Mr Potty gets a nice surprise (1994)

From the original Socialist Standard.

A Short Story from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was a bright spring morning in Burblage and Mr Potty was feeling particularly pleased with himself. The birds were warbling, the flowers were growing, the brook at the end of his garden was bubbling. He glanced at it apprehensively as he crossed the little bridge. Yes, it was definitely bubbling. He shrugged and went on, putting it from his mind. Today was, after all, going to be a very special day.

In the village the shops were gaily decorated and people passed to and fro, happily chatting with the shopowners. PC Mungo, the village bobby, paced grandly along the street wearing the shiny new medal he’d got recently for catching Mickey Flynn, the notorious criminal who had let off fireworks while the council was in session. Mr Potty nodded and exchanged a friendly word or two as he passed. He noticed that PC Mungo's truncheon seemed to have red paint all over it. but he let it pass.

Today was going to be exciting, thought Mr Potty. Mr de Beergut. the inheritor of the entire firm of Beergut, Slugworm and Fester had asked to see him, him, personally, at nine o’clock sharp this morning. Mr Potty knew it would be good news. After all, hadn't he worked in that same chemical factory man and boy for thirty years, and had he ever had a day off sick? Only yesterday his manager had said to him: "Potty", he said, "this firm really needs men like you, you know. Can't think where Mr de Beergut would be without you", and Mr Potty had blushed, too tickled to reply.

At the end of the High Street Mr Potty saw smoke. As he came closer he saw the Mungo boys in the road. Jimmy was holding a petrol can, and Billy was throwing matches at the grocer, who was tied to a post. Mr Thoms the grocer was cross. He didn’t like being tied up and set fire to. Freddy, who had just finished looting the till, was busy torching the premises. Mr Potty decided this was very naughty, and looked around for their father PC Mungo, who was nowhere in sight.

"Billy", he said, "don’t you think you should stop this?" Billy, who was a very naughty young man, said: "Fuck off, or I’ll have you arrested", and waved a stick at Mr Potty. Mr Potty decided they would grow out of it, and so went on his way, worried slightly about the way the Mungo children seemed to like murder, rape and arson better than nice games like football and tennis, but determined not to let one dark cloud spoil a beautiful blue sky.

Mr Potty was passing through the fields, on his way to the factory, when the bomber squadron flew overhead, on their way to the war. He stopped and waved to the dark aeroplanes, but they were very high and probably couldn't see him, or they would certainly have waved back. They were just off to drop some bombs, and would be back in time for tea and buns at six o'clock. They were jolly chaps, always singing and laughing in the village teashop. Mr Potty was glad the weather was nice for them.

Suddenly he spied Old Gypo Williams coming towards him. and he sighed. Old Gypo was bound to ask him for tenpence, just like he did every morning at this time. Mr Potty put a brave face on, and dug his hand in his pocket.

"Hello there, Mr Williams, lovely morning. Have tenpence."

"Well thank 'ee Mr Potty, that I will, and right kind of you it is to pass 0.000000001 percent of your earnings to the poor and undernourished of the world. You ain't 'eard about poor Mickey Flynn the renegade Irish firework criminal then, Mr Potty?"

Mr Potty shook his head.

"Well, no Mr Williams, I must say I haven’t."

"Stone dead, 'e is, found in his cell last night. Got it from the cleaner. 'Parrently bashed hisself to death with the leg orf a chair when no-one were looking. Right terrible, don't yer think, Mr Potty?"

Mr Potty agreed that it was very sad, but Old Gypo continued in his monologue: "His old man reckons he weren't even in the country when them fireworks was let orf. Seems 'e were in Mozambique doin’ Volunteering Service or someink. Reckon they’ll like as not be taking PC Mungo’s new shiny medal orf of him afore too long. Fact is ’e might get the boot altogether if the papers gets old of it, an 'im wiv two rottweilers to feed an' all. Bleedin' shame."

Mr Potty' shook his head again.

"Well, must be off, Mr Williams, got lots to do you know. I'm to see the owner of our whole firm this morning, and I know it's going to be good news."

Old Gypo raised his hedgehog eyebrows, and then scratched his beard thoughtfully.

"Yer well, maybe it’s eleven pence I'll be stickin' you for tomorrow, in that case?"

And then he gave a great big guffaw and slapped Mr Potty on the back, enjoying his joke.

Mr Potty went on his way in fair spirits, despite the news of PC Mungo’s impending embarrassment. Old Gypo was a good sort, always concerned for other people's troubles more than his own, and never complaining about having to sleep in a pig trough and eat boxes.

Finally he arrived at Factory Lane. It was a good factory, and lots of people worked there from the town. As he walked up to the back entrance he saw a huge car parked at the front with a chauffeur standing by it. What a beautiful car it was! He knew he would never own one like it, because he wasn't really clever enough to own his own factory even if he was chief cashier. Mr de Beergut must have arrived already, he thought, better get a move on. As he passed the effluent disposal plant he noticed that the river was now bubbling and smoking, but he decided that this was only because of spring tides. He entered the office with great excitement. Mr de Beergut was waiting.

"Potty, it's a pleasure to meet you", began the other, and Mr Potty felt himself glow right down to his toes. "Sit down, sit down."

Mr Potty sat down. He knew today was going to be a good day. For a moment he thought he could still smell the fumes from the river, but he decided instead that is was probably Mr de Beergut’s famed gourmet diet that was responsible. The owner looked down at him, man to man.

"Potty, everyone here works hard, but especially you. Your persistent ten-hour days have not gone unnoticed, let me tell you. Your efforts have been brought to the attention of the Board, and there’s something they have asked me to give you."

Mr Potty waited, feeling his face go scarlet, hardly daring to breathe.

Mr de Beergut had paused to consider him, then he thrust out a large pink hand and. taking Mr Potty's limp white fingers, wrung them till they cracked.

"Our congratulations, Mr Potty, and thank you for everything. Keep up the good work. Have a cigar."

Mr de Beergut planted an enormous Havana in Mr Potty's breast pocket, and immediately swept from the room to go to a financial planning meeting.

Mr Potty stood up, looking speculatively at the cigar sticking out of his pocket. It seemed rather a shame that he didn’t smoke. Ah well, he thought, brightening, it's all in a day's work. And off he went to his desk, determined that today was going to be a jolly nice day come what may, and nothing was going to spoil it, nothing at all. Not even the smell of the river as it boiled and spat its way past his window.

Paddy Shannon

Who will be the winners in South Africa? (1994)

From the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard 

It was in 1652 that Dutch settlers first went to the Cape of Good Hope. This began as a supply station to service the ships of the Dutch East India Company. It also began 350 years of conflict which has now produced a very different beginning. In April, new constitutional arrangements will start with all adult South Africans having the vote and the election of a transitional government.

The struggle of mainly black workers against that bigoted, racist ideology, "apartheid" has been long and bitter. The struggle to get the vote has required determination and sacrifice. Socialists support that struggle. Without the power to capture control of the state by democratic means, socialism is impossible. This raises an important point. Getting the vote is not the end. Now that it has been won, how is it to be used?

Inevitably, in the first flush of the expected ANC victory in the election there is a lot of optimism amongst its supporters about what the ANC in power will do for them.

Great expectations

They foresee not just the end of race discrimination but the end of the grim poverty in which most of them have lived. They expect their living standards to rise on the basis of jobs and good wages for all. They expect decent housing, health care, education, pensions and other benefits. In fact, this will not happen.

This is not a question about the sincerity or good intentions of Nelson Mandela and his associates. It is about economic realities. The ANC leaders are now being fitted into the mould of reforming capitalist politicians and as such believe that when in power they will be able to do all sorts of good things for their supporters. They believe they are the right men and women for the needs of the hour. It has been a popular misconception that if only workers are able to get the right people into the right positions of power at the right time then everything will be alright. This false idea has led to failure and disillusion in almost every country throughout this century and it won’t be any different in South Africa. By now the reason should be obvious.

Committed capitalists

The ANC leaves no room for doubt that it is committed to running the capitalist system. For example, in the ANC "Freedom Charter" Nelson Mandela has written:

   "Under the Freedom Charier, nationalisation would take place in an economy based on private enterprise . . . [this] would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class. The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change . . . nor has it.. . ever condemned capitalist society " (page 179).

This means that in a South Africa run by an ANC government it’s going to be capitalist business as usual. Class differences, with a great gap between rich and poor, will continue. Black workers will still be exploited alongside whites. Through their labour they will continue to keep the wealthy and the privileged in a society which puts the profits enjoyed by a few before the needs of the whole community.

If a movement has at last managed to form a government to run capitalism, as Nelson Mandela says the ANC is going to do, it has no choice but to work within the economic limitations and class objectives of the market system. Particularly at this time of world slump most governments are in financial difficulties and this is the situation that the ANC will have to take on.

One of the first promises to go will be the promise of jobs for all black workers at good wages. No government can control the level of employment or wages; this is impossible. The promise to provide decent housing for everyone along with health care, education and pensions will also be forgotten.

What is also inevitable is that the ANC government will come into conflict with the trades unions. Despite the present links between the unions and the ANC, when in power the new government will be concerned to run and develop a profitable economy. The unions will be concerned with wage increases and better conditions.

Higher profits

The two objects of higher profits and higher wages will be in conflict with each other and as always, this will lead to disputes at places of work with the possibility of the ANC government using the state machinery to smash the workers’ strikes. The function of the state is to administer class society and enforce the exploitation of workers and this is the anti-working-class role that the ANC is about to embrace.

The policy of apartheid was never in the best interests of South African capitalists. The Nationalist government was kept in power by an eccentric alliance of Afrikaner fanning interests and white urban workers who. to their eternal discredit, imagined that it was in their interest to keep black workers out of the skilled labour force and to deny them the vote. Hence the support of white workers for the various job reservation Acts and other forms of discrimination against black workers.

Best interests

Capitalist interests would have been best served by a reform programme aimed at integrating the black population within a multi-racial system of exploitation. The old United Party formed by Smuts might have achieved this but it was obliterated by the success of the National Party which held power continuously after 1948. Latterly, capitalists like the Oppenheimers put money into a new reforming party, the Progressive Party, but this also failed.

For many years it seemed that the Afrikaner bigots of the National Party would be the last people on earth to change their ideas but they have at last caught up with economic realities. Confidence in the economy began to drain away as a result of poor investment returns, the collapse of the Rand and rising commercial and political risks coupled with stagnation. In February 1990 De Klerk told the South African Parliament that "a new South Africa is only possible if it is bolstered by a sound and growing economy, with particular emphasis on the creation of employment".

Before this, the ANC had already been in discussion with South African capitalists assuring them that their interests would be safeguarded under an ANC government. For their part, the capitalists were anxious to emphasise their own non-racist credentials. For example, in 1985, the Chairman of Anglo-American Corporation, one of the biggest in South Africa, told the ANC negotiators that::

  “what we are concerned with is not so much whether the following generation will be governed by black or white people, but that it will be a viable country and that it will not be destroyed by violence and strife" 

he added, 

   "they [by which he meant the ANC and South African business] shared a common interest in maintaining the profitability of the South African state".

At last it seemed that under the ANC a reforming regime could emerge to facilitate the maximum exploitation of South African workers without distinction of colour on the basis of a broad consensus between the main political forces. This leaves the question of whether the groups outside the consensus, Inkatha and the extreme Afrikaners, will be strong enough to disrupt the new arrangements.

So, who will be the victors in this long struggle that has held the attention of the world since the end of Second World War? If the extreme elements are so foolish as to plunge the country into a civil war that will only add new chapters to a conflict in which the main sufferers, as always, will be the working class.

Given that the new arrangements work out on the other hand, we take it that black workers will enjoy greater freedom to organize in trades unions and benefit from the end of political censorship and repression.

We shall see. But the most immediate class beneficiaries of the constitutional changes will be the South African capitalists and those with high investment in the country.

As the Chairman of Anglo-American emphasised, when it comes to the human resources that it wishes to exploit, capital is completely free of racial prejudice.

We should ask whether these results will be worthy of the suffering, torture, imprisonment and deaths which have been the input of black workers into the struggle. It will be a very poor testament to the courage of that struggle, and all the sacrifices that have been made, if its gains are now thrown away in a betrayal in which the great majority continue to be exploited.

Surely, the least that struggle deserves is that those who have won the vote should think long and hard about how it should be used. Since all the main strands of South African history still intrude so forcibly into the present political situation it is useful for black workers to think back to their past. It is worth remembering that working for wages is very recent and that tribespeople had to be forced into it.

A colonial report entitled African Labour Efficiency Survey - 1949 was concerned with the problem of how to force the people of the Kikuyu in East Africa to become wage workers. It said this:

    "The East African comes from a tribal economy in which his human needs of sustenance can still very largely be met. He has not, to any significant degree, been de-tribalised. The East African has not been bent under the discipline of organised work . . .  In respect of the few working activities which in the past occupied him he was free and independent.
     Though the tasks he performed were prescribed by tribal law and custom, he could do them in his own way and at his own speed, for him time had no economic value. The work he did for others was not for wages, but was one of the duties arising from his relationship with his fellows. He gave satisfaction by his work and he derived a measure of contentment from it. In these circumstances he was willing to do what was required from him.
      To work steadily and continuously at the will of another was one of the hard lessons he had to learn when he began to work for Europeans."

This was how African people lived for countless centuries, not working for wages but co-operating to provide for the needs of the community.

Healthy society

Why should black workers embrace and continue the economic forces of capitalism that destroyed that way of life? If the traditional relationships of co-operation are extended to all other workers and are applied using modern technology, modern communications and fully democratic methods of organization, they are all we need to create a healthy society which can serve all our needs without distinction of race or sex.

Pieter Lawrence

Obituary: Bill Kerr (1994)

Obituary from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have to report the death of Bill Kerr at the age of 85. Bill joined the West Ham Branch in January 1941, and immediately busied himself attending lectures and after a few weeks joined a Speakers class. Opportunities for speaking outdoors at that time were somewhat limited owing to war-time conditions, although he did manage to get the opportunity to open up on a few occasions at Hyde Park.

However he and his brother George felt the need for propaganda in their own area. The Branch members agreed to give it a try and they opened up at an old venue, the ’Cock Hotel" which was just off High Street North. East Ham. The meetings at the “Cock" were an immediate success and this inspired us to extend further and we settled finally for Station Road. Ilford.

These venues were run very successfully in both attendances and literature sales. However all this came to an end towards the end of the 1950s. Outdoor meetings became impossible except in places like Hyde Park owing to the tremendous growth of motor traffic.

In that period of time from early 1940s to 1955/6 the branch membership had increased front about 30 members to about 70. Bill was elected onto the EC about this time and sat for three years or so.

In the 1950 General Election, the Party fought the East Ham South constituency. It was an excellent effort by the Party with much help from outside. Bill gave all he had in speaking and canvassing most evenings during the preceding weeks.

Bill had the misfortune to severely injure himself when he was blown off the platform at Hyde Park in a gale-force wind and fractured his skull. However he recovered in about a month although his hearing was permanently impaired.

After undergoing major surgery for lung cancer in 1958. Bill transferred his membership to Central Branch. He gave an occasional lecture around the London Branches. From the mid-1970s, apart front an occasional visit to a branch, he was not in evidence, although he kept a keen interest in the Party to the end.

Obituary: William Isherwood (1994)

Obituary from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We arc saddened to have to report the death of our Comrade William Isherwood at the age of 90 in the Isle of Man.

Bill Isherwood first came into contact with the Party in Manchester in 1928, joining the local branch there in 1933. He worked as a commercial traveller and the poverty he saw made a great impression on him and turned him into a lifelong socialist. On retirement he went to live on the Isle of Man, where he continued to put the Socialist case, particularly in the local press.

For Richer, For Poorer . . . (1994)

Book Review from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

For Richer, For Poorer: Shaping US-Mexican Integration. By Harry Browne. Latin America Bureau. 1 Amwell Street. London ECIR 1UL. £7.99.

As this small book (128 pages) demonstrates, we are now witnessing the rapid globalization of capitalism. This is particularly noticeable with regard to Mexico and the United States. Whatever the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the US and Mexico are involved in an unstoppable process of economic integration, thus reducing the importance of the Mexican-US border.

More and more American corporations are building factories not only just south of the border, but also in central Mexico as well. The Mexican workers are given a few days training and. inevitably, the turnover of labour is high; but, despite previous assumptions, many Mexicans soon become expert in high-tech processes such as computer production and assembly. And with Mexican workers’ wages around one-tenth of those of US workers in say, Detroit, the employers have not only been able to play one set of workers off against the other, but have shifted production from the north to the south, thus causing unemployment among many US workers. This has caused considerable headaches for the already weakened American unions, mostly affiliated to the AFL-CIO. Unions generally fight a losing battle under capitalism much of the time anyway. Most of the Mexican workers either do not belong to labour unions, or they are enrolled in ones largely controlled by the Mexican government. Either way, this is resulting in increasing profits for American and, to a lesser extent, Mexican companies.

In this book Harry Browne explains the nuts and bolts of the globalization of capital, particularly as it affects Mexico and the United States and. to some extent. Canada and the Pacific Rim countries; and its effects on the producers, the working class of those countries.

Peter E. Newell

Letter to a charity (1994)

From the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist sends a personalized reply to one of the 55 charities which solicited him for donations last year.

Nicholas Hinton,

Save the Children

Dear Nicholas,

Thank you for your letter and your request for help. I’ve decided that the best way I can celebrate the 75th birthday of Save the Children is by offering a donation to the Socialist Party.

I should explain. From time to time I've given to Save the Children, and some of the other charities that increasingly demand my support. (I kept a note in 1993 of the number of requests for help I received during the year. It turned out to be 154 from 55 different organizations and agencies). It’s quite clear there is much to do: famine to prevent; children to be saved from death, literally with spoonfuls of sugar; action to be taken to prevent the destruction of the world’s wildlife, its forests, the diversity of plants and animals, pollution to be combatted, the land, sea and air to be protected against rapacious commercial interests; help to be offered to the partially-sighted. the hard-of-hearing, folk suffering from arthritis, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, etc; attention to be paid, worldwide, to the needs of the orphaned, the poor, destitute and disadvantaged, those denied elementary human rights, imprisoned without trial, tortured and forgotten.

And this is just the beginning. Faced with cries for help from so many quarters I’m prompted to ask "Isn't there something wrong with a world that regards such problems and calamities as normal? That assumes that war. death and destruction are as natural (sic) as night and day?" And I know the answer.

Certainly there is something wrong. The basis of our relationship with each other and with the world which supports us is flawed. It accepts that making a profit for the few is inevitable and logically prime, even if the consequence is that most of the population of the world must remain forever threatened with poverty, death and disease, and oppression of all kinds; that economic affairs must forever be organized in this way, and the needs of humankind to food and shelter, never mind liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness, must never threaten the interests of the owning class.

But, of course, there is another way: a blazingly simple, self-evident way. We, the majority who produce the profit for the few, can say "no". No more. From here on in we choose, knowingly, to produce and distribute goods and services, co-operatively and harmoniously, in a way that meets human needs.

So from here on in I’m going to resist the heartbreaking appeals that come with most requests for donations to charities. From here on in my time and energy, and my money, will go to the Socialist Party, in the confident knowledge that the only way to create a world fit for children is to proposition its economic arrangements in such a way that the needs of the human race (and the continued wellbeing of the planet which supports us) must replace production for profit with all its inevitable, attendant evils. Why not join me in sending your £10 donation today?

Yours sincerely Michael Gill

Single mothers and absent fathers (1994)

From the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Women trying to solve the problem of male dominance by fighting men, and men who try to hang on to their historical dominant role are playing into the hands of the capitalist class, argues Nicky Snell


One of the government's recent scapegoats has been the single parent. An obvious target as single parents are mostly women and mostly poor. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for them, they have hung themselves with their own rope.

The stigmatized "unmarried mother" was in the early part of this century frequently given a life-sentence in a psychiatric institution. Her crime: partaking willingly or unwillingly in sexual intercourse outside of another repressive institution - marriage; and having the fortune or misfortune to conceive. She was labelled immoral, and even if not incarcerated in a psychiatric prison, would be sentenced to a life of shame. Such moral stigma hardly touched the male participant in the condemned sexual act.

To me, such an attitude seems incomprehensible. The human procreative process, including sexual pleasure and the ensuing arrival of a new and tiny human life, grown within the woman's body, has always seemed something worthy of celebration.

This is not to detract from the very real, sometimes devastating effects that such an arrival can have upon a woman's life. In those days, a pregnant woman, married or unmarried, was threatened with loss of life. Death as a result of childbirth was common. And as any committed parent knows, keeping a baby alive, let alone comfortable and content, involves an enormous amount of work. Even today, this work is not recognized for what it is. Parents caring for little children do not even have the comforts allocated to wage-slaves: a protected wage, tea breaks, lunch hours and regular time off duty though parents can gain something mostly denied to other wage-slaves. a deep satisfaction in the work.

In short, heterosexual sex makes babies, and women and men have a sex drive. Even now, no form of contraception, not even a sterilization operation, can be 100 percent relied upon. Human babies, being dependent for many years, require a lot of attention to keep them alive, happy and healthy, and providing the kind of environment where this is possible is not an easy task — certainly not within our present economic system. The traditional system of survival for babies, children and their carers is patriarchal monogamous marriage. The man takes the initiative in finding a wife. The woman must wait to be asked. The man then has free access to her body for the purposes of sexual satisfaction ("conjugal rights"). He also has a responsibility to provide and care for the woman and their resulting children. It is understood that such human qualities as love, compassion and altruism are required to make this palatable.

Up until the late sixties and seventies, anybody transgressing these guidelines was shamed and castigated, in particular the woman who enjoyed sexual pleasure outside marriage. The man who failed to provide for this family was treated with contempt.

The moralizing and shame served the capitalists well. It kept the majority of women and children within the framework of "The Family", largely dependent on the men who derived their income by slaving for the capitalist hierarchy. A man who feels duty-bound to feed his family in these circumstances is a man fearful of losing his job. Such a man is manipulable by capitalism.

The damaging effects of patriarchal monogamy led to a number of challenges.

The first concerned sexual repression. Sexuality is a very powerful drive within both men and women that seeks some form of release. For young adults it is new, strong and difficult to manage. The old way of dealing with it was to discuss it as little as possible and to keep young women and men apart. Homosexual activity was stamped on where possible. There were then accepted means for men and women to meet and arrive at the desired state of matrimony, within which sexuality could be expressed. Unfortunately the levels of repression and ignorance set up led to many people leading a life of sexual misery. Wilhelm Reich argued that there is a connection between sexual repression and fascism.

The second concerned the effect upon society of the expectation that a man should "control" his wife. This expectation sabotages potentially good relations between the sexes, leaving a man to a greater or lesser extent on guard and limiting a woman’s freedom of expression.

For example, a man whose wife spends "over" long talking to another man in a pub may be warned by his mates to "look out". He is seen to be not in control of his wife and pressured into unnecessary hostilities both with his wife and the man in question. Or a woman, who has some genuine grievance which needs discussing with her partner at an adult level, may be dismissed as "nagging". The man feels that to take her seriously is somehow to relinquish his masterful role.

The main challenge here has come from the women's liberation movement.

But we are still left with capitalism. Its present-day representatives in Britain, the Conservative Party, have been trying to re-instate patriarchal monogamy values by condemning single parents and forcing fathers back into the position of financially supporting families they have left behind. Whose purpose does this serve?

Firstly, many of the recent moves made by the government have to do with power and control. From the better-off to the worst-off — from doctors and university lecturers and teachers to schoolchildren and the unemployed — all are under far stricter surveillance than before. And control has to do with property. We are being reminded that we are not free. We are governed by the state which is an instrument of capitalism.

Secondly, the principle of "divide and conquer" is being brought to bear. Under pressure the working class tends to divide against itself. The government is helping this by encouraging scapegoating of particular sections of the working class single parents, absent fathers, etc.

Though many of us have been amused at the way the government's policies have backfired recently, these have nonetheless been having their effect. In a article entitled "Fathers who won't Pay", Yasmin Alibhai Brown writes in the February issue of Everywoman:

In a bar at the BBC Television Centre. I recently heard three slightly tipsy chaps ranting on about how men were now killing themselves because the state was making such massive and unjust demands on them to support the children of previous relationships. Words like ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt’ were flying around the crowded room.

Men are back to hating women and feminists resent the relative status of "middle- class" men. Once again the focus is away from the real source of the problem — a system in which the profits of the few come before the needs of the many, feminists and "middle-class" men included.

I can remember thinking, a few years back, that the movement of women and children onto the registers of the Social Security was a movement towards society taking collective responsibility for its children. It may have been, but it was also a movement towards the relative impoverishment of women and children.

Now the men are to be likewise impoverished with the arrival of the Child Support Agency, whose prime purpose is to save the state the money it now pays to women on Income Support by taking it from the fathers, which doesn't improve the living standard of the women by one iota. It is also a move to place the responsibility of providing for children back onto the shoulders of their biological fathers, who of course have to derive their income by slaving for the capitalist hierarchy.

For those women in the exhausting business of undertaking full-time paid work as well as raising children alone, there may be some improvement in living standards, but whether it is worth the resentment that accompany the extra money is a matter of some doubt. Where men are forced to part with their earnings to support women and children, there is almost a reversal of the old system: a man suffering the indignity of having his earnings deducted at source will feel himself to be the woman's property. Thus the battle of the sexes continues, with a twist to its tail.

The “sex war" is taking place now and represents a near 50/50 split in the world's population. It is not a simple affair, but one which has to be faced if we wish to achieve the free and truly democratic society we wish for.

It is not something that was started by feminists, neither is it something that will end either by their activities alone or by simply quieting them down. It started a very long time ago. No one knows exactly how or why it became such a universal practice for women to be treated as the property of men, but there appears to be a connection between this phenomenon and the use of slaves, the domestication of farm animals and the assumption of property rights over land.

Women, forced or educated into a subordinate role, cannot act in the world in an assertive and free way, and are unable to take up an active political stance alongside men. Subordinates often become manipulative and dishonest: the loyalty of a subordinate is usually tempered by resentment and is always fragile compared to the love and solidarity given to an equal friend or partner. Likewise, women trying to solve the problem of male dominance, by fighting men as the enemy, help to keep us divided, as do men who try to hang on to their historical dominant role.

We all, men and women alike, can end the division of the sexes through listening and learning and through changes in consciousness and behaviour in order to come together and fight the real enemy — the system geared to making financial profit for the few at the expense of the rest of us.

A humanity divided against itself cannot organize to create Socialism. A humanity linked by solidarity, friendship and respect can do just that.

Nicky Snell

The future for South Africa (1994)

Editorial from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party has always strongly supported struggle against class and racial oppression in South Africa. We welcome the trend towards democratization of the political process in that country. It is an important step on the road towards genuine liberation for the great majority.

At the same time, however, we are all too aware of the risk of political complacency, born of euphoria. More than ever, now is the time for questioning, for a frank and honest debate about the future. The cultivation of illusions today will sow the seeds of disillusionment tomorrow. In a country where racism and reaction are still in the wings, the abolition of apartheid notwithstanding, this is a risk fraught with danger.

So there is nothing to be lost by constructive and tolerant criticism, and much to be gained. Mistakes made now could prove difficult, if not impossible, to undo later.

There are still some on the left in South Africa who cling to the illusions of a now discredited Leninist ideology. At the time of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Socialist Party stood virtually alone in declaring its opposition to the Bolsheviks on genuinely Marxist grounds.

We predicted then that that revolution would usher in, not socialist emancipation, but the brutal dictatorship of a state-run capitalism. Though scorned at the time for sticking to our principles, rather than courting popularity for its own sake, events since have thoroughly vindicated what we said then.

On the other hand, the collapse of the state-capitalist model of economic development has prompted many in the liberation movement to openly embrace the market. But the politics of so-called "economic realism" are similarly doomed to failure.

Attempts to "woo big business", to make common cause between the interests of capital and those of labour are bound to founder on the reality of class struggle. This should be particularly obvious in a country like South Africa.

The legacy of massive structural inequality cannot begin to be tackled through the market mechanism which works to concentrate wealth in fewer hands, be these black or white. Between the hammer of the state and the anvil of the market, the working class will continue to suffer rampant exploitation and grinding poverty.

It does not have to be like this. There is an alternative which, in fact, has far more in common with the best traditions of African communalism, and which looks beyond the state or the market for the real emancipation of the great majority.

There can be no national solution to the struggles of workers in South Africa because capitalism is itself international. Their struggles are closely linked to the struggles of workers here in Britain and elsewhere; our fate is bound up with theirs.

The Socialist Party therefore urges our fellow workers in South Africa to seriously consider the socialist alternative.

What we seek cannot be brought about by putting our trust in leaders, however enlightened; it must arise from the self-organization of ordinary people, conscious of that alternative, and determined to make it a reality. Together, we can make it a reality. In so doing, we will have nothing to lose but our chains; we have a world to win.

Do We Need the Market? (1994)

Letter to the editors from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Thank you for publishing the thoughtful and fair-minded review of my book, From Marx to Mises, in the June 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard. Within the space permitted, I will here reply only to Robin Cox's most important point: his approach to the economic calculation problem.

Decision makers in any industrial system using advanced technology are faced with choices involving comparisons of specific quantities of different factors. These comparisons can never be made in kind.

If you can get the same result with one gallon of oil as you can get with two gallons of oil, it is preferable to use one gallon of oil and save the second gallon for other uses. That purely technical calculation can be done in kind. But faced with a choice where one gallon of oil can be saved by using more of some other resource, no decision can be made in kind. Is the saving of one gallon of oil greater or less than the increased use of some quantity of an other resource (say, five minutes of maintenance labor, or a few days' shorter life of a machine through increased wear and tear, or one ounce of some mineral employed in a chemical reaction)? If such comparisons have to be made, then we need to be able to reduce different factors to common units of cost.

Your review seems to imply that no such comparisons would any longer have to be made under socialism. In From Marx to Mises I give several examples, and many more can be found in the economic literature, or simply by consulting one's own knowledge of economic history or of places where one has worked. If we really do not need to make such comparisons, then the whole Misesian case collapses, and your remarks about stock control are unnecessary. But I maintain that such comparisons have to be made day by day in any unit of industrial production, no matter what the social institutions.

Robin Cox asks us to suppose that the demand for good X increases, and that the current output of resource A is "insufficient to meet this increased demand". He says that "the sensible solution would be to search for some more abundant resource (B) that could substitute for A. At the same time the falling stock of A would constrain the multifarious users of A to economise on it".

I have three comments:

1. Most commonly, every one of the types of resources used in producing X would be simultaneously used in the production of thousands of other things (let us collectively call theseY). So if the output of X is increased, that of Y must be reduced. The current output of A could itself be increased (as well as being withdrawn from production of Y), but any increase in output of A would involve costs (reductions in output elsewhere). Typically, output of A should be increased somewhat, as well as reducing output of Y. Both these developments reduce output of some goods.

2. In the market, people will automatically switch to using more substitutes for A, but the exact degree of this substitution will be different in all the different lines of production which use A. This can be left to the judgement of the people in those different lines of production because there is a public and objective specification of how scarce A is: the price of A. Robin Cox's statement that searching for B, a substitute for A, is "the sensible solution" over simplifies the problem. Aside from the fact that reallocation of resources has to occur immediately, while this "searching" is still going on, such searching occurs all the time, with respect to all factors, and B, like A, will most likely be a factor used in producing many other goods, with a consequent reduction in output of those other goods if more of B is used to make X. The only practicable way to tell how "abundant" B is, by comparison with A, is to look at their relative prices. And B is almost certainly not a perfect substitute for A, so it will still be up to thousands of separate, local decision-makers to determine whether any technical superiority of A is outweighed, in each particular case, by the comparative cheapness of B. This again requires prices (or some other cost indexes) of A and B.

3. Robin Cox states that the falling stocks of A would constrain users of A to economize on A. Are all users simply told that total stocks of A have gone down, and relied upon to reduce their use of it? The stocks might have fallen for many different reasons, so the users all have to act on their theories as to the reasons for the fall; the users have to estimate by precisely how much to cut their rate of use, bearing in mind that such adjustments are always costly (is the use of A to be cut so much, for instance, that any machine which continuously requires inputs of A should be immediately junked?). How does each user of some quantity of A, out of, say, fifty thousand users, knowing that each of the other 49,999 users are making a similar decision, which perhaps ought to be different in every case, determine his response to the news that stocks of A have fallen by ten per cent? If all the users reduce their use of A by the amount they judge best, there is no guarantee that the outcome is the appropriate total reduction in use. Again, a price for A can do things which news about its total stock cannot do. We cannot do without some general unit of cost, to compare the costs of aggregates of different factors, and we do not know of any feasible unit other than prices denominated in money.

DAVID RAMSAY STEELE, Chicago.

Reply

You may not be able to conceive of production without money and prices, but we can. The definitive answer to your supposed "economic calculation problem" is a (largely) self-regulating system of stock control in which calculations are made in kind rather than in terms of a common unit like money. A self-regulating system of stock control will permit producers in a socialist society (workplace councils, industry councils etc) to ascertain more or less immediately the availability of stocks of any particular item throughout the system; the communications technology to enable this to happen is already in place. Given this, your assertion that the "only practicable way to tell how 'abundant' B is, by comparison with A, is to look at the relative prices" is absurd.

'Abundance' is a relationship between supply and demand, where the former exceeds the latter. In socialism a buffer of surplus stock for any particular item, whether a consumer or a producer good, can be produced, to allow for future fluctuations in the demand for that item, and to provide an adequate response time for any necessary adjustments.

Achieving 'abundance' can be understood as the maintenance of an adequate buffer of stock in the light of extrapolated trends in demand. The relative abundance or scarcity of a good would be indicated by how easy or difficult it was to maintain such an adequate buffer stock in the face of a demand trend (upward, static, downward). It will thus be possible to choose how to combine different factors for production, and whether to use one rather than another, on the basis of their relative abundance/scarcity. By following the rule of using the minimum necessary amounts of the least abundant factors it will be possible to ensure their efficient allocation. Money as a "general unit of cost" would not come into it.

In further asserting that "if the output of X is increased, output of Y must be reduced" you are begging the question at issue, which is precisely whether or not resources are and always will be scarce. It is to assume that society's resources are fully stretched and that there are no reserves to draw upon. But given the productivity of modem technology and the elimination of capitalist waste, there are likely to be substantial untapped reserves. In addition, socialist society can, as just explained, deliberately plan to produce surpluses of various items just to meet the eventuality you have in mind.

With regard to human resources in particular, even today under capitalism tens of millions of people are unemployed. Though of course in socialism no one will be "employed" as such, the average workload for individuals is likely to be much less (thus resulting in a sizeable reservoir of labour) and the opportunities for individuals to move flexibly from one kind of work to another much greater. This will make much less likely the occurrence of the bottlenecks you foresee in the production of any particular good following an unexpected increase in demand for it.

But scarcity is not simply a function of supply; it is also a function of demand. It is in this area that the anarcho-capitalist critique of socialism, based on its premise of infinite demand, is particularly weak and unrealistic. For it takes little, if any, account of the effect of the social environment on the likely structure and size of demand in socialism.

In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising those products. At the same time, there is in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. This is not surprising for if, as Marx contended, the prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one's command, would be a meaningless concept. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the more the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular. Nor do we accept your premise that prices arise out of conditions of scarcity. They arise out of conditions of private property. So even if genuine shortages occur in the conditions of common ownership that will exist in socialism - it is likely that some shortages (e.g. decent housing) will persist (if only as a receding problem) into the early stages of socialism - this will not undermine the new society by leading to the re-emergence of money and prices.

For socialism to be established, there are two fundamental preconditions that must be met. Firstly, the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by "enough" and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism.

Secondly, the establishment of socialism presupposes the existence of a mass socialist movement and a profound change in social outlook. It is simply not reasonable to suppose that the desire for socialism on such a large scale, and the conscious understanding of what it entails on the part of all concerned, would not influence the way people behaved in socialism and towards each other. Would they want to jeopardise the new society they had helped create? Of course not.

One must therefore assume that whatever shortages may persist can be tackled by some system of direct rationing and will be borne with forbearance - even, one might say, with a sense of altruistic restraint. For whatever the problems that socialism may have to contend with, and there will still be many, if the alternative has to be the re-instatement of capitalism then there would not be a real alternative

Editors.