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Friday, August 15, 2025
Off the rails (1982)
Like a stillborn child, the National Union of Railwaymcn's strike simply lacked the nutrition to keep it alive. And if it had lived for any time, its strength would have been quickly sapped by some debilitating social viruses.
There was. to begin with, the matter of the NUR’s tradition. Not since 1926 had the union called an indefinite national stoppage; a more usual tactic had been to threaten a strike and enforce a discussion with the Prime Minister of the day, from which both sides would emerge apparent victors and agree to co-operate in an enquiry. But in 1982 the government, far from sending Thatcher to talk with the NUR. is exerting determined pressure on them. British Rail’s stand on the matter of wages was given strength by the government’s refusal to subsidise any concessions at a time when, in pace with the industry’s decline, the railway unions are already in retreat. With the shrinking of steel and engineering, freight carried on the railways has fallen since 1960 from 16 billion tonne miles to 11 billion. Since the railways were nationalised the work force has been cut by about 450,000.
This depression has had its effect on railway workers’ wages; signalmen and shunters have fallen from 13th place among manual workers to 21st. Total earnings of railwaymen are now often below the level at which they qualify for Family Income Supplement. In other words, they are being worked progressively harder for less in terms of real wages, some of them at starvation level. And each negotiation for more pay is surrounded and bedevilled by the employers' demands for more intense work, with the railwaymen condemned as Luddites and worse if they don't immediately accept these conditions.
The NUR’s weakness was personified by its General Secretary Sid Weighell, who is famous for the terrier-like acerbity with which he deals with the other railway unions and with those of his members who are "militants" — which often means that they want to resist any downward pressure on their working conditions. In spite of his confident cry, as the strike began, that "Our case is overwhelming”, it is no secret that Weighell was vastly relieved when the NUR conference accepted what he saw as reality and common sense and decided to take the issue back to the industry’s arbitration machinery.
This did not case the pressure on the railwaymen. British Rail soon announced the withdrawal of their original low offer of a rise and said loftily that it was no concern of theirs if the the NUR chose to go to arbitration; they would not discuss the matter again until the union had given way over “productivity” — more intense exploitation. Tory chairman Cecil Parkinson, in a speech positively rotten with false assumptions and non sequiturs, unblushingly threatened that a patriotism newborn through the Falklands war “. . . will not take lightly the return to the pursuit of self-interest over the national good”. (He was not discussing members of the Stock Exchange, or the royal family at Ascot or the firms which sold all those weapons to Argentina.)
In sober reality, history is not at present on the side of the railway workers. Railways were once part of the romance of Victorian capitalism. Their competition finished off the canals in the late 19th century and for the next 50 years they were integral to the economic and social fabric. "In South Lancashire", wrote M. Robbins (The Railway Age), "people associated the London and North Western with the Church and the Conservatives; the Midland with Chapel and the Liberals”. There were few admitted to be railway workers; those who laboured to produce the profits for the shareholders were referred to as servants of the company and were expected to forego too uncouth a preoccupation with their material welfare for the paternalism of the company. In 1871, when the economy was booming, when unemployment was low and recently passed legislation seemed to put them on a secure footing, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was formed. In theory this was a Friendly Society (its patron was the Earl de la Warr) which did not intend to organise strikes. At the time, a normal working week for a guard could be 90 hours.
The boom collapsed a few years later and from 1876 wages were cut and hours increased. One result of this was the reduction of ASRS membership from 17,000 in 1872 to 6,000 in 1882; another was the formation in 1880 of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and later, in 1889, of the General Railway Workers Union in direct opposition to the ASRS. In most cases the employers refused to recognise or negotiate with the unions; the general manager of the London and North Western told the 1893 Royal Commission on Labour: "You might as well have trade unions in Her Majesty’s Army as have it in the railway service” — an apt comment, in view of the hard conditions and the quasi-military assumptions of employment on the railways.
This attitude was expressed in the action of the Taff Vale Railway Company in 1900. when they sued the ASRS for damages following a strike in which there was some violence. Against all expectations, the company won £23,000 damages from the ASRS — a judgement which struck at the heart of all trade union activity. Every strike has to cause damage somewhere and there is. of course, no parallel provision in the law for unions to claim redress for the effects of a lockout nor for those of a company closing down. The Taff Vale judgement has much to answer for, since it motivated the founding of the Labour Representation Committee, forerunner of the Labour Party and of all those governments which consistently fought the working class and the interests of trade unionists.
The National Union of Railwaymen was formed in 1913 from the combination of three out of the then five unions in the industry. Among the many ironies accompanying the event is the fact that it was hailed as a venture into industrial unionism — the establishment of one trade union to cover an entire industry as a step towards the working class taking over the means of production. Some craft unions remained outside the NUR, as did ASLEF and the Railway Clerks’ Association (now the TSSA). Traditionally (and the railways are a great place for tradition) there is little love lost between ASLEF and the NUR. Sid Weighell recently called the ASLEF president a liar, at which the offended man threatened to pick Weighell up by his braces and drop him down a lift shaft.
During the First World War the importance of the railways to the British capitalist class was asserted when they were taken under state control. The war emergency offered the unions a chance to improve wages, and the railwaymen emerged, in 1918, among the better paid sections of the working class. In 1921 the Railway Act, which effectively ended state control, imposed a measure of government influence by reducing the 120-odd companies into four groups, each with a territorial monopoly and allowing for the government to keep an eye on the rates charged by the railways. A negotiating procedure was defined which was greeted with relief as the end of disputes in the industry, on the mistaken assumption that strikes are caused by the absence of machinery to negotiate the conflicts away. This assumption was soon exposed in the post-war slump, as the new, larger and more powerful companies responded to the fall in traffic by cutting wages, sacking workers and imposing longer hours on those who were left.
This process was cynically called “rationalisation”. Although the unions resisted it there were few strikes and one which was called, just as the first Labour government were taking office in 1924, was doomed because the NUR accepted the lower wages and kept services going against the striking ASLEF men. In 1928 the NUR agreed to a 2½ per cent wage cut. an agreement described by their general secretary as “the best ever made”. He was probably referring to the fact that there was an undertaking to restore the cuts when business got more profitable; but when the unions asked for this, in 1934, they were again resisted by the companies. There was then the growing competition from the road haulage industry, boosted by the experience of it during the war. NUR conference delegates were warned by their secretary, John Marchbank, that if they struck there would be no road stoppage and that many NUR members would be "walking the streets” afterwards — words which might well be used today by Weighell.
The railways were again taken understate control during the Second World War and soon after the NUR's longstanding dream of nationalisation came true. After the years of cuts, sacking, closures and battling against the railway workers, only the politically misinformed would see an unpredictable irony in the hopes which inspired that dream:
Ideologically, public ownership was regarded as the gateway to a new society, in which there would be greater plenty and less hardship for the toiling masses. Materially, the unions and their members. . . hoped that the elimination of profits would bring them higher wages and better working conditions, that State control would ensure full employment . . .(Nationalised Industry and Public Ownership, W. A. Robson).
In contrast, the reality has been a continuing struggle against the stale machine which had taken over from the private groups. The NUR threatened a strike in 1953. in an effort to improve a low wage offer. A hastily set up Court of Enquiry secured them a much higher offer. In 1958, when the employers rejected a pay claim, a strike was averted by yet another enquiry, which recommended that railway wages should be set by reference to "comparable” jobs in other industries. This was greeted as a “common sense" solution which would eternally remove all conflict. But in 1965 it clashed with the “common sense" of the Wilson government's pay policy, which was to restrict rises to those cases where the workers could prove they were working harder, no matter what was happening in “comparable" industries. There was another threat to strike, averted by Wilson’s personal intervention. The Labour Prime Minister kept the union officials talking on beer and sandwiches (Tory Premier Macmillan had beaten them with tear-swept memories of the Flanders battles of 1914/18) until they all agreed to yet another enquiry which would produce a report to be greeted as an eternal piece of "common sense".
The plight of the unions, then, is not the making of any feeble, or militant, leaders, nor of transport ministers getting their own back for past concessions. Railways were once dominantly powerful in capitalism and had that sort of glamour. Now they struggle, with the help of Jimmy Savile, against the drab image of the outmoded. None of this has anything to do with their usefulness to people or their material efficiency; it is all judged by their contribution to the overall profitability of British capitalism. By these standards their future looks pretty precarious. This is no time to be playing at trains.
Ivan
What their papers say (1982)
There is a popular belief that certain newspapers report things "the way they really are" — without bias. In fact, there are no such things as neutral news items, recognisable entities independent of journalists. Rather, there are those incidents and issues which are perceived by editors as "newsworthy".
Journalists are trained to spot particular aspects of social affairs as suitable material to report on with a bias or “angle". Although we find a slightly different point of view in the liberal, "quality" press from that expressed in the rest, all newspapers have a common standpoint on the profit system — they support it. It follows that what they tell us about the world cannot help but be politically slanted. Last year thirty million people died through lack of food while mountains of beef were produced; thousands were slaughtered in wars while the combatants wished for peace; and millions remained homeless while palatial accommodation stood empty. The press was unanimous in ignoring these contradictions and reserving its astonishment and critical analysis for royal weddings and trying to detect a "new" SDP policy.
Before it is represented in the press, reality is put through the great distorting process. The four main journalistic devices are to personalise, trivialise, historically fossilise and moralise.
They personalise
Society is presently organised on the basis of minority ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth. Production is geared to profit for the few, not for social need. Problems like industrial disputes, unemployment and wars are consequences of our social system but the press encourages us to look at them in terms of individual responsibilities. Hence, Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as the demon who has somehow personally engineered the unemployment of over three million people, or else a triumphal heroine who will put "Britain" back on its feet. Strikes are blamed on the personal irresponsibility of reckless trade union leaders. Even self-proclaimed non-revolutionaries like the former Longbridgc shop steward Derek Robinson and the GLC leader Ken Livingstone come in for prolonged campaigns of abuse in which they are reduced to being known as "Red Robbo” and “Red Ken". A variation on this technique of masquerading social issues as personal is to actually personify territories and to speak of "Britain fearing the proposed EEC policy" or “France will be taking steps to ensure that . . .". The persons created by this linguistic trick embody the interests of various sections of the ruling class, so that "Britain’s overseas investments” are in reality the investments of a small minority of wealth owners associated with Britain.
They trivialise
The papers are always littered with inconsequential revelations. We are prompted to turn our heads away from the condition of the world, our poverty and insecurity and busy our minds with matters such as “Why the Duke of Kent is to visit Darlington”, the new rhinoceros at a famous zoo and a thousand other inanities. Socialists are sometimes accused of being killjoys for not wishing to participate in discussions on such matters. But stop to consider why. As they are sliding the neutron bombs into their launching positions are we really expected to open a copy of the Daily Express, read about the man who fell into a vat of custard and still be slapping our thighs as the radioactive dust descends upon us?
They historically fossilise
Society is in a constant state of change. The institutions, social relationships and problems of today have not always been with us and are only transitory. Journalists give us a misleading vision of society because they have a “photographic” perception of affairs rather than an historical one. They try to present an accurate picture of “the way things are” but they tend to freeze what they look at without seeing each situation as part of a much wider set of social relations which are not only changing all the time, but which we are capable of shaping for our own requirements. Thus, nation states, armies, managers, police and the wages system are all regarded as part of the fabric of society which is beyond any critical comment.
They moralise
On many issues that they examine, journalists pass moral judgement. They try to persuade us that something is good or bad, but the point is that the morality which they peddle is one which favours our social superiors and flies in the face of our own interests. Their moral precepts contort to keep us in place. So strikers who seek a paltry addition to their wage to try and make ends meet are greedy, while business tycoons who acquire additional companies have praiseworthy initiative and enterprise. If a man murders people in North Yorkshire for no reason he is an anti-social wretched villain. If the same man, trained by the SAS, commits the same acts for H.M. Government with a uniform on he will be hailed as a hero. When wealth producers reclaim goods from the wealth owners without paying for them this is theft and is morally reprehensible, but when the capitalists steal from us the fruits of our labour this is making a profit and is seen as morally virtuous.
The press like any other industry is owned by a few privileged people. Three major companies (News International, Reed International and Associated Newspaper Group) own three-quarters of all British newspapers and each company has similar interests in book and magazine publishing concerns, television companies and independent radio stations. In 1948 Lord Beaverbrook said to the Press Commission: “I publish my paper (Daily Express) purely for the purpose of making propaganda and for no other motive”.
Earlier this year. Rupert Murdoch sacked The Times editor Harold Evans because he resisted pressure to take a more right-wing editorial line supporting Thatcher and Tory economic policies. According to Anthony Holden, the features editor, “Mr. Murdoch wants a poodle as an editor” (Guardian, 13 March 1982). The press barons still like to enjoy control over exactly which arguments, about how capitalism should be run, are put in their papers, but there is not a conspiracy of newspaper magnates and most of the time connivance in capitalist propaganda is less explicit.
Nevertheless, the propaganda is always there. Take June 28 this year when there was a brief strike by the National Union of Railwaymen. All the papers were against the workers and with varying degrees of openness took the side of the bosses. Reports were brimming with comments and views from David Howell, the Transport Secretary, Peter Parker, the BR chairman and cabinet ministers, but no report came anywhere near presenting an adequate account of why the workers were dissatisfied with what they had been offered. The Daily Mail displayed a headline “Britain WILL Get to Work” and listed the ways in which workers should attempt to get in to produce profits. On 7 May 1926 the same paper had a similar message for suffering workers: “If you must go about walk as far as you can . . . don't buy more coal than usual. Keep a stout heart and smile at your troubles”. The Sun headline on 28 June was “STRIKE RABBLE" while the Daily Mirror (the paper which claims to stick up for the workers!) spoke shyly about the urgent need to end the strike and for “increased productivity”. The tirelessly liberal Guardian was also urging the railwaymen to “give reality a chance” — in other words “get back to work and stop complaining”. The Times and the Daily Telegraph had identical lines, only couched in more stilted language, whereas the Star took a similar line but with a bare minimum of written language.
Apart from imparting news, the papers also vie with each other to cultivate and cater for a popular culture for their markets. They reinforce ideas about desirable lifestyles, from the adverts in the Financial Times for special credit cards “for people who travel and entertain around the world. People whose lifestyle and income requires and justifies an additional range of financial services" (28 June 1982), to the crude horoscopes and cheap, brash “lighthearted" pages in the gutter press. Pleasure is promoted here as a spectator sport, something you need to get with cash, something where you are “being entertained". The lowest common denominator of interest among an estimated readership is exploited to the hilt to maximise sales. This converts the paper into another type of mass entertainment to be mechanically produced for profit on one side and passively consumed for gratification on the other. As Richard Hoggart observes in his book The Uses of Literacy:
These productions belong to a vicarious spectators' world; they offer nothing which can really grip the brain or heart. They assist a gradual drying-up of the more positive, the fuller, the more cooperative kinds of enjoyment. in which one gains by giving much (p. 340).
The only paper which represents the interest of the working class, because it stands for socialism and nothing else, is the Socialist Standard. The press and the other means of communication can only be used for their proper function — the unrestricted dissemination of ideas and other information — when they, along with everything else, are commonly owned. Raymond Williams approaches this point when he observes:
The irony is that the only practical use of communication is the sharing of real experience. To set anything above this is quite unpractical. To set selling above it may seem normal, but it is really only a perversion to which some people have got used: a way of looking at the world which must be right and normal because you have cut yourself down to its size (Communications, p. 26).
Remember knowledge is power, and every new reader of the Socialist Standard makes the movement for socialism stronger.
Gary Jay
50 Years Ago: Film Censorship and the Workers (1982)
It is sometimes amusing, when temporarily relaxing from the stern realities of the struggle for existence, to notice the care taken by our masters for our moral welfare. This is exemplified by the recent warning of the Board of Film Censors to the film industry on the subject of “daring” films. Leaving aside the question of what are desirable or undesirable films, the warning in question is an example of the arrogance of the master class in claiming to decide what is good for us.
Commenting upon this in the “News-Chronicle" of 18/2/32, E. A. Baughan says:—
Commenting upon this in the “News-Chronicle" of 18/2/32, E. A. Baughan says:—
Indeed, one could wish it were possible that the Board of Censors extended its veto and banned those films, mainly of American origin, which show how the wealthy classes waste their money (to put it at the lowest) in senseless orgies. What kind of effect must these pictures have on men and women who have the greatest, difficulty in buying the necessaries of existence?Thus we are not only to be deprived of any temptation to forsake the straight path of virtue, but we may even be deprived of witnessing at secondhand the manner in which our masters enjoy their leisure, for fear it might make us just a wee bit jealous.
[From an article "Social Contrasts" by R. Milborne, in the Socialist Standard, August 1932.]
The War in Korea (1950)
Towards the end of June war broke out in Korea and was promptly followed by the armed intervention of America, Britain and other Powers, against the Russian-trained and equipped North Korean armies. No event of the post-war years has so forcibly exposed the illusion of abolishing war through the United Nations; and those who look beneath the wordy smokescreen put up by the opposing sides can see in this conflict the naked brutality of capitalism and the vindication of the Socialist case.
Korea, once independent, but long a coveted prize in the rival ambitions of Russia, China and Japan, was annexed by Japan in 1910 and remained a Japanese colony until 1945. On the surrender of Japan in that year it was occupied by Russia and America on the understanding that it would in five years be restored to full independence. The Russian sphere of influence in the north, larger in area but much smaller in population, contains the principal industries, while the American sphere is primarily agricultural. The two occupying armies left in 1948 and 1949 but already the Southern Government feared invasion from the North and in November 1948 applied to the United Nations for the American troops to remain. Frontier incidents soon occurred between North and South and a United Nations Commission Report in September, 1949 blamed both Governments for "Military posturing on both sides of the frontier.” The Report recognised that a basic cause of the country’s difficulties was the “world-wide antagonism between the Soviet Union and the U.S.A.”; it placed on record the general belief of the Korean population that those two Powers “ are responsible for the present plight of the country.”
According to a Special Correspondent of the Times an important factor in the attitude of the peasants towards the Northern and Southern Governments is that whereas in the North "the Russians put into effect a measure of land redistribution, without consulting the owners of property or tolerating their objections” the "rather corrupt” South Korean Government, ignoring American suggestions of similar measures in their territory. "failed through jealousies and sectional interests to meet the needs of the peasantry.” (Times. 6th July, 1950).
The main interest of the Powers in Korea arises from its geographical position. The special correspondent of the Times wrote: —
“Korea's unhappy history can, to a large extent he explained by her strategical importance The chief port in the South. Pusan, is only 120 miles from Japan. Its most north-easterly point is within 100 miles of Vladivostock. The Japanese used to refer to it as a ‘dagger pointed at the heart of Japan,' which it could be, although in fact Korea has always been more in evidence as a bridgehead of Japanese penetration of the Asiatic mainland."
If America, now the occupying Power in Japan, fears a Korea under Russian influence it is not surprising that the Chinese and Russian Governments equally regard the American intervention as directed against them, especially as, simultaneously with intervention in Korea the American Government declared its intention of protecting the remnants of General Chiang Kai-shek’s forces on the Chinese island of Formosa against attack from Communist controlled China. A reporter of the Evening Standard (1st July, 1950) put the Chinese Government’s point of view:—“The Chinese Communists’ determination to capture Formosa can only be understood in terms of their conviction that the United States intends to use Formosa as a base for invading China.”
When we turn to the statements of the Governments and parties justifying their attitude on the Korean war we see on all sides how high-sounding pacific sentiments can serve as a cover for the determination to wage war where capitalist interests are at stake. They are all against war, but . . . The American and British Governments are in the war because, so they say, unless they stop Russian aggression now a third world war is inevitable. “By accepting this fresh challenge he had every hope that a world war could be averted. That was the only way to preserve peace.” (Mr. Herbert Morrison speaking at Manchester. Times, 3rd July, 1950). To which the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr. Gromyko, retorts:—“The U.S. Government . . . demonstrated that, far from seeking to consolidate peace, it is on the contrary, an enemy of peace . . . The U.S. Government . . . is gradually impelling the country step by step towards open war.” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).
So both sides are prepared to wage a small war because each affects to believe that the other side is preparing for a larger one.
Both sides use in their justification legalistic arguments about whether this war is a properly accredited United Nations war. The American-British side stands by a vote of the United Nations Security Council though American action actually preceded the vote; and Russia says it is all illegal because she was absent from the meeting. The only point of all such arguments is the implication that, if properly blessed by the United Nations, a war is not a war. And indeed the Egyptian Minister of State, Dr. Hamed Zaki, says so. He declared that “the events in Korea, he thought, amounted simply to international measures for peace and could not be regarded as a war.” (Daily Telegraph, 4th July, 1950). Nevertheless while his Government approves the United Nations action against aggression in Korea it declined to share in the action because it claims to be wrongfully deprived of United Nations aid against the aggression of Britain in continuing to maintain armed forces on Egyptian territory at the Suez Canal.
Both sides hide behind the plea that the other side started it, a plea that cannot be disproved because both Korean Governments had at some time in the past two years been responsible for frontier aggression and warlike threats. So if we are to accept that a United Nations war is not a war we are also asked to accept that it is quite all right for the “friends of peace” to wage war and refrain from any action to stop it provided that they believe the other side started hostilities.
The armies on both sides are conscripts and nobody thought it necessary to consult them or the Korean workers and peasants on the question whether they want to go to war.
Mr. Gromyko, seemingly in difficulties to explain how it happened that the North Koreans (who he alleges are the innocent victims of South Korean aggression) were, within a few days, advancing in force 50 miles or more into South Korea, has to fall back on the argument that this is a “civil war” and therefore the United Nations should keep out. He discovers, as a precedent, the American Civil War of 1861-5, and says:—“When attacked by the South, the armed forces of the North States did not, as is known, limit themselves to defence of their own territory. They transferred military operations to the territory of the Southern States . . .” (Daily Worker, 5th July, 1950).
So, according to the Russian Government, which has just given its official blessing to the Peace Appeal of the Communist sponsored “World Peace Congress,” it is quite in order for peace lovers to go in for a war provided it can be legally defined as “Civil War” and though it may, like the American civil war, cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
In taking the American Civil War as his example Mr. Gromyko was closer to reality than perhaps he appreciates. He described that war as an example of a “Struggle waged by the peoples for national unity and for democratic rights.” If he had not been so anxious to find a precedent awkward for the American Government to answer he might have recalled that it was the Northern States' victory in that war that laid the foundation for the modern American capitalist-imperialism. All the so-called national unity movements, including the Russian have had similar causes and lead to similar capitalist-imperialist results.
From both sides there is the customary nauseating propaganda about the loftiness of their aims. According to the Daily Mail (3rd July, 1950), it is a war between good and evil. Quoting a declaration by the Bishop of Rochester about the need “to fight Godless materialism with aggressive evangelism ” the Mail, had the following in a leading article: —
“In those six words he summed up the reason for the war in Korea. In every war the Right is on your side—whoever you may be—and the Wrong on the other. But this is different . . . We are engaged in a fight of Christian civilisation against Communist materialism; against terror and darkness and the degradation of men and women; against slave labour and forced famine.”
Not to be beaten, the Daily Worker the following day (4th July, 1950), published the declaration of the North Korean Government that theirs is a “holy war for the freedom, unity and independence of their native land.” Forgetting the excuse that their participation in the war was supposed to be merely resistance against frontier violations by the South Koreans the North Korean Government, after describing the speedy victorious advance of its armies, goes on to declare that they will continue “liberating” South Korea and “will intensify their struggle.”
The Socialist Party of Great Britain asserts that this war, like all modern wars, is provoked by the economic rivalries that are inherent in capitalism and of which all the powers are guilty whether it be under the openly capitalist government of U.S.A. or the capitalism of Britain and Russia administered by Labour and Communist Governments. While the capitalist struggle for markets, raw materials and strategic points goes on it is idle to believe that war can be abolished. The United Nations and the muddled-headed anti-war declarations of bodies of so-called lovers of peace are equally futile to stop it.
The S.P.G.B. has often been told by its opponents that, notwithstanding basic differences of aims and principles, we should be willing to co-operate with the “friends of peace,” the Labour Party and the Communists and should support the United Nations organisation. The Korean war shows how impossible and useless such co-operation would be. What would they have us do? Should we “preserve peace” by supporting United Nations war in Korea? Should we help the Labour Party “to stop war” when almost all of the Labour M.P.’s have given their endorsement to participation in this war ? Should we endorse the sanctimonious peace propaganda of the Communist Party which consists in fact of demanding action to stop American-British intervention so that Russia’s North Korean allies can have a clear field in their war against the South?
They are all, in theory, the friends of peace and all in practice will wage war for the respective capitalist interests they support.
When, on 5th July, the policy of the British Labour Government was debated in Parliament there were just two Labour M.P.’s who took a different line. They called it backing a “socialist” policy; but what did it consist of? Their amendment demanded that the British Government should withdraw from intervention and should “repudiate all commitments which involve on our part any obligations to maintain the present division of the nations of the world into two powerful and dangerously poised hostile groups, and to declare in conformity with the Government’s socialist principles our determination to give every encouragement to all peoples aspiring for freedom and self-government.”
The movers of this are Labour M.P.’s and as such fully committed to the Labour Party programme of administering British capitalism in a capitalist world. They have accepted British capitalism, and its export drive to capture foreign markets from rival Powers, but want it to pursue a “socialist” policy! They think that one capitalist Power can escape from capitalism by standing aside from rival groups. This was indeed Mr. Attlee’s own policy five years ago but it is as non-Socialist and as impracticable now as it was then. They might just as well suggest that Korea could escape from being a pawn in the struggle of rival Great Powers merely by saying that it wants to be left alone.
A Socialist policy can only be pursued by a Socialist party which bases its principles on the necessity of international Socialist action by the workers of the world against capitalism everywhere, whether it be in America, Britain, Russia or in the smaller countries like Korea. Only a party built up on Socialist principles can have a Socialist policy. Only a party of Socialists can consistently oppose war, and in that struggle the socialist movement will receive no aid from the war-making false friends of peace.
Edgar Hardcastle
Crime marches on (1950)
To flog, or not to flog? That is the question which the daily press recently thrust upon its readers as the burning issue of the day, and which it discussed at great length with much emotion and, in some instances, precious little consideration for the facts; probably with no other result than to make the public—including the potential delinquent—cosh conscious. That violence is a serious problem for which a solution is long overdue, few would deny; but is flogging the answer? Let us quieten the hysteria for a moment and, like all good scientists, take a look at the facts.
The first and most obvious fact which should come to mind is that until September 1948 flogging was used to deal with various types of violence. This was provided for by a number of Acts such as the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 as amended by the Garroters Act of 1863, so it cannot be said that flogging has not been given a fair trial. In spite of this however, violence is not only still with us, but since 1938 has increased rapidly. The number of robberies with violence increasing from 287 in that year to 1,101 in 1948 (News Chronicle 24/3/50). After flogging was abolished however, the number of cases decreased from 711 during the first nine months of 1948 to 597 in the corresponding period of 1949 (Daily Mirror 17/3/50). Conversely, during the six years that followed the introduction of the Garroters Act, viz. 1863 to 1869 there was, to quote Lord Aberdare who was at the time Under Secretary at the Home Department, “ a slight increase in these crimes.” (See “The Lawbreaker” by E. R. and T. Calvert, Routledge, 1933, p. 241). Another interesting example was the introduction of whipping as a punishment for procuration by the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1912 which resulted in a tremendous increase in the offence in 1913. The actual figures are as follows: —
Persons for trial for procuration1910 251911 181912 14—Whipping introduced during this year1913 731914 41(see, “Social Aspects of Crime in England Between the Wars ” by Dr. Hermann Mannheim, Al!en & Unwin, 1940, p. 51)
From these facts it is obvious that flogging is not only a failure as a solution to violent crime but its effect as a deterrent is. to say the least, extremely dubious. Neither, of course, will the abolition of flogging solve the problem. No problem can be solved by ignoring it. These methods must fail because they leave the cause of the trouble untouched.
The first task for anybody seeking a solution is to understand the problem. Many instances of violence such as assaults on policemen or nightwatchmen are the result of hindering the burglar in the practice of his profession. We cannot, in fact, separate violence from the crime problem as a whole. We shall not, therefore, make the attempt.
Before seeking a clear insight into the causes of crime it is necessary—as with so many things—to clear away a big cobweb of misconception which clouds so many people's vision. This is the attractively simple but quite erroneous idea that the whole trouble is caused by a “criminal type"; a sort of biological monstrosity, like Siamese twins or two-headed giraffes; a mental monster whose criminal activities are the result of some inborn crime instinct. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and amongst those who have made a study of criminals the idea is generally discredited. Listen, for example, to Dr. Goring who, after making a careful examination of no less than 3,000 convicts, makes the following observations: —
“This anthropological monster has no existence in fact. The physical and mental constitution of both criminal and law-abiding persons of the same age, class, stature, and intelligence, are identical. There is no such thing as an anthropological criminal type." (“The Lawbreaker,” p. 44)
In fact the evidence tends to show that they are ordinary people like ourselves, a large number of whom possess many excellent qualities. For instance on page 54 of the same book, Mr. Justice du Parq is quoted as reporting a type of prisoner who is “young, determined, and adventurous," and Leo Page, who has a wide first hand knowledge of criminals, tells us in his book “Crime and the Community” (Faber & Faber, 1937 p. 99) that:
“One finds with a shock of surprise that they (professional criminals) can be courteous and well mannered, grateful and appreciative of just treatment or of a little kindness, or passionately fond of music or of flowers; they are often brave—a good burglar, for example, must of necessity be a man of nerve, courage and resource; some are well read, with a real love of books; others can be wonderfully loyal, in the odd distorted way in which they understand the meaning of the word; very many retain amongst all their troubles a smiling acceptance of fate and a keen sense of humour.”
It seems that we must look elsewhere for the causes of crime.
The law is a social institution made by man, it is not a biological product; so also is crime—its opposite pole or complement—a social phenomenon, and it is in society and not the individual that we must look for an explanation. Government and the machinery of state, which make and enforce the law, exist to conserve those private property institutions which are so vital to the interests of the ruling class and the continued smooth running of their capitalist economy. This being the case, we should expect to find some connection between crime and social conditions generally and economic conditions in particular. Let us put the matter to the test.
Dr. Mannheim tells us (Social Aspects etc., p. 123) that “the significance of economic factors in the causation of crime is fairly generally accepted," and farther on (pages 127 to 130) he reproduces statistics which show the figures for crime rising and falling through the years almost in step with those for unemployment; the only exception being after the slump of the early thirties when, although crime figures dropped for the older age groups, those for the younger groups continued to rise right up until the outbreak of war. This may be explained by other social factors; possibly the waning influence of religion during the inter-war period and the growing tendency of the rising generation to criticize hitherto accepted moral standards.
Another excellent example of the influence of economics upon lawlessness, which can be gleaned from pages 105-7 of the same book, is that of Germany whose terrific crime wave in the early twenties can be accounted for by the economic distress following her military defeat in 1918. It is also significant that whilst the figures for simple larceny had rocketed from 202,885 in 1920 to 308,005 in 1923, which was the peak year of her inflation, those for coining actually "slumped" from 341 in 1921 to 156 in 1923, so reflecting the instability of the Mark. Immediately after stabilization, however, there was a “boom” in the offence which resulted in no less than 1,094 convictions. In England where the economy had not been so seriously disturbed, crime increased far more steadily.
Lack of space makes over-simplification unavoidable and we fully recognize that all crime cannot be traced to economic factors so directly as this. We fully appreciate the importance of war and insecurity, and the effects of gross inequalities and the degrading position of the wage slave; all of them factors which themselves spring more or less directly from the capitalist nature of society. It could be argued that even the majority of sex crimes spring from the unnatural sexual institutions thrown up by property society; but as Dr. Goring tells us that 95 per cent, of all prisoners are convicted for acquisitive offences, (“The Lawbreaker", p. 39) we will not labour the point.
We live in an acquisitive society where we get our living in permanent competition with our fellows, and often at their expense; where periodic orgies of blood and violence such as we have recently experienced tend to instil a bias? attitude towards human suffering. Many people not only grow up in such a world and have the outlook which it engenders but they see also a few people living in a surfeit of luxury and ease without the necessity of work, whilst they are doomed to a life of toil; living in some overcrowded hovel in a sordid and ugly slum environment, through no fault of their own—other than choosing the wrong parents. Is it, then, not cause for wonder that so few take matters into their own hands and ignore those laws which enable a privileged minority to keep them in poverty and subjection?
Let us face it; there is no easy solution, the roots of crime go deep into the very basis of society itself. A vicious and competitive economy gives rise to vicious and anti-social behaviour. An economy based on a community of interests will give rise to co-operative and social behaviour; its establishment is the most urgent task confronting society today; and society includes you.
Meanwhile; crime marches on!
J. Trotman
Where East meets West (1950)
Although attention is today focussed on Korea, it is but a glittering spark in the great smouldering mass which is China. Throughout the past 100 years it has been the struggle for spheres of influence, trade, raw materials, which made China a hot bed of intrigue, murder and corruption. A glance at a map will show that the importance of Korea is its geographic position. It is a peninsula of land pointing like a great finger into the Sea of Japan, covering or threatening Vladivostok to the North, Shanghai and Hong-kong to the South and Japan to the East.
That the war which ended in 1945 solved no problems now becomes clear. The economic position that made occupation of Manchuria so essential to Japan is still the same. America as the political power in occupation of Japan is forced to take over the role of the Japanese militarists who preceded them. The Communist party of Russia carry on the same policy of expansion as did Czarist Russia.
But whereas the leading role of the West was played by British Imperialism in the carving up of China during the 19th century, that mantle too, has now fallen on American shoulders. The antagonism of China and Russia to both Britain and Japan now shows itself in open hostility to America. The drama remains the same, only the actors appear in different guises.
From time immemorial China had developed and perfected an economic and social system quite adequate for her needs. This was a system of production organised in the towns along lines similar to the Guilds of Mediaeval Europe. About 80 per cent. of her population were absorbed in agriculture. The basis of her rural life was the village community. The cohesive force that held together these almost exclusive units of town and village, was the organised Scholar Gentry; that is educated land owners from whose ranks the officials, provincial governors, magistrates, etc. were chosen. Following on the diverse products of different regions, there had developed in this society a rich merchant class which dealt in the finished products of the Guilds.
The only opportunity presenting itself to the owners of money as a source of investment aside from dealing in the products of the towns, was usury. The lending of money to peasants, the hiring of land from great land owners and reletting of it at exorbitant rents became one of the main sources of wealth.
However, with the breaking of the West into China, dealing in opium, and later, investing in foreign enterprises, banks, railroad building, mining etc., soon developed a class of Chinese who, while still retaining lucrative investments in usurous capital, also identified themselves with the interests of the foreigners.
It was from these that the foreign powers in their rivalries chose their puppet governments to rule in parts of China. But side by side with the foreigners there arose a small number of Chinese who emulated and copied the factory method of production. However meagrely they lived, however cheaply they paid their workers, however long they worked their employees, they found that they could not compete against the influx of Western made commodities. From them arose the cry for “Tariff Autonomy” that is to say the right to protect and nurture their budding industries by government action.
Because of the dissolution of the handicraft industries, labour capable of employment in factories became abundant and cheap. Industries dominated by foreign capital sprang up in the towns all round the coast of China. Workers who worked as many as 12 hours a day for as little as a shilling a day, formed a seething mass of discontent in the towns. As the capitalists who employed them were non-Chinese, their struggles took a nationalistic direction. They were the natural allies of a weak, embryonic Chinese capitalist class in their struggle for a “Free China.”
But the mass of the Chinese were still peasants. The land problem was still the crux of the unrest and turmoil troubling China.
Governments, in order to rule, need revenue, not only for administrative purposes but also to meet payments on foreign loans. Because of the privileges gained by the foreign invaders, they were exempt from Chinese government taxes. As the government was also denied access to the customs revenue at the ports, the burden of taxation fell, not only on Chinese industry, thus restricting its development still farther, but also on the peasant. Any increase of taxes levied on the land owner was easily shifted onto the peasant by the mere expedient of raising his rent. The government itself was peopled by men who had a vested interest in the land. Any movement organised by the peasants for a reduction in rents meant either a reduction of government revenue or a reduction of income accruing to the land owners who constitute a large and powerful section of the community.
As the government revenue was a source of income for the banking concerns of the Western powers, a reduction in it was out of the question. The struggle between the land owners and the peasant was settled by force. Non-payment of the required rent meant the eviction of the peasant from the land. This was accomplished either by the private army of the land owner or by some neighbouring War lord with whom he was intimately connected.
The Great War (’14-’18) however created the conditions for a rapid growth of a home-grown Chinese industry : furthermore, the Russian Revolution pointed a way to the solution of many of the problems that confronted the Chinese. It was just after this war that a Chinese Communist Party was formed. A child of the intellectuals of China, it had a somewhat chequered career from the time of its formation till the end of the last war (’39-’45). Its phenomenal success after the cessation of hostilities lies in the fact that the representative government of China, recognised and supported by the Allies in their war against the Axis powers, entered into agreements with America which virtually handed over the whole of Chinese assets. The National Sovereignty which had been promised to them as a reward for victory against Japan, although given on paper, was denied them in reality. The realization of this was the reason for the sudden and remarkable victories of the “communists.” Fear of Russian infiltration into China from the North East which she had already occupied after the defeat of Japan was no doubt one of the reasons that spurred America to almost frenzied support of the Kuomintang. Its reaction however, was to drive the “communists” into the arms of Russia in whom they saw a natural ally.
The “communists,” although the victors in the Civil War, have still to consolidate their position and implement their programme. It is to a consideration of this programme that we now turn.
This of course rings true to a people long oppressed by bandits and the soldiers of thieving warlords. To a socialist however it means that the “New Democracy” means to maintain law and order. But what kind of law and order will this be? Mao Tse-Tung goes on:—“Imperialist and feudal oppression has restricted the development of individuality and private capital, and has ruined the property of the masses. The task of our New Democratic system is to remove this restriction and ruination, to safeguard the free development of the people’s individuality in their social life, to promote the free development of private capitalist economy that benefits and does not control the people’s livelihood, and to protect all proper private property.”
Like all pseudo-Marxists in backward countries, their alleged ultimate goal is communism but the immediate objective is the realization of the capitalist mode of production. This, apparently, can be striven for as a step towards the ultimate goal. Again from the report of Mao Tse-Tung (p. 26):—“When we joined the party, we had in our mind two clearly defined objectives : to fight for the new bourgeois-democratic revolution, and to strive for the materialisation of the future Socialist revolution of the proletariat.”
According to this line of reasoning the proletariat (propertyless workers) are quite capable of understanding the need for capitalism in order to obtain socialism. Not only is socialism to be the result of consciousness but capitalism also. In short, the large industrial working class created by the foreign capitalists are firstly to aid the native capitalist to get rid of his foreign competitor and then to joyfully help him onto their backs in the foreigners’ place. This of course is nonsense.
The Chinese worker will find, nay, has probably already discovered that capitalists of whatever nationality or colour are much of a muchness. The development of the capitalist mode of production is the beginning of new struggles between new classes. Capital and its growth depend on a greater degree of exploitation, greater amounts of surplus value and the complete subjugation of the workers to its sway. In so far as the workers are blinded to the real import of capitalist production and look on it as a prelude to something better in the future, to that extent will their struggle be blunted. To that extent will they be the more effectively milked.
The acceptance of the “communist” position, however sincere, must conflict with the real interests of the working class. Any resistance by the workers at any time must be construed as preventing accumulation of greater amounts of capital. It will therefore be opposed by the state. Basically, despite its Marxist jargon, the “communist party” are putting forward that old shibboleth so roundly condemned by Marx and Engels in the “Communist Manifesto”—“ Capitalism for the benefit of the working class.”
Again from the report of Mao Tse-tung (p. 46): — “ The New Democratic system of government will adopt the policy of harmonizing the relationship between capital and labour. . . . On the other hand the proper profits of state, private and co-operative enterprises will be protected.”
Despite the day dream of developing capitalism first and socialism afterwards, the “communists” get down to brass tacks. “Large amounts of capital will be needed for the development of our industries. They will come chiefly from the accumulated wealth of the Chinese people, and in a lesser degree from foreign assistance. We welcome foreign investments if such are beneficial to China’s economy and are made in observance of China’s laws. What is beneficial to both the Chinese people and foreigners is that China, after winning a firm internal and international peace, and instituting thorough political and agrarian reforms will be able to develop her large-scale light and heavy industries and modernized agriculture. On this basis we shall be able to absorb vast amounts of foreign investments. A politically backward and economically impoverished China will be unprofitable not only to the Chinese people, but also to foreigners.” (P. 46)
To sum up; the relation of the West to China has been one of ruthless exploitation. The apparent struggle between the powers which presents itself as a struggle between ideas or differing ways of life, is in fact a struggle over the spoils. The development of a strong native capitalist government therefore enters the field to expel the foreigners. Armed with the history of exploitation as justification for its actions, it attempts to place itself in position as the future exploiter of China.
The position of the masses of China will still be that of exploited toilers.
Rufus.
Unwillingly to school (1950)
Mr. Hardman is Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education. On July 1st he opened his heart to a meeting of teachers at Dorchester; the Observer thought it important enough to accord a splash heading “New School Time Table.” Stressing as he did the urgent need for “co” ordination between hand and brain, and the high importance of inducing “delight” in the pupil while acquiring culture in its best sense, the words of the Secretary were a signal advance in the right direction; at least the ghost of Robert Lowe who flung his brutal “Board Schools” and scornful words in the face of the Working Class in 1871 has been well and truly laid; it may be hoped the Dorchester audience of Prime Minister Lord Rosebery’s “captains and guides” grasped the full significance of Hardman’s speech.
But alas! even today the gulf between the aspirations of the advance guard in education and the possibilities of fulfilment yawns discouragingly. That gulf can only be bridged, when a New Society (Socialism) has swept away the inevitable evils that must frustrate educational effort under the Capitalist System, in spite of the good intentions on the part of reformers.
It would be folly to deny that there has been a notable diminution in the lads and lassies who creep unwillingly to school; there has been a welcome and growing comradeship between pupil and scholar; there has been a definite, if slow, distrust of the Examination Myth—Hardman himself gave a sour glance at it.
But after all. Education in the long run is governed by political considerations; it was by no odd freak of history that in ancient Greece the Spartan youth was trained to a super-Fascist "hardness,” while the Athenian youth (of the privileged classes, of course), was trained to enjoy Homer and Aeschylus; tradition counted, it is true, but the outstanding fact was that Sparta had no walls, and no sea barrier.
Fifty years ago, Margaret McMillan, the pioneer of Nursery Schools, wrote an enthusiastic Clarionette: “You teachers do love the Grind.” They did, and unfortunately even on the plane of mere amelioration, a lamentable number still do. In the last War, a London school found itself sharing the dubious hospitality (morning and afternoon shifts) of a Secondary School in a South Coast town. An elderly member of the latter staff proudly expressed his determination (a siren wailing applause) to carry through "his” Final Somethings, come weal, come woe. "I’ll stick to the deck, said he, so they stuck him on deck with glue,” as an irreverent youngster of the London School afterwards remarked to his colleagues.
A pitiful handful of school reformers are gallantly striving to keep alive private schools where the child is the centre of the picture, where Wordsworth’s “blind authority beating with his staff the child that might have led him” no longer applies. Happy kiddies! but, with relatively large staffs, etc. these schools are expensive, and therefore for the children of the well-to-do only; further. Government grants are a far-off contingency when “a daily act of public worship” is laid down as part and parcel of grant-earning. This type of school is different.
There has been a spate of loose talk about "equality of opportunity” since the last Education Act, a new version of the old Napoleonic bilge about marshal’s baton and private’s knapsack. It is pretty apparent that the vast mass of pupils attaining Grammar School status will never attain the prize dangled at the top of the greasy pole; the unwholesome preoccupation of youngsters to reach a prescribed goal, the abiding dread of failure, failure itself, entails sheer tragedy for many a sensitive plant in Shelley’s garden. Face the fact, too, of the working-class parents scraping and sacrificing to come somewhere near the school’s requirements in clothing alone; face the fact of much prized “traditions” which are a veritable hot-bed of snobbery, spite of good intentions; face the fact of a child gradually sensing a growing divergence in speech between himself and relatively uneducated parents. It is easy to brush these things aside, to attribute exaggeration to a sketchy outline of potential child torture.
It may well be asked here: what is the remedy, granted the picture is even moderately true? The S.P.G.B. has no hesitation in replying—that only by removing the causes of evil can a final remedy be accomplished. Quinine is a benign alleviator of malaria—elimination of the foul pools with their disease carrying insects is the recognised scientific remedy. The evils inherent in the Capitalist system which, spite of pietistic mouthing, elevates material success to a major virtue, can at its best endeavour but alleviate the worst horrors of infant torture which marked the period of mine and factory hells. And it is worth calling to mind that there were Christian apologists in that period who affected to believe that "wholesome toil ” was a good thing for the pitiful little broken and disfigured scraps of humanity.
The achievement of Socialism will and can be only accomplished by the Working Class; the main appeal of the S.P.G.B. is therefore to that class, but it may not be irrelevant to point out that everything in the educational garden of Eton and Harrow and their kind, as far as pupils are concerned, is not lovely; bullying, even if not of the order of Tom Brown’s schooldays, is not unknown—"worse remains behind.” Socialism would be a happy change for many a sensitive school- tie kiddy.
Hardman means well—as does his chief, ex-schoolmaster Chuter Ede, despite a lapse occasionally into the hectoring Trade Union leader when condescending to speak to his late co-workers. But fine words butter no parsnips, indeed buttery sentimentalism adds to the rough pack of the unthinking worker a new element of dangerous slipperiness; Sir Peter Teazle’s “O damn your sentiments ” seems to meet the situation.
To Working Class fathers, the S.P.G.B. makes this special appeal: even if you fail to realise completely the dire meaning of wage-slavedom for yourself: if you have but imperfectly grasped that Capitalism entails a harassed and inhumanly overworked wife, at least give a thought for your children, your bidden guests. The joy of life, childhood laughing as it goes, faces “ in which sweet records meet, promises as sweet ”—these can be a realised aspiration under SOCIALISM alone.
Augustus Snellgrove
"Science, natural and social" (1950)
From the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard
“. . . Today it seems that we are again in the process of launching a new phase of science—one in which social as well as natural phenomena are to be made amenable to scientific understanding and rational control.“As with natural science, social science too has had its earlier stages. It too passed through the stage of trial and error, in which social organisation shaped itself under the influence of unconscious adjustment together with non-rational rules of conduct and non-scientific interpretations of human destiny. It also had its traditional phases, often tightly bound up with philosophical and theological interpretative principles, as, for example the climax of the Middle Ages. And it has had its birth of free speculative inquiry, parallel to the Greek phase of natural science—but two thousand years later, in the philosophers of the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century.“Finally, its modern stage now dawning has had. like the modern stage of natural science, its scattered precursors, its Roger Bacons and Leonardos—and it has had its precursor in the restricted sense, its equivalent of Francis Bacon in the Renaissance. Many, I am sure, would put Herbert Spencer in this position; but I believe that the true John the Baptist of social science is Karl Marx. Herbert Spencer, for all his academic knowledge, or perhaps because of it, was more in the position of an Old Testament prophet. His work was essentially analogical. He demonstrated that social science was an inevitable development; but his notions of what form it would actually take and what methods it should employ were vague and essentially erroneous.“Marx, on the other hand, developed a system directly based on social facts and directly applicable to them. He did not just prophesy. A Messiah; he indicated THE Messiah. As natural scientists tend to undervalue Bacon because he himself did not make discoveries or work out experimental techniques, so social scientists tend to under-rate Marx because his system is a dialectical one, ready-made and complete with an answer to any problem, not sufficiently empirical and inductive for their scientific taste. But at least Marx, like Bacon, gave expression to a new outlook and a new method of attack, and helped materially to alter the intellectual climate so as to make it propitious for scientific work in his field . . . ”(“The Uniqueness of Man”, by Julian Huxley. Pages 224—225).
Random notes on Marxian Philosophy (1950)
The Marxian Philosophy, as has been frequently stated is the outcome of German Philosophy, socialist Utopian doctrines and English Political Economy.
There are many prominent men to-day who sniff at Marxism; a doctrine formulated in the nineteenth century cannot in their opinion be valid to-day. The last eighty years have certainly brought about remarkable progress in the development of productive forces; electric trains, aeroplanes, radio and much modern machinery did not exist at the time that Marx formulated his theories. This profound development of the material means of production can certainly not be held as an invalidation of the Marxian ideal (i.e. Socialism); it must on the contrary be regarded as fulfilling much more adequately the prerequisite material foundation which Marx considered to be a preliminary for the construction of a classless socialist society. The invectives hurled against the Marxian ideal from this standpoint are therefore unwarranted. The utmost charge that can be made is against the Marxian analysis itself, which is in the opinion of its rebutters unsound. In face of the much more modern development of society “historical materialism” and “surplus value” in their opinion no longer hold water as scientific theses, even granted that some justification may have been held for these concepts in the “Victorian Epoch.”
. . . The question arises: Can one honestly subscribe to a doctrine, or body of doctrines, which is unsound in its essence.
The Marxian “ideal” may be cherished, but then it is the ideal of predecessors of Marx (Bray, Thompson); but for that idealistic vision Marx deserves no special merit, nor even for his consistent devotion to the workers’ cause—if one may add this factor too. It is his theories which constitute his “contribution” and which enable us to understand modern capitalism. The entire ideological phenomenon is to be elucidated through an explanation of the economic conditions of man. This is historical materialism. The religious thoughts, the changes of ideas, intellectual life have their grounding in the economic structure of society—and one may add the political and juridical life. That Hitler, Bolshevism and Labour Government can be explained in terms of the economic structure and that they are satisfactorily explained are factors which leave no doubt in our minds of recent events. Neither Hitler, nor Bolshevism, nor Labour Government could have arisen in Feudalism, in a previous economic building of society.
The perennial incomes of the capitalist class are a deduction from the total labour of the working class; the result of the excess produced by the workers over their own income, i.e. the value of their labour power.
This is the doctrine of surplus value. The value of a ware is the sum total of labour contained within it. What do we mean by value? We mean just that which we use in colloquial conversation, viz., a treasurable estimation. But this treasurable estimation only arises in exchange societies or where exchange of goods has arisen or taken place. In a Socialist community two children in a Kindergarten may very well exchange their toys, but they will not do so with a concept of value. Nor will value be a factor of their articles for them, as it must necessarily be for them to-day behind their backs, namely, some sort of treasurable estimation. The value of a thing is then to-day some sort of qualitative estimation of it, even if the factors behind that estimate are not grasped. . . . money, too, has value, i.e. gold, silver, copper. The exchange of a commodity for money is the exchange of one for another value. It has been said that the proportionally determining factor in the exchange of values is their usefulness. This is pure nonsense! It cannot mean estimation as to whether a fur coat contains a thousand times more usefulness than does a chair. This is a purely subjective estimation —the utility of a commodity. But if the degree of usefulness is impossible to fathom, it is possible to gauge the socially necessary labour in an article, which Marx holds to constitute the value of the thing. That the total value of goods is estimated in terms of labour; exchanges on an average for a total of money estimated in terms equivalent of labour is Marx’s thesis, viz., the labour theory of value, and he has shown that although his thesis is that of Ricardo, Smith and other economists too his special contribution is that it is not “labour” which the worker sells to the capitalist but his labour power. The pervading thought in my mind is the applicability of the doctrine of Marx to the progressive industrial 1950 capitalism.
G.
Blue Blood (1950)
People often boast of having “ blue blood ” in their veins, meaning of course that they are related more or less closely to some member of the nobility. This is supposed to lend a charm to their character, not possessed by more common folk.
A peep into “The Complete Peerage” a work, still in the process of construction, it will not be finished until 1954, will at least make people hesitate before claiming relationship with the “gentry.” Baron Hungerford was found guilty of so many unnatural crimes that he was beheaded in 1540.
For four years he imprisoned his starved wife in a castle, and suborned the chaplain to poison her.
A Mad Earl of Queensbury fell upon a cookboy who was burning the spit in the kitchen of Holyrood in 1707 and spitted and roasted him in front of the fire.
Lady Glamis, ancestor of the present Queen, was burned at the stake as a sorceress who tried to poison the King of Scotland in 1537.
Maybe the sacked dustman now reinstated, “who was dismissed because he was supposed to have mimicked the. Queen,” will be surprised to learn this.
Some of these gentry also possessed a 'sense of “ humour/’ As in the case of the cruel Lady Marischal who died from laughing at a killing in 1598.
Lady Janet Gray smothered her first husband at the end of the fifteenth century but found two more.
These are some of the facts drawn from this work, there are many more but these will suffice to illustrate the kind of people many of them were.
It may be said in their defence that the period was a vicious one, but it does not lend any weight to their claims of being the lords of creation. These facts about the nobility are taken from an article in the Sunday Express on May 28th entitled “ The Peerage without Whitewash,” by Sidney Rodin.
P. S. M.
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