Letter: Not obscure nit-picking (2025)

Letter to the Editors from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not obscure nit-picking

Thank you for publishing a review of my pamphlet entitled Time to Get Rid of Money (as are the Old Moles Collective as a whole for the various reviews of our books that you have published).

However I do find it sad that the SPGB needs to criticise in such a petty way. Why cannot you engage in a serious discussion? After all, as the review seems to grudgingly accept, we do both believe that class society and a society based on money must be eliminated. One would think this would be a basis for a more in depth review and some serious analysis and discussion of a complex money system and the way it works eg, its impact on the poor under capitalism, the wealth pyramid, the anarchy of the market, the increase of working class debt and debt generally, let alone the fact that money is purely electronic and that today gold is not used to backup currency.

But no, ALB ignores all these issues to perpetuate a traditional weakness of discussion by the leading figures of the SPGB in favour of the need to score cheap jibes through a mixture of false representation of ideas and a lack of effort. I don’t pretend to have expert, detailed workings of today’s complex financial systems at my fingertips but at least I am trying to explain the essentials and engage in discussion about what it really is. The Old Moles know that we will not convince everybody instantaneously of the absolute correctness of our political positions, so discussion is what we primarily aim to develop with our books.

First of all let us take note of some brief but important facts:

The level of world debt in 2024 is approx $300 trillion yet the level of world GDP for 2023 only equals approx $100 trillion dollars. The total value of gold in mines to 2024 is much less than this and equals only $18.07 trillion (212,582 tonnes of gold have been mined to date at a market price of $85 per gram at end of 2024).

For the UK the economy’s net worth is about £11 trillion (2020) and the level of UK GDP equals £2.5 trillion (2022). Nevertheless, the level of debt in the UK is approximately £5 trillion (2024) and, according to the Bank of England, the level of bank deposits in the UK come to £1.5 trillion (2023). However the amount of actual sterling available comes to only £94b (2022)

Did ALB make any real effort to understand such figures? They are easy enough to find and check online and clearly show that the money in circulation is much less than deposits in the banks and especially of the value of debt that exists. Furthermore, bank reserves are restricted to a small proportion of the deposits held by banks. Where then is the real money that ALB has so much trust in? ALB’s faith in the capitalist banking system is touching but that is what the financial system depends on ie faith and it is sadly misplaced in a socialist.

ALB blithely dismisses the evidence from the Bank of England and the former head of the US Federal Reserve and tries to devise his own better explanation of loans that use reserves and bank deposits, but fails to realise that only 4 percent of deposits is kept as cash by bank, the remaining deposits and reserves are entirely electronic!

Yes, the idea of creating currency ‘out of thin air’ is hyperbole and yes the banks need to make a profit on this activity which may well limit the amount they can create at any given time, but this electronic money is created by computer and cash is printed to maintain this system. This is the money system in today’s capitalist economy.

In every economy, the level of currency is only sufficient to facilitate the circulation of commodities so it does not cover total deposits let alone total GDP and the deposits and reserves held by banks. Moreover there is the fact that the valuation of a currency can change and even collapse — as recently in Argentina.

Any rational interpretation of this situation can only say the money is not worth actually anything. It is backed only by other coins and notes or by electronic records. All currency physical and electronic is only valuable and only works because the state backs it with promises and relies on the population keeping its faith in the money system — and ALB, I’m afraid, does his bit to support that system.

Debt is not the main problem, capitalism and its shit financial system is and perhaps SPGB needs to investigate and discuss how capitalism really works instead of scoring debating points.

Phil Sutton

Reply:

It was the title of your pamphlet and your political background that led us to read and review it. We had expected ‘some serious analysis and discussion of a complex money system’ from a Marxian point of view but were disappointed to find that it endorsed a mistaken theory of the nature of banking that we had been combating for years, viz., that banks can create money ‘by a stroke of the pen’ (as it was put in the 1920s) and generate an income for themselves from the interest they charge for lending it — ‘an electronic data entry costs virtually nothing but earns interest for the bank!’, as you put it.

If this was the case, a bank would be a very special capitalist enterprise, one that could create a part of its capital out of thin air and obtain a profit from it. Every capitalist would want to be a banker. Actually, a bank’s business model is to borrow money at one rate of interest, whether from savers or the money market, and to re-lend it at a higher rate. This ‘spread’ is the source of its income; what is left after paying its costs in terms of buildings, computers and staff is its profit.

You claimed the authority of an article in a Bank of England publication for your view. Nearly one third of our review was taken up with an extensive quote from the article in question which showed that it did not support your view. What you call our ‘own better explanation of loans that use reserves and bank deposits’ was in fact that of the Bank of England article. You now concede their point that the need to make a profit ‘may well’ limit the amount of money banks can lend at any one time. But ‘may well’ is too weak; a bank will stop lending at the point where it costs it more in interest to cover its loans than the rate it could charge borrowers.

You also concede that to say that banks can create money out of thin air is ‘hyperbole’. If banks really did have that power then the labour theory of value would be invalid.

Value is only created in production by workers exercising their physical and mental energies to transform materials that originally came from nature into goods and services for sale. Initially it is divided into wages and surplus value, generating purchasing power. Money measures and circulates value. Originally money was a product of labour with its own value. The precious metals ceased to function as cash ages ago and, since 1971 when the US cut the link between the dollar and a fixed amount of gold, ceased to be the general standard of value as well (even if they remain with other things a store of value). Nowadays what is popularly called ‘money’ are tokens for it, electronic as well the more traditional pieces of coloured paper and metal disks, all of which are, as you point out, intrinsically worthless.

Money has various functions and you are confusing money as a means of payment with money as a unit of account. The fact that GDP (what is produced in a year) is expressed in units of money does not mean that an equivalent amount of money is required to buy it. Money circulates, ie, can be used in any number of transactions. Similarly, it is not a problem in itself that total debt (what businesses, governments and people owe each other), expressed in units of money, is greater than GDP, if only because the same sum of money can be used to make and settle more than one debt. Again, there is no need for a bank to hold the full cash equivalent of what it lends. That would undermine the whole idea of banking which is based on the assumption that those who have lent it money will only want to withdraw an average amount of it at any one time (4 percent seems to be the current norm in Britain), meaning that the rest can safely be loaned out. Thus, the total amount a bank lends is greater than the amount it needs to hold as cash, even if it can’t be greater than the amount the bank originally borrowed or borrows.

Fundamentally, the main point at issue here is not just some academic disagreement about how banks work, but that this has important political implications. It’s not obscure nit-picking. Those who believe that banks have the power to create money by a keystroke (formerly stroke of the pen) advocate that this supposed power should be taken from banks and used by some public body either to finance better social amenities or to pay everyone a ‘social dividend’. It is the theory behind a specious form of reformism. Socialists need to be able to refute it as part of our case that capitalism cannot be reformed to work in the interest of the majority. How can we do this convincingly if we share the same mistaken premise as them?

Editors.

Material World: King Capital’s plunder of the Congo (2025)

The Material World column from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

King Capital’s plunder of the Congo

The brutal conflict in the ‘Democratic Republic’ of Congo is not an ethnic struggle, a failure of governance, or an unfortunate accident. It is the direct consequence of capitalism’s relentless pursuit for profit. The plunder of the Congo’s vast mineral wealth is not a by-product of war, but the reason for it.

Despite being endowed with vast natural resources, the Congo remains one of the most impoverished and most exploited countries in the world. The cause of this paradox lies in the legacy of colonialism combined with modern rulers of capital and the ongoing plunder facilitated by the master class.

‘The colonised can see right away that the coloniser is a thief, a liar, a fraud, a murderer, a torturer, and a hypocrite…’ (Frantz Fanon, the well-known psychiatrist and revolutionary, on the Congo).

Towards the end of the 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium transformed the Congo into his personal property. He subjected millions of Congolese to forced labour in the extraction of rubber and other resources. Under Leopold’s rule, appalling atrocities were committed with millions dying from violence, starvation, and disease. After international condemnation, Belgium formally took control of the Congo in 1908, continuing the exploitation of its resources while not investing in the country’s infrastructure or development.

Eventually Congo gained independence in 1960, under a rigged system that ensured foreign control over its wealth. Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected Prime Minister, sought to assert national sovereignty. For this affront to King Capital, Lumumba was overthrown and assassinated by Belgian and US interests. The installation of the dictator Mobutu ensured that the Congo’s resources would continue to be funnelled to corporations while the population withered.

Today, Congo remains trapped in a cycle of exploitation. Minerals like coltan, cobalt, and copper, essential to Tesla, iPhones and solar panels continue to benefit capital rather than the Congolese. Neighbouring Rwanda has become a key exploiter.

The European Union’s special representative for Africa’s Great Lakes region, Johan Borgstram, accused Rwanda of violating Congolese territory. Borgstram urged a political solution to the conflict in eastern Congo, noting that Rwanda’s support for the M23 (March 23) rebel group and the presence of its military on Congolese territory constituted a violation of Congolese sovereignty. The M23 movement, which has seized key territories in eastern Congo, claims to be defending the interests of Congolese Tutsis. It has committed horrendous acts including mass killings, sexual violence, and the displacement of civilians, particularly in eastern Congo.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has cited security concerns, pointing to the Congolese government’s alleged lack of political will. M23’s territorial control has caused nearly 80,000 people to flee, many seeking refuge in neighbouring countries like Burundi.

This ongoing cycle of extraction and conflict is not an accident; it is the result of the global capitalist system that continues to exploit Congo’s resources for the benefit of foreign elites, whether they are in the West or in Rwanda. The wealth generated from Congo’s vast resources is largely funnelled to multinational corporations, with little benefit to the local population.

Don’t imagine this is some accidental lapse on capitalism’s part. It is exactly how capitalism functions. The Socialist Party has always argued that capitalism cannot be reformed to serve the majority. It is a system built on exploitation, where wealth is continually extracted, and power remains concentrated in the hands of few. The wars in Congo, like the wars before them, are not by accident or the result of mismanagement; they are the natural outcome of the economic system that demands the subjugation of entire nations for the benefit of King Capital.

Digital book burnings in Trump’s America

When viewing history through the lens of analysis socialists understand that attacks on marginalised groups are likely an early indication of rising authoritarianism. A century ago, the Nazi party of Germany targeted transgender people and the scientists who were pioneers of sexual research, raiding Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, one of the world’s first centres dedicated to the study and care of queer and trans people. The Nazi Party raided the clinic, terrorised the workers, and burned thousands of books, papers and research materials in a public spectacle of hate that foreshadowed the grim horrors to come. Now, today, a modern version of this erasure is also underway. This time, the flames are in the form of a trash folder, as it is a digital erasure, and this horror is unfolding in the United States under the directorship of Donald Trump.

Since his return to political power, the Marmalade Mussolini and his collaborators have systematically erased the existence of trans people from official records. Under his administration, the term ‘transgender’ is being removed from government websites, crucial health data scrubbed, and even references to historical trans activists such as Marsha P Johnson at the Stonewall National Monument eradicated.

Charities and institutions that receive federal funding are being overtly pressured to follow suit, ensuring that the trans community is transported out of public life. The speed and efficiency of this erasure would have made the Nazis envious.

These moves are not happening in isolation. They come after a build up over years of false moral panic stoked by the capitalist press, where trans people are being unjustly smeared as a threat to children, just as Hirschfeld was accused of ‘grooming’ youth in the pages of the Nazi propaganda organ Der Stürmer. The narrative is chillingly familiar: demonisation, exclusion, and then elimination.

The implications however extend beyond just trans rights. Fascist parties who seized the reins of democracy under the gaze of capital would test the boundaries by attacking the most vulnerable, seeing how much liberals of all shades would tolerate. As they succeed today in digitally erasing trans people, they will move on to the next targets. Already, Trump and his axis of tech billionaires have floated the idea of defying court rulings, openly challenging judicial authority in their efforts to strip rights from minorities. The broader working class must recognise that an attack on one group’s liberties is an attack on all.

Just as socialists oppose divisions and discriminations over race and colour, so we commit to solidarity with those workers under the LGBTQIA banner being victimised by this explicitly nasty face of capital.

Socialists are keenly aware that oppression is the tool of the master class, used to divide and distract workers while capitalists consolidate capital. The erasure of transgender people is not only a symptom of this alt-right culture war but is a warning sign of the increasingly authoritarian aspect of the capitalist political order. Socialists that seek to build a truly free, wholly democratic and equal society will not accept these digital book burnings and Trump’s wider assault on humanity. Marx teaches us to look on history scientifically to understand the present condition and in doing so what we are witnessing unfolding under raw capitalism in the US must concern us all.

A.T.

40 years of Red Nose Day (2025)

From the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month was a special celebration for the children’s charity Comic Relief. It marked 40 years since the start of Red Nose Day. In the days leading up to March 21st, you could hardly switch on the radio or TV without being reminded that famous people, mainly showbiz celebrities, were going to disguise their normal features with red noses of various shapes and sizes to remind us that they were collecting money to improve the lives of poor children.

Endemic

And it does seem difficult not to see this as a positive thing given the fact that, as we are told by the charity Shelter, 120,000 children in the UK wake up homeless every day and many thousands more who may not be homeless have to suffer housing and living conditions that make it impossible for them to live comfortable and fulfilling lives. The Labour government’s new Homelessness Minister, Rusharana Ali, has herself referred to this as ‘a national disgrace’, pointing out that last year ‘more than 117,000 households, including over 150,000 children, were living in temporary accommodation’. Shelter also calls this an ‘outrage’, and understandably so, given that when it was founded in 1966, its promise was to get rid of homelessness within 10 years. Since then, organisations dedicated to solving homelessness have proliferated and Shelter now runs its own weekly lottery – a sure sign that the problem it campaigns about is endemic.

A further recent report by the Barnardo’s charity states that ‘more than a million children in the UK either sleep on the floor or share a bed with parents or siblings because their family cannot afford the “luxury” of replacing broken frames and mouldy linen’ and that ‘the rise in “bed poverty” reflects growing levels of destitution in which low-income families already struggling with soaring food or gas bills often find they are also unable to afford a comfortable night’s sleep’. And in a recent article in the Big Issue, John Bird, founder of that magazine and now a member of the House of Lords, summed up the embedded nature of poverty and homelessness by stating that ‘three decades of the same conversation is exhausting’. Other sources have reiterated the same thing. The centre-right think tank, the Centre for Social Justice, found that ‘the most disadvantaged people in Britain were no better off than they were 15 years ago, with around 13.4 million people living lives marred by family fragility, stagnant wages, poor housing, chronic ill health and crime’. And Greg Hurst of the Centre for Homeless Impact has expressed the view that ‘we are condemned to repeat the cycle of ebbs and flows of homelessness’.

Realm of fantasy

But why? After all, according to official figures, over a quarter of a million homes in England are classed as ‘long-term empty’, meaning that they have been left vacant for more than six months. Yet we all know that the way things work is that parents and children who need homes cannot simply walk into empty properties and live there. The kind of society we live in does not cater for such needs, basic as they may be, of those who do not have the money to pay for them. In the same way, no matter how technologically efficient food production has become, no matter how much food we are capable of producing, only people with enough money in their pockets will have access to it. In the context of capitalism, John Bird got it right, in one of his Big Issue articles, by stating that ‘ideas of ending poverty are stuck in the realm of fantasy’.

Scratching the surface

So can anything be done at all? It’s clear that Red Nose Day, coming back time after time as it does, can help a little but in the end it can do no more than offer a small amount of temporary relief to the poor or disadvantaged children it is aimed at. No matter how much time and energy is put into it by those involved and no matter how well-meaning they may be, their efforts can do no more than scratch the surface of the poverty problem. They can get nowhere near offering any kind of long-term solution. The Oxfam food policy director, Hanna Saarinen, recognised this recently when she stated: ‘We need to reimagine a new global food system to really end hunger; one that works for everyone.’ But the trouble – and the truth – is that such a food system is simply not feasible in the framework of the world we live in, where, at the end of the day, profit must always come before need. That is why, even in a country like Britain where food is manifestly plentiful, many people are still forced to have recourse to food banks, and charities like Comic Relief are still considered necessary. Of course, millions of workers do manage to keep their heads above water, some living reasonably comfortable lives, but even this is usually at the cost of working hard for an entire lifetime, never being truly free of financial insecurity and often at great cost to the quality of their lives.

Need not profit

And so it will remain until we not only, in the word used by Hanna Saarinen, ‘reimagine’ but also implement a wholly different organisation of society, one that is fully cooperative and human-centred and dedicated to catering for the needs of everyone not producing profit for the tiny minority – in other words designed to take care of everyone in a sustainable, inclusive way. Adequate resources to provide a decent life for all are available, but that decent life cannot be realised under the profit system. It can only be possible in the kind of moneyless, marketless society that we stand for, and that will render regular recourse to charities like Comic Relief and events like Red Nose Day unnecessary and superfluous.

Howard Moss

Blogger's Note:

The April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a rather jaundiced article on Comic Relief. "More cold water, comrades . . . "

Capitalism everywhere? (2025)

Book Review from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profit: an Environmental History. By Mark Stoll. Polity £17.99.

This volume contains a great deal of useful information, not just about the environment and how production has affected it, but also on the history of technology and industry, and there are many pages of references.

Various kinds of pollution are referred to, such as the massive oil spills from the Torrey Canyon supertanker in 1967 and the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in 2010. But environmental impacts go back much earlier. In the Middle Ages, for instance, silver and gold were imported to Italy to be minted into coins, which led to toxic chemicals being washed into streams and rivers near the mines, in Bohemia and other places. Areas near the mines suffered from deforestation. By the seventeenth century sugar refineries and other industries in the Netherlands emitted vast amounts of stinking coal smoke. In the Americas, growing tobacco depleted the soil, but colonists just moved to extensive uncleared land. In the nineteenth century Britain was the largest producer of copper, which meant the emission of poisonous substances such as sulphur dioxide and arsenic. A lot more material along similar lines is surveyed here.

However, the book has some negative points too. For some reason, the author refers several times to the religious views of various individuals. Does it really matter that Rachel Carson, author of the conservationist classic Silent Spring, was a Reformed Protestant or that Bill Gates used to be a Congregationalist?

More significantly, Stoll has a very all-embracing approach to capitalism, which he sees as an economic system where owners of accumulated wealth invest it for profit in extracting raw materials or producing and distributing goods. There have been various forms of it over the centuries, from incipient capitalism to plantation capitalism in ancient Greece to industrial capitalism and present-day consumer capitalism. He writes: ‘we cannot live with capitalism and we cannot live without it. At best, we can work to ameliorate its worst effects.’ And it ‘is rooted in human nature and human history’. Wage labour gets an occasional mention but does not seem to be viewed as an essential part of capitalism. Nor is it recognised that the way most people made their living has varied enormously over the centuries. Furthermore, his idea of profit goes well beyond the notion of surplus value as an intrinsic part of the employment-and-wages system, since he states that forty thousand years ago people made a profit by exchanging tools they had made for other goods they did not have to make themselves.

From the late nineteenth century, industrial capitalism has come to be gradually replaced by consumer capitalism, with its emphasis on advertising and built-in obsolescence. In the US, it seems, a piece of clothing is worn on average seven times before being discarded. The biggest companies sell to consumers rather than manufacturing goods (Amazon and Walmart, for instance).

It is not clear, but Stoll appears to see capitalism as more than just islands of commodity production within a wider economy. The book contains much of interest but its approach to capitalism leaves a lot to be desired, not recognising that the drive for profit is an essential part of a system built on wage labour and production for sale.

Paul Bennett

Cooking the Books: Guns before butter (2025)

The Cooking The Books column from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘National security’, admirals, generals and air chief marshals are telling us, is ‘the first duty of any government’. In a sense they are right. The first duty of a government is to ensure security, though not of the population it rules over; it’s the security of its capitalist class, to protect them from being taken over by the armed forces of a rival capitalist state.

To do this, the government has to equip, train and maintain a military force armed with the most up-to-date weapons of individual and mass destruction that it can afford. This has to be paid for out of taxes that ultimately fall on the profits of the capitalist class. As the government’s ’first duty’, such spending takes priority over other government spending, as summed in the saying ‘Guns before butter’.

That was the heading of the editorial in the Times on 19 February. ‘To underpin Europe’s security’, it thundered, ‘Sir Keir Starmer must expand defence spending in a time of economic difficulty. That means taking an axe to the bloated welfare system.’ A week later Starmer announced that the Labour government would increase military spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 and later to 3 percent. Labour intended to take an axe to the welfare system anyway, so Starmer said that it was ‘overseas aid’ that would be cut to pay for this.

Paul Mason, the former Trotskyist who once wrote a book called PostCapitalism but now works for a thinktank financed by the Ministry of Defence, welcomed this as something he had been calling for. His job requires him to think up reasons why defence spending should be increased and one that he has deployed is that it will stimulate growth. Last July he wrote an article headed Rearm, And The Economy Will Grow (tinyurl.com/mrxezm3j ). His evidence for this was pretty thin:

‘Anecdotally, where defence investment is actually happening it is a major driver of growth. Barrow-in-Furness, according to one senior trade union contact, is starting to boom. The old Debenhams store, which shut down in 2021, is set to reopen as an apprentice training centre; hundreds of apprenticeships a year are being lined up.’

Given the way that GDP is calculated, any increase in government spending will increase GDP but this doesn’t mean that this will lead to growth in the longer term. In another simplistic propaganda piece last July, Defence spending: A waste of money? (tinyurl.com/7p7j7vbe ), Mason attempted to refute the argument that ‘defence spending reduces economic growth’. Since defence spending is paid for from profits and profits are the source of finance for growth in the sense of capital accumulation, it would seem obvious that defence spending tends to reduce growth.

Mason’s counter-argument was that extra defence spending would act as a better ‘fiscal stimulus’ than other forms of government spending but this assumes that the capitalist economy can be stimulated by government spending, as taught by Keynes but refuted in practice. In essence, he is advocating what has been called ‘military Keynesianism’. When he was a Trotskyist he might have called this a ‘permanent arms economy’. Only then he would have opposed it. Now he is advocating it.

Government spending on arms is a drag on capital accumulation but it is a necessary expense, and so not a waste, for capitalism. In that sense capitalism is a permanent arms economy.

Work, free and unfree (2025)

From the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism would seem to be quite exceptional as a social system in unnecessarily burdening us with work that bears little or no relation to meeting human needs (even if such work might be considered necessary from the standpoint of enabling the system to function on its own terms). This is all the more remarkable given the enormously potent technology it has developed to lighten our workload considerably.

The terms and conditions under which we work today, the constant niggling awareness that our livelihood is dependent on our compliance to the arbitrary will of our employers and so forth, corrodes any sense of intrinsic satisfaction we might get from work. Even so, we still need to work despite this — not just for the money but also our own wellbeing notwithstanding the adverse terms and conditions under which we might presently work. Not being able to work at all can make matters even worse for us.

We need ‘work’, but we need also the conditions that will make work more satisfying. Capitalism cannot deliver this because it is not a system oriented to the satisfaction of human needs. It is first and foremost a system based on the blind accumulation of capital out of surplus value. That in itself signifies the alienation of the majority from the productive resources of society that necessarily imposes upon labour the quality of being coerced and unfree and hence undesirable.

The possibility of individuals being able to freely move between jobs according to their own inclinations would help to greatly enrich the entire experience of work as well as help to produce a more rounded person. However, in the capitalist society we live in today we cannot just freely choose to alternate between different kinds of jobs as we might wish. If we do happen to have a job in capitalism we are hemmed in by legal contracts and fixed hours that conspire to bind us to this job and prevent us from adopting a too-flexible or experimental approach to work.

What would the implications be if, in contrast, all work were to become unpaid work – that is, performed on a free and voluntary basis? Obviously, in a capitalist society this is simply not possible. It is incompatible with the existence of capitalism.

If all work were to take the form of free creative voluntary activity then the products of that work – the goods and services we all depend on – would have to be completely free in the sense of being made available without any price tag attached. Money, as a socio-economic phenomenon, would simply cease to exist. After all, if you were not paid to work where would you get the means to buy anything?

So unpaid voluntaristic or self-determined work would imply ‘free access’ to the collective products of such work (and vice versa). Moreover, both of these things imply something else – namely, the common or social ownership of the productive resources of society itself.

This is often misunderstood. Market libertarians in particular, are prone to decry this as a blatant case of ‘theft’. ‘You are going to confiscate my property and make it the property of the community’ they complain. But this is to completely misconstrue what common ownership of society’s productive resources is about.

‘Theft’ simply implies the transfer of ownership of the thing in question from the victim of such a theft to the perpetrator. It thus implies a private property relationship. Common ownership, on the other hand, means transcending the very concept of property itself. You are not losing anything; you are, in a sense, gaining the world instead. But so is everybody else (including also the ex-capitalists). Collectively, you are asserting joint or social ownership over the natural and industrial resources of the planet.

Social ownership of these resources is the completely logical and appropriate response to the plain fact that production today is a completely socialised process. The laptop on which I am typing out this article, is – directly or indirectly – the product of the collective labour of literally millions and millions of workers scattered right across the world.

It is no longer possible for anyone to say of any particular product, ‘I made this, therefore this is mine’. The 18th century philosopher John Locke’s ‘labour theory of property’, on which the market libertarians base their case that common ownership would be theft because the fruits of one’s labour ought to be exclusively appropriated by oneself by natural right, has thus been rendered historically obsolete and completely impracticable. In fact, given that production is now a socialised process, it backfires on them by implying socialised ownership — that what is produced by collective labour should be owned collectively.

Robin Cox

Obituary: Billy Iles (1966)

Obituary from the February 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Billy Iles

In December a group of members attended a crematorium in Guildford, Surrey, to say a last and sad farewell to an old comrade, O. C. Iles, who had been ill for some time with cancer.

Billy Iles, as he was always known to us, joined the Party in 1911 and was active for years in London as a writer, speaker and doing the routine work at Head Office, until his work finally took him to Liverpool.

He was called up during the First World War but refused to join the army. He managed to keep out of trouble during the war, although he never left London, by taking various jobs on night work at Covent Garden, as a milkman, and the like. He lodged for a time with a woman member, Mrs. Chilton, along with other members "on the run"; later with another member in a flat over Head Office until the war was over. In those days we used to collect the Socialist Standard in loose sheets from the printer and folded them ourselves. Billy Iles made many trips to the printer for this purpose and spent many nights folding so that the "S.S." could be out on time.

After the war times were somewhat turbulent and meetings were inclined to be noisy. On one Bank Holiday Billy cycled all night up to Hanley in the Potteries, to hold a meeting during the coal strike in 1921.

During the twenties he was secretary to the Editorial Committee and wrote articles over the initials O.C.I.

Owing to the fact that he lived out of London we did not see much of him during late years, but his optimism and steadfast support continued all through the years and he sent many useful organisational suggestions to Head Office.

The present writer will always remember Billy as a lively and humorous companion on many cycling trips in years gone by.

His illness was a heavy burden to his wife as he only went into hospital during his last few days. To his wife, daughter and brother we send our sincere sympathy.

And so has passed away another of the diminishing group of members, who now only number a handful, who actively pressed forward the Party's principles before and during the years of the First World War.

Gilmac.

Party Notes. (1907)

Party News from the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Quarter ending September saw a record in the number of new members. It is scarcely to be hoped that the winter quarter can see that record broken, but the opportunity of the winter season should be taken advantage of to inaugurate branch discussions and thus assist in turning out new speakers for next year.

* * *

On October 8th the E.C. passed the following resolution : That this meeting of the Executive Committee of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, in view of the public pronouncements of the British Constitution Association hereby challenges that body to appoint a representative to meet a representative of this, the only Socialist party in this country, to publicly debate the following proposition : That as Capitalism involves the exploitation and economic subjection of the working class, the only necessary and useful section of the community, it is necessary and desirable to speedily attain the Object of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, viz., the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community.

* * *

As yet no reply has been received from the champions of capitalism.

* * *

Since this resolution appeared in the Press, Mr. H. M. Hyndman has written to the Daily Telegraph that the S.D.F. is the “only international Socialist Party in this country.” So that, not satisfied with their own brand new name, the S.D.F. wish to annex ours, and also our reputation.

* * *

An enquiry was received from Brighton, on the attitude of the S.P.G.B. to the question of National and Imperial Defence.

* * *

The reply contained the following: The object of the S.P.G.B. implies the assumption of political authority by the working class. Until that object is attained, the capitalist class will control the armed forces of the nation for the defence of capitalist interests. The attitude of the Socialist working class when politically supreme on the question of national defence (should such a question then remain for solution) will depend upon the deliberations of the Socialist Commonwealth in the circumstances of the time.

* * *

The Watford Branch of the S.P.G.B. questioned E. E. Hunter while speaking for the S.D.F. and challenged him to debate with a representative of this Party. He agreed, but referred us to the Watford S.D.F., who have not up to the present replied to our request.

* * *

It is surprising how the “sweet reasonableness” of those who are not “impossiblists” is sometimes manifested !

* * *

The speaker for the Wood Green I.L.P. was also challenged in a similar way. Again we are referred to the local branch, with, as .yet, a similar result.

* * *

Matters are shaping well in Burnley, and before the next issue is published, no doubt the branch will have been officially formed. Meanwhile sympathisers should communicate with C. H. Schofield, 77, Parliament St., Burnley.

Adolph Kohn

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“Art, Labour, and Socialism” should sell well. It can be obtained by branches and other bodies in the ordinary way on the usual terms : 9d. per 13. Half gross orders carriage paid.

A Clarion Vanner Takes the Socialist Platform. (1907)

From the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday, September 15th, while Comrade Fitzgerald was speaking at our Finsbury Park meeting, a member of the audience asked “was it a fact that the Clarion Van speakers had instructions from the London Van Committee to refuse to answer questions put by members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain ?” He put the question, he said, because he was informed that a Clarion Vanner was in the audience, and he wished to give him the opportunity to deny the allegation if he could do so. The questioner was, further, anxious to know why the Clarion Van Committee would not allow their speakers questions from the Socialists. Thereupon Mr. Fred Bramley, late Clarion Van speaker, asked for the platform and his request was, of course, acceded to.

Mr. Bramley said he had never refused to answer questions from anyone, and had always preached the principles of unadulterated Socialism. By Socialism he meant the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Nationalisation or municipalisation were not Socialism, but simply exploitation in another form. He then asked for questions from members of the S.P.G.B., and upon it being pointed out to him that he was not there to ask for questions, but to deny, if he could, the statement that Clarion Van speakers were instructed to refuse to answer questions from Socialists, Mr. Bramley replied that he held the platform, and all the ordinary rules of procedure went by the board.

Comrade Fitzgerald then pointed out that Mr. Gavan Duffy admitted, at Wood Green, that he had received instructions from the Clarion Van Committee not to accept questions from Socialists. Fitzgerald also stated that questions had been refused at Clapham and Wimbledon, and. also by Mr. Hartley at Willesden, and he drew Mr. Bramley’s attention to the fact that Mr. Howard, of the Clarion Van Committee, had openly stated from our platform in Finsbury Park that Mr. Gavan Duffy was not to blame, as he was only acting under instructions from the Van Committee. Our comrade then dealt with Mr. Bramley’s definition of Socialism, and showed the unsoundness of the phrase “the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange ” ; the means of exchange being money, which is only necessary under a system of private ownership. Under Socialism, production being no longer carried on for exchange, and the products being owned collectively by the whole of the people, the means of exchange will become superfluous, yet he (Mr. Bramley) talked of socialising it. The Clarion advocated nationalisation and municipalisation, and was therefore a misleading organ, contrary to the principles of Socialism. Moreover, the success of the Clarion Vanners depended upon the number of Clarions sold at the meetings, and seeing that the Clarion advocated nationalisation and municipalisation, Mr. Bramley could not but admit that he assisted in anti-Socialist propaganda. If it was not a personal question why was he not now a Clarion Vanner, seeing that they were advertising for speakers.

Mr. Bramiey, replying, said the questions were not on Socialism. The reason he was not now a Clarion Vanner was a personal one. It was a suggestion of impure motives, he said, to say that the success of a Clarion Vanner depended upon the number of Clarions sold, but it is noticeable that he did not deny the statement. Mr. Bramley still insisted upon having questions upon the principles of Socialism. He was asked if he advised the workers to avoid the I.L.P., S.D.F. etc., as non-Socialist organisations, and to join the S.P.G.B. and replied that he preached the principle of Socialism and left the people to judge for themselves as to which political party to join. Did he advise the workers to avoid the Liberal and Tory parties was the next question given to the ex-Vanner, and the answer being in the affirmative, Bramley was then called upon to explain why he did not preach Socialism and advise the workers to avoid the I.L.P. and S.D.F. as supporters of capitalism. The cases were not parallel, be declared, but he could not show wherein the divergence lay. Mr. Bramley, in answer to a question, said that he believed organisation to be necessary for the attainment of Socialism, and explained his inconsistency in advising the workers to join such anti-Socialist organisations as the S.D.F., and the I.L.P. by saying that he did not agree that they were anti-Socialist. Nevertheless he had to admit that we were the only pure organisation. He agreed that an organisation advocating the support of capitalism was acting contrary to the principles of Socialism, and to the interest of the working class. Having denied that the I.L.P. supported capitalism, Mr. Bramley was asked whether Mr. Ramsay MacDonald at Leicester, Mr. James Parker at Halifax, and Mr. Fred Jowett at Bradford supported capitalism when they entered into a compact with the Liberals. Amidst roars of laughter he attempted to repudiate the action of these individuals as not representing the policy of the I.L.P., which, he said, was settled at their Annual Conference. Asked was he not aware that Mr. Keir Hardie at the York Conference of the I.L.P. admitted that this policy had been followed with the object of keeping out the Tories, he answered that he was not aware of this fact. Mr. Bramley was then shown a leading article in the Labour Leader stating that the I.L.P. supported the Liberal candidate at Bury, and he could not deny that as this had never been repudiated it stood as their policy. Was the I.L.P. a Socialist organisation was then submitted, and elicited the reply that it was an organisation that would fulfil a need for a considerable time. (Oh, oh ! from the crowd). The questioner refused to accept this answer and he was then told that the I.L.P. is a Socialist organisation, and amidst interruption and laughter Mr. Bramley said that he had been a member of it for twelve years.

The ex-Vanner was now called upon to show how we can socialise capital. “I cannot tell you,” he said, “the socialisation of capital is an impossibility.” Asked now why he was a member of an organisation the object of which was an impossibility, he denied that the object of the I.L.P. was to socialise capital, and asserted that it was “the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.” He was then informed that a perusal of the I.L.P. literature would show him that the object of the I.L.P. was “socialisation of land and capital,” so that he was a member of an organisation yet at the same time ignorant of its object. Mr. Bramley had by this time had enough of it and he religuished a platform that for him had proved a pillory.

THE CHIEL.

SPGB Meetings. (1907)

Party News from the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard