Stop this business! (1953)

From the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

A visitor from another world, or a really long-term Rip Van Winkle, knowing little of the complexities of Capitalism, might imagine that the problem of satisfying the needs of mankind is now as good as solved. Modern methods of production would appear to have made possible, if not a superabundance, then at least enough of the material things that most people would accept as a reasonable standard of living.

But, of course, our visitor would be mistaken. It is not enough to produce or to be able to produce toothbrushes and shoes and houses to ensure that those who need such things do get them. No, a socially useless, dehumanising, wasteful, cruel, unpredictable, man-made institution called a (world) market effectively stands in the way. Despite the fact that people are in need, for instance of shoes, if the supply is greater than the demand to buy, then some shoes will be sentenced to economic death—they might as well not have been produced at all.

In recent years the tendency has been towards a “buyers’ market,” as it always is after the devastation wrought by a major war has been patched up. The export drives are in full swing. In fact rival nations are taking so many swings at each other over who is to capture which markets that the result is a melée of no mean proportions.

One of the tricks used to cajole overseas buyers into placing their orders with British capitalists is the employment of hospitality. There is really no other word to use than “employment,” though it does sound strange when used in connection with something a£ apparently unbusinesslike as hospitality. This year the sellers of British goods are having to roll out their largest-ever red-white-and-blue carpet to keep pace with the hospitality offered by foreign rivals. They must entertain and throw parties on a lavish scale in order to get round buyers. The Daily Mirror (20.6.53) describes the general atmosphere of these parties:

“It’s exactly like entertaining a rich aunt . . . But like rich aunts these affairs are so often trying. Even when you’re not talking business, both you and your guest know perfectly well that the only reason you're together is that you want to get at his money."

Operating on a less ambitious scale, the commercial traveller is to be found peddling his employer’s goods from door to door. He, too, must preserve a friendly attitude towards his potential customer—not that he wouldn’t like their relationship to be a sincerely friendly one, but the nature of the business virtually precludes that. He must never argue and must never admit to the slightest blemish in his firm's product— his job is, in fact that of a professional prevaricator.

Each separate business deal is like an armistice in a perpetual war. Buyer and seller come together to agree on certain terms. Then they part to continue the struggle to gain advantage in the next deal. The trait of aggressiveness is prominent in those who aspire to get to the top of the ladder. Yet aggressiveness is condemned in such common remarks as "Don't push other people around,'' and those who behave in this way are usually hated by their colleagues. The individual is thus divided against himself, as the society of which he is part is divided against itself.

"Don't be selfish” is another common injunction, yet its opposite is also advocated: keep your own advantage in mind, and in so doing you will also be acting for the greatest advantage of all others. The idea that egotism is the basis of general welfare is one of the basic principles of competitive society, whose antagonisms of interest reach up and down to every aspect of life.

The ability to “put across” one's personality in competition with many others is the key to success in the business world. Erich Fromm gives a good account of this in “Man For Himself ”:

"If it were enough for the purpose of making a living to rely on what one knows and can do, one’s self-esteem would be in proportion to one’s capacities . . . but since success depends largely on how one sells one's personality, one experiences oneself as a commodity or rather simultaneously as the setter and the commodity to be sold. A person is not concerned with his life and happiness, but with becoming saleable."

One of the outstanding features of private property society is the fact that activities which are means to ends have usurped the position of ends, while the ends themselves have been lost sight of. People work in order to make money in order to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Without the money there are no fruits— yet in getting the money there is little time left in which to taste the fruits, which seem to have turned sour anyway.

Examples of the business approach to social affairs are found in the ideas of all the advocates of Capitalism and, despite their superficial differences, they form a united front in opposing the ideas of Socialism. Thus the Free Enterprise Campaigners will criticize countries in which  a few men at the top decide how everyone shall live,” yet their own alternative is nothing more colourful than to give you a chance “if you want to change jobs or start up on your own.” On the other hand, the T.U.C. will tell you (in their recently published report on Public Ownership, p5) that to leave industries in private hands means that decisions whether to invest, and what charges to make to consumers, may not conform to the public interest.

Socialism, by contrast, has nothing to do with changing your employer, or with who works out the best way of keeping you financially just alive. It is concerned with abolishing capitalism and with organising production and distribution solely and directly to meet people's needs. One of the most harmful effects of Capitalism upon men is that they become instruments for purposes outside themselves. They treat themselves and their fellows as commodities, with the result that they think they are as powerless to change society as the article on the shop counter is powerless to sell itself. They are not—as they will demonstrate when enough of them think as socialists do.

Stan Parker

Editorial: North Paddington By-Election? (1953)

Editorial from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we understand the sitting member is resigning we will contest North Paddington again at the By-election. Here is a grand opportunity for those who agree with us but, for one reason or another, are unable to join the Party. They can give practical effect to their sympathies in a variety of ways. We need money and help. We need immediately as much money as we can get to enable us to pay the £150 deposit, to book halls for meetings, to have an Election Special, candidate’s address, posters, handbills and leaflets printed, as well as to pay the other incidental expenses connected with propaganda at election time. We also need as much assistance as possible for addressing envelopes, distributing literature and so forth. The more money and assistance we can get the more we can do.

Will all those who are interested in using this opportunity to spread our socialist message get in touch with the Parliamentary Committee at Head Office.

We have already contested North Paddington three times and on each occasion have put in a great deal of effort. Members and sympathisers gathered together and worked with enthusiasm. We carried on the struggle with vigour making it clear that our outlook is unique. That we are solely concerned with making our socialist message as clear as we can and that we are not interested in the customary electioneering stunts, rabble-rousing or boosting. We make an appeal to the understanding and not the passions of people. Our object is to clear away the mud that has been spattered upon the socialist idea; to make plain how desirable is the world we are working for in which everything that is in and on the earth will be the common possession of all mankind; to spread our conviction that Socialism is the only practical solution to the problems that afflict the world today, that it is capable of being put into operation as soon as the mass of people understand and want it, and that it is well worth the effort needed.

It is not just the votes that matter; it is what is behind the votes, and this By-election gives us an opportunity to get our Object and Policy before a larger number of people than we can reach in normal times.

Will all members who can help in the election contact Head Office right away for information about the arrangements that are being made. Although we do not know yet the date of the By-election we are making various arrangements including the booking of the Metropolitan Theatre, Edgware Road, for an eve of the poll meeting to which we are inviting each of the other candidates to state his case or send a representative to do so.

Comrades and sympathisers let us use this opportunity once again to show the strength of our convictions and the depth of our enthusiasm for the cause we cherish.

50 Years of Socialism (1953)

Party News from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Paddington Branch is organising a series of meetings in 1954 with the general theme—the 50th Anniversary of the Party s foundation. The meetings will be at Denison House on the first Sundays in January, February, March and April.

The subjects are to be in sequence. The first meeting will cover the development of the Party and a review of the events of the last fifty years. The second one will examine socialist theory, in the light of modern developments. The third meeting will have as its theme—the 1950’s, the way we live today, our work and leisure. The last meeting will deal with the implications of the socialist future, and also the purpose of the Socialist Party.

There will be two speakers for each of the meetings. More details will be given in next month's Socialist Standard.

Parliamentary Fund: North Paddington Bye-election (1953)

Party News from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Late 1953 threw up a bye-election in Paddington North, West London, after its Labour MP, Bill Field, had to resign his seat following a scandal. It was the first time the SPGB had contested a parliamentary seat since the 1950 General Election, and it was the fourth time in eight years that the Party had contested the Paddington North parliamentary constituency. Bill Waters was the SPGB's candidate, and he received 242 votes (0.9%).

Elsewhere in the November 1953 Socialist Standard, there are more details of the Party's decision to contest the bye-election, and the January 1954 Socialist Standard carries various reports of the Party's activity in and around the bye-election.

Party News Briefs (1953)

Party News from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Provincial Propaganda Tour. During the first two weeks in August two Comrades, D’Arcy and May visited Nottingham and held very successful meetings, the weather was good and the utmost benefit was taken of this. It has greatly stimulated the work of this new Branch who are doing first class propaganda in the district. Fourteen meetings in all were held—Literature  sales £4 and collection £7.  

Indoor meetings are arranged to take place at the Co-op. Halls, Nottingham, on Sundays, 1st and 22nd  November, at 7 p.m.

 

Comrade Coster visited Manchester during the last two weeks in August, the weather was not very good, but excellent lunch-hour meetings were held in addition to evening indoor and outdoor meetings.

* * *

Annual Delegate Meeting. This was quite uneventful this year and the numbers of visitors was rather less than usual. It is hoped to make arrangements for the Delegate meeting to be held later in the year in future, as it does appear that early in September many members are still taking annual holidays.

* * *

St. Pancras Town Hall Meeting, held on Sunday evening, October 4th, was quite successful, literature sales were good and collection of £15 taken; the meeting generally was interesting and well attended.

* * *

Bloomsbury Branch held a propaganda meeting at Conway Hall on Friday, 16th October. A further meeting at the same hall will be held on Friday, November 13th, at 7.30 p.m.

* * *

Swansea Branch are having good results from the work done by its members. Comrade D’Arcy debated with a representative of the local Welsh Nationalists in October.

The Branch is trying to arrange a series of meetings at local Miners' Institutes in South Wales.

* * *

North Paddington. The Party will contest this constituency at the forthcoming by-election. Help from Party members will be needed in addition to donations, however large or small. Offers of assistance should be made to the Parliamentary Committee and cash sent to the Treasurer at Head Office, 52, Clapham High Street. S.W.4.

* * *

Ealing Branch. The drive to increase Socialist Standard sales continues to make good progress. The number disposed of during September was 27 dozen. On the first Sunday in October, five members of the Branch, breaking new ground on a big housing estate in North Ealing, sold 53 copies, the highest so far in one “outing.” Only four roads were covered. Sales through newsagents are being maintained, and two of them now display the poster advertising the Socialist Standard.

The Branch has two debates actually on the stocks and another one (with a Labour M.P.) in the offing. The first with the Finance Editor of the Sunday Chronicle will take place in the Fulham Town Hall on Wednesday, 11th November, and the second will be in the Ealing Town Hall on Thursday, 10th December. Our opponent on this occasion will be a representative of the Crusade for World Government.

The Branch’s own Education Class has begun and will continue every Wednesday evening through November (11th excepted, see above) in the usual Branch meeting room. All these sessions will deal with aspects of capitalist economics. Every Branch member should have received a special circular about these classes and should make every effort to attend them. If this series proves successful, a further series—on history—will be arranged for the early part of the New Year.

The Branch is at present getting through a vast amount of work, and all members are asked to rally round and help spread the burden on to more shoulders.

Phyllis Howard

Blogger's Note:

Details about the St. Pancras Town Hall Meeting at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1953)

Party News from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I love the look of those meetings on "Literature and Society". It would have been interesting to see what  R. Coster (Robert Barltrop) had to say about Henry Miller. Barltrop did in fact publish an article in the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard on Mickey Spillane. I'm guessing there would have been an overlap between his Leyton Branch talk and the article.

SPGB Meetings and Educational Classes (1953)

Party News from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Pantoum No.4: Bee Natural (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Bee Natural

 

Bees together making honey,

Each worker and drone does its bit,

Free from the shackle of money,

Free from being driven by profit.

 

Each worker and drone does its bit

In the way nature intended,

Free of being driven by profit.

Once capitalism’s ended,

 

In the way nature intended,

Free from the shackle of money,

Once capitalism’s ended.

Bees together making honey!

 

D. A.

Peter Sellers and the Socialist Standard

Just a quick one. I'm returning to this blogger's note from a few days ago:

I was intrigued by Harry Baldwin's reference to whether or not the actor and comedian, Peter Sellers, would make another ". . . “political party” recording", and tried to find a reference to that recording. The funny thing is that I'm not sure what recording he is originally referring to but Sellers did in fact make another "political party recording" like Baldwin suggested. In April 1964, with Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, he released the comedy album, 'How To Win An Election (Or Not Lose By Much)'. It made the Top 20.

I think I found the original ". . . “political party” recording" by Peter Sellers that Harry Baldwin was referring to in his article. The track, "Party Political Speech", dates from 1958, and was featured on his The Best of Sellers album. What's intriguing is that the album was produced by George Martin, and I'm sure I read somewhere that part of the reason The Beatles immediately connected to Martin was because of his past association with Sellers and Spike Milligan. (Actually, I just found a clip confirming that.)

Anyway, here's Peter Seller's performing "Party Political Speech":

The British road to state capitalism (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many, opponents and supporters alike, who believe that the so-called Communist Party wishes to destroy capitalism. At most the Communist Party (CP) is against private capitalism, favouring instead state capitalism where the main means of production would be in the hands of the State, where the working class would continue to work for wages and where goods would continue to be produced for sale with a view to profit, but where (as in Russia) the private capitalists have been replaced as the ruling, privileged group by the leaders of the Communist Party and their hangers-on. Not so many are aware that the Communist Party is not consistently opposed even to private capitalism, but is prepared to take part in government while private capitalism continues — so participating, even by its own standards, in the administration of the capitalist system.

As is made clear in the draft revision of their programme The British Road to Socialism to be discussed at their Congress this month, the immediate aim of the British Communist Party is not the state capitalism it falsely calls socialism, but “democratic advance” to be achieved by a “left Labour government” which will nationalize a few big firms (i.e., convert them into state capitalist enterprises) but will leave the rest of private capitalist industry in private capitalist hands:

For a government to exercise effective control over the operation of the economy, the key firms among the top firms which dominate the economy must be nationalised, while at the same time drastic controls must be instituted over the investment, production and employment policies of those remaining in private hands (which at this stage would still constitute the great majority) (our emphasis).

That the nationalization of these key firms, combined with that of the banks and insurance companies, would give a government effective control over the capitalist economy is an illusion, but is one which derives from the CP’s misunderstanding of the nature of capitalism.

According to CP theory, the present stage of capitalism is “state monopoly capitalism” in which the State is controlled by the monopolies and used to further their interests at the expense of the rest of society. Quite apart from the fact that "monopoly” is an incorrect description to apply to the big capitalist enterprises which dominate production (they are not the sole sellers of the products they offer for sale, which is the strict economic definition of a monopoly), this theory mistakenly suggests that the way capitalism works depends on the policies pursued by the State. In fact, the policies of governments are determined by the workings of capitalism and not vice versa.

Monopoly capitalism

The whole strategy outlined in the new draft of The British Road to Socialism is based on this mistaken view that it is “the big monopolies”, rather than the capitalist system as such, which is responsible for today’s social problems. It is even claimed that the non-monopolist sections of the capitalist class have an interest in joining with the workers to defeat the monopolies:

The capitalist class comprises the owners and controllers of the means of production, distribution and exchange—the factories, banks, shops, land, etc. Even as a whole it constitutes only a small fraction of the population. But within it there is a still smaller minority exercising the dominant power—the very big firms, which not only exploit their workers, but also operate at the expense of many smaller businesses, small shopkeepers, and small farmers. These small enterprises are among the first victims in periods of acute capitalist crisis, many of them going bankrupt, being forced to close down, or being swallowed up by the big firms. When working class standards are cut, small producers, shopkeepers and traders are also adversely affected.

There is therefore an objective basis for an alliance between many in these sections of the capitalist class and the working class against the common enemy — the big capitalists (our emphasis).

So, in place of the class struggle between the working class (all those who have to work for a wage or salary) and the capitalist class (the owners of the means of production) we have a struggle between the "victims of monopoly”, including “parts of the capitalist class”, and the “big monopolists”. And this is supposed to be Marxism!

But the CP goes further: all the victims of monopoly, they say, including the non-monopolist capitalists, should unite in a “broad democratic alliance” with the aim of electing a “new type of Labour Government”, one which instead of simply administering capitalism, will take steps to “weaken the grip of the big monopolists” (not end, but only weaken!). The CP explicitly say that the aim of this government will not be socialism even on their definition: (“It would not be a socialist government carrying out a socialist revolution . . .”).

In fact not only will a large private sector remain, but the non-monopolist capitalists are to be offered “cheap credits, the abolition of VAT, rent controls”. Whether this will encourage small employers like George Ward of Grunwicks to vote for a “left Labour government” remains to be seen.

So the proposed left Labour government would be administering capitalism just like all previous Labour governments. In CP theory it would be a capitalism without private monopolies (or at least only with monopolies with weakened powers), but a capitalism without monopolies is no more in the interests of the working class and can no more be made to work for their benefit than capitalism with monopolies.

Capitalism, including the state capitalism which the CP sets as a longer-term aim, can only work in one way, as a profit-making system based on the exploitation of the working class.

Capitalism is an economic system subject to its own unchangeable economic laws which governments cannot control or overcome. Under capitalism wealth takes the form of commodities, or goods produced with a view to sale at a profit. The aim of capitalist production is the accumulation of more capital out of the profits made from exploiting the wage-labour of the working class. Whenever profits cannot be realized, as occurs periodically because of the unplanned and exploitative nature of production under capitalism, production in some spheres slows down or stops; a crisis occurs.

Reformist illusions

In suggesting that a left Labour government would be able to do something for the working class under capitalism—such as reducing unemployment or improving living standards—the CP is encouraging reformist illusions amongst the workers. But then the CP itself is thoroughly reformist, having a gradualist conception of the establishment of Socialism. What we call Socialism—a society based on “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” —the CP calls “communism”. Society will gradually pass, we are asked to believe, from a stage of “democratic advance” to the stage of state capitalism and from the stage of state capitalism to the stage of communism by means of a series of democratic and social reforms passed by Parliament. Just as was imagined by the early Labour Party reformers and gradualists!

Our objection to this strategy is not that it involves using the ballot box or Parliament. This is the only practical way for the working class to win political power—as we have been saying for the past seventy or so years, including the period when from its foundation in 1920 to 1934 the CP preached armed insurrection. What we object to is its gradualist strategy, the suggestion that capitalism can be gradually transformed into Socialism through a series of reform measures.

Socialism can only be established by the conscious political act of a socialist-minded working class. Once a majority of the working class want and understand Socialism they can win control of political power by using the existing electoral machinery to send a majority of mandated socialist delegates to the House of Commons and similar institutions in other countries. Once in control of political power they will immediately abolish capitalism and establish Socialism by the single revolutionary act of making the means of production the common property of society under the democratic control of all the people. This done, the State, as the machinery of political power, is dismantled so that to talk of a “socialist government" is a contradiction in terms. As long as the working class does not want Socialism then capitalism must continue. Which is why gradualists, once elected to power (by a non-socialist working class), have no alternative but to administer capitalism—and that in the only way possible, as a profit-making system in the interests of those who live off profits.

The vital task today is not to try to reform capitalism but, by persistent and effective argument, to win over a majority of the working class to abolishing it. This is the road to Socialism.

Adam Buick

Technology and the working class (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Technological development does not stand apart 
from, or govern, social and economic factors. It 
results from and interacts with them”.

“Tomorrow’s World” is a weekly TV programme which shows inventions and technological possibilities. It confirms the notion of man’s ingenuity, that every problem can and will be solved: usually, in the electronic age, at the touch of a switch. While there is widespread interest in this there is also widespread cynicism—when is it all going to happen? Technical developments such as fast transport, refrigeration and heating, automatic washing machines, radio and television and countless other devices have altered everyday life sweepingly in this century. Yet the accumulation of them has not produced the liberating effect which is the great promise of technology and science. Large numbers of people agree with Orwell’s remark that progress is a swindle.

This is based on a misconception about progress. “Tomorrow’s World” conveys that its novelties are, or shortly will be, available to those watching, who in turn are likely to assume that the things must be used because they appear capable of adding to comfort and happiness. On those assumptions, there is bound to be disappointment. In many cases the innovation is consigned to being a distant prospect simply because of cost. In others, the transition from prototype to mass production requires a further development — making the article deliberately inferior so that it will break down or wear out, to keep the market going. Apart from everyday-life technology, a range of possibilities exists for production and power whose use depends on their being found “economic”.

Progress is not a matter of finding new things which could transform existence. It is the development of society’s capacity to let that happen. One of the most misunderstood statements by Marx is “The hand mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill society with the industrial capitalist.” This is obviously true in one sense; however, mills existed in ancient Rome but had little use in a slave society. Technological development does not stand apart from, or govern, social and economic factors. It results from and interacts with them. At times the economic needs of society almost call it into being; at other times the potentialities it creates are obscured or blocked by the way society is organized.

Social epochs 

The watermill and the windmill were an integral part of the feudal economy where slave-labour was not part of the forces of production, and from agriculture they opened the way to the wider use of power. Rotary was converted into reciprocal motion by the crank and the trip-hammer; from the building and servicing of mills came the trade of millwrights, the first mechanical engineers who also produced hydraulics and the clock. The mariner's compass began in ancient games of foretelling the future, but in the Middle Ages combined with the development of the rudder to make open-sea voyages possible. Navigation promoted astronomy, and the instrument-makers became scientists; while research into the workings of the compass laid the basis of the theory of magnetism and electricity.

Behind the sophisticated technical changes lay simpler ones, like horse-harness and nailed horse-shoes, which increased the productivity of the land and put trade on the roads. Trade gave importance to merchants and handicrafts. Thus the drive towards commodity production and a money economy built up: the feudal system cultivating willy-nilly the agencies which would destroy it. The technical innovations and discoveries gave rise to a new experimental science which opposed the static, hierarchical systems of belief of the Middle Ages. As a further part, the introduction of gunpowder made cannons a new, expensive necessity for war: only wealthy republics and kings backed by merchants had the money and commanded the technical skill. Yet gunpowder was not invented under European feudalism. The ancient Chinese produced it first and, in a different social system, used it only for fireworks.

Mining, metallurgy, chemistry were produced by and produced economic and political development. Attitudes and ideas changed — on the surface, in response to fresh knowledge and conceptions, fundamentally as reflections of the expanding needs of a potential new ruling class. With profit made the norm, inventions promised riches to both inventor and purchaser; scientific education and scientific societies arose, and philosophers who were publicists as well a prophets.

The final rush from feudalism to full-scale capitalism was accomplished in the Industrial Revolution. What preceded it, as the necessary condition, was the political revolution which took power out of the hands of the old ruling class and put it at the disposal of the capitalists. Technical development is related not only to the level of science but to the laws of a country, the influence of its general history, and the class structure these are rooted in. The machinery of the Industrial Revolution appeared because the capitalist class had won legal sanction for itself to dominate society; given that, and the availability of labour-power and opportunities for profit, production stimulated technology instead of the other way round. Of course, once the process is under way a new machine or principle—such as the use of electricity—can change the technique of production. But there is never any shortage of ingenious men. As Shelley wrote, in another connection: “The mass of capabilities remains at every period materially the same; the circumstances which awaken it to action perpetually change.”

As an example of the interaction between technology, economic activity and politics, the early process for steel production required high-grade iron ore. When the basic-lining open-hearth furnace was introduced in 1879, making low-grade ores usable, the great phosphatic ore deposits of Lorraine provided a massive centre of heavy industry in Germany: railways, machinery, munitions. It made competition between Britain and Germany acute, leading to war in the 20th century. Was technology responsible? Capitalist industry pressed technology for a solution to its urgent desire for cheap steel. The inventor of the basic-lining process was a Londoner named Gilchrist Thomas; what followed his effort confirms only that resources of production and markets mean rivalry which produces capitalism’s wars.

Workers

Marx wrote: “Thus all the progress of civilization, or in other words every increase in the powers of social production, if you like, in the productive powers of labour itself—such as results from science, inventions, division and combination of labour, improved means of communication, creation of the world market, machinery etc.—enriches not the worker but rather capital; hence it only magnifies again the power dominating over labour; increases only the productive power of capital.” (Grundrisse, p. 308.)

In production, an “animated monster” which “objectifies the scientific idea” and makes the worker “its living isolated accessory” (all Marx’s phrases) does not create wealth. Only labour applied to materials, does that; the machine reproduces no more than its own value, bit by bit. The purpose of technology in industry is to produce relative surplus-value —“to increase the productivity of labour, to lower the value of labour-power by increasing the productivity of labour and so to shorten that period of the working day necessary for the reproduction of that value” (Capital Vol. 1, p. 319, Penguin edn.). Put more prosaically, it is that Fred at his new machine in eight hours shall turn out more of Brand X than he did by the former method. The machine shortens the labour-time he spends producing a given quantity of Brand X; it depreciates the value, and therefore the potential price, of his labour-power. In addition, Fred has to buy some of Brand X as part of the necessities of life; the process has cheapened it, depreciating the value of his labour-power further still.

In practice, Fred may belong to a trade union which has some success in battling against this pressure on wages. Since workers are consumers, he and his family get a share in the amenities technology provides. It is obviously better to live in a society which has these things than one which hasn’t, and where the general level of science provides medicine, education and welfare. But, as was the case with feudalism, the techniques capitalism has had to find to develop its productive forces are also the means for its own destruction. The productive forces centre on the working class. Technology is itself a product of human industry, and its application revolutionizes social knowledge. The working class of today are better-informed, logical-thinking, and more widely conscious than ever before: able, indeed, to comprehend technology and see that it offers far more than it gives under capitalism.

Socialism

Marx’s analysis of the rôle of technology went beyond the production of surplus-value. He saw it as a precondition of the change from capitalism to Socialism: “If we did not find, concealed in society as it is, the material conditions of production and the corresponding relations of exchange prerequisite for a classless society, then all attempts to explode it would be quixotic.” (Grundrisse, p. 159). In particular, technology makes possible the reduction of working time so that labour need not dominate life. This in turn changes the nature of man—from being “the bearer of one specialized social function”, as the worker is today, he becomes “a totally developed individual, for whom the different social functions are different modes of activity to be taken up in turn”.

This does not mean technology will be applied indiscriminately, for its own sake, in Socialism. Because man will be in conscious control of his own social activity, we shall be able to look selectively at what exists and use the criterion of benefit to society as a whole (instead of the present purpose of benefit to an owning class who are the minority). One feature of capitalism which causes concern today is a possible shortage of materials caused by “demand”. Yet what lies behind this is the mass production of short-lived goods for markets. Putting technology to socialist instead of capitalist use will end the “planned obsolescence” which devours resources, and make inventiveness both exciting and liberating.

An example of the preconditions created by technology “concealed in society as it is” can be found in an objection to Socialism which is not heard any more. Questioners would say: “Who is going to do the dirty, degrading work?” What they had particularly in mind was emptying middens and other sanitary work. At the beginning of the 19th century Fourier took this seriously and argued that squads of dirt-loving children were the answer. It appears now as an antediluvian argument, because main drainage and piped water and other innovations have virtually ended those kinds of jobs. Capitalism helps to show the working class that Socialism is possible, as well as to force on them that it is necessary.

Robert Barltrop

Further outlook (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular reader has sent us the following:

I understand that scientists are seriously considering the possibility of controlling the weather, but according to one American lawyer it isn’t just a question of science, it’s a question of “Who owns the clouds?” 

No doubt we shall soon be complaining about the inflationary cost of a shower of rain, or an hour of sunshine.

Labour's love lost (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

PAYE is a method governments use to regulate wages, and they do this on behalf of the employers. The Labour government, far from being an exception, is a pioneer in telling the workers that a reduction in wages is for their own good. This is the kind of metaphysics Denis Healey and other Labour leaders habitually produce at Labour Party Conferences. The 1977 Conference proved no exception.

Healey, their Chancellor, has promised the trade unions that if they are good boys he will cut PAYE tax by 1 per cent. — a theoretical 2p in the £. “Back-me-or-sack-me” Callaghan, who has promised prosperity within the next twenty years, put on a show for this mildewed carrot at the Conference, having previously had a trial run at the TUC Conference a few weeks earlier. Playing with tax levels can be advantageous to governments, but helps to perpetuate the myth that taxes are a working-class issue—which they are not.

It is not our purpose to deal in detail with the boring assembly known as the Labour Party Conference. Suffice to say that the capitalists will sleep soundly in their beds secure in the knowledge that their interests are being well looked after. TV pictures of earnest spouters, militant muddlers and rostrum rousers; a few learned comments from professional flanellers is all that they can offer. The mantle of state falls naturally on this variegated collection whose chief claim to posterity will lie in the fact that they have done more to impede the development of socialist ideas than any other organization.

But still they are not satisfied, and with good reason. The cup of political success seems never to quench the thirst of these institutionalised reformers. There is undoubtedly many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.

What you may ask has gone wrong? The speeches were well up to the standard of repetitive performances over sixty years. A lot of time could be saved were these to be numbered, and were the Chairman to announce, for example, that speech No 1 on Unemployment, No 2 on houses and slums, No 3 on Defence, etc., should be taken as heard. All the delegates need do would be to ascend the rostrum and announce the number. The delegates could then spend their time attending church, or propping up the Brighton bars.

What has gone wrong is the view held by the Labour Party that they could introduce Socialism behind the backs of the workers. That they could lead and the workers would follow without any ideas about what Socialism involves. Coupled with this is the unsound view about the nature of Socialism and its implications held by the so-called theorists of the Labour Party itself. Social experiments in nationalization, reforms, state control or the variety of public ownership schemes so much in favour with Labour supporters have hardly touched the surface of capitalism. Well might they vent their frustration on their elected government. The Conference, for example, asks for cuts in defence expenditure; Mr. Mulley Minister of Defence says “No”. Conference asks for increased expenditure on housing and public services: Mr. Freeson, Minister for Housing and Construction says “No”. Conference asks for improvements in the National Health Service, education, social services, reduced taxation, and the respective Ministers say No, adding that the time is not opportune and that the country cannot afford it. In fact, all the things promised in their Election Manifesto go by the board when the Minister says No, because the Minister has to study the needs of capitalism’s economic situation, and this is of over-riding importance—and the Conference swallows this.

It took an old fakir like Lord Shinwell, who has seen sixty conferences, to tell the delegates that they should take Keir Hardie’s advice and concentrate on abolishing unemployment, slums and poverty instead of (Shinwell’s remark) “wasting time abolishing the House of Lords”. We dare say Shinwell will remember the Vote of Censure moved by the Party on 21st October 1920: That this House views with regret the growing volume of unemployment, recognising the responsibility of the State towards members of the community who are bereft of the means of livelihood, is of the opinion that every possible step should be taken to arrest the decline in trade and industry and to provide work or, in default, adequate maintenance for those whose labour is not required in the ordinary market. (Hansard Vol. 133,1115).

Today unemployment is approx. 1.7 million, about the same figure as in 1920. This is after sixty years of Labour in and out of government with the stated intention of abolishing it. Should the workers waste another sixty years on this Tower of Babel which has produced nothing but reaction and confusion, and might as well be called a conservative party, because it seeks to conserve wage-labour and capital?

Jim D'Arcy

So They Say: Heads or Tails? (1977)

The So They Say column from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Heads or Tails?

The Secretary of State for Energy, Mr. Benn, is quite a revolutionary—or so he would have us believe. He has been looking at the position in which the government find themselves and has discovered that the Chancellor faces a “dilemma.” The Chancellor does not stand alone, however; alongside him are the entire Labour government including Mr. Benn. The dilemma they face is a fundamental one, and Mr. Benn will no doubt receive a great deal of praise from his colleagues for mentioning it.

Socialists, as opposed to Labourites, have always taken care to point out that the means of wealth production and distribution are owned and controlled by a minority in capitalist society. This minority have interests which are opposed to those of the majority who must work for a wage in order to live.

The Labour Party, along with the other major political parties, is not unaware of the class division between owners and non-owners, but they put forward the view that the opposing interests can in some way be reconciled while retaining the existing basis. It should come as no surprise to Benn, then, to discover they face a dilemma—their entire approach is founded on a contradiction.

If any Labour Chancellor ever chose to reflate to bring down unemployment and the balance of payments went into deficit, investors would lose confidence and the country’s financial security would be in peril. If, on the other hand, the Chancellor held down public spending to create financial security and production fell, there would be a loss of jobs, investment would cease and unemployment would rise even higher.

The Times, 4th October 77

Send him victorious

Ministers do not usually make it so clear that whichever government policy is adopted the result will be a mess; it must be a new sort of election pledge. But Benn seems to think he can stand back from the dilemma as if it is nothing at all to do with him. He wants a structural change in society: no more should decisions be governed by “market forces, the monopoly of the banks and by big business monopolies.” What then does he propose?

There was no need for the people of Britain to live forever without hope of escape from either mass unemployment or inflation. To implement the policies needed for this structural change, he added, the Government must get it across that what was needed was an overall majority in Parliament.

Simple isn’t it? Three hundred or so Labour MPs could go about their business of running capitalism and at the first sign of “market forces” rearing their ugly head, Benn and his colleagues could pass legislation to their hearts content outlawing them all.

China and Marx

A palimpsest is a parchment on which the original writing was rubbed out and something else written in its place. Scholars find them among mediaeval manuscripts, but they are produced in profusion in modern times. On 29th September a Guardian editorial gave the following information.

The official newspaper in Peking, the People’s Daily, has been taking a closer look at what Karl Marx really meant rather than simply at what he said. It has proved a fruitful exercise. Marx’s own words, in a critical essay published in 1875, were "Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen." This has generally been taken to mean “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. . . The small but possibly crucial change is to substitute the notion of work for the notion of need. “To each according to his work is by origin a Socialist principle”, the People’s Daily says, “and belongs to the Socialist economic system . . . Let us firmly implement the Socialist principle of ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his work'.” Those who work harder should earn more: all else is “idealism run wild and metaphysics rampant”.

The Guardian goes on to make some snide suggestions for other alterations to Marx’s well-known phrases, implying that this is what you get in Communist countries. So it is, of course: in fact the change of wording brought forward by the People's Daily was made many years ago in Russia. What the Guardian failed to point out is that “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work” is simply the law of capitalism: with the Guardian’s full support, it has long operated here.

Change of View

The monopoly of credit, to borrow one of Major Douglas’s phrases, for throwing bricks at the National Front march in Lewisham on 13th August has been claimed by the Socialist Workers’ Party. The September issue of Grassroots Black Community News had a two-page illustrated article on the affair that gave a surprisingly different version.

The writer, Dilip Khan, said he noticed the absence of newspaper sellers (“I mean the lefty ones”) and “the number of Black youth making their way to the arena.”

The people had really come to fight . . . I have expected to hear Tariq Ali’s Oxford accent when instead up popped General Darcus Howe on top of the public toilet with a microphone in his hand. The crowd however was in no mood for speeches . . .

The article describes how when the march came along “the scene exploded with bricks, sticks, pink flour bombs, tiles, slates, being hurled on the Front and Babylon [the police] alike”. It ends:

I made my way back to New Cross tired but happy. Happy at the tremendous fight put up by Black youth. Happy to see local white youths or rather children passing bricks along to the brothers and pleased to see that for once the long hair, dirty jean lefty brigade stopped intellectualizing and analysing began to act.

I am sure the NF will have to think twice before displaying similar imprudence in a Black area. The youth and more and more older Black people have shown that they are prepared to come out and stone these racist vermin back into their holes.

So were the SWP the vanguard—or, as in the above version, half-despised accessories?

Alan D'Arcy

Blogger's Note:

The September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard carried an article on 'The Battle of Lewisham' by Robert Barltrop.

How the other ten per cent live (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Don’t go and put your foot in it and talk about crisis in the palaces of the  Côte d'Azur. Such a word is not to be comprehended in these ‘grands hotels’ strung along between Monte Carlo and Cannes. The flow of money here encounters no obstacle. Luxury is thriving and in the best of health.” Thus, roughly translated, runs the beginning of a main article in Le Monde (30th July 1977) dealing with the excellent takings of these “palaces”.

For example, the takings of the Negresco in Nice in 1976 were 12 million francs. Expected takings for 1977: 20 million francs—getting on for double. In case this is mistaken for a fortnightly-package hotel enjoying exceptional popularity, let’s put the matter clear by quoting M. Michel Dubes, the reception chief, who says that his clients never ask about the cost beforehand even though what he terms the “most ordinary” suite (not a paltry bedroom) is a basic 1,000 francs a day. This is about £125 a day give or take a little here and there (exactitudes which do not exercise the minds of M. Dube’s clients).

Because nothing attracts the rich as much as their own costly milieu, the Negresco is overbooked at times. In the unique and beautiful salon Louis XIV the ceiling is brightened with hosts of cherubs and naked beauties derived from a convent in the Savoy Alps (the nuns must have been ill-at-ease with those unadorned creatures over their heads). Le Monde explains how every whim of the client is conscientiously attended to, for a price. One chappie who arrives punctually each year will not tolerate an iota of light in his suite, and—damn the expense!—an immense effort is initiated annually to transform the suite into something resembling an anti-atomic shelter or the depths of a coal mine.

But enough of this . . . Why should Le Monde write in satirical vein about people and conditions whose perpetuation it wants, since it is a newspaper akin to the French ruling class as The Times is to the British capitalists? Whatever the reason, to Socialists it is an old story: the contrast between the poverty of the workers and the riches of those who own the means of living.

In Italy you may travel for mile upon mile through the dross, dust and shambles of working-class quarters (no blown-up photographs of these in the tourist office), and suddenly run into a miraculously different world. Say, that of Chianciano Terme, where Italian capitalists try to resuscitate themselves by taking the local mineral waters. Spotless cleanliness, shady boulevards lined with acacia and lime, cool exotic gardens tended by a seeming army of gardeners, fountains, splendid hotels and apartments, shops whose prices have a giddy effect on those accustomed to Marks and Sparks—and, of course, the guardians of the law in resplendent white, making sure that the wealthy can go about their pleasures unhindered.

This contrast is repeated throughout Europe and elsewhere. Why is it so? Socialists have long argued that there is nothing strange or immoral about the enormous disparities of wealth and life-style between the capitalist and the worker. They are the inevitable result of class ownership of the means of production. The capitalists derive their enormous wealth from the exploitation of the working class, the production of goods for sale at a profit on the market.

It can be stressed further that the lavish spending n the  Côte d'Azur  is but the tip of the iceberg. So long as the working class of every country support capitalism they are securing a dolce-vita life-style for their masters—and their own poverty.

Max Judd