Red light (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Really significant events often fail to elicit the comment they deserve, at any rate at the time of happening. Old Bailey, July 13th of this year, illustrates this fact. A soldier ”provoked by an insult to Royalty,” to quote the Evening News, struck the offender, who was killed as a result of the assault. Indicted for manslaughter, the accused was bound over for two years. The lightness of the punishment is irrelevant to the point at issue, except in so far as it throws a light on the sequel. Mr. Justice Macnaughton, sitting on a bench in probably the world’s most historic criminal tribunal, says: —

Although there was not sufficient provocation in law to justify what you did, there was provocation which, to a man in your position, might have made it difficult not to do something with your fist.

Read this pronouncement carefully. Taken in conjunction with the ”sentence,” what will it convey to the mind of unsophisticated wearers of the King’s uniform who look upon it as anything but a work of supererogation to condignly chastise all and sundry who fail to fall in with the goose step (British variety) after Royalty ?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain suffers from no illusions as to the limitations of Free Speech in this country; 1914, D.O.R.A., war-demented crowds offering violence to pacifist and Socialist speakers afforded ample evidence of the precarious footing upon which a hardly-won relative Freedom of Speech stood; it is becoming evident to many outside the Socialist movement that there has been of late years a sinister development in the direction of restriction of speech on the platform and in the Press; elastic libel laws, and sleeping, but by no means scotched ”blasphemy” laws are always at hand to serve the purpose of the governing class when necessary.

The Victorians were not so Mealy-Mouthed

Controversy (which is doing good service in keeping open column up to the present), in its May, 1937, issue, reproduced a cartoon (undated) of the ’40’s, lampooning Victoria the Great and her “prolific husband,” Albert the Good; outraged loyalty was not then given an opportunity to be gently censured by occupants of a Bench carrying the high ideals and noble traditions of Eton and Harrow. An article by Keir Hardie, dated 1897, is also reproduced. ”The King fraud will disappear when the Exploiting of the People draws to a close ” indicates its general intention and scope.

Thirteen years later, at Browning Settlement, Will Crooks was claiming in naive Poplarese for Edward VII what Compton Mackenzie is apparently driving at to-day on behalf of the exiled grandson. ”I feel, and I know, at the bottom of my heart, that he is the greatest statesman that the world possesses at this moment. He is above men, he is a father lo the lot of us, and smiles down upon us all.” ”Good old George” rather put his foot into it during the same week with, ”We all believe, rightly or wrongly, that he was a man, and that he loved and cared for his fellow men and women,” and to-day this Labour leader, who boasted he was prepared to use the Emergency Act against the working class if necessary, holds that “George V was as good a Socialist as Bernard Shaw.” (Quoted by New Leader, May 31st, 1935.) In short, Labour leadership wallows in the sty of ‘‘loyalty.” David Kirkwood (Daily Herald, May 27th, 1936), feeling “monarch of all I surveyed ” on the captain’s bridge of the “Queen Mary” when being launched, is moved to prayer: “And now, good ship, bearing the name of so good a Queen, sail on over the ocean . . . ” How long will Clydesider’s stand for this sort of thing?

Let there be no mistake. The Socialist Party makes no stand for Republicanism as such. Suppression of Free Speech in Republican Germany and Russia has made such suppression at the worst times of the Roman Empire or at the height of Tudor absolutism look mild in comparison, modern technique assisting; but the point here is that there is a relation between extravagant expressions of loyalty on the one hand and freedom of speech on the other. The two minutes' silence of November 11th is practically enforced; neglect of hats off and standing at attention within hearing of “God Save the King” is fraught with danger from the fist of uniformed indignation—to save a quibble it may be pointed out that non-conformity is silent, often a more eloquent expression of opinion than downright dissent.

Disorder at Public Meetings

There is one aspect of this subject that calls for very serious consideration. In the E. Willesden bye-election the Conservative candidate at one meeting was greeted with “cat-calls,” and, according to the Daily Herald, the meeting was practically broken up. Not a word of deprecation from the Daily Herald on these blackguardly tactics—infiltration of Communist methods is obviously affecting the Labour movement. History should warn Labour leaders that being hoist with your own petard is still a fatal possibility.

Another point is important, that is the practical impossibility of using the Press for expression of opinion. Even in quarters where some approach to decency is maintained, and sheer gutter journalism is eschewed, there is difficulty in getting a hearing.

Clause 6 of the Party’s “Declaration of Principles” states : “The working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of Government.” This conscious effort can only be based upon adequate knowledge, and for such knowledge an atmosphere of the freest discussion is essential. All “Left” and a big proportion of “Right” politicians give formal acquiescence to the principle of free and open discussion. Readers of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD have been given from time to time ample evidence of how this works out in actual practice. That the Socialist Party of Great Britain is almost the only political party which allows opposition on the platform and in its organ is, at the same time, indicative of its healthy democratic outlook and political soundness.

There is good material in the rank and file of the Labour Party; let the average member who has no axe to grind give careful consideration of the points adduced against his Party in the direction indicated in this article. What chance has he himself of criticism in “his” organ (owned by a rich syndicate), the Daily Herald ? Are all Labourites enamoured of the lick-spittling loyalty and fluffy religionism of a Hannen Swaffer? Do you all agree with “Good old George,” that “History will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of our time”? (“My Quest for Peace.”) If not, try a letter to your official organ.

“Mass” enthusiasm, rooted in unthinking and hysterical devotion to leaders, whether to Pollit’s “giant” Stalin (he modestly refrains from naming himself in his “Call to All Workers,” p. 45) or the not extravagantly giantesque good-boy nominee of Canterbury & Co. (frozen mutts!) is an imminent danger holding appalling near possibilities for this country; it behoves all who give even an academic assent to Free Speech to think very hard.

Next article on this topic will glance at some historical events which throw light on the subject— including movements for religious (and irreligious) toleration.

Augustus Snellgrove

Tiny Tips (2026)

The Tiny Tips column from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Here is a number that should stop us cold: 64 percent. That is the share of Black families in America who, right now, lack the income and resources needed to meet the true cost of economic security. Not poverty or survival, but genuine stability. On the heels of the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, that number tells us how far we have to go… 49 percent of all Americans — nearly half the country — lacks the resources they need to be economically secure. Economic insecurity cuts across racial lines, affecting families of every background and in every part of the country. 

[The Hill]

‘Commodities must be sold, profits must be made, capital must accumulate. Short-term corporate gains are more important than long-term social losses. Capitalism, in short, is incompatible with the maintenance of the conditions that have made human civilisation possible for more than ten thousand years’. 

[Yorkshire Bylines]

The future of Babylon 5 shows time and time again that life may be different in the far future, but humanity’s problems remain much the same. There’s a long history of labor strikes and riots throughout the world, making the dock workers in ‘By Any Means Necessary’ another footnote in the ongoing battle between those who control the means of production and those who do the actual production.

[Giant Freakin Robot]

The leader of the Norwegian Union of Trade Unions, Helene Harsvik Skeibrok, expresses her condolences to the royal family and the entire Norwegian people. ‘It is very sad to hear that King Harald has passed away. Our thoughts go out to Queen Sonja, the rest of the royal family and everyone who mourns the loss of a king who has meant a lot to very many, says Skeibrok’.

[Fagforbundet]

‘Marxist Meghan’s’ list of demands for her kids’ school exposed.

[YouTube]

In 2026, the ‘rainbow nation’ will face the longest wave of organized xenophobic violence since the end of apartheid in 1994.

[rosalux]

Mason quotes the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, with an obituary of his state on the last day of its existence in 1991: Sixteen per cent of the national income went on armaments; another four on the KGB … the country was ruined, the people were kept half starved … And this was called the class approach. If that is socialism it can go to hell.

[The Spectator]

‘I’ve been sounding the alarm about how Tyson treats their workers for years’, said Nana Ouro-Agoro, founder of Akwaaba, a nonprofit organization that provides support to the Quad Cities’ immigrant population. Originally from Togo, Ouro-Agoro came to the Quad Cities after winning the immigration lottery in 2008. She learned that many of her neighbors worked at Tyson, where they were frequently injured on the job and afraid to speak out. Workers told her they were being treated ‘worse than the cattle’.

[Labornotes]

(These links are provided for information, target sites don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Running Commentary: Bad news (1988)

The Running Commentary column from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bad news

After all the efforts of Oxfam, Bob Geldof and the rest, nobody now needs to be told about the terrible effects of drought on human communities. Without rain crops do not grow; cultivated land becomes a barren desert and people starve to death by the thousand. To enterprises like Band Aid and Comic Relief, these are natural tragedies — acts of God, as evasive insurance companies like to say. The inference of this is clear: drought happens outside of human control and we are powerless to do much more about it than put money into collecting boxes.

But questions need to be asked: about why a world which is capable of feeding its population should periodically watch millions of them die because they don't have enough to eat; about why, as famine rages in one part of the world, in other parts food is left to rot and farmers are paid not to produce the life-giving stuff

The answers to these questions — and to some others have been revealed by recent events in America, where there has been a severe drought. Many agricultural areas have been desperate for rain as soaring temperatures turned the soil into blackened powder, crops withered and animals could not breed. But while the American farmers were getting desperate, the people who make money out of selling their produce were in rather better shape. Shortage means rising prices, which in June reached record levels. So a nice profit could he made from buying farm produce and, as the drought continued to affect production, watching the selling price rise with the temperature.

This comfortable situation was exposed in all its fragility in July, when the weather forecasters suddenly began to talk about the approaching end of the drought. The reaction of the commodity dealers was decidedly not relief; they panicked at the thought of better crops and what this would do to their profits In their frantic efforts to unload what they had bought they pushed prices down further, by record amounts.

Anyone whose heart aches at the plight of these brokers in human needs may take comfort from the fact that the government has a price policy, which came quickly to the rescue like the US cavalry. Prices were stopped from falling too far and. in any case, it did not rain as much as the farmers had hoped and the dealers had feared.

This sordid episode illustrates that food is produced, not to feed people but to be sold with the object of profit. That is why farmers suffer in a natural disaster while the people who market their produce benefit. It is also why masses of people starve when there is absolutely no reason for them to do so. The activities of Oxfam, Geldof and the rest obscure this fact, but until we have a society based on satisfying human needs it will continue to bedevil their well-meant efforts It will not, like the drought-stricken soil, blow away.

Blue Blood

If, as the Democrats say, George Bush is a wimp he can at least claim to be a royal wimp — of which, as we know, there is already no shortage. No less an expert in irrelevance than the senior genealogist for Burke's Peerage has traced a Bush connection to every European monarch (not that there are many of them left now) As far as the British royals go. Bush is a 13th cousin twice removed to the Queen, a 13th cousin once removed to the Queen Mother and he is linked to, among others, the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York

It might be thought that the most surprising thing about this is that there are so many people prepared to spend so much time in research into such meaningless trivia. Does it matter if the ruling class can be shown to be one vast, international hot-bed of incestuousness? But the story did provide a little publicity for Burke's, which does not enjoy a readership to compare with Mills and Boon. It also contributed to the mystique of ruling class origins, which asserts that they hold their superior position through some process other than the exploitation of the majority of people.

The assumption is that "royal blood" is also noble blood — that being in the aristocracy proper presupposes an especially gallant personality. This romantic nonsense is not supported by history, which reveals the roots of the British nobility in mediaeval episodes of banditry and bloodshed. True to this type, another of the Bush relations is Lord Lucan, long absent from this country since the police announced that they would like him to help in their enquiries into the murder of his children's nanny.

It will not be known for a while whether all this will win or lose votes for Bush; his opponent. Michael Dukakis, makes much of his humble, plebeian origins. American workers. much like those in other countries, tend to vote on issues other than the candidates ancestors, which does not mean that they concern themselves with anything more relevant or pressing. They will give their support to the man who in their opinion will be less inept in grappling with the problems of American capitalism

Wimpish Bush or Workaholic Dukakis is no real choice. Come November, it will be equally futile to vote for or against royal connections.

Blow out

As the smoke cleared from the wreck of Piper Alpha a number of sordid but instructive facts began to emerge. There has been no lack of experts to tell us that the design of the rig was defective. It is fair to ask what the experts were doing when the rig was being designed and built. At that time the North Sea oil boom was just getting under way; it was no time to delay things with footling doubts and questions about safety. It was all excitement then; there was going to be a British oil field, to rival the Middle East. In the rush to get the rigs built and into position, a little detail like placing the workers' living quarters over a potential bomb was either hardly noticed or noticed and ignored.

In those heady days we were sold that North Sea oil and gas was a massive break through the long awaited entry into a trade which would bring boundless prosperity to us all (there was little mention of what it would do for people like Armand Hammer). Workers on the rigs were glamorised into an elite, agents of a modem technology which could triumph over the elements, earning big money in the storms far out in the cruel sea so that we could benefit.

It was a similar story at BP's terminal at Sullom Voe, which was designed to handle half the British output from the North Sen but which, after only six years of full operation, has serious problems of corrosion. At least one technician at the plant says that these are due to the pressures of time and profit which were being applied as the terminal was built.

Piper Alpha has been described as an accident but it is hardly correct to use this word in a case where the risks should have been so clearly foreseeable but were so deliberately built into the design to increase the rig's chances of profitability. That this is accepted now — if tacitly — is shown by the sordid process of arguing for compensation, which has attracted a whole clutch of lawyers including some from America, where they are accustomed to what is called ambulance-chasing after a disaster. When a worker is killed their family often suffers the added burden of financial stress, and it is right that they should try to ease it by claiming compensation from the employers. What should sicken every worker is to see how this exposes their standing in capitalist society. The compensation which each family receives will be adjusted — perhaps by a court — according to what is judged to have been the dead worker's earning capacity. The higher paid their job, the longer their expected working life, the higher the compensation.

Whatever our job — however tedious or glamorous tt may be — our status as wage slaves, living through the sale of our working ability, reduces us to factors in the investment process. We represent a type of capital, to be expended to produce profit and to contribute to the accumulation of yet more capital by our employers We are living beings but before that we are items on a balance sheet.

Blogger's Note:

The August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a standalone article on the Piper Alpha disaster.

News in Review: Algerian Independence (1962)

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

Algerian Independence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beeching’s Cuts

The axe man cometh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does it pay?

Cold Comfort

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

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

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

To use that classical phrase: No comment.

Property and the Countryside (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

A day in the countryside! Such a proposition is always attractive to the millions of urban dwellers who inhabit these islands. Escape from the polluted conurbations with their overcrowded thoroughfares, overwhelmingly tall buildings squeezed closely together and a pace of life which subtly imposes conformity upon the majority of people. Which human beings, even with only the slightest appreciation of aesthetics, would not want to free themselves, if only temporarily, from the grasp of our inhumanly large cities?

Since the majority of those in Britain do not live in the countryside but in towns, it is hardly surprising that there are many distorted views of what rural areas are actually like. Most town-dwellers have an absurdly romanticized impression of the countryside. They think of endless expanses of fields where one can wander about at will. Apparently, most of the restrictions of urban life are absent. Peacefulness and solitude are imagined, where there is a small population largely content with its supposedly idyllic surroundings.

However, anyone possessing just a superficial acquaintance with the countryside and having explored different parts of Britain, will rapidly realize the existence of large, wealthy landowners who have carved up such enormous slices of terrain. These individuals have always been able to hold much of the rural population, especially farm labourers, in servility. The cream of the bunch of these land-owners includes the Constable family, with its estates of many thousands of acres near Hull, the Countess of Sutherland who owns Dunrobin Castle together with 150,000 acres of land and the Cowder family who have grabbed 100,000 acres of Scotland. Of course, there is the fifth Duke of Westminster who is, according to Douglas Sutherland’s book The Landowners, one of the richest holders of land in the country. At the same time, on a smaller scale, we should not forget such individuals as the Hon. Michael Pearson, heir to the estates of the great industrial magnate, Lord Cowdray. He owns 4,400 acres of Gloucestershire.

These are just a few examples of those who make up the one per cent. of the population which owns more than twenty-five per cent of the wealth (Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, chaired by Lord Diamond, 1975). A Labour Research Department pamphlet entitled The 2 Nations — Inequality in Britain Today reveals the existence of Peter Cadbury, the chairman of Westward Television, who recently purchased a nine-hundred-acre estate in Hampshire, costing £2 million. He is just one of a number of multi-millionaire landowners in the south and west of England. Compare this with the weekly wage of the farm worker less than three years ago (£16.20p). The wage increase received since then has been relatively insignificant and the farm labourers remain poorly paid. Yet, on the other hand, we hear of the wealth of the estates owned by the Royal Family. These include the Windsor Estate which accounts for 13,500 acres of Berkshire, the Balmoral Estate which has gobbled up 40,000 acres of Aberdeenshire and the 7,000 acres of the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. In spite of this, together with all the other royal land which is spread over twenty-seven counties, we are assured by Douglas Sutherland that as a private landowner the Queen is not even in the first flight of those who hold their wealth in land. The Church of England, the preachers and followers of that pauper- carpenter from Nazareth, Jesus Christ, should not be overlooked. The value of the Church’s assets as a landowner stood at over £318 million, whilst its estates were valued at £80,600,000 in 1964/65.

If one leaves a car and walks down almost any country lane, it will not be long before the inevitable barbed-wire fences, “Keep Out” and “Trespassers will be Prosecuted” notices appear. Few country ramblers have not been turned off estates, merely because they wanted to enjoy quite innocently the pleasures of the countryside. Anyone who has wandered deep into the countryside will recall the numerous restrictions which exist. Just think of the Fylingdale Moors Early-Warning Station and its Ministry of Defence area surrounded by barbed-wire which has seized a part of the North York Moors. In places such as Shiplake on the Thames, in Oxfordshire, one discovers electrified fences surrounding many of the fields, not to keep any cattle in, but to keep human beings out. “No Admission” and “Private Property” signs can be seen in innumerable rural areas such as at Kirkham Abbey in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The woods and fields of the Home Counties bear witness to the claims of the local landlords with their “Trespassers will be Prosecuted” signs.

How many of us, seeking a place for a picnic, have been compelled to sit down on a narrow piece of grass verge by the side of a busy road while “Private Property" notices stare menacingly at us from behind fences, hedgerows and barbed wire? How many footpaths have been ploughed over by farmers and land-owners determined to consolidate their estates? How many public rights of way and how much common land has been lost to the élite of the countryside?

River walks such as those by the Thames, upstream from London, have been decimated by the encroachment of local landlords on the public land immediately bordering the river. Many country walkers have found their strolls by the Thames ruinously interrupted by large estates such as those belonging to the Manor House at Shepperton in Surrey.

Marx was certainly right when he spoke of the “idiocy of rural life”. However, he was discussing the conditions in the countryside under feudalism and Capitalism. When the workers of both the towns and the countryside have realized that capitalism is a system of insanity and vileness, they will replace it by a form of society not only involving the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, but also one which will give freedom of access, in the fullest possible meaning of these words. This will certainly apply to the countryside and man will be able to enjoy the beauties of nature to the full. The enormous distinctions between the town and the countryside will disappear, and Socialism will provide all the people with the genuine opportunity to experience and appreciate the delights of rural areas.

Vincent Otter

The Monarchy—past, present and future (1965)

From the October 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Old ideas die hard, and every age, including the present, is strewn with the debris of the past.

By far the biggest collection of such debris is the Monarchy. All levels of society, from Parliament down, are thick with relics of this once powerful institution. In theory the Monarchy is the centre, and ultimate seat, of power; in reality it is a mere shadow with nothing left of its old influence. But although a shadow, it has a tremendous hold on unthinking minds.

The Monarchy for many centuries really was the centre of power and authority, and the battle against it was long and bitter, but even now when it is won and over, large numbers of people either fail or refuse to grasp the fact. They still write personal letters to the Queen asking her to exercise one of her prerogatives such as the prerogative of mercy. Such letters are, of course, automatically passed on to the appropriate department. But the royal prerogatives and powers, completely hollow as they are today, were not always so. Each one was a powerful weapon in the hands of the Crown, and it used them constantly in its battle with Parliament.

To quote just a few; the Privy Council was once the King’s Council, the highest body in the land; it supplied the Ministers of the Crown, and through the Court of Star Chamber could overawe any subject. The right to create Peers enabled the Crown to fill the Upper House with its own supporters, while the right to grant and withdraw charters to towns was used to pack the Lower House. The right to dissolve Parliament (still in theory a Royal Prerogative, but in practice decided by the outgoing Prime Minister) was used to get rid of an awkward Commons, in the hope of a more pliable one being elected. Again Wardship, so beloved of Sunday Newspapers in elopement cases, once gave the King control over heiresses. This was both a means of putting political pressure on their parents, and—by the sale of the control of minors—a source of ready cash.

The Monarchy today is popular. After all it is difficult to fall out with something that says nothing, attacks nobody, expresses no controversial opinions, and is all things to all people. The Monarchy is said to be above politics, which means out of politics. It will accept all governments whatever their party or policy, and although the titular head of the Church of England, will greet the Pope or the Salvation Army with the same meaningless affability, Jew or Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, they are all in the fold; in fact it is difficult to keep out of it.

This was not always so. Until well into the 19th century the Monarch was a politician, and as such suffered the ups and downs of popularity common to politics. Queen Anne was a Tory and recognised as one, while Victoria on her ascension openly supported the Whig government of Lord Melbourne. Monarchs shared the unpopularity of the parties they identified themselves with. William IV, at the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, was pelted with clods of earth by the London mob, while Victoria was greeted with shouts of “Mrs. Melbourne” by the same well-mannered crew. Victoria spent most of her long reign in various stages of unpopularity. In the early days attempts were made to assassinate her, and bitter personal attacks were made in the Press. The Prince Consort was made the butt of comic songs from the stage of the early Music Halls. It was only during Victoria’s last 20 years, when the power of the Crown was largely at an end, that she began to be built up into a legend.

The usual line, which was heard a lot of at the last Coronation, was that the Georges were unpopular because of their immoral lives and bad behaviour, and that Victoria’s blameless life restored the prestige of the Crown. This theory does not bear examination. George III, who reigned for 60 years—nearly as long as Victoria—lived a life of domestic dullness that not even the most prudish of Victorians could have objected to. This fact, far from endearing him to his subjects, was the cause of ribald songs sung in taverns, treating his “virtue” as a joke. It was the political position of the throne, and not the private life of its occupant, that decided popular sentiments.

By the time of the Restoration an uneasy balance between King and Parliament had been struck, with the King as the Executive—a kind of permanent President—appointing and dismissing Ministers and controlling affairs, and Parliament as the Legislature, with the sole right to levy taxes. This was the idea accepted by most of the participants in the Civil War. Only a minority of people, with ideas ahead of their times, thought of Parliament as the sovereign body. Judicial murder, although becoming rare, was still a hazard during the reigns of Charles II and James II. An unsuccessful politician still stood the chance of having a phoney charge of treason fixed on him, and conviction by a packed court. This largely disappeared after 1688.

The Revolution of 1688 weakened the Crown, William and Mary becoming joint Sovereigns on conditions laid down by Parliament. The Bill of Rights established Parliament’s right to elect the sovereign, change the order of succession, and depose a King. The Act of Settlement of 1701 extended these powers. Kings were forbidden to leave the country without the consent of Parliament, and no judge could be removed except by Parliament. Thus began the slow but steady stripping of power from the Crown, and its transfer to Parliament, that went on through the 18th and early 19th centuries. This process was aided by the fact that from Queen Anne to William IV, or to quote the terms of common abuse from “Brandy Nan” to “Silly Billy,” the throne was occupied by a line of people of the most monumental incompetence. Not that Parliament in the 18th century was even remotely democratic, the vast majority of the people having no vote. Power at National level was largely in the hands of the Aristocracy—the large landowners—and at local level in those of the gentry or lesser landowners. The masses, especially in London, expressed themselves by bouts of rioting and arson.

By the time of Victoria’s ascension the power of the Crown was largely gone, but she could still, in 1839, keep a Whig government in power by refusing to appoint Peel to Prime Minister in spite of the government’s lack of a proper majority. Victorian politics were tough and dirty, and the methods used to force the hand of the Queen were ruthless in the extreme. An interesting point is the part played by those later pillars of respectability, the Times and the Morning Post, who printed stuff that would land a modern editor in gaol.

What the future of the Monarchy will be is anybody’s guess. One thing is certain. If the bulk of the Capitalist class decide to end it, they will do so. After all they got rid of one King in 1936, and would not hesitate to get rid of the whole lot. Something that is equally certain is that if the Monarchy goes, but Capitalism remains, the working class will not notice any difference. Except perhaps for a different head on the postage stamps.

Les Dale

Letter: Communists and Kings (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Communists and Kings

It was of course very wrong of the Morning Star to have published an attack on any aspect of the capitalist State, it should know that only the SPGB is allowed to do that. At any rate that is the opinion of the SPGB. Indeed the outside cover of your March issue should have read “Royalty, Rates, Taxes and the Working Class, Tzar Brezhnev and the Jews, Do They Matter?”, since without rates, taxes and Tzar Brezhnev capitalism would still exist as your pages of Socialist Theory make clear.

I notice that although you do not approve of the Morning Star article you nevertheless follow its lead in exposing the character of royalty. You in the end come down in its support because it gives “pageantry and a show”. If they did not get this some workers would have to start reading the Socialist Standard to find out why Royalty was not Rubbish.

Tom Braddock 

East Preston

Reply:

Obviously the Socialist Standard makes you wild by being right. If you are prone to the Morning Star, that is understandable; though, curiously enough, we never mentioned the Morning Star in the article you object to. We do not think, either, that anyone else thought the final paragraph “came down in support” of royalty.

However, since you draw the Morning Star to our attention, we will say that no notice need be taken of it. First, because it does not attack the capitalist state. It supports it in Russia all the time and elsewhere some of the time, as expedient. Second, because Communist parties and papers are quite prepared to support national figureheads. The Morning Star's predecessor The Daily Worker in 1947 (21st June) wrote of the present Queen’s 21st birthday:

The dignity of a modern state can only be met when its titular head is chosen from among its most eminent citizens.

In July 1938 the French Communist paper L’Humanite welcomed a visit to Paris by the King and Queen of England in these terms:

We applaud the visit of these rulers in the measure to which it is devoted to this end . . . Our good feeling is extended to that England which fights on the front of Collective Security; that England in the name of whom leading bourgeois such as Lord Cecil, Churchill, Lloyd George, and prelates like the Dean of Canterbury, pronounce regularly such grave warnings . . .

And haven’t you heard yet that a royal visit to Moscow is in the air? Tom Braddock, you are confused.

Editors.

50 Years Ago: Stop being fooled! (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Stop being fooled!

The world is large, and individually workers are small and at present united under no cause beneficial to themselves. Because of his ignorance and feeling of inferiority the worker considers the affairs of state and the understanding of politics for too complicated for his inadequate brain to comprehend. So he trusts the course of his life to others – namely the government – and remains employed, exploited and ruled.

It is difficult to have to realise that the worker himself can suffer the horrors of the capitalist system without being even conscious of being exploited. He reads the national newspapers and is bemused with such meaningless boastings as “Why is the Daily Express the paper for the people? – because it represents the heart and soul of the people it serves.” (31/12/51). Come, workers, let’s stop being so naïve. Let’s get down to realising the fact that the ‘nation’ these newspapers serve is nothing more than the British capitalist class, and that they are part of the medium by which capitalists continue to fog your brains and sense of reason with such empty phrases as ‘national prestige,’ and ‘duty and honour first.’

[From the Socialist Standard, March 1952, the first by P. R. Lawrence]

 

The Printers Object to an Article

An article that should have appeared in this issue entitled “The King Is Dead” has had to be withdrawn. The compositors’ chapel at our printers objected to the article, and it was too late to carry the matter further without holding up publication of the issue.

The article dealt with the general question of kingship from an historical point of view, and only had two incidental references to King George VI in his capacity as king.

[From the Socialist Standard, March 1952]

News in Review: Hurrah for the NCB (1962)

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

Hurrah for the NCB

Who was it who once prayed to be protected from his friends?

When he was plain Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, Lord Chandos was a prominent member of the Conservative opposition which duelled with the Attlee government over its nationalisation bills. They fought in the House of Commons all day and. sometimes, all night as well. So effective was their propaganda that to many voters nationalisation became a very-dirty word.

But what is Lord Chandos saying about nationalisation now that he is a big industrial boss, chief of the mighty Associated Electrical Industries combine and of the Institute of Directors?

“Nationalisation of a fairly substantial sector of industry has come to stay. Whatever I may have thought in the first place about the wisdom of this policy, it is quite clear that every loyal citizen must try to make our nationalised industries work efficiently … As an industrialist I want cheap fuel and reliable supplies and I believe that with a little more working together that is what you [Lord Robens, chairman of the National Coal Board] will secure for us.”

Lord Robens need not feel embarrassed at this new friendship. Nationalisation was designed to give just what Lord Chandos wants — cheap and reliable supplies of vital commodities.

The only pity now is that Lord Chandos did not tell us this some years ago, when he was spreading the fairy tale that nationalisation had something to do with Socialism.

New Hospitals

One of the things which have missed out on the post war boom is the hospital. Over a fifth of those taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 were built before the American Civil War. Nearly half of them were built before the beginning of this century.

What has been done to put this to rights? Since the last war only one large general hospital has gone up—in Northern Ireland.

To the reformers who have been worried about this, the recent government White Paper must have come as a ray of hope. For plans are being laid to spend nearly £800 million during the next ten years to give us, in the words of the White Paper.” . . . the physical equipment and the pattern and the setting which will everywhere place the most modern treatment at the service of patients.”

This sounds fine. Who can disapprove of bigger and better hospitals? But we have heard this sort of promise before.

We heard it about the roads and the railways and about the Health Service itself. For Capitalism is full of problems which are left to fester until a government decides to tackle them with heavy expenditure.

Many of these grandiose plans have been axed out of recognition in successive economic crises, when, the government has been looking for ways of reducing its expenditure.

There will be more economic crises. Which means that there will be more cuts in expenditure. Which means that Health Minister Powell’s beautiful hospitals may never see the light of day.

Expensive Royalty

Many tongues were clucked at the news that the Royal Family is to have some more money spent on them.

It must cost around £400 a year in fees alone to send the Prince of Wales to Gordonstoun School. The fees, says the school, vary with the parents’ financial circumstances; which does not mean, of course, that the school is full of clever, deserving boys whose parents pay no fees because they cannot afford them.

It will cost about £85,000 to renovate the wing of Kensington Palace where Princess Margaret and her husband are living—£15,000 more than the original estimate.

Some critics say that Prince Charles should be sent to a comprehensive school, like a sizeable part of his subjects. Others think that the Princess should be content to live in a council semi-detached, which to them seems roomy enough for a couple with only one child.

These views are way off the mark. The Royal Family stand for the possessions, rights and privileges of the British ruling class. It is, therefore, only appropriate that they themselves should live in lavish privilege.

And nobody has yet explained how sending a prince to a council school, or sticking a princess in a small house, would help the working class parents who struggle to keep their children at school past the age of fifteen and who have to renovate their house during their summer holiday.

These problems are typical of what faces workers all over the world, under monarchies and in republics.

While the tongue-cluckers do their measly, pointless sums, Capitalism grinds merrily on, providing a fat living for a few of its people and condemning the rest to dull poverty.

Tory Unrest

The Government took on a slight list last month, under the blast of criticism from many quarters.

The strikes of railwaymen and engineers encouraged The Guardian to sigh that, although they reproved the strikers, industrial unrest was the inevitable result of the Government’s policy on wages. Other critics thought that the trouble was caused because the Government had not explained the pay pause properly to the workers.

Some standard bearers for free enterprise were disappointed at the Government’s refusal to interfere with the free enterprise take-over bid from ICI for Courtaulds. Labour had a go on Lord Home’s criticism of UNO. To cap it all Tory M.P. Sir Harry Legge-Bourke suggested that fellow Old Etonian Macmillan is getting past it and should hand over to a younger man.

It would be interesting to hear how a government could explain a wage freeze so that the frozen workers accepted it. Workers sell their energies to their employers, which means that they are bound to resist any effort to keep down the price of those energies, whatever tricky name it goes under.

Such problems are typical of the confusion of Capitalism and are bound to cause unrest as the Government—any government—grapples with them. Critics and rebels may flex their muscles impressively, but when it is their turn to do the grappling they never shape any better than the men they have criticised.

The fact is that the individuals who say they are in charge of the affairs of British Capitalism really have little control over events. And that goes for their critics as well.

So it does not really matter whether or not Macmillan manages to ride this latest storm. We shall still all be in the same boat together.

Greasy Pole: Who are you calling a cheat? (2004)

The Greasy Pole column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prince Harry is third in the line of royal succession so it would take only a couple of unforeseen events for this country to have a king better known for a fondness for partying on certain substances than for a monastic devotion to his studies. Perhaps that is why the general response to him being accused of cheating in an ‘A’ Level exam at Eton was some way below outraged disbelief that a member of the royal family could stoop so low. Luckily there was an independent enquiry available at short notice to decide in private that the prince had not cheated, so all that remained was independently to undermine the reputation of the teacher making the accusation and the matter could independently be closed. As usual there were a few stubborn curmudgeons wondering what all the fuss was about. After all, isn’t the monarchy as an institution a cheat, based on the assumption that a few people should unquestioningly have access to such excessive luxury simply because of a lucky accident in the wildly random process of their conception? 

   

There is a wider issue here, wider than a rather dim but heavily privileged royal taking advantage of his position. If Prince Harry did cheat he acted outside the rules. But he was able to do this only because we live in a society of privilege for a minority and of denial for the majority. Appropriately, this is called capitalism, which is not a naughty word or a figment of someone’s imagination but an actual, material and social phase in human history. Capitalism ensures that one class are in possession of the means of wealth production and distribution, which allows them to live off the labour of the other class, who are thereby cheated out of access to the wealth they have produced. It is a system fertile in human problems, to the extent that it is unable to satisfy the needs of most of its people, who suffer its wars, impoverishment, unnecessary diseases . . . And is it also fertile in defenders of the system, who advise us to have faith in illusions about their ability to construct a properly humane society. Are these people cheats?

Cran

James Cran, recently described by the Daily Telegraph as “a flinty Aberdonian law and order traditionalist”, is the Tory MP for Beverley and Holderness in Yorkshire (at least he is for the present – he will not be defending his 781 majority at the next election). He thinks highly enough of himself to announce that although he is standing down “. . . that does not stop him serving the people of the constituency with all the characteristic enthusiasm for which he is known”. However Mr Cran is rarely seen in the Commons, he has not spoken there for three years and last asked a (written) question on 4 November 2002. In 2003 he voted in only 36 percent of the divisions. For this unstinting labour on behalf of the voters of Bevereley and Holderness Mr. Cran is paid a wage of £57,485, supplemented by £88,524 in “expenses”.  Not surprisingly, he did not claim anything for stationery, postage or computer support but he did get £15,959 for accommodation and £10,558 for travel. A law and order traditionalist would have something to say on the matter of workers who did a below average amount of work for so generous a wage.

   

This flinty Aberdonian is uncharacteristically coy over any  discussion of his income from parliament and what he does to get it. He rebuffed a reporter from the Yorkshire Post with “I’m not interested: I really don’t care what’s in your newspaper”. It was not, of course,  a good time to approach MPs about their “expenses”, which had just been detailed in the press, provoking a tectonic shudder up and down the country as the voters learned of how much MPs can claim, and what they can claim for, in the job of legislating for British capitalism.  Honourable Members of the world’s most exclusive club can, unlike the workers they so often denounce as greedy and irresponsible, award themselves increases in pay and expenses. For example they recently voted for a rise of £8,000 a year in their “staff allowance” and some of them were reported to be enquiring about whether they could claim for the cost of a wreath for the Remembrance Day ceremonies. These are the people, let us remember, who are keen to hound down Social Security “scroungers”, who rant about “welfare dependency” and who feel an urgent need to legislate against “unnecessary” sick notes.

Moffatt

One who is not a flinty Aberdonian and who takes the job of being an MP rather more seriously is Laura Moffatt, who sits on a Labour majority of almost 7000 at Crawley in Sussex. Before getting into Parliament she was a staff nurse, avoiding promotion because it would have removed her from the hands-on work with patients which she adored. Moffatt has been active in the Commons, attending 81 percent of the votes there, speaking regularly, asking questions. In spite of her natural interest in health care she was given the job of Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, where she is not of a high profile. Moffatt is not one of the Labour rebels, preferring to help out the government with convenient interventions in the House. For example on 12 June, when Jack Straw was in difficulties over justifying the war in Iraq, she piped up that one of her constituents, a local doctor, had told her that his family in Iraq were “constantly telling him that life is much better for them, that they now enjoy a sense of freedom and a decent future at last . . . I believe that we need to listen to those quiet voices”. A relieved Straw responded “I absolutely agree with my Hon. Friend”. In July Moffat was asking a minister “What measures he has taken to eradicate pensioner poverty” – which implies that poverty can be eradicated and that Blair’s government have realistic plans which will reach even into the very depths of poverty such as pensioners endure.

   

So could it be that Moffatt, for all her apparently immaculate intentions, is a bit of a cheat?  An authentic motivation to improve human welfare cannot be reconciled with supporting a government which manages the capitalist system as best it can in the interests of the owning class in society – which must mean putting profits before people. Moffatt must be aware that in the Health Service where she was once so proud to be working, patient care too often comes a poor second to economy. This was the background to a dispute in her constituency over the closure (it went by the name of a “configuration”) of the Accident and Emergency Department at Crawley hospital. On 27 October she asked a question in the House which began by praising the “modernisation” of the A & E Services for “real improvements to patient experience and safety”. This sounded like another of those “questions” which ministers often plant with grovellingly ambitious MPs to suffocate criticism. But Moffatt continued her question with a mention of “local difficulties” in the Surrey and Sussex Trust, “. . . where most services have been transferred to another hospital, and ambulances are having to wait up to two hours”. She asked how the government could be sure this would not “undermine the fantastic work that is going on”. She might have put it another way – the service in this local hospital is breaking down but we must still say it is marvellous.

   

James Cran and Laura Moffatt do their job as MPs in different styles. But on the one issue of real importance – that under all circumstances and in the face of all reality they will insist that the capitalist system is the highest form of the management of human affairs – they agree. On the detail of which party does a more efficient job of running the system in this country they differ; Cran will state his opinions in the more robust manner while Moffatt prefers to wrap up her meaning. But both of them are keen to get away with however much deception the working class will allow. Both of them, and  their parties, are cheats.

Ivan

Forum: The Relation of Princes to Pauperism. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Statements of difficulties, criticisms of our position, contributions upon any question of working-class interest, are invited. Members and non-members of the Party are alike welcome. 

Correspondents must, however, be as brief as possible, as bright as possible, and as direct as possible to the point.

The following is suggested as a suitable

Open Letter to Prince Arthur of Connaught.

Dear Arthur,—Has it not occurred to you that your visit to Glasgow to feast at the expense of the ratepayers displayed the worst possible taste, seeing that thousands of people were without bare necessities of life, owing to the fact that the parasite class to which you belong own and control the means by which the working-class live? Had a brick-bat been hurled at your royal nose you would only have had yourself to blame. You must not think that you will be allowed to insult the people’s poverty with impunity. You who have so much leisure time ought to begin to understand the trend of events. The people are gradually awakening from their long sleep, and the day is coming when a nod from a lord will cease to be a breakfast to a fool. When the working class understand their economic servitude to the master class, they will set about taking over the means of producing and distributing wealth in their own interest. At such time the gilded puppets who now mock the people’s woe will be found some useful job at which there will be some possibility of them growing into men.

—Yours fraternally, J. H. K.

#    #    #    #

What princes of the blood, or princes without blood, may do at the expense of the ratepayers does not affect the working class, who are not ratepayers, tuppence. Whether Prince Arthur is an amiable or callous fool, a gentleman of polish or a vulgar snob, doesn’t matter a tinker’s anathema. From a working-class point of view he is no more than a portion of the frilling of the capitalist system. When Socialism supplants the capitalist system out go princes of the blood. The only point in the visit of Connaught minor to the high priced junketting of the city fathers of Glasgow at a time when thousands of men women, and children in that “municipal Mecca” were (and are) literally on the verge of starvation, consists in the callous indifference of capitalism to the sufferings of the working class and the utter hypocrisy of the pretence of monetary shortage. If this assists in bringing home to the workers of Glasgow the futility of expecting the employing class to do anything more than they are absolutely scared into doing to ameliorate the sufferings of the unemployed it will have served its turn. The workers must however, always remember that, although the capitalists under pressure are prepared to give out of their hoard, derived from the robbery of Labour, some comparatively small percentage in doles, they are not, prepared to relinquish their powers to rob. They will fight to retain these to the last ditch. And as this accentuated poverty problem will always recur while the capitalist class hold to their powers, the workers’ only hope is to consciously organise themselves for the fight that must precede such an alteration in the present system as will secure for the wealth producing class the wealth that class produces. That way—by organisation on Socialist lines for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism, they will scare the doles out of the capitalists to-day, and at the same time forward their ultimate object. Organisation for the Revolution, therefore, will get that “something now” for which the one-step-at-a-time reformer pleads in support of his method, without setting back the revolutionary movement. Invariably this set back results from the adoption of the reformers’ idea of concentrating upon a particular immediate reform, for the obvious reason that the reform when realised is painfully limited in its operations—as all reforms must necessarily be—and not having the ameliorative effect that the workers in their ignorance may have expected, disappointment is bred, and out of that apathy, and that stagnating indifference that is almost the despair of the propagandist of Socialism.

Letter: Royalty – an irrelevance? (2006)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Royalty – an irrelevance?

Dear Editors,

On the road to Socialism there are powerful institutions in the way. Monarchy, with all its associated inequalities and public loyalty, is a powerful support for capitalism. It embodies wealth and privilege alongside emotional adoration by the poor. Cromwell managed to remove a king, but soon after his death the monarchy was re-established.

Why has it been as successful as an institution? It no doubt has its own methods for self-survival (modern PR experts, and years of experience of being a monarch, plus perhaps a genuine love for the British people). Yet the institution can only survive with public consent. None of the political parties that have attained power has bothered to question in any serious way the existence of the monarchy; partly I assume because they dread the loyalty of the British people.

We are been socialised into a culture that respects the royal family, at least in principle (people may frown at certain incidents with the royals, but basically accept their existence). Submission to the monarchy is encouraged from the cradle to the grave, and even if cynical, a person may find it difficult to resist a feeling of pride when a member of the royal family visits their factory or local area. Celebrities have occasionally returned MBEs, but they are few and far between.

Vast arguments are put forward to justify the royal family (e.g. encourages tourism and hence the pockets of the people) We all ‘immersed’ in royalist propaganda and culture. Yet how can it be right for one family to be so well provided for (houses, land, wealth, public adoration etc) when other families struggle from day to day?

They also assist and legitimise other people who have unfair amounts of wealth (in the past kings and queens have helped each other in difficult circumstances – when the peasants are getting above themselves for instance).

The institution also puts unfair pressure on the members of the royal family. The horses the Queen must have sat on horses on rainy days to fulfil her royal duties; and the boredom of watching parade after parade! The lack of privacy – even minor scandals blown out of all proportion, and the difficulty of moving in privacy from A to B.

We are so ‘brainwashed’ into the advantages of monarchy, that we grossly underestimate the disadvantages. Yet it take courage for a politician to suggest to suggest we abolish it – the inaction of millions of indoctrinated people can be a formidable thing to experience. Other politicians would condemn his very words (in the hope of gaining votes for their own parties!).

Are we all involved in a ‘mother-figure’ complex (or for ex-public school types –‘matron’)? Do we feel more comfortable knowing she is then looking after us? Or are we being childish? Shouldn’t we liberate her and her family, as well as the public, from an institution that goes hand-in-hand with unequal society? Draw a line under history and move on?

Paul Wilson, 

Brighouse, West Yorks

Reply:

Obviously if the monarchy is still around at the time socialism is established it would be abolished immediately. Such institutionalised privilege can have no place in a society of equals. This said, we don’t see any point in wasting time campaigning to get it abolished under capitalism. Whether or not a capitalist state is a monarchy or a republic makes no difference to the economic structure of society, which is the root cause of the problems wage and salary workers face today. Just look at the USA, which has been a republic since the 18th century – Editors.

Between the Lines: A very silly season (1986)

The Between the Lines Column from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

A very silly season

The MPs' summer holiday — a modest break of ten weeks or so — is known by the media hacks as "the silly season". Without leaders to observe and interview the TV reporters are traditionally short of "news" to feed the working class. So, when a giraffe gets its neck stuck in the railings in Chessington Zoo or a tramp is found dead with a 1911 copy of The Tatler stuffed down his pants (the best place for it) it is several hundred times more likely to be "news" when the MPs are on holiday than when momentous things are happening in parliament — like when a Welsh Nationalist broke the arm off the Speaker's Chair.

Silliest of the silly TV "news' stories of the summer of '86, far outclassing even the policeman from Shropshire who handcuffed his wife and couldn't find the key to unlock her, or the expert in memory improvement who forgot to turn up for the Wogan show, was the case of the elderly parasite and the fish bone. It was on a Saturday in late August when the news broke: a silly ITN newsreader with a very serious facial expression announced to the nation that "Her Majesty, the Queen Mother has been taken by helicopter from her castle in Ayrshire to a hospital in Aberdeen after complaining of discomfort in the throat caused by what could be a fish bone eaten last night". The bulletins (and they went on throughout the evening and all the next day) went from bad to worse. On were brought throat specialists and fish specialists and bone specialists. Then we were shown a film of that awful, awful occasion only four years ago when the same woman had another fish bone stuck down her gob and had to stay in hospital overnight. It was excruciatingly silly TV, even for the silly season.

Not long after — or was it before? one loses touch the ITN Silly Squad was despatched to film Mrs Thatcher going in and coming out of a hospital, there to have an operation to stop her fingers from pointing in the wrong direction. Oh, where would we be without live TV coverage to keep us so closely informed about such events? While viewers were given minute by minute coverage of the case of the recalcitrant fish bone, no TV coverage was given to a speech delivered by economist, Professor Alan Williams (Guardian, 2 September) in which he stated that kidney patients in need of expensive dialysis treatment should be denied it because hip replacement operations are cheaper to perform and worthier of the money spent by the NHS. "We should not shrink from following where the logic of that approach leads us that hospital dialysis should be restrained and total hip replacement expanded." What sort of social system is it that can allow workers in urgent need of dialysis treatment to suffer and perhaps die while it can glory in the news that when its arch-parasites have a bone in the throat or a pain in the little finger no treatment is too good, no helicopter fast enough, to satisfy their needs. If it was a fiction it would be silly, but as social reality it is sick.

The triumph of scientific analysis

For four weeks Channel Four ran a series (Wednesdays. 8.30pm) entitled The Triumph of Capitalism. Each week a chosen expert (who does the choosing? who does the excluding?) was given thirty full minutes to sit in front of the camera and examine the success or otherwise of the capitalist system. Three out of the four chosen experts were firmly pro-capitalism. This is what is known as balance. Had the three supporters of capitalism presented serious defences of the system as it is. we could have devoted space to examining their talks. In fact, the three defenders of capitalism neither understood the economic laws of the profit system nor attempted to explain how it could ever function without the anarchy and social devastation which it so evidently causes. Perhaps we should have expected nothing more.

The fourth programme in the series (Wednesday. 3 September) was presented by Professor Gerry Cohen, an Oxford Professor of Philosophy whose book, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A defence would be of interest to readers. Rarely, if ever, has the case against the capitalist system been presented in so eloquent and logical a manner on British TV. Cohen, through a process of rigorous historical and logical criticism, exposed the system as one of unearned minority privilege and legalised robbery. He pointed out that capitalism, far from setting out to satisfy needs, seeks above all to satisfy profit accumulation and this occurs at the expense of needs. Gerry Cohen did not go on to propose a socialist alternative (fortunately, considering a previous effort by him to do this on a TV discussion programme), but he did deny the alleged inevitability of capitalism and the oft-asserted impossibility of revolutionary social change. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that as far as his analysis went, and with the exception of minor theoretical points (for some reason he began by referring to workers selling their labour and only later used the Marxist term, labour power). Cohen's presentation could have been given by a member of The Socialist Party. Workers could do with more TV education like this — it compensates for the fish bones.

Steve Coleman

Blogger's Note:

A number of Professor Gerry Cohen's books were reviewed in the pages of the Socialist Standard. To read the reviews, click on the dates below.:

• Aug 1979: Karl Marx’s Theory of History by G. A. Cohen
• Feb 2002: If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? By G. A. Cohen
• Dec 2009: Why not socialism? By G. A. Cohen
• Jun 2011: On The Currency Of Egalitarian Justice. By G.A. Cohen

Filthy Rich (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the main points of the argument put forward by the SPGB is that capitalist society is divided into two classes; the working class, the largely propertlyless majority, and the capitalist class, those who own most of the wealth produced in the world and the physical means to make more of it. It is easy to identify the working class. For example you can see them at certain hours of the day pouring into the factories, offices, shops, mines railway stations etc. in order to work. That is why they are called workers. They receive at the end of their week or month’s work, a pay packet or salary cheque — the price at which they have sold their labour-power to the boss. Basically this will permit them to purchase sufficient to allow themselves and their families to subsist until the next pay packet. That’s simple.

But it is sometimes not quite so easy physically to identify the capitalist class. True you see the odd chauffeur driven Rolls with its owner frequently sprawled across the back seat, the assembly at Ascot, and those going in and out of Claridges, the Ritz etc. But some highly paid workers will use Claridges, so that can be confusing. And many members of the working class will go to Ascot to mimic the pastimes of their class exploiters. So identification lines can become blurred. In particular, when wealth ownership itself has become a most complicated and intricate network of title to deeds, bonds, shares etc. it all adds to the difficulty of identification It is no wonder many people are confused and ask the SPGB “Who are the capitalist class?” “Where are the capitalist class?” and so on.

Where there's a will

Well ironicaly, one of the easiest methods of identifying someone’s class position is not by the facts of his life, but by the effects of his death. When a worker dies, after funeral expenses have been paid, the H.P. company sorted out etc. there is not usually much left. Very often nothing at all. Born with nothing, the worker dies with nothing, leaving “not a rack behind” as Shakespeare put it. But the death of a capitalist is a different matter. For one thing it is noted in the papers — it is news. The Times for example runs a short daily column headed “Latest Wills”. Now these are not any old Wills — when you die, not only will they not bother to write your obituary in the Times, they won’t put in their latest Wills column how much you left to your family and friends. But a glance at the column for any day will show something interesting. The paper’s column for Wednesday July 14th 1976 (chosen entirely at random) is quite short. It reads as follows:

Lord Elphinsone of Drumkilbo, Meigle, Tayside, a first cousin of the Queen, has left estate totalling £890,907 gross according to his will published in Perth yesterday. It included £178,019 abroad. Other estates, include . . . Atkin, Mrs. Anita Constance Irene of Tonbridge £163,424; Bennett, Lady of Highgate, wife of Sir Thomas Bennett £143,390; Hawkin, Mrs. Levu Colin, of Caine, butcher, £345,293; Segravc, Mr. Charles Rodney of Chobham £515,275.

(The figures do not show the tax that will be payable on the deaths. Equally they do not show the amount the individual may have “disposed of” prior to death in part to avoid taxes. The true representation of the individual’s wealth may be much higher than the amount given.)

Another column which frequently pinpoints the capitalist at his hour of death is the obituary column. You don’t need to have done anything of note to merit an entry — provided you were very rich. J. Paul Getty died on 7th June this year. Some of the points about him which appeared from the Times of the next day are the following; at his death he was “estimated” (i.e. he was so rich they could not even count all his money and it had to be guessed) to be worth £1,000 million; he “lived simply amid considerable splendour at Sutton Place, near Guildford, the Elizabethan mansion set in 1,000 acres”; lest this home was not “simple” enough (how much more fawning can the capitalist press be than to say he lived “simply” — the reporter ought to visit some working class homes, or look round his own, and then see if Getty lived simply) he was having another house built for him at Malibu California where “he had built a museum to house his £100 million art collection”; by the age of 21 he had “made” 2 million dollars (but he had of course a rather good send off from his millionaire father), and by the same age he had had 2 divorces, (3 more marriages and divorces to follow); this displeased his “earnest Methodist” father, so much so that when the father died, he gave Getty only 500,000 dollars of his estate of 10 million dollars; but fear not, our hero was “not disheartened by the smallness of the legacy for he already had 4 million dollars of his own”; and on and on.

Thrift and Humbug

Like so many members of the class that has no social function whatever other than to accumulate the wealth produced by workers, Getty was fond of giving his opinions to all who cared to listen (and he was so rich many people did listen). The capitalist press repeat these pearls so that the swine before whom they are cast and who produced the wealth for him can be suitably impressed by the wisdom of their masters. For example; “The advice he was prone to give to others he had followed himself. This was to ‘be thrifty, save a little money and have a small surplus for investment’.” Or what about this gem: “He did not believe in charity. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, 'why I should distribute money right and left to people because they ask for it’”! well, quite right too! after all, if the world is so madly organized as to allow most people to live in want and provide Getty with such a crazy superabundance why should he be such a damn fool (as his methodist father with his religion humbug would no doubt have put it) as to give it back to them?

That’s one sadly deceased member of the parasite class. What about some living ones? The death of Getty brought forth speculations as to who was the richest person in the world now that both Getty and Howard Hughes are dead. As the Sunday Times reported (9/6/76) there is no shortage of candidates. Some of the most obvious candidates are to quote the Sunday Times “comparatively hard up”. Into that category they put people like Henry Ford, Woodruff of Coca Cola, Benton of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Forest E. Mars of Mars Bar fame and Dewott Wallace of Readers Digest. Some of the legendary wealthy American families (Rockefellers and the like) can’t compete for the title either because they have been too “busily giving their money away to distant members of the family in a desperate effort to avoid tax.” One possible candidate is Al Tajir. He is the ambassador to Britain from the United Arab Emirates and also their advisor on oil. He “has accrued his vast wealth from a variety of sources — mining in Africa, property in Western Europe, businesses in the Persian Gulf and Lebanon . . . he did once boast that whereas many governments would find it hard — if not impossible — to raise a billion dollars . . . it would take him only a morning” However the Sunday Times suggests that the man who must take the crown is currently little-known 78-year-old American, Daniel K. Ludwig.

Although it appears that Ludwig is somewhat coy about disclosing the extent of his interests (and he may not know — as Getty is supposed to have said, “you can’t be that rich if you know how much you have got”, it seems they include the following: “The American company National Bulk Carriers, a huge fleet of tankers, a shipyard in Japan, a large share in the National Mortgage Bank in America, a deep water port in Florida, a big interest in potash in Ethiopia, iron ore in India, oranges in Panama, a million acres of Venezuela, 3 million acres of Brazil and large chunks of Australia and the United States.”

A Bijou Nest

Another quietly comfortable family is the “Royal”. Despite the cries of poverty from them that have in recent years tugged at the worker’s heartstrings, the owners of the little home standing in the exclusive 40 acres of ground at Buckingham Palace (an estate agent’s dream) can’t be that hard up. They have recently bought a small present for their son-in-law and daughter. It is, according to the Daily Mail (24/6/76 a “730 acre property — complete with trout lake, a conservatory as long as a cricket pitch, 200 acres of mature woodland, a 530 acre farm, a folly and stables.” Mind you according to the report the stables probably need doing up, the kitchen (not that the dear couple can be expected to be doing that much washing up themselves) needs a coat or two of paint, the billiard room has a “dusty unused look and has been used as a store” (how low can you get?) and in general the 5 principal bedrooms, five secondary bedrooms (for the staff) and the four reception rooms clearly need tarting up. No doubt the locals will be able to see Anne and Mark on Saturday afternoon, their shirt sleeves rolled up to their royal elbows, scrubbing away for many years to come. No wonder the Queen only paid a bargain £750,000 for it.

Enough has been said to show that the capitalist class are still alive and well and thriving off the wealth produced by the workers. Though whether it is possible to identify them makes no difference to the system itself, or those that suffer from it. Whether you see your exploiter or not, he still exists. The workers in the so-called nationalized industries do not “know” their boss. Nonetheless they are still working for the sole benefit of a class other than their own, and it is from their work that all that wealth (only some examples of which have been mentioned in this article) comes. The wealth is produced not by the brains of the capitalist class but by the work of their employees. Quite simply what happens is that when the worker draws his wage, he does not receive from the boss the equivalent of what he has produced for him. He gets back just a proportion of the amount he has produced. The balance, i.e. the profit, is pocketed by the capitalist class and used to allow the Gettys and the ordinary rich to thrive. And they will continue to suck like the social leeches they are, until the working class as a whole say “Enough!" and decide to end property society once and for all.

Ronnie Warrington