Answers to correspondents. (1933)

Letters to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

Julius Kaplan (Massachusetts).—We regret that pressure on space prevents publication at present of an article dealing with your questions on the vote. See forthcoming re-issue of pamphlet "Socialism." An article will appear shortly.— Ed. Comm. 

 

"Puzzled Socialist."—If you will give your name and address, not necessarily for publication, we will reply to your questions. —Ed. Comm.

Spade Work in Hull (1933)

Party News from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much-needed propaganda has been carried on with good effect in Hull during recent weeks, by Comrade Cash, who is staying there at the invitation of a local comrade. In about two weeks, at the end of June and beginning of July, ten meetings were held, with an average audience of about 60 or 70, and with small but steady sales of literature. In view of the difficulty of gathering an audience almost single-handed, and in view of many unfavourable local conditions, the interest aroused has been quite satisfactory. With continuous propaganda good progress could be made here. Hull members and sympathisers are urged to give their support.

Blogger's Note:

This report of Sammy Cash doing a speaking tour in Hull was originally attached to this Provincial Propaganda Tour report on the blog, but I only just realised that they were actually two separate reports, recording two separate propaganda activities.

S.P.G.B. Propaganda Meetings (1933)

Party News from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Nothing from Pilkington (1962)

Editorial from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

As readers of the Socialist Standard will know, in all the forty or so years since the beginning of broadcasting in this country, the SPGB has never been allowed by the BBC to state its case on the air. Our many applications have always been rejected. The BBC (like the independent television companies) is under no obligation to give opportunities to us or other small organisations, and as far as we are concerned they have always found lack of “programme interest” or some such reason for not doing so.

It contrasts oddly with the kind of argument advocates of nationalisation were fond of using to the effect that “public ownership” is a protection against the abuse of power by private monopolies. It also contrasts with experience in the USA and Canada where our comrades, and our own members on visits to these countries, have many times put the Socialist case on radio and TV.

When the Pilkington Committee was set up we put in evidence detailing our experience. It appears to have had no effect. In this Report (Paragraphs 294-307) they deal with Party Political Broadcasting, meaning the broadcasts agreed between the “leading political parties” for their own advantage, and do indeed have a few words to say about the question “should minor parties be given the opportunity to broadcast” but this gets nowhere because they decided that it was “impossible to write down an exact definition of a ‘political party’ for the purposes of affording the right to make party political broadcasts.”

They add “it must remain a matter to be settled empirically”—which no doubt will continue to be various reasons for saying no.

So another Committee looks at the question and does nothing. Its predecessor, the Beveridge Committee 1949 did at least tentatively suggest (Paragraph 257) that “it might be reasonable to have something that may be held to correspond to a ‘Hyde Park’ of the air, that is to say, an opportunity for all minorities which have messages, religious or other, on some occasion to put their messages over, not regularly or at length, but some time.”

The fact that the SPGB submitted evidence is recorded in the Report (Appendix B, Page 324) and the evidence itself will be included in an Appendix not yet published.

Editorial: ITV Squeals (1962)

Editorial from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

When big, fat Billy Bunter saw his sausage stolen at breakfast time, he set up an almighty squeal.

And that was what we heard from the independent television companies, and from some of the newspapers which have interests in ITV when the Pilkington report came out.

With one difference. The fat schoolboy never tried to convince everybody else that it was in their interests that he should have the sausage, as well as any bacon that was going.

One of the loudest squeals, as we might have guessed, came from the Daily Mirror: “They tell the public, in 160,000 words, to go to hell.” The Mirror has a big holding in Associated Television.

It is not difficult to find the reasons for these squeals. The Pilkington recommendations, if they are ever fully applied, could mean a lot less profit for some of the independent TV companies, which have been doing so well for themselves.

That was why their shares slumped, the day after the report came out.

Pilkington had some fascinating things to say on the scope, philosophy and responsibilities of broadcasting and, reasonably enough, questioned whether the sheep-like acceptance of the drivel which goes under the name of entertainment on television is really enjoyment.

This part of the report was savaged in the press, by papers which themselves are not slow to pontificate on the responsibilities of giving out public information.

But what really caused a flutter was the Pilkington conclusion that ITV had failed to provide good television because it was too bothered about selling advertising time. With something like a scandalised air, the committee uncovered the fact that the profit motive can be responsible for the deliberate production of something which is mean and shoddy.

Now this is interesting. But it is some thing which Socialists would have thought obvious to everybody.

News in Review: Algerian Independence (1962)

The News in Review column from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Algerian Independence

Before the last shots of the independence celebrations had died away, the new state of Algeria was engaged in a frontier dispute with neighbouring Morocco and the troops were being moved to and fro.

There was irony, too, in the political split between deputy prime minister Ben Bella and his nominal chief Benkhedda. One of the supremely aggravating factors in the French suppression of Algeria was the power of the occupying army, and the use which was made of it by the political and economic interests which stood for French Algeria.

Of all people, Ben Bella should have learnt a lesson from this. Yet in his power struggle he has recruited the Algerian Nationalist Army to his side and at one stage seemed about to use it in an attempted coup.

No hint was given by the Algerian nationalist leaders during the fighting that this might be the outcome of the bloodshed.

They promised much fairer times. Events have shown that Algeria will do its best to become a no nonsense capitalist state.

Now that the FLN has won, what can we look forward to?

Already, the new state is feeling its way in the international rivalries of capitalism. Mr. Ben Bella’s policy of free alignment with any country which will play along with Algeria’s economic development promises to provide one of the political divisions of the future.

It is matter of time before the Algerian workers are told that it is up to them to work harder and to make sacrifices in the interests of the people who will really own the country.

The spurious idealism and the promises of the days of the revolution will be forgotten as the new Algeria struggles to take its place among the other capitalist nations.

And sooner or later there will be another Algeria to fill the headlines with horror. At the moment the slate is almost clean, but capitalism will throw up other colonial wars. Or worse.

Beeching’s Cuts

The axe man cometh.

This year’s report from the British Transport Commission indicated where the proposed cuts in rail services are likely to fall.

The Newport to Brecon line, for instance, in South Wales. Here, said Transport Minister Marples, a statistical half-man is being carried for one hundred and seven miles by a 160 ton train—about equal to a five-ton crane lifting a bottle of beer.

“It would pay us,” he said, “to give that man a car and close the line.”

That is the yardstick which the Beeching inquiry has had to use. Not: Is it useful? but: Does it pay? Some of the Commission’s undertakings can answer yes to this question. London Transport pays. British Road Services and the docks have increased their receipts.

Only the railways—and only some parts of them at that—fail utterly to conform to capitalism’s law of existence: Does it pay?

Mr. Marples is not alone in his recognition of this law. Labour Party spokesman George Strauss said, when the House of Commons were debating the Transport Commission’s report, that the railway losses gave people the impression that what he called “publicly owned” transport was a failure.

Mr. Strauss has his definition of a failure, and of a success. The report showed, he said, that the reverse was true because all the services except the railways and the inland waterways had made a profit.

Both Tories and Labour are united in the opinion that to succeed nationalised industry must make a profit. Which means they agree that basically nationalised industries are as much a part of capitalism’s economy as any private industry is.

One fact seems to have escaped notice. Removing the rail services from many parts of the country means that those areas are being left to depend upon road transport. This means that the government are virtually creating transport monopolies all over the country.

This is hardly consistent with the Conservative doctrine of what they like to call “healthy” competition. But really capitalism is impatient of all doctrines except one.

Does it pay?

Cold Comfort

Too late for the July Socialist Standard came two noteworthy items of news. Minor in themselves, perhaps, they neatly show that the seriousness with which a person regards the housing question depends upon which end of the telescope he is rich enough to be able to view it through.

ITEM ONE: The London County Council reported that the number of homeless families in their care continues to increase and to set up new records as it does so. There are 803 such families now, involving over 3,800 people. This is the highest ever.

ITEM TWO : The Lord Mayor of Nottingham said that, on a recent visit to the Midlands Design Centre, Lord Snowdon had told him that the publicity given to the high cost of restoring Princess Margaret’s new home had not gone unnoticed. He would just as soon live in a small cottage.

To use that classical phrase: No comment.

Your wages are a problem (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do wage increase put up prices?

One of capitalism’s toughest problems is the size of the wage which is paid to the working people who keep the system operating.

Basically, it is a problem of almost mathematical simplicity. The working class produce values which are higher than their wages. They produce a surplus value which goes to their employers. If the workers can force their wages up, there is less of the surplus left for their employers. On the other hand, if the employers can force wages down, more of the surplus will go to them. This must hold good, however the productivity of the worker may be altered by changes in natural conditions or in the intensity of his labour.

It is inevitable that capitalism’s governments should concern themselves in this dispute which, by the way, is known as a “class struggle” by Socialists, who have an uncomfortable habit of calling a capitalist spade a spade. Governments do their governing in the interests of the employing, owning class of capitalism. It is, therefore, equally inevitable that when they concern themselves with the class struggle over wages, governments should take the side of the capitalist class.

Thirty or forty years ago there was no great need for the government’s intervention to be especially vigorous. With capitalism in the doldrums, with never less than one million unemployed in this country, the working class were badly placed to push home any demand for better wages. If they did push any such demands the government had only to stand aside and watch the workers starve themselves onto their knees in a strike or a lock-out.

Since the war, conditions have been rather different. Wage rises must now be restrained by government action and appeals, rather than by the old method of both sides beating their heads together. Sometimes, indeed, conditions have defeated even the appeals and the government itself has surrendered, offering wage increases rather than face a strike. This has happened more than once over the railwaymen, much to the annoyance of newspapers like The Economist, which irritably demands at such times to know whether the government is serious in its desire to stop wages going up.

An essential part of the official campaign on wages has been the thinking up of responsible-sounding excuses for refusing the workers’ demands. These excuses must be epitomised in a snappy name for the refusals. This time last year it was the pay pause which, it seems clear, was designed to hold wages in check for a few months. There are signs that the pause was at least as successful as the government could have hoped. Apart from the rises which were denied to government employees, the engineers themselves forebore to press a wage claim last autumn. The engineering employers have now conceded a three per cent. rise, but in the opinion of at least one newspaper, this would have come earlier but for the pay pause.

Now the “guiding light” on wage increases has replaced the pause, although it is being somewhat buffeted by the arbitration tribunals.

It is safe to forecast that, for those who are willing to do a little research and remembering, the events of capitalism will expose the government’s excuses for what they are. Just after the war, for example, the Attlee government launched a great campaign on wages. There was a propaganda drive to convince everybody that rises were inadmissible because, among other things, Britain’s international balance of payments was in jeopardy. Ministers lost no chance of parading statistics which showed how the British capitalist class were spending more on their imports than they were receiving from their exports. We heard many homely analogies about the difficulties of families which spent more than their income and we were invited to regard ourselves as members of a big, British, capitalist family.

A lot has happened since then. The international trading situation of Britain has varied considerably over the years. Once before—during 1959—the British capitalist class actually had a favourable balance of payments. Now it has happened again. The Treasury has announced that the first quarter of this year yielded a payments surplus in Britain’s international trade of £21 millions. The terms of trade—the ratio of import to export prices—are set fair for British capitalism and have been so for some time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has suggested that over the year the surplus in payments might come to something like £150 millions.

At the same time another of the difficulties which faced the Labour government has gone, to be replaced by its opposite. There is no longer a desperate need to rush into a gaping wide world market, a market waiting to be filled with any substandard commodities which could be produced fast enough to pump into it. Coal, for example, was one of the big needs of the post war years. But so much has the demand for coal decreased that the National Coal Board has closed many of its pits and intends to close still more.

The dilemma

NCB chairman Lord Robens, speaking at the last annual conference of the National Union of Mineworkers, put his finger on British capitalism’s present dilemma:

“This is not an era of coal at any price—that ended in 1957; we are in the era of hard selling based on price, quality and service, and in this situation the fundamental need is to be able to produce the right produce at the right price.”

Conditions, then, have decidedly changed since the 1945 Labour government and in doing so have wiped out the excuses which were used to justify the wage freeze and the other restrictions of Crippsian austerity. The government itself has changed. But government policy on wage increases remains unaltered. All that has happened is that the old excuses have been replaced by the new. The catch-phrases of the late forties have given way to those of the early sixties. A pay pause may sound different from a wage freeze, but in fact it means almost exactly the same.

In one respect the government has not been caught napping by the changes of the past seventeen years. They have not run out of excuses. Now, we are told that wage rises are inflationary. The argument which goes with this assertion has almost become part of the mystique of modern capitalism.

When wages rise, runs the argument, the costs of production go up and the employers automatically increase their prices to recoup this. Higher prices mean that any unit of currency is able to buy less than before, which means that more currency units are needed to circulate the same amount of commodities. Thus wages are supposed to be going up closely followed by prices which, as they rise, nullify the wage increases and cut the purchasing power of the pound. This, say the pundits, is inflation.

This argument ignores several basic facts of capitalist life. Wages are the price of the commodity labour power and generally will fluctuate in accordance with the state of the labour market. But a market for one commodity can be buoyant at the same time as for another it is depressed. Although the coal mines are having difficulty in selling their product it is still possible for miners to get rises because at the moment most of them could get another job without great difficulty. The prices of many of the commodities which will for ever be associated with the so-called Affluent Society—television sets, refrigerators, washing machines—have tumbled over the past few years. But, as we have seen, the wages of the electricians and the engineers who make these goods have increased.

Karl Marx made the point over a century ago and it is still valid today. Highly paid workers can produce cheap commodities, and vice versa. A wage rise need not, therefore, be followed by a price rise.

The Guardian recently challenged the starting point of the inflation theory. In an editorial published on June 25, they said: This is the same mode of thinking as the one that regards success in enforcing a pay pause as the overriding test of present British economic policy. But in fact labour costs in the United States have risen sharply in periods of falling production and have actually declined in periods of recovery in spite of bigger increases in wages. . . . There is much evidence that the same is true of Britain.

Where, now are the protestations of The Guardian—and of other papers—that wage increases must put up labour costs? Are they buried, along with the other stale excuses? If so, we may be sure that they will return, even if in reincarnation.

Yes, wages are a problem and like most problems they are fertile in paradoxes. Perhaps the biggest paradox of all is that the problem will not be solved by putting wages up, or down, but by getting rid of them altogether.

Ivan

Obituary: Nat Posner (1962)

Obituary from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bloomsbury Branch have sadly learned of the death of Nat Posner, who had been ill for some time. A member for over twenty years, he had known and supported the Party a long time and had interested workers in Socialism for more than forty years. Some of these joined the Party thirty years ago becoming very active in propaganda work. Originally working as a group at their place of work they sold thousands of Socialist Standards and pamphlets and took regular weekly collections for the Party from sympathizers over a period of years. Thus, our comrade Posner by quietly and patiently convincing others, set off a chain of socialist activity. He was a frequent chairman at outdoor meetings especially at Hyde Park; a consistent and staunch member, he will be missed.

P. H.

Blogger's Note:

This obituary notice was already on the blog. It was part of a News from the Branches column that was originally posted on the blog back in 2014 but it was somehow lost in the mix. Comrade Posner's obituary deserves its own post. Nat Posner originally joined the Bloomsbury Branch of the SPGB in February 1940, and his Form A tells us that before he joined the SPGB, he was a member of the Communist Party, He wrote a handful of articles for the Socialist Standard in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and they are well worth checking out.

SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letters: Religion (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion

Dear Sir,

I believe Socialists who attack religion are acting against the interests of the people and against the establishment of Socialism.

I am referring specifically to your article "Catholics In Confusion" in the April Socialist Standard. Of course there was much in that article which is true—where it describes the evil doings of some clergy— but evil doings are not religion they are just evil doings.

The point is that true religion is pro-Socialism and anti-capitalism. The Bible is very anti-usury which is the corner stone of capitalism.

Did not Jesus knock the rich money-lenders? He was in fact a Socialist as every decent religionist must be.

By all means knock bad religionists but praise the Socialist principles in true religion—such as brotherly love and compassion. There are many good Socialists who believe in God—for example the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean. Indeed I would go so far as to say that to be a sincere believer in God one has to be a Socialist.

To be an out-and-out materialist is getting a bit old-fashioned. Universities (even in Russia) are devoting part of their efforts to research into such things as telepathy and prediction and even survival of the human soul after bodily death. 1 have had cast iron proof of such things as telepathy, prediction, yes and even survival.

There is no irreconcilable conflict between Socialism and religion.

H. Horwood,

London, N.W.9.

Reply:

Mr. Horwood claims that his is the true religion but so do the clergy whose "evil doings’' he condemns.

Usury is not the cornerstone of capitalism; it is only one branch of capitalism's structure which derives its unearned income from the surplus value produced by the working class. The basis of the workers' exploitation is not usury; it is private ownership of the means of wealth production.

Even if we accept the Bible story of Jesus turning the money-lenders out of the temple it does not alter the fact that the basis of religion belief in the supernatural and a life after death is directly opposed to Socialism.

The religious person accepts the conditions in this life because he thinks that there is a better life coming. His philosophy explains society in terms of "good" and “evil"; the Socialist explains it in means of society's economic development.

Dr. Hewlett Johnson is a well-known supporter of capitalism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. These countries are run by dictatorships which show little brotherly love and compassion to their political opponents.

Universities have been studying telepathy, life after death and so on for a very long time. Up to the present, despite all the investigations, there is no scientific proof whatever to support the claim that such things exist.

There is no reason to believe in the existence of a supernatural. This is the only life which we know of and Socialists work to make it the best possible, by establishing a humane world: In this, one of the barriers we meet is religion.

Editorial Committee.

Letters: Then and now (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Then and now

Recently I was presented with a bound volume of the Socialist Standard for 1911/1917. Reading of the events of those far-off days gives one a weird feeling of having been here before.

Of particular interest is the leading article of July 1911, which stated the attitude of the SPGB to the strike of the British Seamen's Union. The tangible and known enemies of the seamen were clearly the Shipmasters (the owners), the Liberal government and all their agencies. But their intangible, unknown enemies were their own leaders, officials. Labour M.P.s who were knifing them from behind.

Now the 1966 strike of the National Union of Seamen was certainly not premature—the last one, 55 years ago, seemed to have dispirited them thoroughly and laid them under a spell which lasted right through two major wars, through two “Brave New Worlds" and through all the intervening years of "good" and bad times.

From Australia it appears the seamen again had the usual open enemies to face as well as the Labour government and the TUC. Yet it must be conceded that this is the very set-up the seamen in particular, and the working class in general, so vigorously support.

Peter Furey, 

Melbourne, Australia.

'I never thought it would be you.'

A first for the blog . . . and it was a long time coming.

With the completion of the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard, that means that every complete October issue of the Socialist Standard (1904 thru' 2026) is now on the blog. The first month to be completed in its entirety. 

One caveat, though. When the blog originally appeared in 2006 it was not fully formed, and bore little or no resemblance to the blog it is today. It has continually been a work in progress over the years, and the way I have approached digitising the Socialist Standards has changed over that time accordingly. 

That means that in the early years of the blog I did not make a point of including screen grabs of Party meetings listed in the Standards. I didn't originally see the point of posting such information, thought it wouldn't be of interest, but I've revised my opinion on that matter in recent years because I've come to realise that the Party's activity at indoor and outdoor meetings was so central to its identity. A reader of the blog cannot get a full sense of the history and vibrancy of the Party in its past if the reader is unaware of how much activity was going on, how many meetings were being held, both indoors and outdoors, and where.

So, unfortunately, some of the earliest completed Standards on the blog don't include the Socialist Party meetings info. I may revisit those old Standards to correct that mistake but it's not a priority right now.

'I never thought it would be you.'

What's with that post title? Well, apart from it also being the title of an excellent short story by the Scottish writer, Gordon Legge, it refers to the fact that October shouldn't have been the first month to be completed on the blog. It should have been July or August . . . definitely August. I don't know what happened . . . 

. . . but I know what's happening next.