. We are pointing out that all workers are ultimately in the same boat. The married women replying to you may pretend to be arguing from principle, but in fact it is expediency thrust on them by the economics of capitalism.

Why not point out, instead, that women workers are exploited the same as male ones, and “the good life” is a carrot on a stick? An unemployed person seeks whatever solution he can find to his immediate individual problem, but the only way to get rid of unemployment and its miseries is to abolish capitalism. Don’t bother your head with such questions as whether we “deserve” Socialism. The capitalist class did not consult its conscience but simply pursued its material interests: Socialism will be established by the working class doing the same.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Strangled or United? (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Strangled or United?

From time to time I have it pointed out to me that the present TUC has such a stranglehold on the worker that even if he wanted to he would never be allowed to think and work it all out for himself, his very existence being in most cases dependent on his joining the union. This is one of the biggest problems the Party has to contend with in propagating true Socialism.

Do you consider the article on the General Strike, published in the Sunday Express of 2nd May, to be a true description of events at that time? If it broke down after nine days due to weakness of purpose (the writer states that there were two distinct sections of the community opposing the miners), would the Party consider the worker of today to be in any way more united and consequently stronger in his fight for freedom (if he is fighting for it) than in 1926? I feel that support for the Constitution is as strong as ever, but I would welcome your comments.

Doris G. Featherston, 

Stonesfield

Reply:

The amount of correspondence we receive means the holding-over of many letters, and yours was received at the same time as our issue on the General Strike was coming out. We assume you have now read that issue and made your own comparison with the Sunday Express article.

Workers are organized in unions out of necessity—it gives them a proper bargaining position—but any stranglehold is not one of the unions over their members. The meek acceptance of wage restraint is made possible by the fear of unemployment; in other words, the unions are controlled by the workings of capitalism. Workers in the majority (in and out of unions) fail to see that there is an alternative to capitalism and it is this which makes them follow trade-union and political leaders in the vain hope that they will in the future solve the problems they have failed at in the past. This failure cannot be hidden. Support for the Constitution must be viewed in the same light of the wrong assumption, that capitalism is the natural order. Knowledge of the Socialist alternative will unite the working class in a manner not before seen.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Existence and purpose (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Existence and purpose 

George Pearson remains persistently puzzled about why man should glory in natural phenomena. This question is, for me, answered by the following quotation from Sir Walter Raleigh: “We are compounded of earth, and we inhabit it.”

The emotions that George Pearson describes as “spiritual” are entirely natural. There isn’t an atom of our being that is not a part of the natural universe. External factors such as natural or artistic beauty on the one hand or the degradation of the dole queue on the other will serve to trigger our reactions. But to ask why we react is meaningless, like asking why trees can’t walk.

Of existence the only meaningful statement we can make is that “existence is”. No reason, no purpose is implied in existence, only its reality. Likewise with our emotional reactions: they are as much a natural part of human life as the ability to breathe.

C. Skelton,

Woking

Letter: Drugs, cash and crime (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Drugs, cash and crime

In a socialist society would cannabis and other soft drugs be legal or illegal, or would it be free access as with other goods? If the latter, how would you deal with those who misuse them?

If a racist party of about ten years can field 300 candidates in the next election as stated in a recent News of the World article, why can’t the SPGB of 72 years field fifty candidates and get five minutes’ air time? The SPGB would succeed with its policies if they were known more and it is the ideal party policy-wise to combat racism.

I understand that under Socialism there would be no prisons. I realize that due to free access there would be no need to steal. As one who has been in jail and met some real bad people, how would Socialism stop these people committing murders and arson? When I have stolen it has been through necessity. I like most things I read in the Standard I have seen, but the above is one point that bothers me.

I would like to learn more of the SPGB. Would the fact that I have stolen in the past stop me becoming a member in the future?

D. R. Broadbent,

Wakefield

Reply:

We have put your three letters together, and numbered the answers to your questions.

1. The words “legal” and “illegal” will have no application in Socialism, since they represent the rule of one class over another. “Misuse” is itself a controversial term, since practically all of the substances taken as drugs have medical or everyday uses. In some people’s view “misuse”, of many things besides drugs, means letting the working class at large have them. Aldous Huxley, who wrote about his aesthetic experiences with drugs, was of that opinion: “I think the matter should be discussed, and the investigations described, in the relative privacy of learned journals, the decent obscurity of moderately high-brow books and articles.” (Letters, 1969, p.803).

On the other hand, the medical possibilities pointed out by Huxley have overtones of keeping obstreperous workers quiet: “A group of psychologists and social workers in Vancouver and Seattle have developed techniques for using mescaline therapeutically . . . Delinquent boys have been totally transformed in a single sitting.” (Ibid., p.720).

In this capitalist society it is impossible to evaluate sensibly and say what are beneficial uses and what are misuses. A large amount of drug-taking — including aspirin, alcohol, etc. — is to relieve or escape from the worries and harassments of life today, and will not be sought by people in Socialism. If it can be shown that a drug has no application other than giving harmless pleasure, we may still have to consider whether resources can be given over to producing it; but that will be for society as a whole to decide.

2. The number of SPGB candidates in parliamentary elections reflects our resources in funds and membership, and to have fifty would require far more money than we have or could raise at the present stage. Our income is made up of members’ subscriptions and donations; the Socialist Standard is sold at a loss, and consumes funds all the year round. Other political parties do not make their finances and all their transactions open as we do, so we cannot say how a particular one manages to put up a large number of candidates.

Most organizations depend on wealthy supporters. In the case of the Labour Party the supporter is the trade-union movement. In other cases, the supporters may be capitalists who think particular interests of theirs will be furthered if the organization gets political power or is successful in its reform demands. That in itself should explain why we do not get offers of such support. However, it is also true that the Socialist Party does not accept donations “with strings” which would give the donor special influence on our policies.

What will enable us to have more candidates is, therefore, a larger membership and bigger sales of the Socialist Standard.

3. Murderers are a microscopic proportion of the population. Many commit their crimes in the course of robberies or otherwise for money. Some murders are the results of a belief in causes, or antagonism to a particular section of people. Arson is an offence against property. On the other hand, you may join the armed forces and kill people and set fire to buildings; this is held to be not criminal but heroic. Look at what society makes of people and clear your head of nonsense about “bad individuals”.

4. The condition of membership of the Socialist Party is understanding and acceptance of its Object and Principles.

C. Brinton (Harwich): We are pleased to learn you propose to examine the Socialist case seriously, and look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Several letters have had to be held over because of pressure on space. We assure correspondents they will all be dealt with as soon as possible.

Editorial Committee.

Anarchism in Spain (1976)

Book Review from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval (Freedom Press, £2.00)

In the months following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War about 1,5000 collectives were formed, mainly in the countryside and small towns, under anarchist influence. This book gives details of the organization of a number of them, and presents the anarchist view of the conflict in Spain.

Leval starts with an account of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement in the last quarter of the 19th century. As elsewhere in Europe, there were organizations with large memberships and journals with circulations reaching 50,000. For their decline into irresolute factions Leval blames Marx, Engels and Lafargue, and the importation of “deviations” from France. However, had the movement been founded on understanding instead of the emotionalism he commends (“the ideal dwells deep in the Spanish soul”), its supporters would not have been so easily persuaded by whoever came along.

In his visit to Spain in 1872 Lafargue noted: “The agricultural workers live in the towns and villages like other labourers, with whom they are continually in touch; it is for this reason that so many peasants take part in the insurrectionary movements (Engels-Lafargue Correspondence, Moscow, Vol. 1, p.27). When the Civil War began in July 1936 the harvest awaited gathering-in, and the collectives were initially a movement by municipalities to organize labour and supplies in that emergency.

Anarchists and other radicals keenly fostered this sudden opportunity to apply their ideas and were helped by the fact, as Leval states, that “in general the Catalan industrial bourgeoisie was anti-francoist”. The collectives helped arms production and transport, and organized distribution; the Aragon Federation substituted ration-books for money. Inevitably, they in turn required military protection. Leval and his translator, Vernon Richards, are both self-conscious about this. Leval speaks of “libertarian troops” and says: “It is true that the presence of these forces . . . favoured indirectly those constructive achievements by preventing active resistance by the supporters of the bourgeois republic and of fascism.” They were at war, weren’t they?

The “bourgeois republic” contained four anarchist Ministers. Leval criticizes the “socialist and republican leaders” for not introducing “daring reforms” before the Civil War; their failure, he says, created support for Franco. That was the background to the rise of other European dictatorships — the inability of reformist labour governments to make parliamentary democracy appear worthwhile.

The collectives do provide an example, within limits and special circumstances, of communal organization and to answer to those who say workers by themselves could not manage anything. They also provide a lesson for anarchists. Leval speaks more than once of necessary “workshop disciplines” and tells how “workers wishing to advance to a higher category . . . were required to undergo an examination in theory and practice before the central council of the Syndicate and workshop delegates”. Yet anarchists still wax indignant over Engels' “authority letter”, written apropos Spain in 1871:

Whether it be the will of a majority of voters, of a leading committee, or of one man, it is still a will imposed on the dissentients; but without that single will, no co-operation is possible. Go and run one of the big Barcelona factories without direction, that is, without authority!

B.B.

Editorial: Come On, Stump Up. (1918)

Editorial from the August 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

We haven’t got enough money yet to achieve the revolution. We haven’t even got within measurable distance of our first £1,000. Shame on us, our second month’s list actually falls a bit short of the first instead of showing an increase. This is not as it should be. Since the first list was published the need for funds has become even more imperative, for there is now a pretty general expectancy of a General Election about the end of the year, and should this materialise our part in it will be largely determined by the condition of this Fund.

The importance of this election can hardly be exaggerated. For over four years the people of this country have lain bound and gagged while almost every conceivable cruelty and outrage has been practised upon them. Their silence, enforced by brutal Acts of Parliament, has been claimed as acquiescence in and support of the orgy of slaughter upon which our masters have been spending us so lavishly. Every cry for peace has been crushed down by the bully’s bludgeon ; every manifestation of working-class international fraternity has been repressed by the hirelings of the “champions of liberty” ! Now they talk of proffering us a General Election, securely hedged around, as they think, so that no dissenting murmur against the butchery of working-class millions shall be heard in the land, and in order that on the day of reckoning they may claim that they acted in this bloody business according to the popular wishes, that no voice was raised against them when they put the question of their policy to the test of the polls, and that therefore every poor war-orphan had been robbed of its father’s care, and every war-widow of her husband’s support and protection, and every war-bereaved mother of the hope and comfort of her declining years, by the popular assent, wish, and demand.

It is up to us, who have so bitterly opposed the war from the very commencement, to frustrate this cunning design and prevent the filthy war-mongers from succeeding in this latest attempt to exploit their helpless victims. No electoral appeal to the people has been made in over four years of stupendous butchery ; we must see to it that the butchers do not snatch at the last moment an unanimous assent from their quivering victims. We owe it to our Cause to make our protest heard ; we owe it to our class to put on record at the ballot that only tyrannic repression has prevented the word of fellowship going out to all the stricken ones on those wretched battlefields.

Every endeavour should therefore be made to swell the Fund to the utmost during the next few months.

Society and Morals. Part IX. Socialism, Its Economic and Theoretical Basis. (1918)

From the August 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

Part IX. Socialism, Its Economic and Theoretical Basis.

From whatever point of view it may be examined, the capitalist mode of production is seen to be involved in economic difficulties, social anomalies, and logical inconsistencies, such as no previous system at any time of its existence has ever presented. And though these are chronic enough to-day, there is every evidence that in the future they will become immeasurably more pronounced. Marx and Engels detected many of these contradictions even in the immature capitalism of their day, and made a forecast of their development which has been fulfilled with remarkable accuracy.

Moreover, they were successful in showing the anomalous phenomena of capitalism to be but the effects of a fundamental, inherent contradiction rooted in the very base of the system, and this discovery became of supreme importance in forming the theoretical basis of Socialism.

Production is to-day a thoroughly social process, involving the co-operation of millions of interdependent workers in every corner of the globe. A modern factory, by reason of the fine division of labour which an up-to-date machine plant necessitates, organises its thousands of “hands” into interdependent association. Industries are now so mutually dependent that the cessation of a single one can cause the stagnation of nearly every branch of production. This interdependence is not confined merely within national boundaries ; it transcends them and is to a growing extent international. A Lancashire factory may work up cotton grown in Egypt or India with machinery of American make. The same applies to distribution, for the products are scattered from their place of production among people of every clime and colour. A modern grocer’s shop, however small, contains products of all the continents.

In strong contrast, however, to the socialised form of the labour process is the method of its control, which is distinctly anti-social. This embracing, world-wide process upon which the very life of organised humanity depends is only allowed to operate conditionally upon its yielding a profit to a small and diminishing section of society, the capitalist owners of the means of production. Thus the socially produced produce of industry is not created primarily for social use and consumption, but for private profit, and in this we have the basic anachronism of existing society, a little analysis showing that therefrom flows the whole flood of complications which we have noted above.

It was the co-operative character of production by machinery, imposed upon a basis of individualist handicraft which completed the separation of the workman from the “tool” he used and gave rise to a class of capitalist owners on the one hand and of propertyless workers on the other. This caused the wage-system to become universal by making it necessary for the worker to sell his labour-power, and the wage-system is the immediate cause both of the poverty, drudgery, and slavery of the workers, and of the riches, idleness, and mastership of the bourgeoisie.

Moreover, where labour products are circulated throughout society and yet the object of production is individual profit, the products become commodities to be exchanged in the market value for value. Now, as we have seen the greatest difficulty which capitalist society experiences to-day is a result of the commodity nature of all its products—the problem of the sale of its gigantic output of profit-bearing merchandise.

We see, then, that the social anomalies of capitalist all spring from the fundamental inconsistency between socialised production and anti-social control and appropriation. They are the symptoms of a social disease. First as the growth of industry at an earlier stage in evolution was fettered by feudalism, so now the forces of production have out-grown the social relations of capitalism ; the existence of capital, of the wages system, of class distinctions no longer assists, but fetters and cramps the process of economic development. When feudal society was moving headlong towards its fall the landed nobles became parasitic, useless encumbrances ; like them the bourgeoisie have lost their once important social function. The day when they personally superintended the process of production has gone for ever. Increase in wealth and the growth of trusts and combines have transferred this function to employed managers and foremen to members of the working class. The capitalists are real social parasites, rendering no social service and yet living in ever-greater luxuriousness upon the riches of society.

Capitalism to-day shows every mark of a system ripe for revolution. The longer this is delayed the more terribly chronic become the vicious effects of its internal contradictions. Marx and Engels not only showed that capitalist society was doomed to dissolution, they essayed the equally important task of working out the form of society which would supercede the existing system. Knowing that society could not be re-constructed according to any abstract ideals of social perfection and moral justice, they realised that the form of the post-revolutionary organisation could only be inferred from the analysis made of existing conditions of production, and that only in outline. This position was one of the most important and pronounced departures from the methods of the Utopians.

According, therefore, to the Marxian conception the transformation of the future can and will only be the re-adaptation of the method of controlling industry and appropriating its products so as to conform to the social nature of the process of production itself, and the only conceivable way of achieving this is by the community taking over the ownership of all the means of production and distribution and using them for the satisfaction of the needs of all its members.

Upon the abolition of capitalist society those contradictions and problems which are its necessary result will disappear also. With the possession of the land, the forces and mechanisms of production vested with the entire community, an idle, proprietary class will no longer exist. The comfort and security of each member of society will then advance in exact ratio to the of the powers of production. A few hours necessary labour daily would provide comfort, security, and leisure for all, thus leaving the opportunity for aesthetic, scientific, and recreational pursuits universally available. The introduction of improved or new machinery which to-day results in intensified toil and poverty for the workers, will then serve either as a means of increasing the wealth and security of the society, or of lessening the expenditure of productive labour. The problem of the overproduction of wealth would be unthinkable with social distribution, not private increment, the aim of the productive process. And with the disappearance of commercial and industrial rivalry will go the cause of modern wars among civilised peoples, and thus with the abolition also of class subjection the necessity for armaments and that coercive organisation we call the State. Man will cease to be the victim of economic forces beyond his control, and will consciously mould and develop his industrial powers and social organisation to ever-increasing advantage.

Socialism and the Classes

Had the founders of modern Socialism done nothing more than show the desirability and pressing need for communal ownership and control in production and distribution they would still have been little in advance of the Utopians whom they so severely criticised. But Marx and Engels accomplished more than this : they linked Socialism with the real succession of events in the actual life of the present by showing the manner by which, if the whole teaching of history, combined with existing tendencies, was to be trusted, the Socialist revolution would inevitably be brought to pass. This was, perhaps, their crowning achievement and that which constituted the most striking severance of Marxism from Utopianism.

Reasoning, not only from the history of past revolutionary periods, but also from the facts of society, Marx and Engels concluded and declared that the Socialist movement could never receive support from the capitalist class. To the bourgeoisie, capitalism is the best of all possible systems. Every one of their institutions, political, literary, intellectual, and religious, has for its primary function the preservation of the existing relations of production, the safe-guarding of capitalist property, and the perpetuation of the wages system. The establishment of communist production and distribution necessarily implies the complete obliteration of class distinctions the abolition of economic privilege and exploitation in every form. The whole history of capitalist society justifies the belief that the bourgeoisie will resist to the uttermost such an assault upon their class position.

But the capitalist class forms only a small section of the community. On the other hand, far more numerous, impoverished, oppressed, with less security of livelihood than a chattel-slave, stand the propertyless mass of wage-workers. This class, even when impregnated with capitalistic ideas, is compelled to recognise in a half-conscious way, that its interests and those of the employing class are distinctly different, and is compelled to engage in a constant struggle to maintain its standard of living against the profit-increasing encroachments of the capitalists. It is from the proletarians, who have nothing to lose but their chains, that any modern revolutionary movement must draw its strength, and it is to this class that the Socialist movement primarily appeals.

This brings us to one of the basic principles of Socialism. We have seen the important part which class-struggles have played in past revolutions ; recognising this, the Socialist movement founds itself not only upon an adequate appreciation of existing class antagonisms and their tactical implications, but it relies upon the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class for the achievement of the social revolution. Socialists believe, as the founders of their movement believed, that the proletariat reaching a consciousness of their class interests will act in accordance therewith, dethrone the capitalist class from political power, and with their own hands erect that industrial democracy which will mean to them emancipation from the enslavement of the wages system.

To-day the workers as a class are not revolutionary. For them to become so implies a great mental change. We have seen how successfully bourgeois vehicles of thought, such as the schools and the Press, have given the workers a capitalistic outlook. Is it possible and likely that they will ever be able to throw off these baneful influences and come to a realisation that their interests lie in social revolution ? The Socialist answers, yes ! The process will doubtless be slow, but there are two powerful agents which further it—economic and social developments and Socialist propaganda. The former is the more important, for the Socialist, unlike those Utopians who worshipped at the shrine of “reason,” knows that masses of men have never been moved to effect social changes through mere argument, however logical they may be, unless reinforced by interest, by the sting of outraged feeling. It is experience of the bitter fruits of capitalism that will have the dual effect of undermining the sophistries of capitalist apologists and of imparting to the proletariat a frame of mind conducive to the acceptance of revolutionary ideas. The real function of Socialist propaganda is to clarify and organise the vague anti-capitalist thoughts already present in the minds of discontented workers, by educating them as to the true nature of capitalism and the means of their emancipation, thus giving to the working-class movement an objective which social development demonstrates with ever-increasing vividness to be both desirable and possible. The Socialist movement is thus the highest expression of the working class movement, based as it is upon the clearest and most thorough-going recognition of proletarian interests, and that is why we have stated that Socialism alone provides a real proletarian system of morality.

R. W. Housley

(To be Continued.)

Notices. (1918)

From the August 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have also received several water-colour drawings from Comrade May, and a number of books from others. Kindly note that all such offerings should be sent direct to the Head Office.

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NOTE OUR NEW ADDRESS–28 Union Street, London, W. 1.

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Readers who find it difficult or impossible to obtain the Socialist Standard through the usual channels should communicate with the Head Office, 28 Union St., W.C., 1., when regular delivery will be arranged.

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At present, on the reduced size of our organ, we have a margin of paper available for an increased circulation. Every opportunity should therefore be taken to push its sale.

War and Humanity (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

After what is now cynically referred to as World War I, there sprang into existence a number of organisations whose propaganda could be summed up as “No More War.” One line of approach was to publish illustrated pamphlets showing in vivid photographic detail the effect of near explosions on the bodies of human victims, adding such captions as “This was a man.” They reasoned that the coming of another war could be prevented if they successfully appealed to the human sense of self-preservation. How mistaken they were in spite of their humanitarian motives, we who have passed through World War II know only too well. We became “hardened” to the daily scenes of destruction caused by air raids and V weapons, and knew from our own experiences what the great bomb loads were doing to the people of Germany. They, like us, for all that was assumed to the contrary, could and did “take it.” The Burgomaster of Hamburg in an interview with Edward J. Hart of the Sunday Express said : —

“But like Londoners we have shown we can take it. even when the streets were piled with our dead in their thousands. You have seen for yourselves what has been done to us here, yet when your 18 hour curfew is lifted and you meet our people going about their daily business in street and shop you will find there is no hatred in Hamburg for British or R.A.F. During four raids in July 1943, incendiary bombs destroyed 70,000 houses in Northern and Eastern Hamburg alone. In the eastern section where 700,000 people used to live all but 3 per cent. of the houses were burned down in one night. Temporary wooden structures to house 30,000, have since been built. Burgomaster Krogman added that of a pre-war population of 1,700,000 more than 1,000,000 remain in Hamburg in roofless dwellings.”—Forward, May 19th, 1945.

All this has a familiar ring especially if one shifts the location to the London dock area, where the workers dwellings were clustered around their place of work just like those of the dockers of Hamburg. It further shows how far our rulers are removed from the life of those dependent on wages, when Churchill told the German industrial workers, in a warning of heavy bombing to come to “take to the fields.” Whether the like advice was tendered to Japan’s millions by American spokesmen is not known, for according to the latest news, 5,000,000 are homeless in Tokio, while Yokohama’s docks are burnt out. British workers with over 60,000 civilians killed, can without “giving comfort to the enemy” realise what tragedy and horror the bombed workers of Japan are suffering.

The war before it became “global” was openly described as the struggle between the “haves” and the “have nots,” that is between the formation called the Axis consisting of Germany, Japan and Italy who had arrived late in the field of capitalist trade and colonies and found themselves frustrated in their national capitalistic expansion and the powers that had long ago partitioned the world into their respective spheres of influence and protected trade routes.

This naked view was soon covered by the welter of propaganda inseparable from modern war; the German workers who had known mass unemployment were told that victory would mean that they would be “swimming in fat,” while Italian and Japanese workers were told a like tale of empire and prosperity. The British Empire fell back on the time honoured “democracy and freedom,” while Russia, relied on her hastened industrialisation man-power, and aid from capitalist America.

The “ideologies” in the line-up presented some strange bed-fellows ; the Nordic “herrenvolk” whose pure Aryan stock “entitled” them to rule “lesser races,” found themselves the allies of the Latins and yellow men of Japan, while democratic Britain and America opposed Nazism as the allies of authoritarian Russia which had never known a free democratic election in her history.

Meanwhile with the Italo-German part of the Axis defeated, the victorious powers sitting at San Francisco are concerned not with any humanitarian motives, but with how their rival claims can he met without a major war breaking out between themselves.

Nor are they neglecting their preparations for such an eventuality; America has already an advanced type of “doodlebug,” while Britain’s House of Lords recently discussed the development of “novel devices.” Lord Darnley said “he visualised the possibility of the atomic bomb destroying not only humanity, but the globe on which humanity lived. The world he said must reach some general agreement to avoid these conseriuences.”

Lord Cherwell replying ended with : —

“Unless the nations could agree on some self-denying ordinance it was certain that the range and lethality of weapons would continue to increase. Unfortunately this country had most to lose by this. Our geographical advantages were rapidly diminishing. Unless and until our safety could be absolutely guaranteed by some into international organisation we must insist that we not only keep abreast of but ahead of any nation who might conceivably attack us in every scientific device. No effort should be spared to ensure this.”—Manchester Guardian, May 31st, 1945.

The noble Lords were discussing the world dilemma of how to carry on Capitalism with its trade rivalries, and territory protected by force, without wiping out humanity in the end; a problem before which capitalism stands impotent.

To-day man must either abolish capitalism or end his own existence. The forces of destruction must be struck from the hands of the capitalists and their hordes of militarists, by the workers. The workers can only effect this when armed with the knowledge of their power to end the system under which they are wage-slaves to the capitalist class. Thus in a classless society with abundance for all will the world be free from want and fear.

Frank Dawe

Our Election Manifesto and Leaflets (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our July issue we published our Election Manifesto. The Manifesto, three leaflets and a further statement on behalf of our candidate in North Paddington were all distributed to the voters in the constituency. We publish in this issue the three leaflets “Only Socialism will abolish War,” “Socialism and the Housing Problem,” and “Capitalism cannot cure Unemployment.”

Only Socialism Will Abolish War (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nazis Gone But War Not Abolished

Weeks have passed since Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered yet Europe is not at peace. The newspapers are full of reports of friction between the Allied Governments at San Francisco, and trouble over the settlement of Poland, Yugo-Slavia, Austria, Syria, Greece and other countries. Mr. Anthony Eden returned from San Francisco to report in the House of Commons : “with regard to the general international situation, there is a number of serious and disquieting issues, some of them urgent.” (May 18th). Some British and American newspapers are already talking about the need to take a strong hand with Russia. The war with Germany ended on the 8th May. Within just over a week the Daily Mail which dubbed the San Francisco Conference “San Fiasco,” reported from U.S.A. that some newspapers were talking of “ultimate conflict between Russia and the Anglo-American Allies.” The Daily Mail correspondent said: “It is an astonishing phenomenon that this sort of controversy should be going on only eight days after the surrender of Germany. But it has to be faced.”—(Daily Mail, May 17th.)

In any future war, as the Minister of Production, Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, pointed oat in the House of Commons on March 22nd, 1945, it is obvious that V weapons, now in their infancy, will become more effective and more devastating. “You may be sure,” he said, “that all parts of the United Kingdom, every nook and cranny of the country, will be within range of those weapons when they are more highly developed.”

So little confidence is there that war has been abolished that there is actually discussion about the safest place to locate the new World Peace Organisation. A writer in the Daily Telegraph says: “The safest place in Europe for the World Organisation headquarters would probably be some city in the United Kingdom, not necessarily London. They would be vulnerable there to attack from the air, but less liable to capture than they would be on the European Continent.”—May 25th.. 1945.

THE CAUSE OF WARS IS CAPITALISM

The fundamental cause of wars in the modern world is the economic rivalry of the Powers, and this exists because capitalist industry in all countries has as its aim the making of profit. Manufacturers in every country are striving all the time to capture markets from each other. Governments try to gain an advantage in the trade war by taking colonies as sources of raw materials and as places where the capitalists can invest their surplus wealth. Armies, Navies and Air Forces are built up to control trade routes and strategic points all with the same purpose in view. When the French Government fought to suppress the native population in Morocco their Marshal Lyautey, who commanded the French troops, made no secret of their aim : —

“French soldiers are fighting in Morocco to acquire territory in which rise rivers capable of supplying power for electrification schemes which will prove of great advantage to French trade. . . .

“Our object is commercial and economic. The military expedition in Morocco is a means, not an end. Our object is the extension of foreign trade.”—Star, October 31st, 1922.

In the years when the present war was brewing trade rivalry was everywhere in evidence. Mr. W. M. Hughes, Australian Minister for Health, saw clearly what the outcome would be. Speaking at Brisbane in July, 1936, he said: —

“The increasing intensity of competition for economic markets must lead to armed conflict unless an economic settlement is found. This, however, is hardly to be hoped for. Talk about peace in a world armed to the teeth, is utterly futile.”—News-Chronicle, July 25th, 1936.

The London Times, October 11th, 1940, saw the same forces at work behind Germany’s aggressive policy.

“Beyond doubt one of the fundamental causes of this war has been the unrelaxing efforts of Germany since 1918 to secure wide enough foreign markets to straighten her finances at the very time when all her competitors were forced by their own war debts to adopt exactly the same course. Continuous friction was inevitable.”

SOCIALISM THE ONLY SOLUTION

The Great War, 1914-1918, was to be a war to end war. So was the present war. But the threat of war is still hanging over us. Unless capitalism is abolished and socialism established internationally in its place the same rivalries will produce further wars. All the victorious Powers are now preparing for the trade war as soon as the fighting stops. Sir Frank B. Sanderson, M.P., was only stating what is known to everyone when he said in 1941: “Britain must plan now for the post-war export trade. Peace will bring in its train fierce competition in the world’s markets and it was only by planning in advance that we should be able to hold our own.”—Daily Telegraph, July 17th, 1941.

If you want capitalism and capitalism’s wars you will vote for the capitalist candidates. If you understand that the immediate need of the human race is the establishment of socialism, under which the means of production will cease to be owned by the capitalist class and become the property of society as a whole, you will vote for the candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Capitalism will produce war no matter whether the Government which administers it is Tory, Liberal, Labour, Communist or any other party.